A Brief Interruption A Slight Malfunction

When there was a gun fight immediately outside our windows, then not a police interview, detailed news article, or care from the community I couldn’t understand how people could be so apathetic.

After living here a year I’ll spell out the desensitization process:

[PS I have much more to say about all of this, but this is just a quick summary.]

In AZ I got crime alert emails. I checked a 3 mile radius around our house. There was mostly stolen bikes or an occasional fight, but I’d say I would have a list of about 8 incidents per week.

In Saint Louis, I have the same brand crime alerts. I have the radius set at 1 mile and I get 2-3 alerts per day with 7-8 incidents each. At first I read them all. Now, I only engage with the alerts within 3 blocks of the apartment–otherwise it’s just too much.

*

Something huge and scary happens (a 14 person machine gun fight immediately outside of your windowed loft).

There is no substantial response or follow-up.

The community downplays it (see my Reddit thread on a different post). The loft, police, media all ignore it.

We never found out who/why or what came of it, but now there is a bullet hole in our car.

*

We pay for a parking spot within the locked gates. My 1999 car was broken into anyway.

The apartment didn’t tell us if they checked the video, and we don’t know if the person was caught.

It took like 9 weeks for the window to be replaced because everyone has busted out windows. Now that it’s “fixed” we can’t ever roll that window down because it won’t go up again.

We called the police to file a report and 2 officers came by then chatted with us for a long time:

Me: Do you know what happened when there was a shootout here???

LE: When? Naw, we weren’t working.

ME: There’s gunshots a lot around here. I called 9-11 two other times when I heard them?!

LE: Oh yeah, it IS Saint Louis. It’s actually pretty good up North, people there are really part of a community.

ME: Ummm, Reddit said there were automatic guns–do you guys see automatics?

LE: Oh yeah [said like, duh, obviously].

*

Then, our storage units in the apartment building were broken into. My $300 Sorrel snowboots, $130 Roxy snowboard jacket, and $100 snowboard/bike helmet were stolen. Among other things.

The apartment did not send a text like they do about parking, we don’t know if they checked the cameras or key fob memory–and they certainly didn’t tighten security in the storage area.

We made a police report, and he came, looked incredibly bored, did not even step onto the property let alone go inside to see the broken storage doors, and didn’t say they would investigate.

Nothing came of it.

*

There were more gunshots. When I called 911 they asked if I could SEE the guns. No. OK, let us know…

Nothing came of it.

*

At Christmas, a package of hand-knitted scarves and (MY ULTIMATE FAVORITE) homemade peanut butter bon bons was stolen.

The apartment didn’t tell us if they looked at the camera footage or not. And the mail room was not made more secure.

The USPS assured me they had delivered the package and closed the case without doing anything else.

We didn’t even call the police. If they didn’t care about hundreds of dollars worth of belongings stolen, they weren’t going to care about scarves and treats.

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On my email alerts it said someone was raped. IN OUR building! We couldn’t find anything else about it.

We started leaving the loft in pairs, and only during daylight.

*

More shooting. And a fight. Should we even bother to call 9-11? I did. Can you see the gun? Yes. Is it being pointed at anyone? Yes, he’s standing on the floorboard of his car, swinging it around at multiple people. But nobody was even sent over (this is 11AM on a Tuesday). No word what happened. I got an email alert and they had listed my call under “sundry.”

We texted the apartments and they asked which cars. We never heard if they looked at the cameras, or if the gunman got in any kind of trouble…

*

One winter evening I was closing the blinds at 5PM and the next block over there was a car on fire. I called 9-11 and they said fire was on their way. The firetrucks showed up, put the fire out, and went on their way in less than 30 minutes.

It wasn’t on the news, or the neighborhood app. It was not even listed in my crime alert emails. We have no idea what happened…

Nothing came of it.

*

We work from home and around 10AM there was chaotic knocking on the door to our loft. We weren’t expecting anyone so we hung back. A few minutes later someone tried their key. Luckily, we have a security bar wedged up when we’re home. We didn’t know who it was!

We texted and called the apartment management and heard nothing back… For 3 days.

In the interim, somebody used their key without knocking in the afternoon.

Another day, I had gone to bed and was sleeping, and Cool said they used their key again (without knocking) trying to get inside!

At no time did this person/people announce themselves.

Finally, the manager called back and said inspections are in our lease, but he would talk to the guys about knocking. He wouldn’t tell us WHY we were being inspected.

Nobody ever came back.

Nothing came of it.

*

I read a news report that a homeless man was sitting on the sidewalk across from the courthouse/DMV/registrar/etc.., etc… (less than a mile from our apt) late-morning, with a lot of people out and about. Someone shot him in the head point blank and someone else posted the video to Twitter.

The case is ongoing.

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That said, when we ordered wedding-type rings and they were not delivered inside of the mailbox, but stolen instead–we didn’t even bother making a police report.

Again, the apartment didn’t care. We don’t know if they checked the cameras. I persistently contacted them, and they told me to file an insurance claim…

Nothing came of it around here though.

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Isn’t it funny after reading that your first sense is to blame the victim? You should’ve known, YOU moved there, why don’t you just move? And maybe your second inclination is to say it’s systemic, or it’s just as bad in other places, or bringing up politics, gun-control. But none of that is helpful. I (everyone) should have an expectation of being safe-end of story.

So there you have it. When so many, many things happen. When BIG things happen. People stop calling the police. Because this event is actually better than that last one. Or they don’t call because they know the dispatcher will mark the call “sundry” or police won’t come out at all, or they’re busier with larger matters. People stop telling their housing manager because it’s made obvious that not only do they NOT care one iota, they’re not going to do anything, and we won’t hear anything back. And you stop reporting to the USPS because they also won’t do anything either. So people learn to live with it.

And that’s not OK.

goals achieved in 2019 and goals for 2020

-kept up on in-a-row runs

On January 2nd, I will have run at least 1 mile every day in a row for 6 years and 1 day!  2192 days in a row!  Go me.  At this point, this one would be harder to break than follow.  So it you’re dedicated, in-a-rows really do work.  Pick one habit that’s really important to you and try it.

 

-continued making a weekly menu, grocery list, and sticking to that at the store.  And shopping at Winco.

We stuck to this pretty well, and it worked.  We just have to continue maintaining it.

-Continued to put on makeup and fix my hair every day for work.  

I wore makeup every day.  And I fix my hair!

-Drink 12 cups of water a day.

This one varies depending where I am, what I’m doing, the temperature, etc…  I have mostly been very good about drinking water.

-went to the doctor.

Did it.  Will probably have to do it again soon.  Don’t enjoy it.  Mostly because I hate logistics and having my schedule messed up.  But I need to get my Rx renewed and also find a dermatologist.

-dentist twice a year.

fail.  I need to find a new dentist now that I have a real job with real insurance.  It’s on my calendar.

-Floss daily.

I flossed 197 days last year.  53.97% of the time.  That’s just about 3.5 days per week.  I mean, I’ll take it.  Tiredness is most certainly a factor.  But hopefully it’s a little better in 2020.  I will try to get it done earlier in the day this year–that might help.

-workout at least 5 days a week.

We worked out (above and beyond the mile) 165 days last year says my Daylio app.  That’s 45% of the time, which is a lot better than I thought!  We can (and will) do better, but I’ll take nearly half of the time.  It’s built into our work day schedule, but it gets a lot harder on holidays and sometimes weekend, or when it’s very cold or hot, or the afore-mentioned appointments.  I think once we get into the routine we’ll want to do it and it will be easy to keep up.

-cook at home and meal prep on weekends to make the week easier.

Mostly.  And it sure helps a lot.  We live cheaper and make better choices when the food is waiting for us.  As I was standing at work today, I decided I need to give us more credit for this one.  It’s a lifestyle change and it’s cool that we’ve managed it a lot of the time.  I keep food ideas on my Google calendar.  Then we make a menu or what we feel like, or what a holiday or event dictates.  Then break it down into ingredients.  And that becomes the shopping list.  Which I write in the order of the layout of the store we go to so it’s fast to grab things.  Then we 98% stick to the list at the store, only putting things in the cart that are on our list.  Then we do a cooking.  And put things into split tupperwares for every day at lunch (saves money, saves calories), and put the rest in bigger tupperwares to grab throughout the week.  It takes some time but I get hangry a lot and having things at the ready keeps my decisions cheaper and healthier.

-pay off the Visa. 

I submitted double the minimum every month, but there is still money on it.  Moving and unemployment made it a little crazier than I’d like.  But it’s a work in progress.  It wasn’t for lack of trying.

-read.

Failed.  I started off with very technical 800 page book, then slogged through it.  By the time I finished I was a little burned out.  Then, all the commuting ate up my time.  And changing jobs was a whole big thing.  Etc, etc…  This next year we’re going to ease back into it by reading at least 10 min a day because that’s just 1% of my waking hours so I don’t feel overwhelmed by that.

 

Ok, so all of that.  And in 2020:

 

Save money for a car before November.

Do that by eating out and ordering in less.  Get what we can from the dollar store.  Price compare between Amazon, Walmart, and Costco when getting non-grocery items.  Do bountiful baskets to eat more produce and save money.  Use less, waste less.

 

More time for creative endeavors.

Spend 1% of waking hours doing each thing.  We’re setting the interval timer app to do 4 times of 10 minutes.  Each 10 min segment works out to 0.9% of our waking hours.  So even though I get antsy and feel like I need to be doing something “important” it is so much easier to think of it as a small portion of my day.  Makes it more manageable.  I think as we get in the groove, we can add more activities or lengthen time spent, but one thing at a time.  I just want to make a habit of including creativity into every day.

 

I might add more goals later, depending on how the ones on this list go.  And I think I’m going to do the monthly evaluation blogs again, because those really helped me keep tabs and stay accountable.