EvilJulie.com

My post office blows. I know I’ve complained about this before, but the Kensington Post Office blows. So much so that there was even a town meeting with our councilman to complain. Judging by what happened today, however, this didn’t accomplish anything.

Yesterday the postman left a slip saying that he had attempted to deliver an express mail envelope from my mom, but since no one was home, he couldn’t. (I think my postman is full of shit because the damn envelope would have fit through the mail slot if his lazy ass had felt like putting it there, but that’s another gripe.) So this morning I asked my darling boy if he could go to the post office for me, since I am trying to get out of work early so we can take the girls to Coney Island and couldn’t be late to work and expect to leave early. He went. And then he called me.

Apparently, he had spent fifteen minutes in line, a line that stretched almost out the door and moved slower than molasses in January. (Rick was amazed by that, since it’s such a small post office, but I was not. Par for the course at this bass-ackwards place.) Then, when he was just about to give up, they opened the window for people with package pickup slips. One man was given grief about his ID, which was an expired Iowa drivers license. He was told that the ID didn’t verify anything, since it was expired – never mind the fact that it was obviously his name and his face on the license. (Welcome to the Bush regime.) When it came time for Rick’s turn, he gave the guy the slip, the guy checked around for it and coming up empty, said “It must have gone back out for delivery. It should be delivered by 2 PM.” Rick pointed out that the slip said the envelope would be available for pick-up on August 31, after 9:30 AM, at the Kensington Post Office. And the counter guy, in a stellar display of bureaucracy, said “That’s just what it says on the slip. It went back out.”

“That’s just what it says on the slip.” Wow. Now if that is not fan-fucking-tastic customer service, I don’t know what is. Don’t tell me that I can pick something up at a post office when in reality, you intend to re-deliver it to me at the same time you said it was at the post office. Because waiting in line at the Kensington Post Office (and yes, I have used the actual branch name three times in this post in the hopes that Google will catch it and note my dissatisfaction) is right up there on my “list of favorite things to do” with “walking on broken glass” and “being disemboweled by a dull object.” I am glad I could share that pain with my boyfriend today. Thank you, Kensington Post Office! Now let’s see if your people actually did their job and delivered it today.

Farm-Aid is happening in New York City this year. On Randall’s Island. In the middle of the East River. It’s joined to Ward Island by a landfill. My friends, the only way it could get more urban was if they plopped Farm-Aid down in the middle of Harlem.

On the other hand, the inmates over at Riker’s Island will have a nice concert to listen to. I bet a lot of them just love Willie Nelson.

I took a picture last night that I really wanted to use in today’s post, but then I started cooking corned beef and cabbage and watching Ugly Betty and drinking some beer, and then it was 12:30 and I was asleep on the couch, so I just got up and went to bed without ever uploading the damn thing on to my computer and then to Flickr. So you’re gonna have to go with me here.

One of the things I like best about my neighborhood, Windsor Terrace, is the small town feel of it. And at no time is this more apparent than around holidays, when everyone goes all out to decorate. Yeah, you see decorations in other parts of the city, particularly around Christmas, but hardly ever do you see people go all out for say, Valentine’s Day. And St. Patrick’s Day? Fuhgeddaboudit. This is when my neighborhood shines.

Windsor Terrace has traditionally been an Irish neighborhood. Irish and Irish-descent families bought into the Terrace decades ago and just passed the houses down through the generations. There are other ethnicities in the neighborhood now, but we still wear our Irish hearts on our sleeves, especially at this time of year. The other night I was walking home from the local grocery (and yes, I had bought corned beef there) and passed no fewer than 6 houses with shamrock flags hanging out on my way. That’s not counting the shamrock and leprechaun cut outs taped up in windows or the green lights on front porches, either. We’re Irish! We’re proud of it! Everyone should celebrate this, the best of all holidays!!

My neighbor Forrest and his wife generally outdo everyone in the decorating department. These are the people whose house could be seen from outer space this past Christmas with lights, flashing signs, two inflatable lawn decorations tied to the porch roof, and another two inflatable decorations in the back yard. On St. Patrick’s Day, Forrest proudly flies an Irish flag off his front porch, right next to the American one. This year, I didn’t see the Irish flag. I wondered about it briefly, until I looked across the street yesterday to the little park Forrest helped get put in and takes care of singlehandedly. There, waving proudly from the flagpole right under the American flag is Forrest’s Irish flag (and yes, that’s the picture I took last night).

I love my neighborhood.

The Landlady and I had a long talk this evening about “progress” coming to our neighborhood and how long we figure it will be the Windsor Terrace we know and love. We’re giving it ten years. Ratner’s already got his hooks into the neighborhood – a large house on the corner of my street has been bought (rumor has it for something like $1.5 million) and is heading for demolition within the next month or so. What’s going up? Condos. The vacant lot two blocks down that has been empty since I moved here from Bensonhurst is also slated for condo-ization. This on top of the Atlantic Yards shite makes me sad beyond words.

Rick has told me repeatedly that it’s to be expected – we live in New York City, after all. In Manhattan the landscape changes seemingly in the blink of an eye – apartment buildings get demolished to create offices, those offices get razed to make room for skyscrapers, and the city stretches wider and higher. I think that the Manhattanites have gotten so used to it that they’ve forgotten what it’s like to have true neighborhoods – places like mine where we know everyone for three blocks, know the names of all the pets, and where we compete at the holidays to see who can put up the biggest display. We’re like a small town in the middle of NYC, and I love that about us. I wonder if this dread of progress is how people felt when the the boroughs were consolidated in 1898: one minute you are your own city with your own identity, the next, you’re simply a borough and Manhattan becomes “The City.”

Since I moved here seven and a half years ago, I’ve known Brooklyn to be the greatest place in the world. Just say the word “Brooklyn” anywhere and people know exactly where you’re talking about. We’re a borough of fighters, of scrappers, of artists, of dreamers, of entrepreneurs. It’s magical here – even the light shines differently from anyplace I’ve ever seen. In the summer, the streets glow golden. Unlike Manhattan, where everything is new, we’ve got one foot firmly in the past – you can run into the ghosts of Truman Capote and Albert Anastasia here. Dreamland still gleams at Coney Island, for the time being. Why would we want that to change?

But progress is coming. The hipsters and yuppies have already taken over Williamsburg and Greenpoint since Manhattan is too expensive for them now. As the years go by and Manhattan rents continue to skyrocket, more people will walk across the Bridge, like what they see, and stay. And we’ll get an Ikea and Targets to match our Fairway and Home Depot and Costco. And the real estate around the Gowanus Canal will go for top dollar in spite of the layer of chemicals that floats on top of it. And those of us who live in the old Brooklyn will get pushed further and further out, closer to Queens and the Island as landlords realize they can get more for our apartments.

I feel pretty safe; I’ve got a great landlady who sings my praises as a tenant. But in ten years, when progress has arrived, will I be able to recognize the Brooklyn I loved beneath it? Will it still be the same?