The Ghetto and me, issue 1

A new little ghetto mart is opening up near the house. I call some of the little mom&pop hole in the wall stores ghetto marts because well, they are so ghetto. Add the prices of a 7-11, the selection of … well not much of a selction, with a sprinkling of liquor store in some cases and you have part of the ghetto mart. The other part is in presentation. All the windows covered with posters for Kool cigarettes, malt liquor, beer, basically things that are bad for your health. Not one inch of window allows you to look in the store. They don’t seem like friendly places to shop.

These places do provide a service. They sell milk and some basics and that’s good when you’re too lazy to walk to the Giant. Yet as a consumer, who when she isn’t lazy has choices, I find these stores insulting. The cashier is behind plexiglass, the service is lacking, I feel that they really don’t want me there.

Crazy Paint

I’m still thinking bold colors. Face it, it doesn’t matter what I do to the back of the house. I could do polka dots, but I don’t think it would look right. But I gotta match the fence.

Maybe I should just do the part that juts out. That I can do myself, sort of. Prime it and then throw on some funky color. Bright yellow and a dark blue door? Too Swedish. No red doors. Red doors are too common. I’ve seen some pretty cool purple doors. There is a super cool door on 8th street near Q street, but that is too …. expensive.

I’ve also thought, painting the individual bricks a different color to create a pattern. Maybe doing something with tile.

But I got to keep in mind nobody is really going to see the back of the house. Nobody except the neighbors and the crackheads who wander through the alley.

I may wait until I go to London and maybe get some ideas there. I like British, not the Victorian colonial type of British style, but modern British style. Maybe they incorporated the crazy African paint style.