{"id":12134,"date":"2010-06-02T22:10:22","date_gmt":"2010-06-03T05:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=12134"},"modified":"2010-06-26T07:43:43","modified_gmt":"2010-06-26T14:43:43","slug":"mary-canary-on-her-way-to-feed-the-pigeons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/12134\/mary-canary-on-her-way-to-feed-the-pigeons\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary Canary on her way to feed the pigeons"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story<\/em><\/p>\n

“I married myself a quiet man. He told me so himself, many times. When he was drunk, he’d shout it to the world.”<\/p>\n

Mary Canary said that. She says stuff like that just to make sure no one’s listening. And no one on the bus was, no one except me.<\/p>\n

And Mary Canary is not her real name. It’s Maria Carnase, and I had to work on her quite a while to get that out of her. She’s not quite homeless, not quite penniless, not quite elderly and only mildly odorous. She’s bone thin and desiccated, and her flowered tent dress fit her like a tent. Her hair is not quite white and she wears it under a net. She had on cheap sneakers and compression hose bunched up at the ankles; seemingly, there was no flesh on her legs for the hose to compress. She has a bus pass and a mission. The bus pass is paid for by the taxpayers, but the mission is all her own.<\/p>\n

“I like the sound of a pedal steel guitar. It makes me think of a cat curling up for an ear-scratching.”<\/p>\n

A college girl with a black ponytail stared hard at her paperback book. An office geek whistled softly through his teeth and looked every which way except at Mary Canary.<\/p>\n

“When it gets too quiet, I can barely hear. I can’t hear myself sigh for the roar of the silence.”<\/p>\n

A very tall, very thin black man got up and walked to the front of the bus. He stood hanging from a pole as if he were about to get off, but he didn’t.<\/p>\n

“If I look behind my eyes, I can see the naked face of god.”<\/p>\n

A portly little man who had gained a pound or two since he’d bought his suit adjusted and adjusted and adjusted his necktie.<\/p>\n

And Mary Canary said, “I think you’re noticing me.” She said that to me, of course.<\/p>\n

“Yes, I am.”<\/p>\n

“You’re not supposed to do that.”<\/p>\n

“Why not?”<\/p>\n

“Nobody does.”<\/p>\n

I shook my head and smiled a gentle smile. “Everybody does. And you know it.”<\/p>\n

She shook her head, too, but it Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story “I married myself a quiet man. He told me so himself, many times. When he was drunk, he’d shout it to the world.” Mary Canary said that. She says stuff like that just to make sure no one’s listening. And no one on the bus was, no one except me. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[251,29],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12134","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-big-mother","7":"category-group-therapy","9":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3218,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3218\/how-the-bank-robbed-bonnie-and-clyde\/","url_meta":{"origin":12134,"position":0},"title":"How the bank robbed Bonnie and Clyde","author":"Greg Swann","date":"May 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A Ramblin' Gamblin' Willie story \"Stick 'em up!\" said Clyde. I swear that's what he said. My first bank robbery. I was right behind Clyde in line, so I saw it all. It wasn't what I expected... Behind the teller's cage was Hello-my-name-is-Annabelle, the world's most unflappable teller. She said:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Casual Friday"","block_context":{"text":"Casual Friday","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/casual-friday\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4953,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/4953\/how-to-get-better-the-easy-way-never-make-the-same-mistake-twice\/","url_meta":{"origin":12134,"position":1},"title":"How To Get Better, The Easy Way (Never Make The Same Mistake Twice)","author":"Chris Johnson","date":"October 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I've never been a lifer in the real estate business.\u00a0\u00a0 That doesn't mean I don't have a lot to give, it doesn't mean I don't love it, and it doesn't mean that I can't kick ass.\u00a0 I say this: there is no finer, safer way to learn how to be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":783,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/783\/christmas-story-a-father-for-christmas\/","url_meta":{"origin":12134,"position":2},"title":"A father for Christmas","author":"Greg Swann","date":"December 17, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A Ramblin' Gamblin' Willie story \"Shame about the bike,\" I said to the strained young black man at the bus stop. His head was down and he was staring hard at the ground. He grunted, a sound that conveyed two ideas: \"I heard you\" and \"I'm not listening.\" \"Just as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Casual Friday"","block_context":{"text":"Casual Friday","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/casual-friday\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13461,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/13461\/yelp-ing-real-estate-agents-the-online-bus-bench-advertisement\/","url_meta":{"origin":12134,"position":3},"title":"Yelp-ing Real Estate Agents: The Online Bus Bench Advertisement?","author":"Brian Brady","date":"November 2, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Todd Carpenter introduced me to Foursquare, last year in San Diego, and I immediately saw how geolocation could change the game for the neighborhood real estate agent. I envisioned agents promoting their listings and open houses on Foursquare.\u00a0 I'm a natural \"spammer\" so I started using it to \"check-in\" to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4520,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/4520\/how-wall-streets-meltdown-helps-main-streets-housing\/","url_meta":{"origin":12134,"position":4},"title":"How Wall Street’s Meltdown Helps Main Street’s Housing","author":"Sean Purcell","date":"September 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Just for fun, let's imagine a possible silver lining to the complete melt down on Wall Street.\u00a0 In this scenario, the next big shoe to drop will be access to consumer debt.\u00a0 No one is going to extend car loans, credit card debt, retail debt and so on.\u00a0 But this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Casual Friday"","block_context":{"text":"Casual Friday","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/casual-friday\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5894,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/5894\/does-googleopoly-evil\/","url_meta":{"origin":12134,"position":5},"title":"Does\u00a0“Googleopoly” = Evil ?","author":"John Rowles","date":"December 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I have a running news search going for anything that has the words \"Google\" and \"Real Estate\" in it. More often than not, this search returns cookie cutter press releases designed to reassure agents who plunked down a credit card for a cookie-cutter Web site (\"Real Estate Agent Ollie Tabooger\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12134"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12403,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12134\/revisions\/12403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}