Robert StGenis Voice empowered

In any condominium, water shut-offs do occur. Typically, however, they're occasional, not a common occurrence. This is particularly challenging at a time when more of us are working from home. Our property manager said water shut-offs are a more common issue as a result. However, the Market Lofts was a live/work building long before COVID-19 - it should be able to accommodate people living and working from home. We've had over 12 in the first quarter, some multiple days in a row. Living over the grocery store is tremendously convenient but also can be disadvantageous as well. At least once a quarter the bakery causes the alarms in our building to go off. Once, someone set the toilet seats in the men's room on fire. The entrance to the underground parking lot to the store is right next to our entrance. You need to always be extra cautious coming and going as shoppers are not always paying close attention. The largest grocery store in Downtown Los Angeles, it is also a magnet...

The Gold Coast, which some referred to as "God's waiting room", opened in 1981 at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and La Jolla, across from the infamous Circus of Books Store which has been there since 1960 and created the home of the Vaseline Alley behind the store. It was a classic "dive" bar and attracted a wide-net audience. It was the home of the Red dress party which started as a vow between 2 bartenders, Mark Ferguson and Yves-Claude, with proceeds going to Life Group LA. I've spent time at the Gold Coast at 2 PM and left at 2 AM. While not a regular hangout of mine, it certainly was always a safety net, a piece of West Hollywood that was comfortable to go to when I just wanted to pop in for a drink or even sometimes just use the bathroom. It wasn't pretentious, the drinks were less expensive than most everywhere else in WeHo. there was something comforting that it was just off the path of the epicenter of Boystown, yet only blocks away from...

I first started hearing about Atlanta as a child in the late early 1980s. Our neighbors in Michigan moved to some place called Dunwoody. A place I am quite familiar with now and imagine was significantly smaller back in the day. I recall they built a home and were overwhelmed with the amount of natural wood used inside on trim and such and the attention to detail the builder put into satisfying their desires. Mr. Riley proclaimed something like “if you don’t like the moldings, they just rip them out and start over” - I don’t think they would find that as easily to be the case today. They also might be scraping into Dunwoody now, not building a custom home from West Bloomfield today. West Bloomfield and Dunwoody are somewhat similar in both being more affluent suburbs. According to Zillow, however, the average home price in Dunwoody is $502,716 and West Bloomfield the average is $348,508.  While West Bloomfield definitely did grow from the time the Rileys left and when my family lef...

This is Part Three in a mini-series: Los Angeles. Love/Hate Relationship. A Tale of Two Cities in my series Los Angeles. Love/Hate Relationship . If you haven't already, be sure to read:  Tale of Two Cities. Part One and Part Two . When you have a chance, the entire series starts at:  Los Angeles. Love/Hate Relationship. Part One.   It is almost incomprehensible to believe that when I decided to make a stop on December 6, 2020 and grab a drink it would be the 1st time I had enter the indoors of a gay bar in at least 9 months. I am not exactly sure when it was earlier but it would have to had been while we were in Great Britain in late February and early March before California began to lockdown for what is becoming eternity. We are not big bar goers, in fact my husband doesn't drink. But, he is usually up for a bar with an "event" like a drag show or bingo and we usually make an "appearance" at a bar if visiting somewhere. We "live" to travel an...

  Market Lofts Condominiums. This is Part Two in a mini-series: Los Angeles. Love/Hate Relationship. A Tale of Two Cities in my series Los Angeles. Love/Hate Relationship .  At a minimum, be sure to read:  Tale of Two Cities. Part One  before reading this post. When you have a chance read the entire series starting at:  Los Angeles. Love/Hate Relationship. Part One. I entered the building and there was Ricardo, our security guard, who had just recently "turned me in" to our management for creating a nuisance violation for use of words of offensive language. He sat with his somehow perfectly naturally sparkling white teeth and smiled at me with such a "shit eating grin" it took everything to avoid what I wanted to say to someone I had previously considered a great member of our staff as I looked at him stare at me  with his bleached teeth and smug smile. The pandemic has made life challenging for everyone, day-to-day at the Market Lofts being no exceptio...

Midtown Atlanta I am making this a "sub-series" within the series on my Love/Hate  series  of Los Angeles.  I descended back into the City of Angels on December 29 after being in Atlanta since December 1. While Los Angeles went further and further into lockdown, I was able to eat indoors in restaurants, and go to bars, go to the gyms indoors and sit in a hot tub or sauna while in Georgia. I couldn't go to the movies, a museum or theatre. There were restrictions in medical offices, some greater than here, which I learned as I took my father to a number of appointments. Some schools were completely open, others hybrids, others yet online only. I went and looked at properties to purchase with an agent, albeit socially distancing and with masks on. I attended open houses with limits on numbers of people in the property, social distancing and again masks. But all in all, life was as normal as it could be with a pandemic never seen in our history. On occasion, I found plac...

Be sure to have read at least Part 3 and Part 4 of this series before reading this entry to fully enjoy the story.  We woke up fairly early New Year's morning despite having stayed out fairly late at local bars celebrating New Year's Eve. I don't recall where we went other than I was mostly outside drinking and smoking cigarettes, something hard for me to fathom now as an adamant ex-smoker. I first started smoking on/off sneaking into woods during cross country in middle school at Cranbrook . I was roughly 14, so way too young! By the time we were in 'upper school' we were actually allowed to smoke on campus in designated areas. When I moved to New Jersey and went back to public school at Morristown High School, I think we could smoke outside; either way, we just left campus at lunch anyway... My first year at Concordia University in Montreal you could smoke in class, and tellers at the bank and postal workers would be smoking. Then Quebec caught on albeit French...