Monday, October 24, 2016

Just gotta say

No piano today - the monthly staff meeting at my teacher's other job. So I decided to mow my "nonconforming" lawn and cut some more brush.

I had to set the mower on "scalp" in order to make any kind of a difference in the grass. I'm ticked. I'm wondering if that "grass" letter got sent to me in error and everyone was just too lazy to check up on it. Also, if my lawn dies in our drought from being cut off too short? I'm laying down GRAVEL. I don't care. I'm going Full Xeriscaping and if they don't like it, they can sue me.

Also, when I was mowing, I discovered that one of my dog-owning neighbors subscribes to the opinion that "if my dog poops in someone else's yard, it's that person's problem and not mine." I never expect dog poo because I don't own a dog, and guess what - I both stepped in it and ran it over with the mower. I'm NOT happy. I wonder if this is the same selfish dog owner who let their dog bark from roughly 8 pm until after midnight without checking up on it.

I don't blame the dog. Ill-behaved dogs in this instance are like most ill-behaved children: their caretakers didn't teach them any better.

My original brushpiles have gone - I am guessing my friend from church and her boyfriend (I know she is dating someone right now) must have had some free time yesterday afternoon and removed them when I wasn't looking. I told her I'd help her load it up but I guess they did it without me. But now there's a new brushpile at the end of my yard. The city can deal with that; they're supposed to pick brush up a couple times a month, and if it has to sit for about a week for that (usually it's the first Wednesday), no big deal. If the city dislikes that they can come pick it up earlier. I can't conform my schedule to theirs; I work full time to pay my property taxes and my 9.375% (soon, doubtless, to be 10.375%) sales tax on in-state purchases.

But still. I'm not happy. I wonder if there is some kind of quota system of these letters or if I'm on some kind of watchlist for "not conforming" before (that was when they changed the rules about alleyway clearing and didn't tell me, so it wasn't entirely fair). Also, I got a set of them in the mail today which just felt like adding insult to injury. Oh, I know, they have to do it that way but my feeling is "SHUT UP ALREADY I'M WORKING ON IT"

I will admit to briefly wondering if weed-eater scalping the words "BITE ME" into the grass of my backyard would get me in trouble, but I figured I didn't feel like going to the effort even if I wanted to do it.

So, I don't know. I need to ask around and see if there's a trustworthy company locally that does privacy fences (I hate, more than anything, having to call and nag workpeople to come and do the work they're contracted to do, though with a fence, at least they can work on it when I'm not home). Because I think replacing the chain-link fence in the back with a privacy fence might help get me left alone in the future.

No comments: