Up here on floor 17, I now find myself as the only remaining occupant. The Bs moved out of their deluxe double unit with a lake view and their neighbor (and mine) has left leaving his unit for sale, though I hear a deal is in the works. Adjacent to me is my Arizona family’s unit, but it’s occupied mostly in the summer. Willie Davis of Packers fame is rarely here as his home base is in L.A.
Uh oh. Hold it. Stephen Jackson and spouse have recently rented a super double unit on the lakeside of this floor. He’s with the Bucks, don’t you know? The other empty unit just sold in warp-speed, purchased by a chap who’s moving on up from a lower floor.
Floor 17 is directly below “heaven,” which is the name I give to the two-story penthouses. Two of the four splendid units are for sale. If I fell, it would do no good to shout and scream upward because the floors are thick enough to deaden any (or almost any) screams. One of my grandsons told me had a dream that he won one of the penthouses in a lottery.
Now and then I see, or think I see, someone on the elevator, a familiar face or two or three. This doesn’t happen often. The friendliest faces are behind the desk in the lobby, particularly the face of Chetney who is the perfect Securitas employee. She sits in the area where the fireplace roars in winter.
But it’s the pounding feet of the floor 17 family of five I miss the most. Their three little boys announced each day with shouts of joy and I loved the sound of their hopeful voices. During Thanksgiving, birthdays and other celebratory events we joined forces to decorate our unit doors, and fill the hallway with fun stuff. Over the years, we became friends and sometimes shared waffles and pancakes at breakfast. For a going-away gift, I gave their family a swell painting that they admired. The mother gave me a swell book with images from the ’40s.
Over the holidays I attended a party held in a Victorian mansion south of me on Prospect, hosted by two who’ve been hosting for decades. Attended by artists and art educators and other interesting folks, the original pitch was for each guest to make an ornament for the trio of trees towering inside. That idea went south a few years ago when the ornament boxes overpowered the event, leaving the two hosts with the monumental job of hanging each one just so. But I must say, they continue to throw a great party and last week’s was no exception, though many of our eyes have dimmed and many of our ears don’t work like they used to. You don’t need to be able to see or hear in order to sip great wine and chow on good food.
Also, I located an ornament (Sheep Ball), I made for their 1991 soiree. Shaped like a weird ball about the size of one Braun might hit, it is fashioned of fake fur, with a little story written on an attached piece of paper. It tells the tale that the sheep ball is an actual ball from one of the sheep tended by shepherds in the long ago. My Moriarty relatives started and still run what was the largest sheep ranch in the United States, spilling over from South Dakota into Montana, so there is authenticity to my sheep ball story. You betcha. Ranchers are getting rich in the Dakotas. Oil! Oil! It’s turned almost dead towns into not dead towns.
So ring a ding ding as Sinatra would sing, it’s 2012, perhaps a bit more interesting year because of the push to push out Obama. And Walker. And I’m predicting an Obama/Hillary ticket would beat the Republicans. The Huffington Post and Robert Reich know.
