Going off line, for a short while

 

Well, here we are waiting for the packers' who didn't show up today. 

Cookie was not pleased. Still ain't ten hours after their expected arrival. 

Why? I don't want to get into it.  Suffice it to say that the head of the moving company was on the phone today apologizing for their fuck up. But he is guaranteeing me that they will be here tomorrow.  He's already peeling back charges. We'll see.

But the people who are crating the uber fragile things were here, busy as bees.  

So something did get done. 

Anyway, from tomorrow on, a cascade of events will take place, including the shutdown of the internet access at this house. Hotels get involved, equipment gets packed away, etc., consuming lots of takeout.  The worst isn't having TV, its watching the boys wander around this house, being very confused by the boxes that are everywhere. (Their toys get thrown in the back of my car while the husband loads them in his for the six-hour drive to N.E. Ohio. They'll get doggy relax pills to take the stress of the move away.)

And then, we give the keys to the new couple buying the house, and we literally drive northwest with the night. 

They say, for the movers, the stressful part is playing packing box Tetris - trying to use every inch of space in the van so nothing goes wrong, gets crushed or flies about.  For owners, the stress happens when they unload the van, put things in the wrong places and whoopsy daisy two legs on that table built by an ancestor in 1790 snapped off and you deal with insurance. 

So you may hear from sooner, or later. I have no idea. But we'll get back online. 

The things you end up thinking about on the cusp of something new

 

Cookie has been deep in thought.  

Deep in thought when he should be packing.  The movers swoop in to start the job of packing our lives up in brown boxes in about 36 hours.  

A snap of the finger in time. But there is something about me that wants to be in this moment. 

Remember when a day and a half felt like an eternity when we were young and had no idea how time worked?  When we are young, the things and places that we pass, and we think we will always be there because they always have been there for us. 

Now it seems like it flies by in an instant. They say by your eighties, time feels like minutes. In your nineties the past flies by in seconds. 

Maybe my age is beginning to show, but there comes a time in your life when saying goodbye to your familiarities, to your surroundings becomes as important, as the people in those surroundings.  People and the space around you become part of you, however small they are.

In writing every book, it's the pictures that people say "I debated whether to bring this or not" or "I know you won't be interested in this," that ends up being the most important image we come across.  So today, it's not a streetside picture of our neighbor's beautiful homes that I will miss, but the view of those houses from the window in my office. Or through my windshield. Or on a walk. 

In my youth, when I went to Park Synagogue Nursey School in Cleveland Heights, the small bus that we rode in would take a route that took us down to Fairhill Road, to pick up a girl who lived at Belgian Village, a set of chic houses built in the cliff overlooking the Doan Brook ravine.  

The ravine was populated with birch trees. None of us had ever seen these white trunk trees, and unable to process where we were or traveled, that place, that seemingly enchanted forest - at least to us - simply became known as "The White Trees".

I captured that in my mind, and it has stayed clear as if it were yesterday. But that yesterday was fifty-eight years ago.  

At the same time, I couldn't tell you the little girls name.  

So how do you capture the knobley trunks of the Sycamore trees that dot parts of Baltimore, when they are wet with rain, and the new bark turns brilliant green and putty brown.  You can take a picture, but pictures never really capture the life of that moment. 

How do you capture the people who stand at this corner or that, along York Road waiting for a break in traffic before they dart into traffic to get to the other side.  What are they thinking? 

How do you capture those incidental things?

And then you start to wonder while running an errand, "In all likelihood, I'll never be here again."  

Which leads you to ponder some very foolish thoughts.  It's not grand considerations like "the last time I saw Paris" but it is the everyday tasks like the last time I go to this Staples, the last time I enjoy the Enchiladas Supreme at El Salto, and the last time I will ever set foot in the Ruxton Post Office. 

When you're young, you're foolish, you don't know it because you have nothing in your experience to give you perspective on what lasts and an explanation on why it matters what matters. The places that have always been will always be.  And what was here before you doesn't matter because well, the world revolves around your experience in that moment.  

It isn't until you look back and think, "Wasn't there a house there?" "Where are all the people I remember walking in this area. The streets look so barren, and the shop windows are empty," that you realize that just as you have gotten on in the world, the world has gotten on without you. 

If we are fools in our youth, then I am surely a foolish old man now. Who is to say that even if I concentrate right now, with all my might, I can freeze this moment in time as it is, looking out this window so in five, ten, twenty years I'll remember it perfectly?

In time we forget the type of details that, at this moment, feel so important. As studies have shown that as we forget, our thought functions kick in and fill in what makes sense to remember. You know that you were at a place, you know there was a building, but you have forgotten that the building is cream color, so your mind makes the building white or tan, and then that becomes ingrained in your memory.  Why? Because we don't like having to think that we forgot the details. 

And perhaps it's this old man's mind that desperately wants to remember these moments because I am so afraid of forgetting what is familiar. 

Still, in these quiet moments, before the chaos of the movers enters this house in a couple days, in the ponderings of this place we called home, there is a gentle calmness that I'll need to get through everything that is about to happen to us.  

And it will happen because we want this newness. 

We won't have time to dwell in a place we no longer live. We will be focused on life as we live it. 

Saying thank you.

 

As my mother would say, while removing one article of jewelry from her cocktail attire before heading off to the event, "No matter how boring the party, you thank the people who have been the bright spots - they're the ones who get you through the event."

Over the last 11 years, there have been many things that I have complained about in this city, but there have been people and businesses who have twinkled like bright spots.  

So has been Cookie during this past week. 

There are plenty of good people here.  They just have different priorities.  And there are good businesses that helped us get through the daily schlep. 

I have thanked the owner of the local market near our house. That store became more of our lifeline than I care to think, but they usually have what we want, produce excepted.

I have thanked the mechanic who kept our old cars alive and running, sometimes on short notice. 

I have thanked many of our neighbors for their kindnesses, especially when one of us has been down for some malady like the 2017 flu that sidelined both of us simultaneously, or my surgery last January.  These people made sure we had food to eat so the Husband could relax. 

I have thanked the post office of in Ruxton, the best-kept and now exposed secret, in northern Baltimore for their efficiency and kindness.  

I thanked our former mail carrier, Reggie. What a terrific guy. Despite hardships in his life, he has always been dependable. And seeing the neighborhood rally around him and help him, thank all of you as well.

I have thanked our yard care company who always took care of us.  Carol, you are the BEST.

I have thanked even BGE, because their linemen, through multiple power failures, always kept us in the loop. 

I even thanked Dino, the dishwasher whisperer, who can repair any home appliance, and who is far smarter than almost anyone I know, my husband aside.

Then there have been the special neighbors, the ones who are especially kind in ways that you can't put into words. 

Thank you to my colon surgeon who saved my life in 2014.  Thanks to you I had six years of near normal life. 

Thanks to the urologist who helped me get cancer-free for eight months. 

Thank you to our family physician who has taken care of both of us since discovering him in 2015. 

Thanks to my shrink Charlie for finally getting me to a point where I can deal with my depression. 

Finally, and I cannot believe I am including this one, thank you to Comcast. Despite being the worst-run, abusive, and most frustrating service provider that anyone needs to tolerate, you carried every single PBS station around giving us ten channels of programming that got us through COVID.  And every British mystery imaginable has been digested and enjoyed us.  

And I need to thank this blog's readership - you have stayed with me through the worst years of my adult life. 

Fair warning, there are more to come, but better I hope.

Facebook, this really isn't me.

 

And just in time for Yom Kippur, too.

But Zuck the Fuck, your algorithm is way off. Way off.

I simply don't have the body for this because I am not a self starving Kardasian, or a pole dancer. 

So thanks, so much, but with all that money you pour into this monster of yours, do your advertisers really understand that you are sending them on a billable snipe hunt?

Hugs,

Cookie 

Just why is it called "the Heights"

 

East of downtown Cleveland there are suburbs that bear names ending in "Heights".  There's a reason for that, and it's geographical, with a bit of elitism sprinkled in.  

Cleveland also has suburbs on its west (of the Cuyahoga River) that use the word "Heights" in their names as well. There is no real geographical reason, and while some are very nice, they are not heights.

The eastside heights are geographically indeed situated on "heights".

The west side, not so much. 

Allow Cookie to explain. 

East of Cleveland - which has nothing to do with the city of East Cleveland - and trust me, that is an entirely different kettle of fish - rises an ancient plateau.  And that plateau rises very quickly.  It stretches roughly from the banks of the Cuyahoga River north towards the Lake Erie plateau and points northeast of the region.  In some places the rise is subtle, in other places, such as between University Circle and Cleveland Heights, it gets rather steep, 300 to 500 feet up. 

When these areas were being transformed from farmland overlooking the expanding city of Cleveland, they colloquially were called the heights, because they were higher ground.  The first example that Cookie can friend is from a man named Dr. H. Ambler who wanted to develop his land, and he named it Ambler Heights.  Dr. Ambler also built a quixotic ruined "Indian fort", complete with a crumbling stone tower to entice people to come up and have a "look see."

As the rich escaped ever commercial and industrializing Million's Row or Euclid Avenue, a good percentage made their way up the Cedar Glen Parkway, the Mayfield Pike, and Ambler Road (Now Fairhill Road) and built mansions in what was called the Overlook at the top of the first rise. 

Other developers followed, and the places that built up for their idealized communities started to include "Heights" as part of their names.  Still, yet another increase in elevation happens along Fairmount Boulevard and Cedar Road.  

So we end up with Cleveland Heights, and Shaker Heights (built on the land owned by the North Union Shakers). 

While both communities catered to the wealthy, Cleveland Heights developed over time and through the efforts of many developers.  Shaker Heights also developed over time, but its development and street grid were tightly controlled through 1950. 

In the meantime, the other "Heights" burbs developed.  Garfield Heights started the trend when development began in the 1910s, followed by University Heights in the 1920s. Warrensville Heights, Mayfield Heights, Garfield Heights, Maple Heights, Bedford Heights, Highland Heights, and Richmond Heights all flourished after World War II, but lacked investments by the well-to-do.  Lyndhurst and South Euclid are honorary heights cities, but Beachwood is not. Well, maybe it is, who knows.

And what of the westside's Broadview Heights? Not a Heights. Fairview Heights? Not a Heights. Oh, sure, they use the name, but being from the Heights is an Eastside thing. The Village of Highland Hills? Not a Heights, although it has higher terrain than most around it. 

It is, however, a unified school district shared between Cleveland Heights and University Heights that was bestowed the crown royale of being just known as "Heights" upon Cleveland Heights.  It entered the flow of conversation because "Heights High School" is in Cleveland Heights.  Shaker Heights kids went to Shake High School, but Cleveland and University Heights kids went to "Heights".

For the non-locals, the inclusion of University School, a prep school which has it lower school building in Shaker Heights, not University Heights.  University Heights has John Carroll University.  Just so you know. 

And what of Dr. Ambler and his Ambler Heights? Ultimately, it was swallowed up by Cleveland Heights. 

And where is the height of the Heights?  Cookie has no idea. But I do know that the highest point in the Dugway Brook watershed is Lyman Circle, in Shaker Heights, although I never considered that as being exceptionally "high".  I also think that Sulgrave Oval is higher in elevation than Lyman Circle.

So when someone from the Heights says that Cleveland is downhill, we mean it is down the hill that we call the Heights. 

Well, its ours, -or - A place to call Home.

 

What's this about a Zuzz-Zuzz Water Softener?

The key is ours, and work on Castle Cookie is underway.  

We have cleaned the kitchen, which took four days. And yes, it was that bad.   New appliances are on their way. 

As I type, the gutters are being cleaned out, and the floors are being sanded and brought back to life. \

More as we move forward.  But mentally and physically, it's exhausting work.

We are in state of Suspense...

 

...and but which type of suspense is the question.   

Geographical: Are we Marylanders, or Ohioians?

Hitchcockian: In this genre, we feel that everything is OK on the surface that we see, but the undercurrent is rife with things that could go wrong, have gone wrong, or we are about to confront what is about to go wrong, but of course, it predicated on murder, international intrigue, or finding that Shirley McClain has buried an ex-husband on the property.

Marionette: In this genre, we are subjected to the whims of those people and institutions pulling our strings - a reality not of our own volition.  The buyer's mortgage company plays a tune for documentation and we dance.  The seller's agent plays a little tune and we dance.  No fun. No one is dancing for us.

Enforcement: The house we are buying will be ours, yet we owe The municipality certain "fixes" and worse still, they want the cost of fixes held in an escrow account, but we need those monies to pay the contractors. 

Datewise: We are far enough from the move that we can't really pack personal stuff because we are still using it, but we are close to moving and it is gnawing and clawing at our very souls. 

Accounting: We are neither homeowners having sold our house, nor are we homeowners because we haven't closed on the new one.  So we feel as if we are the ACH that has arrived at the credit union today, but we can't post to the member accounts until tomorrow.

Are 'ians, 'ers, or 'ites?: Are we Baltimorians, or are we Clevelanders? Or are we ex-pat Columbusites?

Are we: Befuddled, Bemused or Besotted?

Finally, should I keep Doing Hard Time in Shaker Heights going, or should I create a blog anew?

See?  No fun.