I really live here!

It's true after almost exactly 18 months, it's official. Yesterday morning there was a knock at the door, TGF and I looked at each other quizzically because let's face it no one just randomly stops by in this neck of the woods. I mean, it's Saturday morning, Jennie and Graham are at his soccer game, Sue (private blog, sorry) and Sarah (sadly blogless though I don't know how she would find the time) are barely awake, Andrea and Liz are cooing over baby Val at McD or somewhere like that, and so on. Too early for a package delivery and we are not expecting anything. Well we are from this bizarre auction like thing TGF spent at least 12 hours glued to her mactop to "win". So yes, we are expecting three bags of crap. Literally. Well sort of, I certainly hope we do not receive the remnants of some creature's meal, although eight dollars for three "bags" I don't know what we will get and neither does she. I mean literally in that that is what this online event names it's "prize". It has made her happy, like Dick Dastardly thinking he had finally outsmarted Penelope Pitstop. For about another twelve hours she went around the house maniacally saying in a sing song way "I won three bags o' crap!".

Of course I had to see who was at the door because, well it could have been something fun, like Ed McMahon with a super gigantic check, which would be absolutely helpful for things like rent and food, though the chance of that would be like one in ten million since I haven't played along with that stupidity in over a decade (hey, hope springs eternal and all that). Our front door is one of those old glass doors (G141) with lots of panes that has a curtain over it (courtesy of our gracious landlady), I pull it back at bit to ascertain the knocker. Lo and behold! It is the beatific face of a Jehovah Witness with the latest copy of "Awake!" in prominent placement in his arms. Thank goodness for the magazine's presence or I never would have guessed. Yeah right. A good looking, dressed in a suit man knocks on my door on a Saturday - never would have guessed. Hey I didn't grow up down the road from a major headquarters of Watchtower without learning a thing or two!

In looking up one my favorite landmarks (one could see this building when driving over the Brooklyn Bridge (one the most beautiful bridges in the world, IMNSHO) I see it has been sold! It will be turned into loft condo thingys, of course. This strikes me a bit akin to churches being turned into clubs. I went to the Limelight in the 80's once, for a GLBT event, very trippy in effect but horrible music much of the night, though I do remember some good flirting and having a great deal of fun people watching. It only stands to reason that the Watchtower and other places have been sold to make way for "progress" or in the case of New York City, lack of overpriced places to live. The church on the corner of my old house on Strong Place, which I recently visited albeit most briefly, is being converted into condos. This Baptist Church has been around for a very long time, though wouldn't you know in this neighborhood teeming with Italian Catholics it is only now, it writing this post that I see it was a Baptist church. I had NO idea. Never occurred to me to look that hard. I assumed {gasp} it was Catholic, because well, if you had been in that neighborhood when Cammerari Bros. Bakery (as in the movie it was a real place {this link also mentions Caputo's another place I remember} that had great bread) woke you up at predawn with the arousing aroma of Italian bread baking, there was no other logical conclusion. Okay now I'm missing Brooklyn, big time.

Back to Berkeley. I smiled politely through the glass panes, shook my head, and mouthed, "No thank you". Returning to face TGF, I said, "Now I know I'm really home, this is really where I live because that was Jehovah Witness." Since I moved to Brooklyn, when I was almost nine, this is something I expect to have happen where I live. I continued to live in Brooklyn for a long time and always had that knock at the door. Even in my tiny little house (I do mean tiny, it was 720 sq. ft) in the Baystate Village section of Northampton on a street only one block long they found me. It was totally expected that they would when I moved to 40th Street in West Oakland, but here? In the Westbrae neighborhood of Berkeley. Ah. Settling into my spot on the couch that place feels that much more like home.