We live in the top half of a beautiful old home in a neighborhood currently under gentrification (otherwise known as "distracting the public from the area's drug and hooker problem with cute little boutiques and hip new bars/restaurants"). The trees that line the street and the children in their front yards are reminiscent of the safe quiet suburbs and the adults hollering swear words at their children and the jackass who ripped all of the baffles out of his crotch-rocket screaming down the street remind us that we are in fact, still within the city limits of Cleveland. We love it here. 2 of my jobs are within 3 blocks of our home, we are a 2 minute bike ride to the beach, and we have multiple friends that are near. The crazies, hipsters, families, young singles and couples, and people who have lived on this street for 50 years create a wonderful and diverse street full of characters and we wouldn't have it any other way.
Jason and Erin who own the house next door to us are great friends of ours that we hang out with regularly. Their tenants are also friends of mine, one of which I played roller derby with once upon a time. Paul, who I used to work with, lives down the street and frequently has us over for dinner and beers. The coffee shop at the top of our street is the best in the city and the local watering holes rival those of any other Cleveland neighborhoods.
And then we have our housemates. The people who live downstairs from us. They are nice, clueless people who are so fanatically into their christian identities that they are incapable of forming complete sentences without including some "inspiration" from God. It's absurd. I take no issue with people who believe differently than I (staunch atheist, science nerd), but these people take it to an extreme that I have never seen before. They don't celebrate Halloween and will never let their children dress up or go trick-or-treating (a rite of human passage regardless of faith in my opinion). We still chat in the basement while doing laundry, exchange pleasantries in every passing, and deal with one another very well. Occasionally these people irritate us or do something moronic that inconveniences us sometimes for an entire day, like blocking us in the driveway and opting to walk to their church where they stay for 9 hours (yes, that has actually happened and indeed more than once).
Andy and I have decided that the best way to deal with the people that we basically live with is to do so passive aggressively and attempt to frighten them with our heathen ways. The first time they blocked us in our driveway, Andy spent the time that he had wanted to spend elsewhere on the Internet, buying a goat head pentagram shirt to wear every day for a week. He now wears this shirt every time he is irritated by the neighbors. A few days ago it happened again and we decided to take our game to a whole new level. It took a while to come up with a plan and then finally it dawned on me.... We will carve the most evil pumpkins we can possibly think of and display them proudly on the ledge of our balcony in the house where they live!!! We'll call them Spite O' Lanterns. Not only will they see them but so will their ten thousand church friends who come to our house and also block us into our driveway.
The photo at the beginning of this post is one from a distance of our pretty house on our pretty street. Now here is a closeup of the Spite O' Lanterns that we painstakingly carved in a handful of hours and a span of two days.... Andy proudly takes credit of the pentagram and the Black Flag designs. The Samhain/Danzig (of course) ones are mine as well as the rest.
Next time I'm making an "An Abortion Supporter Lives Here" flag to fly from the balcony :)
