Oh These Are The People In Your Neighborhood

 What a Martes Gigante we had yesterday! Wifey and I and Bo the ancient Spaniel fetched Little Man from school and gave him his expected honey yogurt, and Wifey put on his cleats and we went to his T Ball activity. Ah, the memories it brought back to me -- of my first day of Little League, at 7, nearly 8 years old.

The manager, Mr. Casale, who was my friend Bobby's Dad and later had to move to Queens after some illegal dips into the widow Mrs. Vukov's well (Mrs. Casale was none too pleased) told me to go warm up the pitcher. I squatted behind home plate, the pitcher bounced the ball on said plate, and said ball hit me square in the right eye. I bawled -- I was NOT a tough kid and not used to getting smacked in the eye. My Dad took me home, we iced the eye, and I announced I was DONE with baseball! Fortunately my Dad convinced me to give it another try, and it became my sport -- I actually made the high school team before dropping out in 11th grade on account of I found girls to be more attractive than daily after school practices.

But now they start them at 5! The coach, an affable Cuban guy, tried to herd 11 of them into drills. On the adjacent field were the older kids -- 9-11, including a girl who hit the hell out of the ball. I banished all thoughts of transgender issues from my mind -- she appeared to be a biological girl just much better than the boys.

I stood out on the field sort of helping the coach -- reminding the running boys to hit the bases as they circled the field. When it came Little Man's turn to bat, he hit a solid shot off the tee, but didn't realize it was time to run, so I encouraged him, and he made his way to first, talking to me the entire trip. Although he has good eye/hand coordination, he seems to run like me, which is to say, slowly. D2 picked that up in the video -- I was never fleet of foot. I guess we'll see -- Joey is pretty fast -- hopefully he got some of those genes from his Dad.

After an hour, he had totally lost focus, and we left. I told D1 and Joey that, in my humble opinion, maybe 5 is too young to start baseball. Joey agrees; D1 is taking it under advisement.

We brought in Anthony's Coal Fired, and there was soccer in the back yard, and a visit from Isabel, an adorable 9 year old who just moved in. She announced that her grandma said she wasn't allowed inside houses, so D1 and I walked over to meet said grandma, a hilarious Russian Jewish lady, probably about 70. She was born in Belarus, and lived in NYC. She was probably a looker back in the days of Glasnost. We liked her right away, and she dug us. She said I "vould drink vodka vith my husband Ilya," and I look most forward to that. I told her my parents always said their parents came from "Russia," but Ina pointed out that the cities, Bialystok and Czernovitz are now in Poland and Ukraine. Lot of shuffling back in the day.

And then we heard about the kerfuffle! D1 and Joey found a true oasis for their home: gated community of 18 houses. The people who bought them new paid between $700 and $900K -- since 2016 they've nearly tripled in value, and to rent one, it costs nearly $20K per month. So one of the owners did just that -- moved elsewhere and are renting -- to a good looking, childless couple who do something that lets them afford this high rent -- and the man, who I'll call Bobby, since that's his name, had a tragedy. One of the kids plastic helicopters, which weighs maybe one ounce, supposably (yep -- keep using that Miami spelling) fell onto his Porshe, "denting it." His wife Amy, not hard on the eyes but apparently not very bright, asked on the neighbor chat whose toy it was, and D1 and Joey's next door neighbor Sara, a lovely Alabama woman, said it was indeed her sons -- the toy got stuck in a tree on Xmas day, and just recently fell out in the wind (proof of how light the toy was). Amy wouldn't return the toy to Sara -- she said her husband needed a "convo."

Somehow D1, working on her balcony on this beautiful day, heard the asshole Bobby yelling at Sara and calling her a "fat ass" before breaking said toy on the ground. Also, Bobby and Amy are angry that kids play in the street (the very reason for this 'hood is the safety from traffic it provides) and refuse to drive slowly.

Hopefully a mediation occurs, or these people move, or get arrested from defrauding people, which would be the MOST Miami ending possible. Drama.

Here, the funny drama is typically the creation of Riva, who has some screws lose. She had published an angry post on Pinecrest Neighbors, which I read since, like the Styx song, I have too much time on my hands. Riva was livid that a neighbor put a dog poop bag into her trash bin.

This am, I learned the culprit. It was the Doodle Quincy! Actually, Quincy supplied the poop, his dog Mom Elissa tossed the poop, was caught on camera, and received a classic passive aggressive VM from nut case Riva. "Hi. My cameras caught a woman who looks like you walking a dog that looks like Quincy putting dog poop in my trash bin. So you should be ashamed."

I don't know Elissa that well, or as she told the story I would have grabbed her and kissed her saying "It was YOU, Elissa -- you broke my heart!"

We just got a magazine from Pinecrest crowing that crime is at a record low. We had an incident where a homeless creep grabbed a woman as she was on an afternoon jog -- then fled on a bicycle. They arrested him up in Palm Beach County. The long arm of local product Jason Cohen, our police chief, proved too much for the pervert.

So things are pretty damned good. But drama seeking rich folks seem hell bent on creating drama. I hope Riva's show dog loses all his competitions, and Bobby and Amy's Porsche gets wrecked in a parking lot. There -- I said it. May time wound all heels...