Can you believe I fried a whole new set of batteries in that c.d. player again?! How long were those in there? 2-3 days?

I am indebted to Devil Cat for helping to save my sanity. She reports that she has also experienced the Missing Fish Phenomana.

The case of the Missing Koi Brothers must be put down to Fish on Fish violence with motives unknown. Though, if I were like most law enforcement in this area I would imply that it was The Victem's Own Fault on account of Drugs May Have Been Involved.

I don't know how that got started as the all purpose excuse for the Baltimore Police Department not managing to keep its citizens safe....

and the murder rate has been about the same for years: about 300 people in a city similar in size to Boston, which has about a third that many homicides. People in this area, The County, can be extremely judgemental about it too. They want to blame the victems for living there in the first place ( clearly, they should know better since the Countians had the good sense to have someone in their family move out to the County so they could grow up here) even as they don't want to live next door to "those people who come up here from the city and ruin everything"

A few years ago, I was taking a class of some kind...it was in the summer. Baltimore literally has a subtropical climate during July and August. Hazy, hot, and humid, with air quality that, if you are elderly, asthmatic, or otherwise in ill health, really CAN stop your heart. We have "code red air days" even out here in the County, and, from this time of year on to the fall, it is nothing to be driving to town and see a brown haze over the skyline.

Anyway, at the time of this class, there had been a tragic shooting in a poor neighborhood. "Drugs were involved" and a stray bullet hit a little 4 year old child who was out in front of his house at 11:00 at night. You'd think the overall reaction would be one of sympathy for the parents who lost their child to a random act of violence and craziness - but it wasn't.

"What the hell were those people thinking? Why was their child out on the street at 11:00 at night? I've never had MY pre-school child out in a dangerous area at that time of night..." etc, ad nauseum, and all this from women whose makeup and jewelry that they wore to class were about twice my net worth at the time.

Finally, I couldn't stand it any more. "You have air conditioning in your house?" I asked, mildly.

"Of COURSE we have air conditioning. Who can live without it in this heat?"

"Well, I do. We have ceiling fans, but ,you know, almost none of the houses in that neighborhood have ceiling fans, let alone air conditioning. You ever been in one of those row houses down the city?"

Sullenly: "No"

"Well, I have. I used to live down there. Hard to get any air going at all. Have to keep the windows open all the time, and even that's not too helpful because you only have windows on two sides. Those brick houses - they're just like little ovens, heat up all day long and hold the heat at night. So you know what a lot of families do? They sleep out on the roof. 'Course, that's not really so safe, so a lot of folks will try to get their kids to sleep later in the mornings when the house has cooled down from the night before and hasn't started heating back up yet. Sort of an offset schedule, you know. When it finally cools off, long about 10 or 11, people come out and sit on their stoops to try to catch some air and let the kids play a little while before bed. Too hot to walk up to the park, such as it is, during the day. Blocks and blocks - imagine walking your little kid blocks and blocks in this weather just so he could get on a swingset. Got to be rough, living there, in an unsafe neighborhood, trying to keep your little child cool, worry that the bad air's hurting his lungs and then have some nut come along and shoot him! I think that's just not something those of us who live up here in the County know enough about to really form an opinion on...the moral charecter of the folks who let their kids outside at night."

But, of course, they didn't take the bait on that "those of us". They just gave me that closed County look, the one I'm used to. The look at the Outsider. I'm one of "Them".

Imagine, having to take a class with someone who had actually lived in a row house! What could the County be coming to?