A little excitement

Well, a little excitement here this morning, but the good kind.

Since the ice storms of the winter, I had had a huge chunk of pavement out of the base of my drive where it met the street. I couldn't tell for sure if it was on my property or the city's, so I kind of dithered - I have known people who asked the city to come fix stuff on their property and the bill was very high. I debated getting a bag of gravel or even Quikrete and trying to take care of it myself.

I had to get it fixed because if I wasn't careful pulling in and out of my drive, I'd hit it, which was uncomfortable (and I'm sure, bad for my car's suspension, which is already taking a beating on our torn-up roads this summer)

Finally, I decided: find out if it's the city property. It's mostly in the drainage way (we have what my dad refers to as "Western drainages" here - not many storm sewer inlets but both sides of the road have a low area that, in theory, channels the water towards the nearest inlet). So on Friday, I went down to city hall and asked at the streets department. They said they'd send someone out to look at it on Monday and they'd call me if it was my responsibility.  (The guy did call while I was in class, just to say, "I'm heading out to look at it now")

Well, then, as I was getting ready to leave this morning, I heard a loud noise. "That sounds like a garbage truck," I thought, "But garbage day was yesterday, and bulky waste day is tomorrow." So I peeked out through the blinds (it has been SO HOT I leave the living room blinds closed to try to help keep it cooler).

Yup. Big city truck. Actually two trucks: the work truck and a pickup for the extra guys to ride in. Four guys all told. At first I kind of groaned: "Of COURSE they show up to block my drive and work on it as I'm heading out to work" but when I stepped out one of the guys assured me they'd be no more than 10 minutes.

There were four guys. Pretty efficient operation, first each one grabbed a shovel and dug all the mud and crud that had accumulated in the hole. Then one guy sprayed what looked like melted tar on the hole, and two guys got the truck backed up right next to it and dumped patch (like the cold patch stuff) out of a hopper on the back while the other two moved it around with shovels. They kept testing and adding more patch.

Finally, they took the tamper off the back - this is a thing that looks like a big floor buffer but it flattens down the patch (I also think it must get hot, to seal the patch - it was smoking after they passed it over it). It was a very neat job and hopefully it holds for a good long time.(It's loud. I'm sure some of my neighbors didn't appreciate it that early but whatever; there are people in my neighborhood who drive "boom cars" late at night, so turnabout is fair play)

It really did take less than ten minutes. I thanked the guys and waved as I drove off. (I suppose they were out early because it's going to be HOT today and it's better to do that kind of work while it's still cool out)

Now I'm glad I went and asked the city. There's something satisfying about getting something fixed where you don't have to really do anything to fix it.

I'm hoping this is the reversal of my "July 4th week trend" of things breaking - in 2013 I broke that tooth, in 2014 the blower on my air conditioning system broke. (I was thinking earlier: better just stay home this weekend, better just eat soft foods, better not do anything risky....yes, I'm a little superstitious).