walls tombé, lesbian roller derby, and other saturday somethings

so yesterday was like a perfect day.

worked all morning, had a long chat with my good friend sheila, who is coming out for

a visit in august.

but neighborhood drama: the last few days, a small parking lot down the street from our house has had a big sign on it and all this yellow tape blocking the entrance. all the sign says is: le mur peut tomber.....[the wall can fall] and nothing else. so we've all been wondering this week just what the hell that means exactly.

well, we found out. about 10.30am, three big fire trucks were blocking the street, the entire area was cordonned off, and people stood around gawking. wasn't sure what they were gawking at, but when we came back from the supermarket, the entire side wall of an apartment building had collapsed. people were being evacuated (which is odd, to my mind: if they knew the wall was about to fall, doesn't it make more sense to evacuate people before hand!?) from the place.

we live on an odd street of the plateau. most of this area is just row housing, mile after mile of it. it's beautiful row housing (now): all built in the late 19th and early 20th century, long winding staircases, brightly painted balconies and wrought iron fire escapes in the back. but back in the day, this was a poor area, very working class. now, of course, it's anything but (all the BMWs, Cadillacs, and Range Rovers can attest to that); our street, however, two blocks east of st-laurent, was a factory area--so our building was a woodworking factory and many of the other buildings around us are unusual in that they aren't row housing.they are all apartments now, but converted from other earlier uses: laundry facilities, warehouses, factories. the result of this, i think, is that this area is a bit of a mystery to many of the people in charge of making sure buildings are safe: they just aren't used to these kinds of buildings and don't know what signs to look for in case of danger (i.e., collapsing walls).

anyway, the short of it is that the entire three story apartment building now sits empty, the street is still blocked off, and we are wondering if they are going to tear the entire building down (a beautiful old building in actuality, despite the danger!) and build some high-rise (a tragedy if there ever was one), or put in another parking lot (yech--these assholes in this area stupid enough to have a $60,000 car can afford the odd scratch and the damage winter does to the body).

later, at 6, my friend greg came over and we sat in the beautiful afternoon sunlight, watching the street commotion. all the portuguese women across the street were sitting on their balconies replaying the day's events to their friends. some girl was arguing with her ex-boyfriend about what a bitch his mother is (she stole some jewelry from her), firemen discussing a basketball game, girls comparing shoes. then meg came over and we ate curry, drank a bit and chilled out. at 7, we headed out, meeting carrie up the street where we hopped in two taxis and raced up the hill to:

lesbian roller derby!

wow, what fun! it was fairly tame (no major spills or blood) but it was a blast! the place was packed and the crowd was quite uproarius!

then a party where we had to show our face, but i saw some friends i hadn't seen in ages. then another party that was full of smoke and no one most of us knew.

then another taxi and latin dancing at sky in the village. greg, who is from mexico, was trying to show us some moves, but i am about as coordinated as a giraffe on speed.

m and i were home by 1am after a fantastic day and an evening full of friends, excitement and gorgeous spring weather.

 some movies here, though not sure if you can see the collapsed wall very clearly...