It looks like my parents and my sister may have to find a new place to live.
The co-op development where my parents live, and have lived for over 30 years, is probably going to be going bankrupt.
My parents have stayed there for lo these long 30 friggin years in the "ghetto" of my home town, because they are supposed to be getting money back after a certain period of time invested as if they owned a house and sold it. That's the way these co-ops work. They invested the time and money in living there, and were banking on getting their fair market value for the place when they moved out after their required staying time.
Long story short, they probably are going to get dick.
sorry. That was kinda crude.
Anyway -- they're possibly going to get nothing and like it when they go to move out. The atmosphere in the neighborhood sounds pretty nasty right now, with tenants blaming board members, board members blaming each other, new board member wanna be's who are self admitted drug dealers "Yeah, I know this place good. I sold drugs to your kids, to your mamma, to your neighbors for 20 years. I deserve to be running the show."
Right.
When we first moved in there, back when I was like seven or something, it wasn't a bad place. There was a lot of love, a lot of community. Black, white, Puerto Rican, who gives a shit what you are -- let's make friends and get some bushes planted and hang out talking all night on the cement porches.
Our building is made up of four units (note -- I just said "our" even though I left there when I was 17 and haven't moved back. It's still mine). There are dozens of these four-unit houses all up and down our street. There is a five-story high rise, and then on the opposite street behind us there are rows and rows of townhouses. I had friends living in the townhouses when we were growing up and I always loved the three or four level layout of the places. I thought they were so cool compared to our two-story regular straight up and down apartments. I wanted to live in the townhouses, but we happily lived over in our unit.
I recall being in sixth grade when one of the only other white girls in the neighborhood, Debbie Gentile, kicked my ass. Seriously, I could count on my hand the white girls: me, my sister, Debbie, Maureen H., Kim Riccio, Barbara Jacovino... and that's it. Everyone else was black. Most of us were really good friends. I fondly remember doing projects for school with Flossie Brown (hee hee, Flossie. She was so cute. I loved her), and her coming over to play with my hamsters.
I figured out that it's gotta be bad when your white ass is getting kicked by the white girl. I was all about peace and being friendly, and didn't really notice that I was white and they were black. I had nothing to prove to the black girls because we were friends. Debbie obviously had to assert herself and show how tough she was, so she put me down.
It was really sad. All the black girls cheered for her. None of my friends stepped in to help me. I was left out to dry... and later had my ass kicked a couple other times, but Flossie and her sister Crystal. I stopped riding the bus to school. I walked to high school instead of being the only white girl on the bus (all the other white girls moved away).
After a while I locked myself in my bedroom and didn't come out until ... oh, perhaps 11th grade when I made other friends. None of whom lived in my neighborhood.
Anyway -- back to the neighborhood. I used to bitch incessantly to my parents that I wanted them to move out. "Can't we move into a house somewhere? Can't we leave here?" I didn't realize that they'd reached a point of investment in the property and that it was worth more to them to stay there. They had little money saved, and spent it all on my first year of college. And my father didn't tell me that until about five years ago.
So they were stuck. They are stuck.
They still don't have money saved, both are retired. They were counting on this. And like so many other people in their age bracket, the stock market has pulled their pants down and spanked'em. Only they didn't direct invest, the co-op development did.
So... in short, they need to get out of there before the bankruptcy takes place, or they need to consult a real estate lawyer now and find out what if any action they should take. Finding an apartment for what they were paying on Long Island is a literal impossibility. Linda feels that she'll be able to stay with friends and move around.
Chances are, my parents could end up here in Massachusetts or...
perhaps Florida?
We shall see. It didn't work out for Linda down there, but perhaps for Grandma and Grampa it might, and we'd have a cool place to crash for February School Vacations! Wooo hooooo! My dream come true. Not my mom's... but mine. We need a Floridian crash pad for our family vacation needs, and free babysitting too!
Last night we went to a combined band concert for Jessie's school district. Where we live there are 3 towns that have a regional school district. This concept to me was foreign until I met Doug and learned that there are such things. My hometown has two separate school districts, so the concept of three or four towns pulling together to have one was just bizarre. What, there aren't enough kids in your one town for you to have a district??? Jebus!
Anyway -- the three elementary school bands performed two songs each. Jessie's band director, JAY, is a young, 2-years out of college kinda guy. He had some other young guys hired on to work in the district and they've jazzed the music program up quite a bit. He is the director for two of the three schools in the district, and then there is a woman who does the third.
The sixth graders in the band are learning about improvisation. And you can tell by listening to his two bands how far along they are with music, appreciation and understanding. It was so fun to listen to them as they tried out improv, phrasing, jazz muddlings.
The high school jazz ensemble and percussion ensemble each performed two songs after the 3 elementary bands performed. They were awesome. I would SO go and hear these guys play in concert. Sometimes you get a high school jazz ensemble and they just don't have their shit together.
I turned to Doug during their performance of "No Room For Squares" saying "I need a cocktail and they need to turn the lights down low so this cat can swing!"
Some of the kids in the high school groups got to spend time talking about how they got from elementary school to a six-piece jazz ensemble. Only one of the kids turned around and spoke TO the elementary school kids. I thought that was kind of sad. They addressed the parents, the audience -- when they really should have looked the 2nd year trumpet players in the eye and said "I thought this was too hard and I stank at it when I was in fifth grade, but I stuck with it and it's so worth it -- hang in there!" Only one did. And she said "Like" and "Uh" and "Ya know" way too much for my liking. Sorry. I'm picky with that sort of thing.
The three elementary school bands then combined to play two songs together. The first was the Simpsons theme song. It was atrocious. Oh my head. I sat there trying to figure out where the melody was, what was going on. It was cacophony at its finest. Second they played Moussorgsky's Great Gate at Kiev, and it was perfect. Lovely. Loud. Made me want to march.
I did have one major issue. It was with the strings performance. Jessie joined the band 2 years ago, and I've watched at least four concerts with the strings class. There are only about four kids in her school, maybe 8 district wide, who take strings.
They are lame. I am so sorry to say it. But they are. And it is painful to sit through.
These kids who are now in sixth grade sound exactly like they did when they were in like fourth grade. They have made no progress. And I think it has something to do with the strings teacher.
He plays with them when they perform.
I don't know if that is to boost confidence, but they don't make an effort, or when they are going to mess up they get quiet and he carries the song. They don't sound at all confident, and he's all confident and leading them and having them follow along, but they seem like recalcitrant soldiers going to the front line. It made me sad the last time I saw them. It made me sad last night. I hear great improvement from when Jessie was in fourth grade to now. I don't hear that with the poor strings kids.
But, they get out there and make the effort. Gotta give them props for doing it at all. I clap just as hard for them as I do my own kid (unless Geoff's on my lap and I can't clap, obviously).
I am very proud of all the kids there. The music program we have is fabulous. And if they charged us extra for it, you bet your ass I'd pay for it. I want to keep JY there with his swinging jazz flunky friends so they could rock the place out. Yeah, baby.
I have an interview tomorrow morning at 10am. The job is an entry level content management position putting data into a system like E-bay, but for cars. The car dealership that would be hiring me has this whole thing online where you can purchase/bid for the car of your choice. It sounds tedious and slightly dull, but it's money. I had that 2nd interview the other day for that 11 bucks an hour job, and I thought I'd hear by now if they were offering or rejecting. Hmmm.
The Ebay like car job pays a little more than the customer service job, but I don't know if it is a 1099 contractor or a W2 job. So that could make a difference in whether or not I'd be interested (I want a W2 job. I'm sick of 1099). I have been seeing more and more jobs online lately. Whereas in November I was seeing one a week that I qualified for, I'm now seeing 1 a day. Which is better, but I'm still not hearing back from hardly any of them.
I will, of course, blab here about my life and my findings. Stay tuned
No comments:
Post a Comment