on the other corner - one house down from me - is where all the drug dealing and other small business pursuits take place.
on sunday afternoon i walked home from church enjoying one of the most brilliant weather days Richmond could possibly offer when i started to smell and see smoke clouding the block next to my house. it was too surreal to be true, especially with casual sunday-ers coming up to the block like tourists while firemen were furiously backing up trucks and running hoses. they had to drive those trucks about 100 feet and they connected a hose to the fire station's own fire hydrant and ran it over a few buildings. i was thinking about becoming a fire spectator myself by grabbing my camera and returning to the scene, but then i decided to nap and see if it came out in the paper. which i did. now i know that no one was injured and that it was a dry cleaners that bit the dust. i thought that the proximity to the fire station was ironic, but get this: "70 percent to 80 percent of the business is devoted to cleaning clothing for fire victims whose garments have been fouled by the stench of smoke". maybe that would have made a better lyric for alanis: its like ra-ain on your wedding day, its like the stinky fi-ire stinking up clothes being cleaned from already being stunk up by fires.
that's my neighborhood!
i'm moving this week.
irony #3..or 4: i recently commented on the nature of my upcoming move from one sketchy neighborhood to one only slightly less sketchy as "i guess i'm moving out of the frying pan into the fire...or am i moving out of the fire into the frying pan?" after sunday i think we can safely say B.
also: i was startled awake on friday night to gunshots right outside my window. with the sudden warm weather, club activity and street culture swarmed around my house that night. i checked out the scene to see two cops crouching behind a car with guns pulled. i told myself to remember this scene and promptly fell back asleep.
3 comments:
I've never understood that saying. Either way you are getting cooked. At least in the fire it is all over quickly. In the frying pan I imagine there would first be a lot of sweating and then hopping around with smoking feet first. Give me the fire.
I don't know how that applies to your move though I don't think I painted a cheery picture. I'm sure there will be no burning feet there.
hi! sorry for rejecting your calls on Sunday, I had a really good reason. I am glad that you didn't burn up in the fire!
a pattern is forming every two days. the shots were friday. the fire was sunday. on tuesday i administered first aid to a moped accident lady until the ambulance came. every two days something is happening around me in the hood so thursday (today) should be exciting...i can't wait!
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