Hood Life (Or something like it)

As most of you may know, we've moved to an area that's not quite the ghetto, it's just next door. Well there are many things I like about living here, such as sidewalks, shops we can walk to and overall friendly people. My mother in law says I get a sick thrill from walking through the hood. Oh? I think I just like to get my stuff done. But even the hollering boosts your self esteem even though you really know you look like shit and they guys are just constantly practicing with any and everyone 'to keep their game up'.

But there are some down sides, not the first of which is that Chaim's bike was very early on stolen from our back yard. (Don't worry, we hopped in the Batmobile down to the hood and found it ;D)

One thing that super sucks is that we don't have laundry access. I probably complained about this before because I knew it would mean the end of cloth diapering, which I was really upset about. (Though Chaim surely isn't...) It costs a hell of a lot more and we frequently run out of disposables. And I don't think I'll ever feel ok with throwing so many diapers out either. AND maybe Z would be potty trained too. :'(

But another two things that suck about it is the COST and the LOCATION. Granted, there are tons of laundromats around. Probably to be within walking distance of just about everyone. And they are. BUT with a double stroller I just can't make the distance. We finally dropped the $30 and bought a cart with wheels to bring our stuff around (everyone here has them-everyone!) but I can't push that and the stroller at once. I've tried to carry one baby and have the other walk, but that was before we even had the cart and even with it its still hard to have one walk and not run into crazy traffic while steering those bulky things. I've even thought of bungeeing the stroller and cart together! Now, when Chaim is around OR if I have the car, there is no problem. I just put all the kids and laundry in the car and go. Yea, its a pain to do laundry with the two little ones but there's no choice there. Or, if Chaim is home and I have the car, I can just go without them. That's the best. OR when we have car problems and therefore NO car, which seems to be the case often enough, we go with the stroller, the cart and two parents. BUT if there's no car and no husband, I can't go at all. Not unless I had a sitter and you can guess how often that's happened. When we lived upstate, we could never walk to a laundromat. As a matter of fact, I've never even been to one before moving here. But I didn't have to. We had machines in the house. They didn't always work and they were always full of our landlords stuff but at least they were there. Now if we have a barf crisis it really can become a crisis. Add that to the fact my cat is sick and peeing on EVERYONE'S bed WHILE the car is busted, and yea. Problems.

The same goes for food stores. We have a few bodegas but they sort of suck. Even the closest kosher store is one of the furthest walking-distance food stores and its not great. I can now carry some stuff in the stroller thanks to the new stroller having a basket on the bottom, but I can't get so much that I'd need the cart, because again, I can't push it while I have the kids. And stuff does get a bit beat up on the ride. :\

Another thing that sucks is that in this area you'd think there would be awesome public transportation. After all, so many people rely on it and we are the last few stops on the A train. But no, that too fails us. The stop closest to us only works going east, to the ONE LAST stop after it. Point!? So we can walk to that one or better yet, to the one further up, one stop closer to the city. But on the weekends, they are ALL closed. Yep. Not only is it the weekend schedule which takes about three hours to get anywhere, but they have to shuttle you all the way up the Rockaways to get on the subway. Now with kids, the shuttle bus becomes an ok-lets-stay-home-instead. Often, when the car worked, we just drove it to Brooklyn or Queens proper and took a train from there. Speaking of trains, they are so not stroller friendly. The city and Brooklyn are bad, but the Rockaways don't know the meaning of the word 'elevator'. I'm hoping to get a job in the city, and its good that at least I can get to the train without a ride, and the ride is probably just as long as it was from upstate, but its clearly far from seamless. At least if its for work there won't be kids with me and I can actually USE stairs. Gosh I miss those sometimes. Maybe that's why I'm getting portly.

This isn't really the fault of moving, but its really amazing how we walk or bike everywhere. You'd think I'd lose so much weight, yet I haven't lost a thing. Before I was just doing stuff at home and occasionally using the treadmill there. Here, I've walked FAR more than I ever did upstate, biked more, and even ran more the few times I've gotten to the gym (which I bike to). I still do those small workouts in my room and stretch, the only thing I don't do is breastfeed. Well apparently that's the kicker. I'm back at my pre-pregnancy weight which is normal I guess but I was hoping I could stay where I was while nursing. I remember before I was pregnant I couldn't lose an ounce either. Not while eating at least, and I like eating. :D

We totally are into biking and its a good thing that so many things are close, or at least in biking distance, including Chaim's job at night when we really don't have a car. But as with the doing-ANYTHING-without-a-husband situation, I can't bike to any of these places without someone home with the kids.

Some things like a car or washer and dryer are definitely a huge investment and upfront cost. But sometimes I think not having them is even worse. At least if you have a washer you can use it as often as needed and though the water and energy bills will go up, at least you don't have to pay the same standard price for the machine. Not having a car means you have to pay for EVERY little ride/train/subway you take to get anywhere past walking distance. Often there is no way to get to where you need to be and car services are crazy. I don't even know if you can bother with car seats in them or how costly it would be for them to wait for you so you don't have to take the seats out while at an appointment or shopping. It becomes impossible.

Two in one sidetrack combo: The car, by the way, really does go on you when you need it most. I've had such a stressful week with not having the car while I needed to get my cat to the vet for a UTI. I wanted to BIKE to him if it meant getting there. He's about 6.5 miles away (and there's a stupid toll) but without a sitter (or car) I could not do it with the kids. Side track #2, you REALLY can't do anything with kids. Wow. When people say life as you know it is over, I assumed having fun and doing things for you. But no, it means being able to LIVE and go where you truly NEED to go. I feel like having kids makes me too busy to even be able to take care of kids. For example, the laundry situation coupled with the other problems we had today makes it impossible to get the kids peed on sheets washed for them. Chaim missed class to get it taken care of but that was all we could do. We just could not have time to do laundry. Or money really. I'm really surprised and thankful and PROUD that they were fed and changed while dealing with the car-cat-crisis situation today. That's how hard it is some days. That's how much it sucks.

As a plus, there are TONS of car shops around here. I don't know why, since so many people rely on public transit (good luck) but I guess many people have cars too. I guess there's just a whole lot of many people out here.

Another thing that bothers me about the lots of many people, is that SO SO SO many of them use the "N-word". We don't say the N word. We don't even JOKE about it. And even if I was plastered drunk and going native and saying it "in a friendly way" it still won't be uttered in front of the kids. Its just not something I want them to say. Well, now that they hear it 1,034,984,352,986,429,034 times a day, we'll have to see how that turns out.

It's actually pretty sad. There were little kids at the park the other day and they kept calling each other crack heads. Not everyone here is irresponsible/on drugs/bad parents etc, but its really sad that you hear it from the mouths of babes. :(

I also feel like its so expensive to live here, or anywhere really. But to be "broke" and in an economically disadvantaged area...yea its not so great. There are obviously not a lot of jobs close by, and you have to pay for EVERYTHING like laundry, rides etc. and almost always in cash. But more than that, when you're really broke, you get the crappiest stuff. Like we've had breathing issues since moving here since its more of a basement than the last place, but the last place had it too. We keep our apartments very clean, but there's always stagnation and sometimes mold in basements so I really feel like poor people just can't get good health. Never mind health CARE, which we have (when we can get a WAY to the office....also never mind that clinics seriously take all day. You can't do ANYTHING else.) Just that poor people aren't allowed to be or STAY healthy. Now that's fucked up. Some people don't believe health care is a right. I disagree, but we *should* all agree that people shouldn't get fucked over for not having more money. There are laws against it, but yea, no one cares. Maybe if everything was taken care of, from peeling paint to affordable healthy food, there wouldn't need to be such high bills for health care in these areas. And its sad but true, soo so so so many people here have a limp. I always thought that was a stereotype...but they do. (Shootings too but that's different. Maybe related. I don't know.)

Other things include broken glass everywhere, the pain in the ass of switching information over here, finding new doctors, getting to/dealing with the medicaid/food stamp office, people's dogs etc. And maybe its a fucked up stereotype and I'm usually so against them that people call me naive, but I do also worry about people around here especially if we're talking about daycare or something like that. And I don't mean one group I mean ANYONE. Even a Jewish place. The best ones of course I can't afford, so it would have to be peoples houses. And just in general I'm so used to being with the kids that I worry about ANYONE with them, but a daycare/full time babysitter would really have to feed them and deal with them on a longer term basis. The only people I know and trust work during the day lol.

I'm sure there is more but I just felt compelled to write about that for now.