When I say driveway....
I think most people envision a lane which joins a garage and house to the street. Usually houses are set back a considerable distance from the street, especially in the U.S. but, not here.
Houses and stores are constructed in a continuous 'row'. That is, the front of the houses appears to be one common facade with doorways and windows determining the individual homes and shops. Some have an opening large enough for a car.
Our house has room for a car. The house is laid out like the letter 'U', with the top or open end of the U facing the street. The open end is guarded by iron folding doors. One section may be opened as a single door to allow folks to come and go. If an auto is to come in, the remaining panels of the folding door are opened.
Now, the "driveway" that's haunting me is one in name only. The sequence is like this: house, sidewalk, curb, street. Total distance about the length of a smallish car with its trunk in the street and just leaving enough room for pedestrians to pass between its grill and the house.
Did I mention that from the waist up each folding panel has a window protected by iron bars? Since our quarters comprise the bottom of the letter U and there is a row of windows facing toward the street I can see when some 'ignorante' blocks our 'driveway'.
Perhaps this is more than anyone wishes to know on this subject. But, some of you have begun to offer combat suggestions, so I thought you should know the terrain. We are so few and they so many if we are to prevail we must organize.
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
*When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. - Joan Baez
MEXICO ( as I see it):
In Mexico, city bus drivers will often alter their routes during peak traffic hours just to avoid congested avenues.
Narrow neighborhood streets become crammed with lumbering buses. The regular bus stops are crowded with expectant commuters wondering why there are so few buses at such a busy time of day.
THE SERIAL Her Viking:
We left off here.....
By two o’clock that afternoon the pair had worked their way to the roof and a storage room there that held the out-dated, no longer important, possessions of decades past. At 3:30 P.M. the widow let out a cry of triumph.
“At last! Here they are.” She said in a gleeful voice. She opened the leather case and extracted a long pair of field glasses. The Widow Mora held them to her eyes, twisting first one adjustment then another until she said, “I don’t remember them being so large and heavy. I can’t see anything. The room is too small.
“I must practice with them from my bedroom window. Cee Cee, when you’ve finished putting these things in order, fix me a tuna salad and bring it to my room along with a bottle of Coca Cola.” Off the widow went scurrying down the stairwell.
By sunset, still in her room, she had mastered the binoculars and was able to pinpoint anything she liked, enlarge it sufficiently, to study its details.
“Now, my wild viking, I can capture you,” the Widow Mora said to herself, “I shall be able to see the color of your eyes, the set of your jaw and the strength in your hands.”
That night the widow did not sleep well and a dozen times she wished the long ordeal would end so she could take up her station by the window. With the faintest light on the horizon she could stand it no longer. She got out of bed even though the widow knew she was, at least, two hours too early to see her Viking.
"What a tit I am," she said, scoffing at herself, while she sighted in the binoculars.
"What a shameless bitch I am and if others could see me they'd jeer at me and call me far worse things. But", her mind ran on, "I am here alone, as I have been for twelve years, and no one has offered me any diversion in all that time, so let them think what they will. This is my house and he is my Viking and I'm entitled to pass my time as I wish."
As the sky brightened the Widow Mora would like to have had a cup of coffee while she waited but she knew Cee Cee was barely awake at that hour and there would be no hot water for coffee. To try to hurry the old Indian woman's routine would be impossible but, nonetheless, the widow went to the head of the stairs and, in a piercing voice, called down for coffee.
After what seemed forever her Viking came into view, a half kilometer, or so, up the beach. The widow moved to improve her angle and began scanning with the binoculars. Once she located him she was amazed at how close he appeared. It all seemed a little too intimate, as if the Widow Mora were violating the stranger in some way. In a minute this uneasiness passed and she began to relish the advantage the field glasses gave her.
continued......
Houses and stores are constructed in a continuous 'row'. That is, the front of the houses appears to be one common facade with doorways and windows determining the individual homes and shops. Some have an opening large enough for a car.
Our house has room for a car. The house is laid out like the letter 'U', with the top or open end of the U facing the street. The open end is guarded by iron folding doors. One section may be opened as a single door to allow folks to come and go. If an auto is to come in, the remaining panels of the folding door are opened.
Now, the "driveway" that's haunting me is one in name only. The sequence is like this: house, sidewalk, curb, street. Total distance about the length of a smallish car with its trunk in the street and just leaving enough room for pedestrians to pass between its grill and the house.
Did I mention that from the waist up each folding panel has a window protected by iron bars? Since our quarters comprise the bottom of the letter U and there is a row of windows facing toward the street I can see when some 'ignorante' blocks our 'driveway'.
Perhaps this is more than anyone wishes to know on this subject. But, some of you have begun to offer combat suggestions, so I thought you should know the terrain. We are so few and they so many if we are to prevail we must organize.
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
*When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. - Joan Baez
MEXICO ( as I see it):
In Mexico, city bus drivers will often alter their routes during peak traffic hours just to avoid congested avenues.
Narrow neighborhood streets become crammed with lumbering buses. The regular bus stops are crowded with expectant commuters wondering why there are so few buses at such a busy time of day.
THE SERIAL Her Viking:
We left off here.....
By two o’clock that afternoon the pair had worked their way to the roof and a storage room there that held the out-dated, no longer important, possessions of decades past. At 3:30 P.M. the widow let out a cry of triumph.
“At last! Here they are.” She said in a gleeful voice. She opened the leather case and extracted a long pair of field glasses. The Widow Mora held them to her eyes, twisting first one adjustment then another until she said, “I don’t remember them being so large and heavy. I can’t see anything. The room is too small.
“I must practice with them from my bedroom window. Cee Cee, when you’ve finished putting these things in order, fix me a tuna salad and bring it to my room along with a bottle of Coca Cola.” Off the widow went scurrying down the stairwell.
By sunset, still in her room, she had mastered the binoculars and was able to pinpoint anything she liked, enlarge it sufficiently, to study its details.
“Now, my wild viking, I can capture you,” the Widow Mora said to herself, “I shall be able to see the color of your eyes, the set of your jaw and the strength in your hands.”
That night the widow did not sleep well and a dozen times she wished the long ordeal would end so she could take up her station by the window. With the faintest light on the horizon she could stand it no longer. She got out of bed even though the widow knew she was, at least, two hours too early to see her Viking.
"What a tit I am," she said, scoffing at herself, while she sighted in the binoculars.
"What a shameless bitch I am and if others could see me they'd jeer at me and call me far worse things. But", her mind ran on, "I am here alone, as I have been for twelve years, and no one has offered me any diversion in all that time, so let them think what they will. This is my house and he is my Viking and I'm entitled to pass my time as I wish."
As the sky brightened the Widow Mora would like to have had a cup of coffee while she waited but she knew Cee Cee was barely awake at that hour and there would be no hot water for coffee. To try to hurry the old Indian woman's routine would be impossible but, nonetheless, the widow went to the head of the stairs and, in a piercing voice, called down for coffee.
After what seemed forever her Viking came into view, a half kilometer, or so, up the beach. The widow moved to improve her angle and began scanning with the binoculars. Once she located him she was amazed at how close he appeared. It all seemed a little too intimate, as if the Widow Mora were violating the stranger in some way. In a minute this uneasiness passed and she began to relish the advantage the field glasses gave her.
continued......
posted by bbuckman | 2:22 PM
2 Comments:
'We are so few and they so many if we are to prevail we must organize.' <---Lol. Indeed.
I miss Mexico and all its wackiness so badly.
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