Minding My Business

When Brian and I moved to where we live now, we were expecting it to be a big change. It was, only in a different way. Crackheads won't call the police on you if you park your car in front of your house. Crackheads won't complain to the city about your dogs barking. The only thing we had to worry about in the other house was; if we got out of our car after dark, would we be hit up side the head and get mugged. I almost prefer that over vindictive, passive aggressive, "throw a rock and hide your hand " type of people. My neighbor (the ones with the children named Mary and Joseph) came to my door this morning. "The lady who must not be named", said Ling Ling scratched her and she wanted to know if she's had her rabies shot. My 1st thought was: if you wouldn't have been messing with her, she wouldn't have scratched you. It turns out though, that she was messing with Ling Ling for a reason. "The lady who must not be named", has a screened in porch, and part of one of the screens is torn. Ling Ling jumped through the torn part of the screen and into their house. "The lady who must not be named", got scratched because she was trying to get her out of the house. Now this lady has 2 cats so she should know how to get a cat out of her house without getting scratched. #1. You pick a cat up by the scruff of the neck. #2. You shoo them out with a broom. Brian told "The lady who must not be named" that Ling Ling had her rabies shot when she was a kitten and that she had just now turned a year old and "the lady", said okay well rabies shots are good for like 5 years. That was the end of the conversation but for some reason, I don't think that's the end of the story. I swear if "The lady" gives me any trouble behind this (calling the city or the neighborhood group, etc.) I'm gonna grab one of her cats under the cover of night, break its neck and dash it over the back fence for her weird little kids to find. I'm sorry y'all the "Other Jaime" took control of my body for a moment. What I, the "Normal Jaime" would do is: go over to her house and ask her if she has insurance because Ling Ling suffered a really bad cut jumping through her screen.

Brian 2

My husband Brian is in his thirties. He's a soft spoken, easy going white guy from an upper middle class family. He's going through a tough time finding a good job right now. He's currently employed but it's not paying very well. Some days he comes home and barely says 2 words to me. I try to encourage him as much as I can. I pray for him and give him specific scriptures to read throughout his day. He probably thinks I'm doing that for him but I'm not. My actions are completely self serving. I'm sure you've all heard of the middle aged white guys who've snapped. You see, I've been poor,this is all new to him. Let me paint a picture for you. He gets his check and realizes it's just enough to pay for a rifle and ammunition. He comes home kills me the children and the dogs. He has a hard time catching Ling Ling but when he does, he stuffs her in a laundry bag and beats it up against a tree until he no longer sees movement. He cuts The Colonel's head off and carries it with him to his parents house, where he kills them. He then drives up to his sister's job wearing The Colonel's head as a hat. He waits there till she gets off and kills her as she's coming out of the building. He then goes back to his parents house, still wearing Colonel's head as a hat, goes out to the backyard, stands over his childhood dog's grave and blows his brains out. After this heinous thing happens, the media gets a hold of it and talk to his friends, neighbors and co-workers. They all say how shocked they are, that they can't believe such a quiet and unassuming man like Brian could do such a horrible thing. That's why I try to keep his spirits up and always have a smile for him when he comes in the door. I also watch him very carefully. If I'm in the kitchen with my back to him when he comes home, I always turn around now.

The "Other Jaime"

Do you ever wake up in the morning and feel like choking someone with your bare hands? I do, that's why I take my meds everyday. The meds keep the "Other Jaime" in check. The "Other Jaime" is not unfamiliar with the inside of a nut house. There are still days when I've taken my medication and I drop "my basket" anyway. On those days poor Brian leaves me alone. If people could hear what the "Other Jaime" is saying inside my head, they'd back away from me slowly. I get through those days with copious amounts of meds, that I'm only supposed to take on those days and prayer. I look back at some of my crackpot relatives who didn't have the benefit of medication and I completely understand what they were going through. I don't believe in reincarnation cause I'm a christian, but I do believe that my dog The Colonel may really be my uncle Lavon. For all of you who are reading this, that are related to me by the Wilson bloodline, think about it. The Colonel could be Lavon. The Wilson bloodline is like a can of mixed nuts. My grandmother is the child of a Wilson but she's also the child of a Hughes. The Hughes' were known for their tempers. I got a good dose of both but I have children now so I can't act on my true feelings. I don't want my children coming to see me in jail. If it wasn't for them, I'd be at the top of a clock tower with a high powered rifle.

Television (A love letter)

I grew up a child of the tv. At the age of five, I knew all the storylines of The Guiding Light and for those of you who now or have ever watched a soap, you know how hard that can be. I can remember the tv guide scheduele for the last 20 years. One of my favorite nights of television as a kid was Friday nights. At 7 o'clock The Dukes of Hazard, at 8 o'clock Dallas and at 9 o'lcock Falcon Crest. It was like a member of the family died when Jock Ewing died. There's a girl that lives accross the street from me, who was born in 1988 and I was shocked when she told me she'd never heard of Dallas. I think Dallas should be taught in school as a part of Texas history. When I was a senior in High School, my alarm was the tv coming on. I let my kids watch tv now too, only not grown up shows. They say that tv is bad for chidren's imaginations but I'm living proof that's not the truth. Those of you who know me, know I've just finished a novel and I've been writing since I was a kid. I think back on all the great Series Finales I've seen: Dallas, Newhart,Frasier, Cheers, Friends, Knots Landing, Kate & Ally, Murphy Brown, Designing Women, Seinfeld and more. I think about how many shows I bonded over with friends. Shwari and I watched the 1st Buffy the Vampire Slayer together when we had our apartment and we watched the last episode together on the phone. I had to have surgery on a Tuesday one year and was more concerned with the thought of missing Buffy than the surgery itself. I didn't miss it, I was "high as a kite" but I didn't miss it. It was a good episode too. I love television but don't think because of that, that I don't read. I've read almost everyone of Stephen King's books and have y'all ever read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil? If not you've gotta read it. If you saw the movie, that was a slap in the face to the writer of that book, but back to television. When 9/11 happened, I watched the 2nd plane hit the WTC and then watched it collapse. In school we watched the Challenger blow up. I wasn't a "twinkle in my mother's eye" when this happened but millions of Americans watched the report of JFK being killed, only to be follwed a few days later when his alleged assassin was killed too. I was there when JFK jr., his wife and sister-in-law's plane went down. I knew they weren't gonna find him alive. Who doesn't remeber seeing the report that Princess Diana had a car accident. I said out loud to Brian, "Just like Princess Grace." It was just like Princess Grace, Princess Diana died and I watched the funeral. Whenever something happened and the news report broke in, if I wasn't already watching CBS, I would turn the channel to CBS to hear the bad news from Dan Rather. The day 9/11 happened, I spent more time with him than I did with my husband. I want to say publicly, I love you television and I'm not ashamed.

Scabies

About 11 years ago I had Scabies. Let me tell you how it happened. I had always taken my dogs to Perky Poodle to have they're hair cut. A new place opened up around the corner from the house so since it was closer I took them there. A few days went by and the dogs started scratching. A week went by and they started losing they're fur and turning red in those spots, I too, started to itch. I took the dogs to the Vet to have her look at them. She said they had the Mange. How did they get the mange, I asked her, they're never around any other dogs? Where do they go to get groomed, she asked me? I told her I took them to a new place and she said they probably didn't wash they're clippers good. She gave me some cream and pills for them and said that would clear it up. Meanwhile I was scratching because I couldn't control myself. I rolled up my sleeves and showed her my arms. I told her that I had been itching too. She asked me if the dogs slept in the bed with me. I told her yeah they did. She said yeah, you caught it from them, only in humans it's called Scabies. She gave me the same medicine for the dogs and told me to wash all my linens. I was terribly embarrassed and I told her so. She told me not to be embarrassed, it just showed that I loved my dogs.

Brian

My husband and I have been together 12 years. We've been married for 8, it will be 9 years in July. In all this time we've only had 3 real fights. Not fist fights we're not that kind of couple. I'm not a passive aggressive type of person but on this occasion it called for it. Brian would stuff the dryer full of clothes and I would tell him not to but that didn't matter to him, he would do it anyway. The dryer stopped drying at one point, it was still turning and getting hot but it wasn't drying. Brian had his clothes stuffed in the dryer trying to make it dry the clothes. It ran and ran and ran some more. I started to smell something and went and checked on the dryer and the dryer had smoke coming from it. I stopped the dryer and told him why and not to run it. A couple of hours later it was going again, I stopped it and once again told Brian not to run the dryer. It got late and we went to bed. I got up to go to the bathroom and what did hear? The dryer running. I was mad enough to chew nails and spit tacks. I went in there, took all his clothes out, opened the back door and threw them out. After that, I went back to bed. Now it was winter and had been raining and all his clothes were whites so the next morning when the dogs went out they pulled every stitch of his cloths all over the backyard. At that time we had Juliet and little Malty-poo named Joey. Joey was bad and believe me it was his pleasure to drag those clothes all over the yard. Brian knew the clothes were out there and didn't say anything to me so I didn't say anything to him. I have no idea what he did for underwear because every stitch of his white clothes were out there. A couple of days went by and my next door neighbor, Mrs. Standback asked me what happened, so I told her and she cracked up laughing. That evening when Brian came home, I explained to him, like a child that what he did was dangerous and that the dryer could have caught fire and caused the house to catch fire while we were sleeping. He went and picked up his clothes after that.

That Old House 2

I saw a lot of things living on the corner of Munger & Washington and I don't know the story behind all of them. Here are some of the weird things I saw. #1. One day I was sitting in the living room and in my peripheral vision I saw something go by. I got up and went to the window and there was a naked man running down the street. I don't know why, I can only imagine. #2. Another time I was in the kitchen standing at the sink and saw a man with matted hair go passed the window. The dogs were outside and got stirred up so I went to look out the laundry room window, which faced the backyard. I saw the man with the matted hair just strolling along but there was a problem. His hands were tied behind his back and he had money in them. He wasn't running or even walking hastily, just strolling. I stood there and watched him until he was out of my vision. I don't know why, I can only imagine. #3. Our mail man didn't always wear his uniform sometimes he would wear track suits or shorts and a t-shirt. Turns out, our mail man was my cousin. Neither of us knew this until we went to a family barbecue in Bethlehem, TX. #4. There was a man who got off the bus at the corner everyday at around 4:15 that I believed had tourettes syndrome. He would take a few steps and scream. Take a few steps and scream, this would happen until he got out of my hearing range. At first it was jarring but then I got used to it. It happened M-F, almost everyday we lived there. #5. After getting our cars broken into so regularly, we would just leave the doors unlocked this led to a homeless man sleeping in Brian's car. The weirdness of this neighborhood must have been catching cause the longer we stayed there the more odd we got too. #6. Every now and then the dogs would get out and terrorize the crackheads, sometimes I would let it happen so anybody who thought that our house was an easy target would get that idea out or their heads. Gary, the crackhead would always come to the house out of breath from running and tell me the dogs were out and I'd go round them up. #7. One day my little girl and her cousin, Myself and the dogs where out on the lot playing. I didn't take Juliet cause she never liked to be outside for a long period of time. For some reason, on this particular day she wanted to, so she jumped out the 2nd story window. There was a man walking down the side walk when it happened and his expression was priceless. #8. When the dogs would get out I would drive the neighborhood looking for them and I drove a mini van. On this particular day, the last one I needed to get was Sofia, she was Cozette's sister. I picked her up in a church parking lot and when she got in the car, I tried to make sure her tail was clear of the door before I closed it. At first it was but at the last minute she turned and the tip of her tail got caught in the door. Blood was everywhere in the car and when we got home, she had nerve enough to wag her tail. There was blood 6 to 7 feet high on the walls. I got her patched up with some styptic powder and gauze. I found myself sitting on the floor scrubbing blood off the walls and wondering exactly how I got to that point. My best friend Shwari wasn't working at the time, so I called her to see if she would come help. She didn't answer so I left a message. I said on the message: "Shwari, I need your help to clean the blood off the walls, call me when you get this message." When poor Shwari got the message she called me and frantically asked: "What did you do?" Shwari has known me for nearly 20 years and knows my temper, so she was making a phone call to me that she always thought she might someday have to make.
All of these stories are 100 % true. I know there are more, I just can't think of any right now. When I do, you'll be the first to know.

If I had good sense, I would've been scared

If you have read some of my other posts, you may ask yourself why did Jaime & Brian buy that house on Munger in the hood? The answer is simple, the house was huge and had a good price. It also came with a whole lot next door that we could do whatever we wanted to do with it. Anyway at one point 3 years ago my bestfriend and I shared a car. (there's a story behind that but I'll tell that one another time) I went to pick her up from work one evening and realized I had dropped my cell phone somewhere between the house and the car. Iwent back to look for it but didn't see it, I didn't want to be late picking my friend up so I went on. I told her what happened when I picked her up and we looked for it when we got back to my house but we didn't find it. She took the car on to her house. Later the 2 of us were on the phone and she clicked over to answer another call. When she came back she said it was the guy who found my phone. Her number was the first number on my speed dial. The guy said he had my phone, Shwari (my friend) told him to call my home number and I waited for him to call. He called and he told me to meet him at the corner of Munger and Caddo, that was at the end of the street where the 2 big crack houses were. I told Brian where I was going he said no that was dangerous, let me go with you. Oh, let me say that I was about 5 or 6 months pregnant at the time. Also this took place after dark. So anyway I told Brian he couldn't go cause he looked like the police. I got Cozette and put her leash on and we walked down to the end of the street. The guy was there and was real cagey. "You that girl with the big dogs, he said." "Yeah, I said, do you have my phone?" He said yeah but that he was gonna need some money. I told him I don't have any money. I've got about 7 dollars at the house. He said he'd take it. So I went back to the house and switched dogs out. This time I was taking Juliet. Now Juliet isn't as big as Cozette but she makes up for it in meanness. I wanted to take Julie just in case he tried to run an "okie doke" on me. I got the 7 dollars and Juliet and started back down the street. When we got halfway down the block, Julie started growling. She was ready just in case anything "jumped off". When we got up to the guy she started to bark, I urged her to calm down. The guy said is that dog go do something to me? I told him no, not unless he gave her a reason. He asked me if I had the money and I said yeah, let me see my phone. He took it out of his pocket that's when I noticed he was wearing latex gloves.(I'll tell you about that in a minute) I gave him the money with one hand and had my other hand out to get the phone. That's the same way he did it too. I took my phone and I went home. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the hood, the guy was wearing the latex gloves because his line of work was "Illegal Pharmaceutical Sales".

Unexpected visitor

Living on the corner of Crack alley and Ho lane in that giant "white elephant", I learned to never be shocked about what I saw from the window of that house or when I went outside the door. One morning that rule went completely out the window. It was early on a Saturday morning and I was just coming down the stairs. Brian (my husband) had gone to work very early that morning as he did a lot on Saturdays. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, Brian was coming through the door. "Hon, he said, there's a man laying on the front yard." "Do what, I said." "There's a man laying on the front lawn." I went and looked out the window, thinking he was joking. He was not joking. We stared at him through the window for a while and I asked Brian: "Is he breathing?" "I don't know, he said." "Well go check, I told him." "No you go check, he said!" "Fine." I put Cozette's leash on her, took her outside with me while Brian watched from the window. We went up to the man and he didn't move and Cozette didn't growl. Cozette and I stood over him and watched him for a moment to see if he was breathing. He was. I poked at him with a stick and said: "Hey fella!" Nothing. Again, louder I said: "Hey fella!" He started to blink his eyes and come around. When he finally came to and opened his eyes all the way, Cozette was staring him directly in the face. I don't know what his first thought was as he came around and realized that a giant dog was standing over him, looking him squarely in the face. Now you have to remember that Cozette out weighed me by 40 lbs. so when he awoke he must have been a little intimidated. He started to move and Cozette started to growl. I gave her a quick yank on her leash and she got quiet. He sat up and I told him: "You're on my property and you need to move it along." He had the nerve to look at me and look pissed. I imagine his thoughts were can I whoop this heffa before this dog rips my throat out. Had he asked, the answer would have been no. I told him again to move it along and he reluctantly got up and stumbled away. After that, I really was never again surprised by what I saw outside my front door.