Simon Says - "360 Degrees of Chinese Conflict"
It's been happening a lot lately - landlords fighting. Lots and loud. Today reaches a new high, yes it does.
Their favorite place to fight is in the stairwell, which is bare and echoey, and a convenient place for CCL to stand outside Cheech's door and yell. Sadly, it wafts straight into the music room, and the bathroom. There is nothing that sucks with quite the same quality as incoherent screaming in Mandarin while you are trying to either shower or play the concertina (I'd record a snippet for you, but I have no idea what they are saying, and I could accidentally webcast some private stuff, so I'll refrain).
Leah heard them this morning after she showered. By the time I got out there, they were done.
...or so I thought.
Today, Cheech is fighting back, which is more than his usual grumble from under his door. (Has anyone picked up yet that they are married, and don't live together? That's right - he lives upstairs from me, and she lives next door with their daughter and younger son. Older son lives in the cottage in my backyard.) Still, fighting back means getting in about 1/10 of what she says, but at least it's a two-way.
The negative aspect of Cheech fighting back is that it means that she fights more, with added passion, redder in the face. Cheech, for my sake, take it like a man, and let her get it over with.
Today they have really broken new ground with the geography of fighting, however. I finished my (early afternoon) shower to the sounds of altercation ringing through the stairwell as usual. But then, it went all the way upstairs. Then, back to the stiarwell, out the front door, and into the side yard. It stayed there for a while, and then it moved onto CCL's back porch. From there, it went to my backyard, where it was accompanied by the sound of some sort of heavy Cheech labor (pounding and dragging), and then it moved to the OTHER side yard. She is still at it, ripping Cheech a new one. And then, believe it or not, it went back to the front, and all the way around to the back again. 360 degrees of Chinese conflict.
(a moment of "real-time" blogging - I peeked out the window just in time to see him throw his hammer angrily onto the ground.)
I have to admit, I am curious as hell to know what they are fighting about. I don't speak Mandarin (or anything besides English and a bit of Spanish for that matter), so I have no idea. Did he gamble away my rent money? Did he forget to bury their victims properly in the basement? Did he call her mother a nasty name? Or is CCL just a total bitch? I haven't heard anyone go at someone like she goes at him, and I am so curious to know whether or not he deserves it.
My plea for today and all days:
CCL and Cheech, shut up.
If you're confused, "CCL" stands for "Chinese Cookie Lady" (see: here) and "Cheech" is a corruption of the landlord's actual name. It's only a matter of time before we slip up and call them this to their faces.
interesting. see, the thing about this is, there is really no etiquette on the matter. just awkward don't want to get involved. if you call the police, you're a brat (maybe leah should...), if you ask them to be quiet, you get yelled at and/or evicted. or worse, you get buried in the back yard.
I live above a coffee shop. The speakers in the shop were strategically placed in the ceiling directly beneath the beds of myself and my roommates. One of my roommates actually bought a pair of the head phone like thingies that airport workers wear on the tarmac to protect their ears. They're pretty effective at keeping the sound out, but they're hell to sleep in.
Did you see 'Kung Fu Hustle'? Just sayin'.
Landlords are strange folks. If they aren't pushing slums (that's my only experience with them) then they are fighting loudly. Hope it's quieted...