Hello Beautifuls

T’was a tempestuous looking sky above whilst strolling down da avenue yesterday, hon. The locals, and now everybody else calls the main drag in Hampden “The Avenue”. If you’re not so familiar with Baltimore, John Waters highlighted the Hampden neighborhood in his film Pecker. A blue collar, working class neighborhood until fairly recently. Past home to the people who came to the city from Appalachia to find work in the nearby textile mills way back when. Many of the original residents to the area’s descendants still reside in this now semi-posh neighborhood. You have euro-trash, young hipsters, middle-class families with small children, and hardcore Hampdenites all crammed into one little area and a bunch of little rowhouses. Makes for an interesting mix on an afternoon stroll. I had to deposit a few paltry freelance checks into my near vacant business account. Oh I remember well the days when that bank account was chock full o’ cash, just ready to hand over to the IRS. It’s a little bit brutal being a freelancer, sending off huge amounts of the money you make, realizing that you need to charge more per hour or you end up making something like what a worker at a fast food restaurant makes. One of the big consolations for me is being able to write off office, art, computer supplies as expenditures. For some reason that makes it all okay. But the government does take a big bite. OUCH!

We were walking up Roland Ave. after going to the bank and a lady who was clearly an integral part of the neighborhood walked past us on the sidewalk and said “Hello Beautifuls”. I can’t remember a nicer greeting for the girls. They are both beautiful. And there’s two of them. What better way to say it?

The new stroller was delivered this morning. It was procured as a result of my agonizing wrist pain. The old double wide stroller was heavy and clunky. This wasn’t such a big deal back when the girls were little. But they are huge now, both probably about to tip 30lbs. each, which means I’m pushing around 60 some-odd lbs. in addition to however much the stroller weighs, in this case add on another thirty pounds. So more or less I’m shoving 90ish lbs around on any given day. Compound that with the terrible sidewalks, uneven with tree roots and god knows what else growing up through them, and it makes for a nasty, bumpy and painful ride for all. The new stroller is very lightweight and has bigger cushy wheels. It can make easy 360 degree turns unlike the old one, and the handle is tall, so both my husband and I can push them without too much fuss. Took them for a quickie around the immediate area this morning before their nap* and it was a cinch.

*NAP, EH? There was no nap today. I took a shower after I put them in their cribs and they haven’t been asleep since. Well, maybe that’s not entirely true. Mimi seems to have quieted down. They’ve been up there for about an hour and a half now, and still I hear annoyed noises from Beenie. Why does she resist? I thought this little napping issue was over. I also thought Mimi’s dance party music obsession had waned, but clearly I was also wrong about that, too. Bjork’s ‘Debut’ album has been in HEAVY ROTATION, as has Beastie Boys ‘The Mix Up’. I guess I should go upstairs to see why my eldest daughter is being so uncooperative.