Cabbagetown

            We have moved into a neighborhood of Atlanta known as Cabbagetown. In the 1880s a cotton mill was built in the city (now converted into loft homes), along with a number of small houses for the workers, mostly Scottish and Irish recruited from Appalachia. As the story goes, one day a truck carrying cabbages tipped over, and the residents took the spillage home, and soon the neighborhood was filled with the odor of boiled cabbage. Outsiders applied the derisive name “Cabbagetown,” which the residents happily adopted.

 

            Cabbagetown today wears its name with pride. The most obvious sign of this is the number of murals painted on the walls along Carroll Street. (Interesting fact about the street is that it’s two-way but allows curb-side parking, so it’s only wide enough for one car at a time. This, in Cabbagetown, leads to courtesy.) Cabbagetown promotes a number of events, such as The Stomp and Chomp Festival and two annual mural projects. An indirect indication of Cabbagetown pride is a bumper sticker I saw: “Keep Cabbagetown shitty.” The place has a hippy vibe.

 

            Here are a few of the murals we saw:

Welcome to Cabbagetown

a few of our neighbors

a shop on Carrol Street

This is a painting of the house directly across the street.

These murals are on a long wall next to our buildings in the Stacks.

How can you not love it here?
 

Let the Adventure Begin!

             I am writing from Atlanta – more specifically, the Cabbagetown community in Atlanta, where Kim and I have been living for a couple of weeks. I’ll write more about our new home in future posts. For now, though, I want to describe the transition process.

            As some of you may know, the sale of our Bark House fell through three days before closing, and so we had to back out from our move to a condo on the edge of Traverse City. We decided to opt for more adventure and, with encouragement from Genne´, who wanted her mom close, we chose a loft in Atlanta. I flew down mid-December to see it for the first time and closed on it a day later. Kim trusted me with the decision, reasoning that with her cancer, I might end up living there alone. So, we drove to a home that Kim had never seen – believe it or not, the second time in our marriage this had happened.

 

            The idea was and is to make this chapter of our life exciting and creative. We could have remained holed up in our house, doing chores and watching too much television. Why not start fresh, in a cool new place, meet a bunch of new people, and use Kim’s creativity to make our loft both livable and remarkable. It will be good for us, right? We’ll see . . ..

 

            Packing the car was part of the adventure. We needed to leave enough of our stuff behind so the house would appeal to prospective buyers, and so that we would be able to live there when we returned in April. Kim did all the packing box after box. I was in charge of hauling boxes out to the garage for the movers, and after the loaded and left, more boxes out to our car (fortunately, a mini-van) for the long drive south. We managed to squeeze everything in, even a Christmas fern that was blooming. I left myself a small window for my rear view mirror.

 

            The drive to Atlanta was 1,000 miles. We left with about two feet of snow on the ground, and the first hundred miles or so featured some ice and drifting snow on the road. After that, it was smooth sailing – at least, until we got to Atlanta’s legendary traffic. We spent three nights on the road, allowing us time for plenty of stops. For me, the worst event on the trip was stopping at a toll bridge in Indianapolis. In order to pay the 90-cent toll, I had to learn how to scan a hieroglyph on a screen. Failing that, I had to put my dollar bill in a slot I couldn’t find. A voice on the “Help” channel explained how to do that, but then I had to pick up my ten cents of change in a place I couldn’t reach without leaving the car – my seatbelt preventing me from leaning out the door. The people in line behind me were kind enough not to honk their horns.

 

            Otherwise, as I said, smooth sailing. I became reliant on Gertrude, the name we gave to the GPS voice in our car.

 

            Atlanta was a challenge. We had planned to drive in on Sunday morning, when the traffic would be light, but the snow in Michigan made us delay our departure, so we entered Atlanta as part of Monday morning rush-hour. I can’t tell you how we (Kim, Gertrude and I) got through it. The highway featured maybe a dozen lanes, sometimes more, and we had to scan a wall of signs to find our way. We noticed right away how aggressive the Atlanta drivers are, with black pick-up trucks tailgating in a dangerous way, and some sort of small white cars passing us on the right, often when we were trying to change lanes to exit I-75. We learned then, and over the next few weeks that for many Atlanta drivers, traffic laws are only suggestions.

 

            But we made it. Genne´ helped us through the security system to get us through a couple of gates, and she let us park in her reserved spot next to the door into the building. Let the adventure begin!

My 80s?

            I thought when I hit my 80s I would settle into a more or less comfortable routine. Yes, there would be health concerns, and perhaps some mobility and memory issues, but Kim and I would have a home, maybe a condo, perhaps with help available from family and friends, or perhaps with some hired help. But we would be settled.

 

            Well, it’s not been that kind of year! We have made offers on ten different homes, but nothing has led to a purchase. In some cases it was because of the contractor’s inspection. Sometimes it was our inspection. Sometimes we were outbid. I’ve written before about how our pulling out of a planned purchase of a co-op in Ann Arbor, when we discovered some serious problems that had been hidden from us, cost us $15,000 in earnest money. But we were feeling pretty good these last few weeks because we had a firm offer to purchase our Bark House, and we were due to close on October 11, and with that in mind we made an offer on a condo in Traverse City. But our buyers pulled out three days before closing. And they hired an attorney to say they would not relinquish their earnest money – a substantial amount. Fortunately, our realtor’s company had an attorney to argue why we should get that all that earnest money. We have three times had to forfeit some or all of our earnest money deposit, and it’s time we got some back. We also had to pull out of our deal to purchase the Traverse City condo.

 

            What makes this especially difficult, in addition to the financial burden (forfeited earnest money, costly contractor’s inspections, some legal fees), is our emotional investment. With each of the houses there is an investment in imagining how we will live, and what we need to do to make it happen. Kim, especially, decorates these future homes during her insomnia hours – choosing paint colors, selecting furniture, deciding what we will take, what we will try to sell, what needs replacing, etc. She also has spent a lot of her late nights packing stuff that we were going to move to the condo. We had contacted a mover and reserved a storage unit. After the cancellation we spent a few wonderful days looking (online) at a spectacular condo in Atlanta, converted from an old cotton mill. (The development is called the Stacks, if you want to look it up.) It’s where our daughter lives, and that is very appealing, but we finally concluded that its 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom size would not work for us, despite the 71 foot ceiling, and we are too old for the snowbird drive. We made an offer, pulled out, then remade it, then pulled out again. We are a realtor’s nightmare.

 

            So now we are right where we were a year ago: in a home we love but is a lot of work. No prospects for selling it – and we can’t sell it while our failed buyer is contesting the forfeiture of the earnest money. We have gone back to our morning search of listings in Traverse City, Ann Arbor, and now, Atlanta.

 

            It’s exhausting. Fortunately, we are each pretty good at helping each other with stress – an affliction that hits me harder than it does my practical wife. I’m fond of my comfortable routines. It was Kim who suggested, in response to intense encouragement from our daughter, to make this last chapter of our life an adventure. Let’s really have fun and do some cool stuff! Let’s move to that awesome condo in the Stacks in Atlanta! I made an offer and felt a rush of excitement – or was it anxiety? I figured that I can probably make the transition to excitement if I can find the Fast Forward button to get me through the real estate transactions and the move. But then my practical but dull brain kicked in, and I withdrew my offer – fortunately, before earnest money was involved.

 

            Now, what? Is the universe telling us to stay in our beloved Bark House, in spite of the isolation and the amount of work involved?

 

            But wait! We found another condo on the Stacks, and it cost less than the Tower unit, is a bit bigger, and is on the first floor, not the fifth. We are making an offer . . ..

 

            Stay tuned!

 

                        “If you are not in transition, you are in denial.”

Break

 Friends –

 

I am taking a break from blogging. It’s been every week for over ten years. If you miss reading my stuff on Thursdays, go to dhstringer.com and hit the Blog Archive tab, and you can read the old ones.

 

--David

Claro

            Every once in a while a word just seems to radiate for me. Several years ago that word was “grace,” and I wrote about grace in a blog entry (If you are curious, look into the Archives of dhstringer.com and scroll down to July 2, 2020.). The word that glows for me today is “claro.”

 

            I know – it’s a Spanish word. And my association with Spanish is shaky at best. When I was in high school the recommended foreign language course of study to prepare for college was two years of Latin followed by two years of a modern language. I needed another semester in my freshman year at Amherst so I could complete my Foreign Language Requirement (since dropped as a graduation requirement), and after that I had very little to do with Spanish. The exception was a trip to Italy, where I spoke Spanish so badly they thought I was speaking bad Italian and understood me. Fortunately, we have a good friend who teaches Spanish. And fortunately, I’m not explaining what the word “claro” means, but what it means to me.

 

            The simple meaning of “claro” is something like “sure” or “of course.” It’s like saying “yes,” but with an explanation point. I read that you hear claro “very, very often” in conversation, maybe like the way we use “like” or “y’know.” I’m told that people might inject “claro” into a conversation as a way of saying, “I’m listening” or “I understand” or “I’m with you.” It’s a word that connects people.

 

            But there’s more. For me, the word “claro” is somehow connected to the English word, “clear,” and that is part of the word’s appeal. It’s great to have, in a conversation, an affirmation that is free from argument, free from ambiguity and misinterpretation. I’m not sure whether “claro” and “clear” share a common Latin ancestor (I only took Latin for two years), but the openness, the sense of acceptance, is very welcome in today’s world of political language and the suspicion and mistrust that so much current language engenders. Someone says something to you, and you interject “claro,” and both the conversation and the connection are enriched.

 

            By this point our friend Beth, a Spanish teacher, must be bursting with things to say – mainly corrections and elaborations on my rambling thoughts. Have at it, Beth!

 

            Beth wrote: “It's perfect! One of my favorite words. It made me realize just how much I use 'claro' with my Spanish friends – exactly as you describe. One Spanish friend uses ‘claro’ with the intonation  'CLAroooooo' that communicates – ‘Yes, don't you already know that, though? And if not, where have you been?’" 

 

            I will try to use the word at least once a day. Claro!

 

            I wonder what the word means if followed by a question mark . . ..

 

  

Hand Signals

            I enjoy words, but I also believe that a lot of communication takes place using hand gestures, and I think it would be helpful – or at least interesting – the provide you with a sort of dictionary of these signals. (I am, by choice, not including those used by referees in noting fouls.)

 

·      The most obvious is the raised middle finger, an act universally known as “giving the finger.” The origins probably go back to the digit used in providing digital sex, but how it came to have the tone of contempt now associated with the finger is not clear to me. Maybe the suggestion that digital sex is the only kind the recipient of the gesture can provide?

 

·      The Italians, I believe, have a version of the finger called, I believe, “the figs.” You insert your thumb between the index and middle finger so the tip is sticking out. I have no idea where this comes from, but the Italians have so many hand gestures . . ..

 

·      A raised index finger has an altogether different meaning – usually something like, “Wait a second, please.” I picture someone speaking on the cell phone gesturing to a live person that the phone call is more important. You can probably picture the facial expression that goes with this gesture.

 

·      On a lighter note, there is the pantomime of writing on a pad which tells a waiter that you would like the check. This dates back to the days when checks were actually written and not typed on a small screen.

 

·      “Shhhhh!” The index finger across the mouth shows that sound should be blocked. The sound may be the end of the word “hush,” but that’s just a guess.

 

·      One of my favorites is the gesture you often see young people make: Behind the back of the unknowing person, raise two fingers in the approximate shape of horns. Kids do this to declare a kind of superiority over the victim. Little do they know that, historically, these are the horns of the cuckold – the man whose wife is sleeping with someone other than her husband, who knows about it and either enjoys it or is too weak to stop her.

 

·      Some hand gestures are entirely sarcastic. Think of wiping tears away or maybe the sad violin pantomime: “Boo-hoo! Poor me!”

 

·      On the other hand, the tapping of the chest over the heart shows the loving thought is received, and that’s entirely sincere. Also, largely if not entirely sincere, is pointing at your eyes and then strongly pointing at another person, to say, “I’m watching you!” A serious hard stare drives this one home.

 

·      One of my favorites is pointing two fingers at your eyes, then firmly pointing the index finger at the other person to let him or her know that you will be watching and judging, so better do what you said.

 

·      And finally, there’s the slit throat gesture. Depending on how it is delivered, it can mean either Time to end the scene or event, or "You’re Done!"

 

 

  

CTA

 

            You are probably aware that people use all sorts of clever abbreviations when texting. You may not be aware of how important it is to know what the letters represent. True story: a woman was responding by text to the news of the death of her good friend’s husband. After expressing her condolences, she meant to sign off saying “Lots of Love”: LOL. Unfortunately, she did not know that it means, to everyone but her, “Laugh Out Loud.”

 

            So, as a public service, I will share some of them. These are the first 20 of the hundred listed online at a site called SlickText.

 

Common Text Abbreviations (from SlickText)

 

1.     ROFL: Rolling on the floor laughing

2.     STFU: Shut the f*** up

3.     ICYMI: In case you missed it

4.     TLDR: Too long, didn’t read

5.     TMI: Too much information

6.     AFAIK: As far as I know

7.     LMK: Let me know

8.     NVM: Never mind

9.     FTW: For the win

10.  BYOB: Bring your own beer

11.  BOGO: Buy one, get one

12.  JK: Just kidding

13.  JW: Just wondering

14.  TGIF: Thank goodness it’s Friday

15.  TBH: To be honest

16.  TBF: To be frank

17.  RN: Right now

18.  FUBAR: F***ed up beyond all repair

19.  BRB: Be right back

20.  ISO: In search of

 

How many of these did you know before the turn of the century? For me, #10 and #18.   

 

            It occurs to me that if I’m going to use these, I might need to add a few more to cover things I might want to say if I ever care to text:

 

1.     WRU: Who are you? (Best said in the voice of the Caterpillar in Disney’s Alice)

2.     WAI: Where am I?

3.     PU: Please unsubscribe (can be applied numerous ways)

4.     WMW?: Where’s my whatever? (can’t remember what I was looking for)

5.     SNT: Sorry, it’s nap time

6.     BDN: Busy doing nothing

7.     CIG: Change is good

8.     KTC: Keep the change

9.     TWT: That was a typo

10.  PRB: Pushed the wrong button

11.  DKDT: Don’t know how to do that

12.  BRN: Battery recharge needed

13.  OD: Off duty

14.  WFD: What’s for dinner?

15.  TYA: Thank you, again (Best said, in my case, after WFD)

16.  WDT: What day is this?

17.  GT: It’s a guy thing. (Usually said by a woman about a shortcoming)

18.  MPB: Male Pattern Blindness

19.  SMB: Sorry, my bad

20.  HDTTO: How do I turn this off?

 

            These, of course, are or will be Common Text Abbreviations (thus the title of this post). Now, imagine a world where our actual conversations use these and other abbreviations. On the other hand (SMB), in the future we may not ever have actual conversations, for all communication will all be done using our phones. Imagine if texting were achieved before the invention of the telephone. What would texters say when they actually heard a human voice on their device?