There’s a certain major-brand coffee shop down the street from us that I was happy to see opening since that meant that they’d be so much closer to where we live. Then the reality of their choice in location became apparent and now I can honestly say they could shut this one down and I’d be okay with that. You see, they opened on a corner in front of a mostly empty plaza with the other major tenant being a blood plasma donation center. Across the street on one corner is a school for those who couldn’t do traditional high school, a discount store, and an area of the parking lot is taken over by people waiting for a gig as day labor. On another corner is a title-loan store that preys on the poverty of the people in the area. The last corner is a battery store but next door to them is a fast food joint that takes EBT (a.k.a. food stamps).

Here’s the scenario that makes this coffee shop my least favorite: Young men (always men) with bad attitudes (damage from their ineffectual fathers) set up shop in groups of two and three and sell heroin (or opioid of choice) right from this well-known global brand. It most typically works with two guys in the shop and one outside. At some point, a person drives into the parking lot and the person sitting out front goes and gets into the car; they drive away. But these are junkies so they drive to the other side of a tire shop that has drive-through bays so you can see the car on the other side. They sit there for a few minutes and then the seller gets out of the car and walks back to the shop.

Back in the front of the place of the green aprons, one of the guys on the inside either heads out to sit down with the seller or he goes to the bathroom, and after a minute or so the guy outside joins him in the toilet. Five minutes later they emerge and the cycle repeats.

On the other hand, we have those who apparently have already been a member of one of these not-so-subtle circuses and are now a member of the blood plasma donation spot where they go earn about $40, depending on the needs of the market. The next stop, likely per the instructions of the vampires buying junky blood is to go hydrate at the coffee shop, but this is where the heroin is also easily available, wtf?

A bandage around the elbow, a large ice-water, and the blank stare at the phone with their head pulsing to the music is the way they roll.

It’s a shit-show here and this isn’t the only unfolding tragedy. This corner is a transit point for homeless people, the mentally disturbed, and a large number of the poor who cannot fathom paying $5 for a cup of coffee. It’s nearly impossible for me to find productivity at this location as I’m distracted by the cavalcade of personalities that in some way I’m enchanted with. I think that tomorrow I’ll return to the place where I can get things done.

It must be the season of the festival because here we are for the second week in a row hitting the circuit. Who are those pop stars rockin’ it onstage today? I can’t say but I can tell you that they are playing the hits, especially if you are a bit older and Romanian. The Romanian detail is important because that’s the clue to the theme of today’s event. The other detail I’m learning quickly about Serb Fest 2019 and Romania Fest 2019 is that these are fundraisers for the church that supports the community. With this bit of knowledge, our visits become more valuable to us as we know we are contributing to helping sustain a culture that remains important to a generation that grew up knowing these sights, sounds, and traditions.

The most obvious thing about not just this Romanian community but the Serbian too is that religion plays a large role and the number of people from these countries who live here in the Valley is still quite low, relatively speaking. (In comparison to the large Hindu population Phoenix has or the Hispanic community.) I have no way of knowing what the percentage is of people who come out but I’m guessing that the expense might limit participation to some degree. We easily spent $40 on each visit and that was just from buying entry and lunch.

Today’s food was a treat with Mititei being the first dish we sampled. These little sausages are nearly identical to the more well-known Serbo-Croatian sausage known as Cevapi or Cevapcici. Next on the menu were Sarmale or stuffed cabbage rolls with a side of sour cream. So far everything was pretty basic Slavic staples. The Romanian Fest 2019 culinary award however should go to the Ciorba de Burta. What is Ciorba de Burta you ask? It is tripe soup. Describing it simply as tripe soup would be a disservice because until you mix in the extra sour cream and more importantly the ramekin of garlic sauce with Romani power, the dish might be considered just okay. With the amount of garlic that we mixed into our large container of soup, we were enjoying the flavors of Romania for the next day and a half. We finished our visit with Caroline trying a Romanian beer for the first time as we sat and listened to some ladies singing traditional folk songs. Maybe you noticed we said nothing about chimney cake? Well they had those too but our festival allowance was now gone, a good thing as we really are trying to watch what we eat.

We’ve gotten rusty about attending festivals but lucky for us Caroline was aware of Serb Fest 2019 and reminded me before we missed this one too. The Serbian community appears to be relatively small based on the number of attendees, then again it’s Sunday and the get-together started yesterday. One might be inclined to think that an event celebrating Slavic culture would draw in the Croatians and Bosniaks (and other South Slavs) too, and maybe it did. Hard to say seeing there really is no difference as long as they wear modern fashions, but the folks wearing t-shirts saying “I love Serbian Boys” or “Proud to be Serbian” were probably just that – Serbs.

The food was okay though the lamb and pork combo I was looking forward to was sold out and we had to go with the old standby ćevapčići. With a beer in hand, we sat awhile at a smaller tent and enjoyed a local folk band and then over to the larger covered area to watch some dancing which is also where we heard a song that the two of us liked. It is called “Gori More” and if you follow this link to Youtube you can take a listen.

Our big surprise and highlight that made it all worthwhile was the beautiful interior of the Serbian Orthodox Church of St. Sava. This place is beautiful. Hopefully, we’ll hear about Serb Fest 2020 in time next year to attend and the community will have grown. Btw, we just learned that Romanian Fest 2019 is coming up next weekend at the Romanian Orthodox Church in Glendale, Arizona.

She was cantankerous, vulgar, angry, fearful, paranoid, and worst of all she was mean to her mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s. Her name isn’t important. I tried to avoid her when she was coming and going as it wasn’t beyond her to show you her ass that was barely covered anyway, but when that short dress was thrown up to expose her voluminous backside, allowing the viewer to gather a good look, she would also yell at you to ensure she had your attention. Sometimes she went through the motions of pretending to call the police and other times she did call them to vent her spleen that some kind of transgression against her dignity was being committed.

Numerous times the maintenance guys were summoned to her place as it seemed that something was always broken; now that I’ve been inside her now-vacant apartment I see why things were likely malfunctioning. She was the human embodiment of malfunction. Stepping into the explosion that had been a home for two old ladies was akin to walking into someone else’s insanity. This is one of those moments where no amount of photography can convey the mayhem.

Half a dozen cats and nearly twice that number of small dogs were constant companions. Some years ago the mother would take the dogs out when there were just a few of them, but her daughter became mistrustful of the neighbors who would take the time to talk with the sweet old lady who would check her mail 10 times a day wearing a housecoat and at least a couple of pairs of socks. We all knew she was slipping into dementia but she always seemed happy to meet you for the first time and find it surprising that you knew her name and that she once lived in Ohio. For the past few years, mom would only be seen going to and from the car and had become progressively more withdrawn.

This weekend they had mostly finished moving out, leaving behind a shell of an apartment sodden with animal urine and feces – both animal and human, as there were two large green bags in the bathtub filled with adult diapers. At least the human poop was in diapers and bagged up while dog and cat shit is scattered throughout the place. Entering this place I was more intrigued by the sight and foul aroma than the thought of what parasites and bed bugs might be crawling through the ooze and so with the front door wide open I decided to take a non-guided tour into the horror of my own disbelief that fellow humans could live such an existence.

I have to wonder why the animals weren’t removed by some authority looking out for the welfare of animals. Writ larger than that is my curiosity boggling my mind why the mother wasn’t removed and the daughter brought up on elder abuse charges. I suppose that living like turds in a litter box is a better way to keep people than for the state to attempt to care about the welfare of some people who obviously could not care for themselves.

There was a side of me crawling out of my inner 14-year-old that wanted to gloat that the evil persona of the daughter had finally been forced to move even though it portended possibly worse conditions for the mom and then there’s the 56-year side of me that is rattled by society’s neglect of the mentally disturbed. On their last day at our complex, the daughter sounded perfectly humane and sympathetic as she told me that they were moving out and that she wanted to say bye. How could I not feel empathy for their plight and wish them all the best?