Birdyhead

Changes and Farewells

Ashley takes another load of boxes over to the new place every day and spends his evenings planning the space. He likes it so much he hates to leave. When you look out the front windows you see the beautiful foothills. We've been going slowly because we can but we're actually really eager to just get this over with, so we'll be stepping it up. In the meantime we can reflect on what we will miss about our little Echo Park neighborhood. Let's see. Would it be:

The dog poop on the sidewalk, blocking the path?

The lack of parking and the increase of cars, all fighting for a spot? How about our neighbors who have four cars they spend all their time moving around?

The parking lot d.j. parties that go on until the wee hours of the night at the complex two doors down?

The roosters that don't just crow at dawn?

Or would it be the dogs on either side of us that treat our yard like their playground? How about the time one of them came through the fence, ripped our pool mattress to bits, and damaged our kiddy pool? When Ashley went to talk to the neighbor about it he suggested it was either a stray cat or the dog on the other side of us. I suppose it could have been Rosco since he is always back there knocking over flower pots, but he only stands about 10" tall and I don't picture him wading through about 16" of water, punching tiny holes in the vinyl liner with his sharp little toenails.

I know, how about the plucked remains of pigeons all over the back yard left by the stray cats with the weepy eyes who use our raised bed - well, our whole yard really - as a litter box.

Lockdown - we'll miss lockdown of our block, where we live, and twice Theron's school. Fortunately the first time the school was in lockdown (until 9 o'clock that night!) Theron was already off campus. The second time he and I ran and just made it out of the gate. Otherwise the cops close down the street, no one is allowed in or out, and the helicopters circle and circle.

Memories... Well, here's what we will miss: walking 4 blocks to the library. Theron and I would go twice a week.
Lotus Festival where there are fireworks two nights in a row and we could see them from Theron's room or we would just walk 3 blocks down there with beach chairs then walk home. Echo Park itself is very beautiful.
I'll miss being so close to downtown, Little Toyko, Chinatown.
I'll miss being 5 minutes away from Mike. We'll miss the newly renovated public pool, 4 blocks away.
Ash and Theron will miss the donut shop with their fabulous apple fritters.
There's probably more, it hasn't been all bad. Oh, I know, we'll miss our landlord who hasn't raised the rent in 4 years. He has been very kind and any unhappiness here has nothing to do with him. Every year he would leave Christmas presents and every month he cleaned up the yard.
Living here put us closer to Lumbini where Theron has had his most productive years ever. But we're ready for this positive change.

In the meantime, Theron is in a summer day camp through the Echo Park Rec Center and it's such a great deal. For one low price they go to the beach once a week, the public pool twice a week, and every Wednesday is a field trip. Today they went to Medieval Times to eat turkey legs and watch knights joust. We gave him some spending money and he bought himself a smoothie and a telescoping lance. It still tickles me that he can buy stuff all by himself. Not to say it's all perfect, Theron is still Theron and there is sometimes trouble, but we're dealing with it. He lost some privileges the other day and he was mad, but then he said to me, "Oh, well, it's okay. I have a long life to live".

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