Sounds from the window

In our apartment we have a balcony that opens up to what should be
a side street, but since the next street over has become a major traffic
jam, our quiet street seems to get louder every day. Car alarms, traffic,
the rattle of trucks filled with propane bottles, it all fills the street.

Stranger still is the sound of horseshoes, since a major mode of garbage
removal is horse drawn wagons. Most garbage is picked up by modern
trucks a few times a week, but the horse drawn wagons pass every few
hours and pick up things of value like cardboard boxes, or appliances,
or an american flag that my wife tried to throw out. (I had to explain that
it's not junk no matter how fucked up looking it is, we need to burn it
during a barbeque after I rescued the flag from the trash.)

In the mornings on the weekends there is a tamale vendor that walks the
streets, "Tamales, tamales, tamales" she cries, and it's more stretched out
than the tamale vendors in the apartment where I lived in 2000, so instead
of "tamales, tamales, tamales" it's really more of a "ta-ma-les" over 5 seconds
in a high pitched voice.

There is also the sound of the bar a block away at night. I've got speakers
on the patio now so I'm tempted to try and fight their salsa with some high
volume eagles tonight. or maybe not.

Until we have actual curtains on the windows this place seems very similar
to a fishing camp I lived in back in '94-'96. Very open to the world. I can't fish
here, but I can drink beer on the porch.