30/365- room with a view

We've been living here in our apartment for almost a year and a half.  It is a great place.  We have two large bedrooms, a big kitchen with lots of cabinets for storage.  An eight minute walk to the T.  Lydia's grocery store just down this hill.  Bec and Frank are an 8 minute walk away.  It is a great place.

Our apartment does have some funny things about it however...  Our walls are covered in plaster... I actually have a love for our "stucco" walls (they are a great conversation piece).  We are quite familiar with Amy Weinhouse's music  (sung by our neighbor, the fifty-something bike messenger who decorates our side yard really weirdly... more on that another time).   And yes, we do smell the weed when he is smoking up.  It comes right through the floors!

But there is one thing that I see every day that is also strange.  From "my" seat on the couch you can look out to see the tops of the neighbor's houses.  And of course the telephone pole that has about a million wires connected to it.  We do live in Somerville, at one time the most dense population per square mile in the country.  Needless to say there are lots of people who live here in multi-family homes, all squished together.

But the funny thing about this view is the two pairs of sneakers hanging on the wires.  For about a year there was one pair.  Now a few months ago a second pair arrived on the wire.  I remember that in the 80's or maybe still today that it meant that there was a crack house around.  Now I'm not so sure that there is a crack house in our neighborhood... but you never do know.   This is not the first time I've seen this in a neighborhood I've lived in.  And I do feel that we live in a safe neighborhood.  But it got me thinking and I decided to google it.  It turns out that there are many theories about the shoes tossed over power lines.  The crack house theory was at the top of the list... as well as heroin, or gang violence.  But there were many other more benign reasons... a right of passage, end of school, a forthcoming marriage, or even as a celebration when someone gets out of bootcamp.  And of course just a silly prank that kids play.  For more info check out wikipedia.

I prefer to think of it as a silly thing in our neighborhood.  I do wish I could cut them down.  But I just don't know how.  It is really funny looking when they have snow built up on them when there is a storm.  Anyway, I had to take a picture of this, because it is something I look at just about every day.  And it makes me think.   I wonder how many pairs will end up there.  Who threw them up there?  And how long it will take for the laces to break.  They are just a funny thing, dangling out there in the wind amongst the power lines.  Weird.