The UN song and THE CHICKEN STORY

I know, you get to hear the chicken block watch story. Yes, you are very excited.

BUT FIRST! (yes, I *BAIT* and switch-ed ya.)

About a month ago I went to the UN Day: A Tribute to Peace Keeping Concert at the UN (yay for free tickets to awesome things, love my job!). The last song they played was THIS: The Price of Silence.

It is actually a really fun song and has artists like Sister Fa, Natalie Merchant, Aterciopelados, Emmanuel Jal, and Angelique Kidjo. Now I was lucky to see some of these artists in concert. BUT the best part of this video is that you get to see fake delegates dancing inside of a computer generated UN General Assembly Hall, and it is THE FUNNIEST THING to watch ACTUAL UN footage mixed with fake delegates dancing soooo poorly. Also there is a creepy pregnant lady dancing who wore, I kid you not, a dress with a GIANT FETUS on it made out of felt.

And yeah, that's the photo that I took when I saw President Obama speak at the UN cause I am that awesome. You know it. Awesome and poor. (Doesn't the guy behind him kind of look like "Oh crap, not this hope and change BS again..."? Poor man, he's so tired from his long translation or long flight ;).)

AND NOW, THE CHICKEN STORY:

So, in addition to all my many jobs and titles and accomplishments and yadda yadda I am so cool and BROKE, I am the president of the Upper Orange Street Block Watch (formerly the East Rock Block Watch). My responsibilities in this position revolve around informing members of the block watch of devious activities in the neighborhood. When there is crime, people tell me, and then I email everyone else and scare the bejesus out of them, and they all email me back going "OMG, Alya, that is so totally AWFUL! Did they call the cops! I hope everyone is okay! Did the cat make it out of the tree?"

No but seriously, this is Urban New Haven. We do have real crimes. Y'all remember Annie Le? :( She was the Yale graduate student that they found in the WALL. Yeah. New Haven has 2.5 TIMES as many homicides PER CAPITA as NYC. Step it up, NYC we're making you look bad. Or Safe. Whatever.

Most of my emails are like

"A car was stolen here at this time, suspect unknown. If you saw anything please call the cops. kthanks, Alya."

BACK TO THE CHICKEN.

There is this competing Block Watch. They're called the SoHU group, for South of Humphrey Street. ooooo they have an Acronym.... Fancy... Whatever. ANYWAY the president of THAT group sends out, I'd estimate, about 30 TIMES more emails than I do. Their group is more of a Block ORGANIZATION though. I just do crime and traffic. I also try to only report on incidents that occur in MY AREA. She sends stuff out for all of New Haven. I don't like to clog the inboxes, you know?

So on Thursday she sends this email. I'm gonna just paste the email WORD FOR WORD:

Subject: SoHu: Missing Chicken

Hi All,

A neighbor at ## Clark street keeps some chickens. 4 of them. They just chased a hawk away from their yard, but one of the [chickens] is missing. She doesn't know if a hawk got her, or if the chicken flew over the fence because she was scared.

She’s reddish brown and she really blends in with the leaves this time of year. Her name is Ginger but chickens aren’t very good at coming when called.

If you see the chicken, can you please let me know asap.

Thanks,
Lisa
PERSONAL CONTACT INFO
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Group "South of Humphrey", the SoHu block watch community group. http://sohunewhaven.org
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/newhaven_sohu?hl=en

... Let me show you a picture of New Haven.

This is not the best place for a chicken.

Let me calm all of your fears and say:

Subject: SoHU: GINGER FOUND!

Hi All,

Ginger was found cowering in the bushes out on Clark St. Call off the missing chicken alert! Thanks to you all who responded so quickly!

L
Lisa

I'm really glad my efforts to drop everything I was doing to go look for that missing chicken didn't go to waste. It would have been devastating if we had to put out a Ginger Alert and she was taken by that hawk!

To understand WHY people in New Haven, CT, the third largest city in Connecticut with a population of 125,000 people now have chickens in their backyards, please read this article (the photo is of the SoHU alderman, Roland Lemar, and my ex-Alderman, who has been replaced by Justin Elicker). Or you can read this article in Urban Chickens... no seriously?

Thanks for reading and best regards,
Alya

Recruiter Vs. My Mom: Round 1

As some of you may know I intend on joining the U.S. Navy as a commissioned officer.

So my recruiter came to the house today to have me sign some paperwork. And she met my mother. If ever I needed motivation for suicide... ha ha ha... ha ha ha kidding!

...

Now For those of you who have met my mother, you know she is sometimes not so good with "the people." Especially the people she thinks may be conservative. So firstly, instead of knowing how to address Chief Juliet Snell, NCC Navy Recruiter NRD New England, she called her "girlfriend." As in "girlfriend! What are all those buttons for?" (by buttons she was referring to Chief Snell's 12 Naval Medals, including a distinguished service ribbon, a good conduct ribbon, a global war on terrorism medal, and a humanitarian service medal for her work during both Katrina and some flooding somewhere. That's 12 not including duplicates. 20 years of service and my mom calls her "girlfriend."

Oh and my mom tries to get Chief Snell to let my mother wear her hat. Which I just have to say was ENTIRELY DISTRACTING while I'm signing paperwork. So distracting in fact, that I misspelled MY OWN NAME. TWICE. Yeah, devastated.

Enjoy my pathetic life! I can only hope the Navy takes pity on me by making me an officer candidate after putting me through so much paperwork. I mean, I have a recommendation from a United Nations Ambassador. My application does kind of kick ass.

Thanks for reading and best regards,
Alya

Russian phone calls

I heard a noise this morning that drew me out of my sleep. I couldn't quite place it. It was as if someone was trying to contact me...

My father called from Russia and as a result I woke up to every phone in the house making this annoying ringing sound. I was under the assumption they didn't do that until about 9:30 or so.

Of course, no one ever calls me on the house phone so I never pick it up. I assume if you are calling between 9:30 am (when phones turn on) and 4:30 pm you are a telemarketer, and if you call after that, you're looking for my mother or a donation. No one calls me on the house phone, I have a cell phone, and no one I know even knows my home phone number.

But if you call at half past six in the morning, you have a problem. So I get out of bed, go downstairs and get the phone (yeah, it's THAT loud). I am so tired and out of it my entire conversation with my father, while my mom is on the phone, basically was the following:

me: Hello? Who is this and why am I awake?
mom: You don't have to be awake. (burn)
me: But I am. What are you selling. I don't want any.
dad: It's your father.
mom: Where are you standing?
me: ...what...
mom: Where are you standing?
me: Up.
mom: In the house? Where in the house?
me: At the top of the stairs to my part of the house.
dad: How did you get a phone?
me: I went downstairs
mom: Okay well it's just dad so go back to bed.
me: I thought you were a time-zone confused telemarketer.
dad: I'm not.
me: Good.
mom: I don't remember putting a phone up there.
me: Bye dad.
Click.

No...seriously? Is this my family?

Is it just me or does it seem like from this conversation alone, not only have I been relegated to the top floor of the house, but they also have attempted to cut me off from humanity? They both seemed SHOCKED at my ability to acquire a telephonic device at 6:30 in the morning.

And thing of it is, I'm really just thinking about this, and dwelling on it like a high school kid, because I don't want to think about how Adam Lambert was robbed of his idol crown last night. I've said it on Facebook, and I'll say it again: His not winning Idol is a blessing because now he can shape is own career and he won't have to sing "no boundaries", which is a HORRIBLE song. Plus, whoever that kid who won was... will be forgotten in no time.

Yeah, this might end up being that kind of blog. But you were hoping for that, weren't you. You're so cynical, Dearest Reader.

Thanks for reading and best regards,
Alya