Summer Nights in the City

I’d forgotten how interesting summer nights in the city could be. I remember last summer hearing firecrackers going off, cars zooming down the street and people out making noise, but it’s a little hazy in retrospect. It’s all back again – and this week in force!

On Tuesday night, we woke up at 4:30 hearing a pretty loud and intense screaming match up and down the street. Some sort of domestic dispute, if you can call it that when it’s a physically intimate but short term and casual relationship as evidenced by the content of the screaming. Part of me really wanted to shout out the window, “People are sleeping! And do you really want the whole neighborhood to hear your business?” (And all of *those* details that you’re screaming at the top of your lungs?)

Wednesday was the fireworks downtown (and I still don’t understand why they do them in June, but that’s another story), so at 12:30 we wake up to major firecrackers going off on our street. The kind that shoot up and make lots of light and noise. As we were startled awake by the noise and the lights, Dave and I were sure that someone was setting them off in front of our house and that the sparks were going to catch our whole block on fire! It turned out to be quite a ways down the street and eventually we went back to sleep. This was after waking up at midnight to more people screaming at each other because someone had left a car in the middle of the street while they ran inside and somebody else wanted to get by.

Last night was the revelry down at the Motown Museum in remembrance of Michael Jackson (who I realized had died through facebook of all places, from everybody’s comments and status updates). Around 10:00 or 10:30, we heard crazy firecrackers or something and then horns honking and people yelling. We finally figured out that it was down at the museum (at the end of our street). A ton of people had gathered and when people would drive by and honk – and I mean h-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-n-k! – the crowd would explode again in yelling. Our neighbor said we should expect it all weekend.

Our neighborhood is usually pretty calm and quiet, albeit with a little more street noise at night. Most of the time, it’s not a big deal and if it gets too loud, we close our window. But this week it was so hot and we so desperately needed the cool air that we left the windows open and just tried to laugh at it all! Definitely easier to do in the morning, though, when we’re fully awake! ☺ Nobody said life in Detroit would be boring.