1083 McKimmy















Look at that, the house I lived in last year is up for sale! Not a bad place, on the water, and in a nice neighborhood with nice neighbors (mostly), but I sure don't want to buy it! I think my favorite memory of that place is when the owners came to get the keys from us and the car was full to the roof with our belongings and we were about to head out on our road trip to New York to catch the plane back to Germany.
It's always funny when you've lived somewhere, and then it's for rent or sale again, and someone new moves in. When I see these places in Dresden, I always wonder "who is living in my place?", especially with my last big apartment. Even though I have a nice place now, I feel I betrayed my old place, with its grand hallway and big rooms, high ceilings and antique doors, by leaving for the new world last year.
Even though I don't feel any remorse for leaving McKimmy Drive, or as if I have betrayed that house (more like it betrayed me for stealing 10 months of my life with its dark walls and loud furnace), let's reminisce a little about the good times there. There were good times? Well, amusing times at least.

The bunnies
One of our favorite, and only, pastimes on McKimmy Drive was to go down the street to the west and view the bunnies. These were not just any bunnies, but bunnies escaped or set free from someone's bunny farm on the next street. They were precious dwarf rabbits, black, spotted, brown, cream, steel gray, and they had lots of precious bunny babies starting in early spring. The flip side of this coin, however, is that the neighbors loathed these bunnies. Often one would disappear, and we would hear sinister laughter and things like "Got 'im!" after a gunshot. The sad end of another bunny's life.

Crazy Dave
One evening we went to visit the bunnies, and were accosted on the way home by whom we later dubbed "Crazy Dave". Darkness was beginning to fall, and Crazy Dave ran out to the street and started talking nonstop to us in his drunken slur. He wanted to know everything about us, because he and his parents-in-law had been observing us for months, as neighbors will. He also told us all the details about his "f)§/king crazy" parents-in-law and his "beautiful" wife. Then he proceeded to take my husband to the barn on one side of the street to the men, who were drinking hard liquor and talking about cars or something, and me to the other side of the street to the house, where the women were having a party, because I "had to meet them". What kind of party were they having on this Friday night in rural Michigan? A sex toy party. Come to find out, Crazy Dave's "f)§/%king crazy" mother-in-law was practically a colleague of mine, working in the same school district. Oh boy oh boy oh boy.

Fish bread
While living in this house, we always saved old bread to feed to the fish in the pond across the street or in the lake. These bags of bread deposited in various places around the house came to be known as fish bread, and Wilhelm would seek them out, and we would find him gnawing on hard chunks of bread at various times of day. When asked if he would prefer some fresh bread, he would always refuse, insisting on eating the stale fish bread. Fish bread has come to be one of his favorite snacks, and is best when it is aged at least a few days so it is nice and hard.

Trailer Park Boys
It was during our time on McKimmy Drive that we first heard of the show Trailer Park Boys from Canada. We instantly became obsessed, got the movie and all episodes of the show, and watched them from start to finish a number of times. In a lot of ways, this show reminded us of our current situation, and for added entertainment value, we would sometimes go drive through Lakeview Village, Beaverton's trailer park. Watching this show was at least for me a way of forgetting that I had to go to work the next day, and a way of forgetting everything, just switching off and forgetting. I'm glad I don't need that show now any more, and that I can deal with reality where I am now much better.

And with that, I wish 1083 McKimmy Drive all the best with its new tenants or owners or whatever, and may I give them one piece of advice: tear the place down, landscape and build something new!

The brothel at the end of my street

Well, okay, to be honest, there is not a brothel actually on the street that I live on (as far as I know...) but there is one opening up at the end of the street you look down from my front windows. Heh heh heh.
The responsible, grown up, parent of (almost) 2 children part of me says "What's happening to the neighborhood??" And the other ridiculous, silly part of me is sort of thrilled to live so close to a brothel. Well, "massage parlor and escort service" is technically what it's called.
The thing that's really hilarious about the whole grand brothel opening is that it seems it is being done to spite someone. You see, the now brothel owner bought this little house and garden between a row house and some storage garages, fixed it up and rented out the front part of his garden as parking places to make some money. He built his parking places a bit too big, though, and crossed the property line to the property belonging to the garage owners. Garage owners tore out his paving stones and also decided to tear down the garages to build a new row house, a shicky-mickey passive house or low energy house. Little house owner's revenge on passive house builders? Open a brothel. According to inside sources, this guy has basically said screw those people building their passive house, we'll see how high the rent for those apartments is with a brothel next door! He has decided not to move into his little house, but has already put up a sign for "Candy's Massage Parlor and Escort Service". In German, of course. I love it.
In other brothel news, I heard a pretty funny story. Someone I know knows someone in the Czech Republic who teaches the ladies of the night at a brothel there English. First of all, the idea of an English class for prostitutes is just fantastic. But that's not even the funny part. This brothel in the Czech Republic is making a killing one day a week by offering men free or reduced admission (I can't remember which), as long as they sign a waiver that any and all acts that they commit while in said brothel may be broadcast on the internet.