who am i?

seriously, has gospel ever been this good?
AND? I still hate the johns and the drug dealers....and yes, even the crackwhores... but i am human. for now.

i am tired....

seriously tired....in every sense of the word. i know you haven't heard from me much lately and there are reasons for that...multiple reasons that i am still wrapping my head around....too much at once. i love a good routine( not poutine, just routine) and routine really seems to be avoiding me lately. Lots and lots of work lately. Not that I mind...I love it here. Best job i ever had, with the best people.

Spring/summer seems to have set in without any rain....not much in the way of wildflowers or exciting discoveries during dogwalks...

except root fungus.....which is still lovely.

The tiny daisies are out.

Tiger lilies? I think.

A few of my beloved mosses are blooming despite the lack of rain....imagine all that snow we had this winter only to discover we are already in drought conditions? Somehow that doesn't seem like a rainforest environment, right?

And the tiniest of wildflowers that seem so beautifully GIANT in the face of the onlaught of Crack Hookers and Crack Dealers in the neighbourhood, of late. Again, I have to wonder, WHO is it that designates this area as the drug capitol of Nanaimo? Apparently, the Crack Hookers say that the Nanaimo RCMP bring them back here and drop them off if they are turned in elsewhere. Of course, the RCMP deny this BUT "experiments" have been conducted with the same findings, and interviews with the girls have repeatedly stated the same thing....not officially, of course.

It's been a gong show out here lately...hookers when i go to sleep, hookers when i wake up. They now call me "Psycho" cuz i am out there chasing them, their johns down the street....nice, eh? But nobody seems to do anything about it....except me and Michael...who had a drug dealer threaten to put a bullet in his head recently....super. We are sick....sick of nobody doing anything... sick of a system that can't help people who want help....sick of viha that houses drug dealers instead of those looking for a way off the street. on our tax dollars...

we're tired of finding peace only when we choose to remove ourselves from our home.

we're tired of fighting about what is is we do about being tired.

we're tired of wasting our energies on things this city grinds under the soles of their shoes when we should be putting energy into making a better life for a dog with a time-bomb for a heart...

tired of trying to be a voice in beautiful neighbourhood teetering on the edge of greatness or the edge of destruction ..... we have other issues. we have personal health issues, job issues, life issues....we should be able to devote our "after hours" time to ourselves....

but we find ourselves forever driven to make things better here.

i'd like to concentrate on us now...k?

beginning to wonder how the Council, the RCMP, ByLaws, Mayor all live with themselves....how can one have to have a busker license to play music or make balloon animals on the streets of Nanaimo for TWO HOURS A DAY ONLY, when every fucking crack whore, drug dealer, etc deal on the street in front of my house all day, every day? Just the slightest bit ridiculous, isn't it?

There were(no lie) 12 crackhead dealers around these three blocks tonight waiting for a shipment to come in...it is SO FUCKING obvious. So...we call....the RCMP....does anything worth anything happen? AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

nope.

Not many words....

but it is about time....we stopped at Little Qualicum Cheeseworks on the way to the "other" coast(funny, cuz we live on an island!)...they were having an open house to their new fruit winery and I am a sucker for blackberry wine. Theirs? YUMMY!!!!! Stop by and try some out. We also left with some raspberry wine and some blueberry....go figure. However, they don't have Rhubarb Wine, which is one of my very, very favorites...and I haven't found it up here at all.

Before we went to check in to our cabin, we stopped for a little walkabout. The sound of the surf breaking and breaking...it's beyond music. It is a time ago that Michael and I shared full of magic...the noise, the sound, that was the ever present backdrop to the time we fell in love together....

When we held no mortgage.....

and walked the sandy beaches every day, listening to the rolling waters....

when there were no hookers out our front window....

or drug dealers in our back alley.....

when we didn't have to REMEMBER how to breathe...we just breathed.

We live on an island. We can see the water from our window, but this is a different kind of coast. Coastal dwellers know what I mean when I say that....the personalities of the beaches, one harbour town compared to one surfer town....

This was our first walk, on our first day....a gorgeous rainforest on the coast...a straight line between sand and towering trees. Slightly surreal and completely gorgeous.

Then we went in to check in to our cabin....this is the view off the back deck. The sea lions were barking and singing to us...so much nicer than traffic and crackheads.

This was our cabin...tiny, yes, but it had everything we ever needed...and? In reality? Not very much smaller than the bungalo Michael and shared on South Padre Island. Truly. And quite a bit bigger than the VW bus....with hot running water and a tub on the deck overlooking the water.

So peaceful, listening to the sea lions, watching the light fade...no chores, no alarm to set....

and a little blackberry wine.

There's more....come back again?

I turned myself to face me....

Things are changing around here...and I am not sure if I will like the results. Then again, I am not sure if I won't like them, either. Amid all the bullshit of needle drop boxes and crackhouses and drug dealers running on the street, we have our personal lives to tend to, as well. In a neighbourhood where everybody knows everybody, and knows their business, it can be hard to know how to handle personal problems. Two sets of neighbours are seperating(one divorce, one trial seperation). The couple divorcing kinda rocked me back on my heels because I thought they were "meant" for each other. Really Like two peas in a pod, like when people use the term "soulmates." I don't always agree that finding your soulmate means you marry them, cuz I believe the soul is beyond all the bullshit of sexual identity and getting hitched...and I also don't believe your soul only has one "mate," but in fact, resonates with it's own "tribe," if you will, of familiar entities. But if two soulmates find each other and love...well, this would be them...forever. Then again, not so much, apparently. I ran into her the other night, and after some distressing email, she did seem radiant...and happy and ready to move on to the next thing...which is good, and healthy, and woman power!

The two heading into trial seperation are more than just neighbours, though. They are our friends. Good friends. Some of our best friends. And though I have often put the heel of my hand to my forehead over his antics and asked "HOW does she put up with that shit?", I am more than rocked back on my heels by the fact that she has, in fact, reached the end of what we ALL thought of as her infinite(somewhat saintly, make me feel lesser) patience. And I don't know what to do with what I am feeling...where do I go with it? How do I deal with this? What are my loyalties? Michael's loyalties? Do they go down the gender lines? Is there any such thing in these cases? What? Where? How? Why did I answer the phone?????? I know that it sounds selfish and such...but it's not. My feelings for her, and for him, are without question. I have no doubts about how to stand up for her...or for him....it's where this situation puts us that I question. You know? He is one of Michael's best friends, ....she is one of mine. You see where I am going with this, eh? But, maybe I am overreacting and all will be well.

I am in love with this man here, with our life, with the life I anticipate coming....He is my last, best boyfriend.... despite the times we don't always see things the same way. I love him. I love him. I love him.

I hate when friends break up. It opens too many doors, too many questions, too many wonderings....it disrupts my rose-coloured view of our world. But....then again.......it opens up a whole new world to my friends.....infinite, wide open and one that may make them radiant beyond all comprehension.

Drug Dealer Round Up

UPDATE....it's 2:15pm the very next day and guess what? Yup. Open drug dealing right on the same effing corners. For the love of....


Cops sweep up suspected drug dealers
Published: Thursday, November 15, 2007 Nanaimo Daily News

RCMP arrested a number of street-level drug dealers on Wednesday, following a two-week undercover operation aimed at shutting down what police said was practically an open-air downtown drug market.
Charges were expected to be laid against 22 people, most for dealing crack cocaine, said Nanaimo RCMP Const. Jen Allan.
RCMP were responding to a growing number of complaints from residents and downtown business owners about open drug dealing.
"I think it's safe to say that we're going to see an immediate impact, but in terms of the longer term, it's hard to predict," said Allan.
The bust started around 8 a.m. and continued throughout the day. By late Wednesday, police had arrested 15 of the 22 suspects.
"Within the first half-hour we were out there making arrests, word spread that something was going on," said Allan.
Despite news about the roundup reaching the drug community quickly, Allan said it is only a matter of time before all 22 suspects are taken into custody.
"It's a priority for us to get these people arrested," she said. "If I was a betting person, I would say a few of the local drug traffickers are nervous."
Last August, police arrested 26 street-level dealers in a similar attempt to put a dent in Nanaimo's drug supply.
Allan said the RCMP are working with the Crown to ensure dealers are subject to stringent controls and conditions upon release.
Those conditions might include a "no-go" order for the so-called red zone in the downtown or a prohibition on cellphones or pagers.
George Hanson, of the Downtown Nanaimo Partnership, said the bust was a step in the right direction for curbing social issues in the area.
"We think that is an important piece in the overall equation," he said.
"In and of itself it's not an answer but it's part of the solution."
© The Daily News (Nanaimo) 2007

Hahahaha...the RCMP stole my press coverage!!!!! Doesn't that just beat all? It was quite a show out here yesterday, let me tell you. This paddy wagon circling and circling the hood. Temporary measures, to be sure, but still, we were cheering.

And last night, the same few cars cruising around and around and around looking to score and wondering where everybody was. It was almost funny...almost.

I wonder how many of those arrested are already back out there?!? And, of course, my neighbourhood is not a red-zone because that's only for business interests for some reason...go figure.

"Practically an open-air drug market..."the RCMP were quoted in this article. Hmmmmmnnn. That sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?!?

Nanaimo sucks some days....lots

If one more person tells me one more time about how progressive and forward thinking Nanaimo is in dealing with its addicts/pushers/pimps and prostitute problems, I think I will vomit. I have already spent too much of a brilliantly sunny day crying. Who knew that finally owning my own home would turn into such a crushing event?!? Some days, like today, I feel bone-deep, dead-dog tired.
What is so progressive about herding them into my neighbourhood?!? Huh?!?
Another break-in up the alley. Crack-shack up the alley. Altercation in the street between the neighbour, the crackheads, the other neighbours and myself. Will anything come of it? I doubt it.
While the cops make one bust in the back alley, up front on Victoria Road twelve drug deals are made.
I think at least 60 percent of all foot traffic on Victoria Road/Finlayson and the alleyways of this three block area during the daylight are hookers/dealers/pimps and those looking to score, or those shooting up or smoking up AFTER they score. Car traffic? Probably 20 percent of the cars on my street in the daytime are Johns, dealers or people looking to buy crack. After midnight? I wouldn't venture to guess. I couldn't. It would be high, high, high, though. No pun intended.
I know there may be some of you out there reading this thinking I should not go on about it, no bad press, yadda yadda...Nanaimo, Harbour City, all pretty and lights and malls and oh, downtown shopping....but the southend is part of Nanaimo, as well(the part with the real history), and we're suffering for all those lights and pretty pretty and downtown shopping.
One day...........if I could have my way....

shoulda, coulda, woulda

It should have been a most excellent week...finishing up the bedroom walls, cooking a giant pot roast, vino, beer, friends, dogs, Mambo's pizza, Alice's Restaurant, visiting, the sexy new pellet stove warming everyone.... but this week on Nobility Hill has been brutal. Absolutely brutal. The private security guards hired to clean up downtown have done a most excellent job. They have pushed all the crackheads, dealers, hookers, pimps, etc, right up here into our residential neighbourhood. The guards stand on the corners to town, letting no crackhead out of our neighbourhood. Thanks, Nanaimo. Really. Great job. Good plan. Pat yourselves on the back. You are so clever.
It could have been at least bearable, if it felt at all like the city was going to help us out with this situation that they have helped create. However, it isn't bearable because, in fact, it feels as if the city has now sanctioned this area to be the New Nanaimo Crack Festival. Maybe we should order banners.

It would have been unbelieveable to me that the solution to the drug/crime problem downtown is to hire people to literally force the problem into an area struggling to make a decent go of it. It WOULD have been unbelieveable, if I didn't live here, that is. I mean, really, it's not as if we can afford to hire our own security guards, since, ya know, we have to pay property taxes and all.

Michael was asked if he wanted to buy drugs twice today...within half a block...and he was asked if he wanted to get high by some random crackhead...also within that same half block...hell, withing the same 15 seconds. I have verbally moved people on twice today and Michael once. I have been on the phone with dispatch four times today...and that is only the times I bothered to call. We are conditioned to be apathetic because of the ridiculous system here...3 dispatch officers to serve Cedar, Cranberry, East all the way to North Wellington, Extension, Lantzville, North Oyster.... plus ALL of Nanaimo...we spend so much time on hold with dispatch, we hang up.

Four RCMP officers for South Nanaimo. Officers who are not from here, for the most part...and often can't respond in time to do anything...even if they COULD do anything.

If crack dealing and consumption are illegal, and you know it is happening with abundance in one area, why are there not beat patrol officers here all the time? If you know that crackheads are in an area harassing , menacing and and generally making life miserable to the residents of that area, wouldn't you just have the car patrols fill out their reports parked in their cars there, just to do the right thing? ...make a community police substation at one of the offices here. Hell, make it in my livingroom...I'll make cookies, chocolate chunk cookies. Make one progressive movement. Please.

Again, how about busting the Johns? Printing their names somewhere? Reading their names out loud in a court of law?

Repeatedly, I have asked Mayor and/or council members if they would come spend a week in my house. It's a nice house, too. Probably better then theirs...and I know I am a better cook than any of them. So come already. I'll make cookies...chocolate chunk cookies...I know one of you must be reading this. I am sending my repeatedly unanswered invitations to the newspapers next.

I don't understand all these pricey vehicles selling drugs street level around here lately, distributing them through the hookers or through their windows. Or why the dealer with the Alberta plates has been driving around unobstructed for six months. I can't be the only one who recognizes these cars. Right?

So, I'm sorry, Em, that I couldn't seem to find that really happy place we usually inhabit when we're together, that I was distracted and a bit gloomy. It's like you said when you came back from walking...it is a town full of angry people.

Whew. Where did that come from?

kudos

To the city...today they are at one of the neighbour's houses cleaning out the yard....this yard. Can you see a yard? Nah? That's right. Because he hoards. However, before the city got here, he was out distributing some of his garbage throughout the neighbourhood so that he can pick it back up again later...and since the city only has orders to clean up this property, well... you all know how red tape works, right? I know that there is some sort of particular thing misfiring in the brains of people who hoard, but we all have to live with the consequences here. Some of those consequences are that crackheads and drug dealers feel very safe in the maze created here. And we live in a city...I can't imagine what other "vermin" find this mess a safe haven. I wonder what that means to us neighbours now that the critters will all have to start looking for new homes. Ew.
Well, gotta go...read a chapter of Harry Potter, pick some raspberries and then start plastering the walls of the walk-in closet. Eek. It's gonna be so gorgeous...did I mention?

One Step Forward

There has been some good neighbourhood news, as you may remember... one landlord's property has been pronounced a Nuisance Property. What you may not know, is that soon after, two more of this same landlord's properties(also crackhouses) were "condemned" as Uninhabitable. What this means is that it hits his pocketbook...which is exactly where it's gonna hurt him...and possibly help us. So I would sincerely like to thank the city for those steps forward...baby steps, though they may be.
There was also a meeting with the parks department to discuss the future of Nob Hill Park, our neighbourhood park. Looks like there may be some new toys in the future, but no doggie poo bags. I guess that it is alright to be a crackhead shooting up or smoking up in the park, sleeping in the park, pissing and pooing in the park, but dog owners beware! There will be no poo bags provided AND once the new wood chips go in, Animal Control may come give you a ticket if your dog is near the woodchips around the toys..... And the Band played on...be sure to take a walk in our park, picnic, enjoy the oaks, the rocks, the ravens, the view. Take it back. It is ours, ya know?

And yet.....I still harbour some grudges....

can you tell?

Despite the Nuisance Property statement, there is still too much sh....er, stuff going on around here. The drug problem for a town this size is ASTRONOMICAL. And the police force? Undermanned. Tragically.

I am sick to death of pulling back my curtains to watch another hooker work my street. For the love of God, Michael's mom was here. This is a residential neighbourhood. Sure, maybe not the richest, but RESIDENTIAL all the same. How about opening up some city owned property for hookers to work on? Honestly. Is it really that much to ask?

And? This gal is both "working" and dealing....just before this photo, an undercover cop was here in an unmarked car, talking to them.....why did he leave? Just PLEASE sit there and watch them for FIVE MINUTES!!!!!!! You have to know what they are up to....REALLY YOU DO! I don't want this in front of my house. I do pay taxes, you know. Also? This house would be worth AT LEAST $100,000 dollars more ANYWHERE else in town. At least. Do you get it, City? You are losing money, the all-precious, the most important thing you think of...

revenue.

You are losing it to crackdealers and we are losing sleep, a sense of well-being and probably precious years off our lives. ARGH. The frustration is unimaginable.

The City is here daily this week, cleaning up for the Empire Days Parade on Sunday. It may be the only day of the year that the Council actually SEES the southend...and it's all cleaned up for them, sterilized....go figure. The vacant lots have had the weeds cut, the streets will be cleaned, the hookers and drug dealers moved on for the day, the litter patroled....the homeless moved somewhere, the crackheads contained. IT WON'T BE REAL!!!!!

Like I said, I truly thank them for the baby steps....but there is so very far to go....and we would like to be able to imagine the day that the rest of the city embraces the South End for what it really is... the true history of Nanaimo, the heart that once beat for this town.

Okay, that's it. Hadn't ranted in a while...so you had to know it was coming, right???? Ahhhhhh. Whew. Thanks for listening.

a wee little bit of it

Trust me, our skies don't look like this right now. It tried to snow again today, mixed into the rain. The daffodils are up, the cherry blosssoms are out, but it still looks miserable out there...

and maybe that is, in part, what is going on with me, with us...Michael and I and our place in the world. We have an appointment with the immigration attorney, starting the final processes for me to become a Canadian. We are talking, in guarded tones, of getting hitched this year. It should be a happy time. We should be excited and giddy.

But, it seems we are, all of a sudden, weary of the battles of this neighbourhood, of the constant fight with a certain landlord who, for whatever reasons, has the ability to keep his properties full of drug dealers and drug addicts...it seems that no matter how well the neighbourhood pulls together, it is never enough to turn the tide. How is it possible that one man can make life so very difficult for so many GOOD AND HONEST people?

We don't understand how a city this size has a drug problem this size and a drug enforcement squad of so few. We can't fathom how the population keeps growing but the RCMP doesn't. We can't understand the drive to make a ghetto of the south end of Nanaimo. This is where the history of this town is! Right here.

We don't understand how we can recognize every car that arrives to deal drugs every day, multiple times a day and they are still on the road...every day.

We don't understand how we can be threatened and made to feel unsafe in our homes and there is nothing to be done about it. If we band together and make a big stink, we get much appreciated action for a week or two, but then someone else makes a big stink and we have to start over. We're so tired...and I am sure the RCMP is tired...of us, of the problems, of the lack of manpower, the lack of support.

I love my house. It is everything I could ever have hoped for in a home...every single thing we have put into it, every single plan we have for it is EXACTLY what I have ever wanted in a home in the city. If I had known we would find ourselves here, in this place, I would not have put in my soul. I can't imagine living in another home in Nanaimo. Personally, if I can't have this home, I would just rather move on. Completely. This is the big thing that I have not been able to say. I don't want to give up my home...but I was never a good fighter.

I have other homes in my dreams, but not city homes...and the thought of moving to another home here makes me ache. If I have to move away from this house, I want it to be for another dream come true, not because I have given up. A home on the beach...or life on the road in an Airstream....a cabin in Colorado.

So there it is...a wee little bit of the torment I am in right now. Was it worth the anticipation?