About four years ago the
building immediately to the north of me was sold and remodeled. It was gutted
to the bricks and redone in a clean, characterless manner. Very well done, but
with none of the beauty of what had been there for a hundred years. While that
remodel was going on there were a series of dumpsters parked on the street in
front of that building. I didn't mind. It meant somebody was trying to make the
place better. A month ago the building immediately to the south of my building
was sold. My wonderful neighbors had to move out and that building was now
being gutted down to the brick walls. Once again, there is a dumpster sitting
in the street filled with plaster, shattered wood, and other debris. I like it
because when I walk the dogs, I can now toss the shit filled plastic bags right
up into that dumpster. I don't have to go around to the alley.
Yesterday, my friend and
tenant on the second floor put a frozen pizza in the oven. It was a Nick and
Vito's pizza, which I highly recommend. The problem was that there was
something else in the oven that Dennis forgot about and that something else
started burning. Smoke filled the apartment, the smoke alarms went off, and
Dennis came downstairs to inform me that there was a fire in his oven. There
wasn't any fire, but his apartment was thick with smoke. I opened all the
windows, turned on the ceiling fans, and waited for the smoke to dissipate.
While waiting, another smoke alarm went off. "Beep, beep, beep,
beep...." But it was not in the apartment. I went downstairs to see if it
was in my apartment. No, not there. I went into the basement to see if the
smoke detectors down there were beeping. No, not there either. Yet it
continued, "Beep, beep, beep, beep...." I finally figured out where
the hell the beeping was coming from. It was out in the dumpster that was full
of all the debris from my neighbor's building. Apparently the guys who were
doing the demolition had ripped the smoke detectors out and tossed them into
that dumpster. There had been a lot of smoke from Dennis's pizza, but I had no
idea.
