Neighborhood News

Much to the relief of surrounding residents, I picked up poop this morning, a task I will freely admit has been overlooked since the Christmas holiday due to weather conditions: rain and fierce winds, neither of which is conducive to doggy duty. I do have it as a task in my Palm Pilot, but it's one of the easiest to put off to another day. Or, it seems, another month!

I met my new neighbors: husband, wife, and two children, none of whom speak English! The 3-year-old girl was climbing on my wall and throwing paper into my yard, both of which push one of my nasty buttons. I was eating outside, so I put my food and wine down, stood up and meandered in her direction, a move that usually sends kids running for cover, and told her to get down, which earned me a vacant stare. Thinking perhaps she had not heard me, as I came closer to the wall to tell her again to get down, I saw her mother. I introduced myself, she gave me her name, then told me "no habla English." Well, since I no habla Espanol, we'll be nodding and waving neighbors--as long as the little girl stays off my wall and keeps her trash in her own yard, that is.

Many nearby residents are outside this week, cleaning the yards (it's a particularly weedy spring), playing their music loudly enough for everyone on the block to enjoy, and firing up the barbies: steaks on the grill and frijoles in the pot. Wash it down with copious quantities of beer and it doesn't get much better than that.

Taking the hint, I cleaned both my patio and my patio furniture. I borrowed a steam cleaner from a friend, believing the ease with which the TV demo individual cleans decades of dirt off the patio set, but I didn't have huge success with that system and reverted to scrubbing with a brush and blasting off the gunk with the garden hose. I used a complete tank of water with the steamer and thought to fill 'er up and continue the process, but--believe it or not--one must wait a minimum of 15 minutes before refilling the steamer when it runs out of water! That 15 minutes was enough time to scrub 2 of the 4 chairs, and I still haven't been able to loosen the pressure cap after 2 hours of waiting. Either not as touted on TV, or I'm a steam clean failure.

I've drawn up plans for another wind-break panel and think I've figured out how to attach it to the west side of the patio so I can sit outside again. I'd love to put up canvas so the man next door can't sit and stare at me, but I'll do that next. My privacy hints come in stages, depending on whether anyone is living upstairs and sitting on the windowsill: the only view is my backyard!

All the debris from the foreclosure in the front unit next door is gone, including the filled to overflowing garage. I guess that family simply walked out the door and bought everything new because they seem to have left behind most of what was in the house. Just having the trash cleaned up improves the appearance of the rental property. As the prices of the foreclosures remain pretty cheap, people are buying the homes and moving in, so perhaps my street will fill up again by summer.

We're due for high double--and maybe triple--digits today, so time to change out the filter in the cooling system, clean all the fan blades, and dig out the summer sunscreen. It's looking good in the neighborhood.