Our Lady in the Hood

A cool organic pizza maker lives (and bakes) around the corner.

Prius owners gutted and remodeled a bank-owned house into a Rockridge-worthy brown shingle masterpiece.

A nice literary couple settled into the house formerly owned by the baddest of the bad boys.

Artsy people are moving into the hood, so I'm pretty sure we're getting gentrified.

But the flava's still here.

After all, we're smack in the middle of the Fruitvale Gang Injunction area.

And for even better protection, we've got Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe patrolling the area.

On December 12, the Mexican neighbors across the street unfurled this velvet banner for Our Lady of Guadalupe's feast day. Red and green twinkle lights make her extra-fancy at night. Hope it never gets taken down.



My own beautiful virgen is on view at the top of the post. Ed, my dear friend who's no longer with us, got it long ago in L.A., and left it to me, along with a deluxe Cuisinart and a liking for long walks and twig tea. I'm not religious at all, but this picture's so gorgeous. I draped it in a string of red felt roses (birthday present last year) to mimic the miracle she's famous for.

Josefina, my next-door neighbor, keeps her large statue of Our Lady in a little cage, with ceramic siesta guards napping away (and of course, twinkle lights for extra magic).
My Puerto Rican neighbors next door don't care so much about La Virgen – but they do like frogs.
Around here, if you wanted to, you could dress up head to toe in La Virgen. And that tattoo's starting to look pretty good to me. Orale!

Pimp my Volvo

You know you live in the hood when even the ice cream truck has spinning tire rims.



The ice cream vendor who drives down my street also drives me nuts. He stops in front of my house while the 20 or so kids who live on the block line up to buy their 3rd or 4th sugar rush of the day.

While he's stopped, the maddening music chiming out from his truck does not. "Do your ears hang low? Do they wobble to and fro?" repeats and repeats till I'm ready to go out and yell at him like a crazy lady.

Maybe that's why he sits behind a steel mesh cage, with a little ice-cream-sized hole through which he takes money and passes treats.

Yesterday, I noticed his rims. They spun and gleamed in the sunshine. They weren't the really fancy ones. Still, this guy had taken the time and trouble to install spinning rims on his ice cream truck. Maybe he was hoping to beat out the competition with these rims. Maybe he was thinking that children in the hood would spurn a truck with non-pimped tires.

Or maybe, sadder still, he just wanted some really cool rims. For his ice cream truck.
Which I have come to understand, living here.

I was mesmerized the first time I saw a set of spinning rims. A Hummer was idling next to me at a light, and I looked over and saw that...even...though...the...car...was...stopped...it...still...looked...like...
it...was...MOVING!

I fell in love with those shiny spinner disk rims and then I started seeing them everywhere, because in my neighborhood they are the pinnacle of car fashion, along with hydraulic lifts, ear-splitting speakers and an awesome paint job in acid green or maybe purple.

I secretly started wondering what my white Volvo station wagon would look like if I put a set of flash rims on its sturdy Swedish frame. So far, I haven't. But if even the ice-cream guy has spinners, maybe it's time to pimp my Volvo.