Flatirons - Mt Pleasant

Friday morning at 5 AM Tim and I arrived at St. Claire Hospital in Fenton where I was having surgery on my hand. I had been up for 20 hours and was a bit delirious. Should have taken the camera, the waiting room (Tim said) looked like a Shrine and the counter (I swear) looked like an altar.

I like my doctor, he a stitch. I felt for the poor nurses who were baffled my absence of an obvious vein to run the IV. Nurse 1 tried everything including the rubber hose and usual prodding. After five minutes Nurse 2 stepped up with no success. The anesthesiologist finally gave it a shot, kneeling down next to the bed.

You're holding me up, my favorite doctor said.
I flipped him off under the guise of discussing my useless finger.
What kind of pain med do you want, he asked, tapping a pen on the script pad.
I'm allergic to all narcotic pain pills but my dentist gave me something non narcotic so I'll use those.
No script?
No, I have some at home.
Anyone else want a script, he asked of the nurses but no one laughed. He's a stitch, I tell you and one big ass pharm pimp.

The last thing I remember saying was something about how men should always be on their knees when talking to me. One nurse guffawed and that was when the anesthesiologist opened the line. Lights out!

I slept most of Friday, woke up in time to take some mail orders to the post office (ignoring the Don't Drive advice and found myself driving down a one way street. Bad, very bad). It took another 12 hours for the anesthesia to dissipate.

I picked up something in the hospital of course. Some nasty stomach bug in addition to my slashed hand wrapped in gauze which was pulled open today when Beau lunged on the leash. Worse, the gauze was stuck to the stitches which gave my stomach an extra turn.

Just in case you're wondering I type with two fingers.

By yesterday afternoon I was feeling recovered (before the stomach flu) and Tim and I drove the Mount Pleasant neighborhood so I could snap some photos of two flatiron buildings:

Just imagine what this looked like with pavers and street car tracks.
This building is now smartly owned by an architect and I am envious. Tim said this building was built by Anheuser-Busch and was a tavern.


Triple arch alert!



Sonrie likes these green glazed bricks but I'm queer for the amber color. BTW, white mortar was always used with glazed brick to make them POP.



In the front of this second flatiron is an original planter on the sidewalk that resonates with the buildings design.

Wrap around step that some idiot painted red.

Dreamy ivory glazed terra cotta.


I'm betting the original door had a keyhole design.

When I first saw this circle within circle motif I thought: Celtic. Bad Tim Said it's a Moorish influence.


Water struck bricks.

Flecks of feldspar in the brick and large pebbles in the mortar.

These buildings sit on triangular island blocks on Virginia in the Mt Pleasant neighborhood.

Cheap Sleeps

Many years ago (long before my brother starting appearing the in Pirate movies) I had a dream that Johnny Depp and I were business partners in Cheap Sleeps.

I happen to dream in feature length movies often with landscapes influenced from reading William Gibson novels in the 80s and hanging with the likes of the Survival Research Laboratories guys.

Cheap Sleeps was a series of sleeping chambers that could be rented by the night for 10.00. It was my creation: 6 steel silo-like buildings with an elevator in the middle that made various stops at sleeping pods. The pods were smaller silos and were stored vertically against the building when vacant. When in use (accessed with a purchased card) they turned horizontal for a 10 hour stay.

Our clientele was mostly transients. Do you recall those old linen towel dispensers in bathrooms? Your pulling on the towel would also cause another roller to pull in what was soiled. This is how the bedding was changed in Cheap Sleeps. Whenever someone carded out the door the roller would change the linen!

It was a thriving business and Johnny was an investor but a mega slacker. Some of the silos were beginning to show rust and Depp was refusing to make with the elbow grease.

We had a small office below the flickering red neon CHEAP SLEEPS sign and one night, while listening to rain spatter on the tin roof I scolded Johnny for being greedy and unconcerned about a gleaming surface. His apathy was infuriating and his proclivity for flicking ashes on the floor while dabbing orange Kool Aide behind his ears was getting on my last nerve. Worse, he dressed like one of our clients but with an expensive deliberation that I found to be mocking.

He scoffed at my proposition for a free sleep-in once a month.
He was all bottom line, leather soles, and smoky whiskey. His hair had been dyed a rich shade of red oxide and his jeans had been professionally ripped.

He snottily informed me that rusted steel was the preferred finish of choice for many surfaces in his home. It was maddening.

The End.

Send Flowers

I have to go back.
I missed doing photos of the stained pink pointing on this exquisite building. It's critical because the emphasis is on the phenomenaland v aried brickwork and the terra cotta relief. The objective was no visible mortar hence the staining and using rubbed brickwork wasn't an option. Marble steps and limestone foundation.

Sunflowers in a vase surrounded by egg and dart:


Radial, bull nose, pyramid, and were those edges rubbed off?


The owner kindly talked to me about his building which was built in 1895 and is
located on 39 Iowa. Thanks Tom!

Glazed White Bricks at City Hall

I am enamored of the glazed white brick walls in the courtyard at City Hall. I like to think they were used to bounce and reflect light during dismal winter months. Like today. And yesterday. And the day I took these photos last week.
Being completely solar powered I'm headed for Snoozeville. I may even skip Judge Judy.


Yeowsa!
Seriously ripped columns:

Twenty years ago

One early November morning in 1979 my mother called me at work to tell me Jack's father had been killed in a car bombing. I had heard the news but never made the connection between John Paul Spica and Paul, the guy who owned the produce stand in my neighborhood.

During the next few days I learned just who his father had been via the newspapers (you can do a google search).

I worked downtown, and rode the bus home which stopped at Vandeventer and Shenandoah. I'd cross the hot asphalt in my high heels, buy some produce and wonder about the aloof guy running the stand. Eventually his girlfriend starting working with him and then his son, Jack.

I knew Jack and I lost contact with him years ago. It's one of just very few regrets. He was one of those exceptional people who had the ability to grace a life.

If you have any info please contact me via email on my profile page (and not by comments). Father and son did not share the last name and I no longer remember how to spell his last name.

The Hill

Tim and I used to dine at Zia's on The Hill until I noticed how anxious I became during the ride. I was completely unhinged by the architecture to the point of worrying about spontaneously combustion.

Tim (who is an architect and my constant companion) tolerated (per usual) my increasingly worrisome rants about the chaos I was perceiving: Ultra Modern storefronts next to homes built in the late 1800s. Permastone added to facades. Bizarro painting of limestone and brick. Venus and Adonis sculptures where mafia meets bling in the front yard. YIKES!

I was usually driving which added to the chaos with my literal knee jerk brake stomping whenever I was freshly appalled.

I eventually insisted we had to dine elsewhere but here's some recent photos through the gloam...or maybe this is how I usually experience The Hill.

Just look at this poor house with an elaborate wall that now suffers from siding. CHAOS!


Triple arch alert!
Seriously, triple arches are repeated throughout our city. I'm starting a file of triple arches photos and will report as soon as I've canvased all neighborhoods. Of course this could take years and I lack direction. Just ask Tim, he's been in the car when I'm driving.










Nothing like protecting a slab of concrete with a chain link fence!


Art deco facade:


One remaining granitoid street:

See? Triple arches everywhere. They're EVERYWHERE I tell you!

American Pulverizer

Located on Macklind just south of the Humane Society (where Beau has a standing monthly appointment).

Caling all Bears

They're back!

Yesterday I stepped out of the car on Kingshighway and heard, Caw, caw, caw. I was immensely relieved to hear a crow, the first call I've heard in a decade.

If you're a fan of Crows I recommend reading Desert Notes for its surreal stories, insight and riveting prose. It's a slim volume, probably out of print, check Amazon.

Beau has cooties!

"Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make." -Count Dracula discussing wolves.

Here's poor Beau howling and wearing his Dracula collar:

He was really encouraging me to saddle up and put him back in the car.

That's a soft collar he's wearing, also called a comfort or comfy collar. It's a great alternative to the hard plastic collar given Beau developed a reaction to the plastic. Bumping into the door frame and furniture with the hard collar was frustrating him, I could hear his sighs. So I went to Google, clicked on Shopping and did a search by relevance (lowest price first) where I found this comfort e-collar for 28.00 (shipping included). At Petsmart they're around 40.00 with tax for his size.

Beau has ringworm and it's a beeyatch.
It involves bathing him with medicated shampoo every three days that should be followed by a lime dip which smells like rotten eggs. Since it's cold outside and he's now being bathed inside we've eliminated the lime dip. Pheeeewww (Beau and I agree on this.)

Of course he is contaminating the environment and since it's impossible to see the stuff a relentless cleaning regime is required. Each time he is bathed the bathroom, the gloves I wear, the six towels used to dry him and the shower curtain gets bleached. Every three days.

Every hard surface gets bleached along with my clothing.
Carpets get vacuumed (10 minutes for each carpet and every day) and the bag carried out after one use. The hardwood floors get mopped then washed with Lysol. The couch is currently barricaded and is also vacuumed because he is wily and can leap over the barricade when I'm sleeping.

Ringworm is 'very contagious to all mammals' said his Vet (the amazing and attentive Dr. Wright at the Humane Society of Macklind).

I learned everything I needed to know from a four page hand out from the HS.

My internist incorrectly identified the rash at the base of my neck as ringworm. Dr Wright took a gander and said that I am cootie free. In the interim (it can drag on for years) Beau wears the collar to prevent licking the infection and spreading it on his body.

Beau is progressing well but his servant Renfeild is exhausted from cleaning, bleaching, and doing laundry.