Well, we did it. More or less.

Closing was today, and officers of the board signed the mortgage papers that put this mobile home park in our hands and under our management. With the knowledge that we've saved our homes and gained more control over our destiny, I expected to be more excited, but it's been a nightmare year of anxiety and factions. Believe it or not, some residents did not *want* us to save their homes; and we had to assume a couple of disheartening burdens in order to save any for anybody, but the acquisition is a done deal.

About a dozen of us sat around my living room and kitchen this afternoon with coffee, sparkling limeade and Asti, toasting the accomplishment--well, all except for our eldest resident. Ann's 93, pretty sharp, and sits on the Board, and she came back from closing too pissed to toast anything. Ann just sat and looked glum while the rest of us raised our glasses or mugs. She thinks we gave up too much to the former park owner, and I agree. For starters--the woman who inherited the Park, mismanaged it for decades, invested nothing in it, jacked us up for more and more rent to cover water bills and property taxes she never paid, and came within a day of losing the Park before signing a P&S with developers who were going to kick us all out. . .gets to live here RENT FREE for a year!

We had to give her that because that's in the original Purchase and Sales with the developers, which we had to match for Massachusetts to uphold our right of first refusal. And we ALSO have to pay to have an empty, uninhabitable trailer SHE owns hauled away. (She's actually scored a double play with that one--she already took advantage of a desperate couple full-timing in a little silver Airstream: THEY paid the heavy equipment guy who moved the big junk trailer to the back of the Park in the first place. Their campground was closing at the end of the season and they were willing to do *anything* for a lot to park their little home on over the winter.)

So already we're down one home's lot fees for twelve months in our make-or-break first year, when we know we're almost certainly going to run up against a few habitual late-pays who are going to test our eviction resolution even as they continue to thumb their nose at collection attempts by their former landlady. Who should have evicted them in the first place. We've heard she's put liens on some of the homes. Between her liens and our liens, I'm envisioning a contentious future! We'll be fighting over who owns how much of what home in here long after their inhabitants have been booted.

But the paperwork just says we have to let her live here free. It doesn't say we can't make her rue the day. Like when we show up with crowbars to take down her bigass tall stockade fence from that little private fiefdom she created so she wouldn't have to look at all of us hoi polloi. "Goooood morning, Marilyn! What? These? Why, we're here to dismantle the fence. It's against our Rules. We have given you a copy of our Rules. Surely you've read our Rules--'No perimeter fences will be allowed and all existing or proposed fences must have approval by the Board of Directors.' Your six foot fence [crrrack!] has *not* been approved [pryyy!] by the Board of Directors. Sorry, Marilyn, you're one of the hoi polloi now."

Or like when we show up with cement contractors to pour a foundation pad between her home and her best friends' home--the friends who lived here rent free and ran a garage here rent free for decades, and had all their electric usage, like the owner's, paid for by the rest of us all that time. They had somebody's home taken out at one time to give both *their* homes a bigger yard. "Goooood morning, Marilyn, hey GUESS what! Great news! You and Mel are gonna get new neighbors. They're bringing in a doublewide. Oh, hey! I know you and Mel love those bushes and flowers, so why dontcha think about digging them up and transplanting them across your big *back* yard, as a privacy screen--we're gonna be taking some of *that* next week for resident parking."

When we started down this path a year ago, prompted to save people's homes and preserve affordable housing, I figured just *getting* the property would be a long shot. I've never had any illusion about the hard work ahead of us to hang onto and rehabilitate this neglected, ill-favored little neighborhood. But somehow, I thought I'd at least feel a greater sense of relief and accomplishment on closing day. Triumph isn't like you read about.

Lines of Sixes Concerning Five Cats

(They were writing life stories in sentences of six words in one of my tribes. I thought my cats were more interesting subjects than my life, so I had at it.)

Pistol is a thief of paper.
And the old one is Akasha.
Lina's tail comes to a taper.
Rosie is torpid, like a pasha.
Rodents are a snap for Dara.

Pistol I brought in from outside.
Clawless in front--when'd that happen?
Back-clawed, he'll lacerate your hide.
His namesake's really not his weapon.
But truly mar a digit? Dara!

Lanky and lithe, jet-black, Siamese.
Well, half--but what a heritage!
The kitchen mice advance and freeze:
She plummets off the counter's edge.
And times between--ahh, tutors Lina!

Another black one too, a cross.
Half Siamese, half who knows what.
Dara's great gain was someone's loss:
What one rejected, this one sought.
Ever suppose he knew, poor Rosie?

He's the past-tense alpha male.
Used to throw his weight around.
His glower met with puffing tail.
He'd claim the warmest spot, hidebound.
Now the meezers are his teasers.

Akasha's white and soft and clean.
Sumptuous like ermine from the Spiegal.
Imperious she, a cat once queen.
To jostle her was once illegal.
But Rosie's jousting was her ousting.

Pistol too, he chased and cowed.
Though Pistol too his ego flattered.
Akasha ran, and Pistol was proud:
A little bossing's all that mattered.
Then Siamese terrors leveled these errors.

And now Akasha's just a peon.
A trade--but something's very clear:
Gents are subdued many an eon.
Ladies stick up for ladies here!
They make of boys comical toys.

Copyright Briar Rose 2008

AN EARNEST REMINDER!

. . .yet another reason for freedom of choice.

Tree Worship

Where the rimed planks
And toothed eaves frame
The hollow chimes

For dooms of unction,
In a winter compline,
Nailed to rain the crackle

Beaded trees
Whisper aves
To oak and holly

Turnings and veneer
Round those encasked
And sanctifying wraiths

Pitchy with myrrh-
Packed papery skin,
Like wisps of bark,

That greenless ones
Red-sapped of limb
Hammer with Holy Holies.

The ones with feet
Pray to the ones who
Cleared the land of trees--

The ones with roots
Worship the varnished
Casket's prophecies.


Copyright Briar Rose
Winter Solstice
22 December 2007


Illustration:

Casket of Mumma. Gilt copper repoussé on wood reliquary. Mid 7th c. A.D. (St. Benoit sur Loire: Abbey Church)

Some Artists Strive for Immortality. . .

. . .and others find fulfillment in the ephemeral.

At a house abutting our vet's parking lot we discovered this snow sculpture yesterday when we took Lina to have her spay sutures removed. Today we went back with the camera to get some pictures--on a beautiful December day in New England.

Lina's Tribulations

"It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily.
"So it is."
"And freezing."
"Is it?"
"Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately."

Winnie the Pooh

The Cat in the Iron Mask (thank you, Alyn, for the title)

Lina, little Meezer #2, had her important rite of feline passage yesterday, and came home from her spay surgery with shaven belly and Frankencat stitches. She's the most forlorn little thing--moping around like Eeyore! As she walks she hangs her head, and the E Collar bobs and her rabies and ID tags go wap wap wap against it and the bell on her collar jingles. She sounds like a little cat version of Marley's ghost creeping up and down the hall. Just in time for this festive time of year.

She has to turn her head sideways to get in and out of the litter box door, and she tends to shovel the litter with the E Collar, so I have to clean it every time she goes in the box. We take the collar off her when she eats, and she's eating enthusiastically, but of course cats NEVER drink when you just put them in front of a bowl, so we're putting extra water in her canned food and hydrating her mouth several times a day with water from the plastic part of a syringe. Dara gave us several days before we had to resort to the E Collar--this one went to worrying her stitches the minute she got home.

She was only gone from morning to evening, but I missed her terribly--welcome home, little Lina!

Heh heh heh. . .

Guy in jail I write back and forth to sent me this. I'm copying it out verbatim. I don't know where he got it from.

Dear Abby,

My husband is a liar and a cheat. He has cheated on me from the beginning, and when I confront him, he denies everything. What's worse, everyone knows that he cheats on me. It is so humiliating. Also, since he lost his job six years ago, he hasn't even looked for a new one. All he does all day is smoke cigars, cruise around and bullshit with his buddies while I have to work and pay the bills. Since our daughter went away to college he doesn't even pretend to like me and hints that I may be a lesbian. What should I do?

Clueless

Dear Clueless,

Grow up and dump him. Good grief, woman! You don't need him anymore! You're a US Senator from New York running for President of the United States. Act like one!

DARA 1, MOUSE 0

At eighteen months old, Dara came into the formidable glory of her Siamese ancestry yesterday, and the soul of a small rodent who entered our abode alongside a propane line now passes through the pearly gates.

I have had cats since 1979, and this is the first mouse kill.

I couldn't believe the carnage! It covered a foot of rug.

Alyn offered to bring home a can of "Acme Corpse Remover," but I did a pretty good job with the lavender cleanser from the Hispanic market.

I pulled out the stove and an adjacent cabinet, cleaned up mouse feces and lost cat toys, repaired the backing on the cabinet, and am going out to get foam sealant to spray in the rodent super highway. Thanks, Dara! (And still she's crouching there waiting for another victim, too. Goooood little meezer!)