Walk three blocks in either direction from our home, and the discourse is the same.
Genocide is bad, freedom for Jews and Palestinians, good. The local used book store carries vintage Israeli vinyl, while bumper stickers decry Israeli foreign policy.
The interesting thing about all of this isn’t that it’s not recognized as a conversation between neighbors. It’s that records like the one pictured above are not appreciated for their irony.
This is Raster. He’s a three-year old miniature schnauzer. Abandoned by his owners, I found him in a cage at our dog groomers’ office last May. We adopted him not long thereafter.
Three weeks ago, Raster started licking his left paw on a more-than-regular basis. As the days progressed, he’d attack a particular, nondescript spot with increasing intensity.
Eventually, Jennifer and I became concerned, and decided to take Raster to the vet, where, after shaving his paw, the doctor discovered two deep, highly infected holes.
“It looks like your dog was bitten by a snake,” the veterinarian concluded. “Don’t you live in the city?” he asked, scratching his head.
Relieved that we finally knew what had happened to the little guy, Jennifer and I both sighed and replied “Yes,” giggling in response to the totally unexpected diagnosis.
“Bernal Heights, to be precise,” I told our physician. “From what we understand, there are snakes crawling throughout the neighborhood.”
Late last Friday afternoon, I was sitting in the living room working on my book when I heard the sound of gunfire close by. Slamming my laptop shut, I instinctively ducked down so that I was no longer level with the window. A minute and a half later, the firing stopped. Taking a deep breath, I crawled on all fours to our front porch. Slowly raising myself, I took a good look down our street where it sounded like the shots were fired. The intersection was empty.
When Jennifer got home, she took our dogs out for their evening walk. Two blocks away, she was stopped by a police car, which shined a light on her face, wondering if she might be the person that they were looking for. Once the police got a good look at her – a petite, pink-haired woman in her mid-thirties – the cops apologized and sped away. When she rounded the corner, Jen found two more police cars blocking the street. Something was up.
On Saturday night, we got online and started looking for news about Friday’s gunfire. Not surprisingly, there were a fair number of articles about a recent crime wave in our hood. A couple of weeks ago, our neighborhood association apparently met with the chief of the local police precinct to discuss the recent violence. The cops had promised to triple patrols of our neighborhood. Hence Jennifer being stopped on Friday night.
On Sunday, we found a flyer on a telephone pole nearby, describing some thug who goes by the name of ‘Time Bandit,” who is allegedly responsible for a number of assaults here in Bernal Heights, as well as other nearby neighborhoods. The guy is described as wearing a hoodie. He supposedly asks his victims for the time before threatening them with a semi-automatic weapon.
This week’s kitchen beats: M.R.K. 1: Copyright Laws
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