Enough Grief

It hasn't been a great summer so far.  Death of a friend, although not unexpected as he was 98 years old, and bad health news from my dearest friend.  A is struggling with depression, she hates it here, hates her life.  She does manage to get herself moving for meals and for work, but that is about it.  She really needs to take her talks to her therapist toward this.  Mom's dementia continues to worsen and I find it very discouraging and tiring to try to keep up.

And then...

My neighbor (the one I've written about before) hits me with the most humorous accusations.

To preface:  Her husband, a very hard working gentleman, has been trying to neaten their yard.  Last week he evidently did some digging out around the area where he parks his truck next to the fence.  As I was sitting in my den window, about 20 feet away, I heard him shoveling rock into place.  I looked out the window just as some of the crushed rock shot under the fence and into the grassy area next to our back drive.  So...

The other day I was out weeding the veggie garden and along the stone area where I park.  It dawned on me about those stray stones.  I thought, gee, while I'm out here I'll go check on that.  I don't want to get hit by them when I next weedwack along that edge.  I worked my way along the drive, picking up the bits of crushed rock and gently tossing or placing them back under the fence to join the others he had shoveled.

Minding my own business.

Finished and looked up as I was to walk back down my drive.  There she stood...arms crossed in front of her.  Her comment at my shrug?  "You don't have enough stones so you have to steal ours?"

I laughed and responded that she must be joking.

She wasn't.

She proceeded to accuse me of trespassing...as she stood in my drive!

I gave up on trying to be reasonable and headed back inside.

Is This So Difficult to Understand?

I got a call from a tech today that kind of went as follows:

Tech:  Yes, hi, do you have extra ivories that you would sell?

Me:  No, I have never sold ivory as I use it for my own customers and for keyboard restoration work for technician customers.  Also, it is currently illegal to sell/trade in any ivory across state lines.  You are from Florida, right?

Tech:  Ah, yes.  When did it become illegal?

Me:  The federal government passed the ban in interstate ivory sales/trade on July 6, 2016.  You will have to find someone in your own state if you wish to legally buy old ivory.

Tech:  Oh, I don't know of anyone here. 

Me:  I'm sorry.  I can't help you.

Tech:  Maybe I can find someone out west that will sell me some.

Me:  Well, I can't say whether anyone will, but it is illegal for them to sell out of state.  That's now federal law.

Tech:  I'm going to Texas.  Maybe someone there can sell it to me?

Me:  (ready to scream)  They would be breaking a federal law.  That would be up to them.  Sorry I can't help you.  Best of luck.

Is the meaning of interstate and illegal difficult to grasp?  Wow.

Food Frenzy

Well...

We have three supermarkets on the island.  The employees walked off the job at one of them.* That one being the lower priced product store. Kinda.  Evidently, their most beloved leader, Artie T. was fired by his board (including his cousin Artie S.)  A family feud that has been going on for decades finally exploded.  First the warehouse drivers left work, then some managers were fired, then the employees started picketing.  Then the customers decided to boycott in support of said Artie T. (and the fact that there were very few items left on the shelves.) "Bring back Artie T.!"  or else.

In the meanwhile, all those Artie T. loving customers had to shop somewhere.  Of course they went to the other two stores on the island...who were not equipped to handle the sudden overload of shoppers.

So, the other two stores have had to scramble to accommodate.  I can't speak too much about one of them, but A works at the other.  The median priced place.

The schedule manager quickly asked if employees could work extra hours.  Then the request went out for employees to give up a day off in the upcoming week.  Work 7 days straight.  A agreed, as did most, she is scheduled to work 50.5 hours this week.  The place is a zoo.  Workers from out of the area affected by the Artie T. walkout are commuting to the store to help out.  The store has even had to rent extra shopping carriages!

And while workers deal with all the mess and the massive extra effort is made to accommodate the folks from the Artie T. store, it would be nice to hear some appreciation from those customers.

What are the clerks hearing?  "I hate shopping here."  Your prices are too high."  "It was better at Artie T's."

Go away, I say.  Find something better.  Hah.

*Rumor has it that many of those 'walk off the job' employees are actually punching the time clock for work and then going outside to picket the store that is paying them for those hours.

An update to the asterisk ...The Boston Globe newspaper reported that managers of several Artie stores have been scheduling employees for full schedules even though there is basically no one shopping at the stores.  They are doing this to further damage the company financially. In my opinion this is theft.  The managers and any employees knowingly participating in this should be fired, or prosecuted, for stealing this money from the company.

Scary from Saturday

The arrow on this Google map...

Grant Circle on Route 128 in Gloucester

shows where some crazy person missed their exit from the rotary (Grant Circle) and decided to Back Up!

In the rotary! 

It's a rotary...go around again!

Nuts.

I still can't believe that someone backed up in a rotary.

What On Earth Is Wrong With People?

Please pardon the lack of precise details in this post. You'll get the idea without the need of numerical accuracy.

Awhile ago a teen girl committed suicide. She had bee relentlessly bullied by a half dozen or so of her classmates. Those classmates have been arrested and charged with a variety of offenses directly related to and found to be resultant in her suicide. One or two of the young men were charged with statutory rape in this case.

So today, one of these young men was once again in court. This time he has been charged with driving under the influence. The judge released him! The police are stunned. I am stunned. Then the news report shifts to the young man's neighbor. She's thirty-ish, well spoken, well dressed. I couldn't believe what she said. Something along the lines of, "He's a good boy. A nice boy."

Yeah, I'm really believing that.

Blue In The Face

We had snow this past Tuesday. Not a lot, but enough for some heavy duty shoveling (wet snow) and a couple passes on the roads with plows and sand/salt trucks. I went out to my back PRIVATE drive to finish up cleaning the plow-in snow from behind my truck and silently screamed. Now, in reality, they are not supposed to be plowing that drive. Nor the neighbor's connecting drive. They are not public roads or public right-of-ways. We have kept moderately silent about it realizing that our neighbors are enjoying the benefit of not having to hand shovel a very long drive. We did, if you remember, post PRIVATE DRIVE signs at each end of the back drive.

So, why was I upset? Well, the plow dug up the granite pavers all along the edge of my parking area. Even though I had placed reflectors to keep them well away from the edge. The plow driver scooped a swath well inside of my markers. THEN he managed to break off the end of the paved drive and added insult to injury by plowing up hill TOWARDS the damaged edge and removing all the broken pavement. I found several hunks of it half a block away! Add to that the enormous amount of dirt that was then scooped out with the plow and now there's a 10 inch drop at the end of the drive.

Wednesday I went to the DPW (Department of Public Works) with photos in hand. First they tried to claim that there was no pavement involved. Wrong. Then they claimed that if it was a private drive, they weren't the ones plowing it. Wrong. Then they tried to scare me by saying that if it WERE found to be private (it is) that they would no longer plow it. "Fine with me," I said. "But what about fixing the damage to private property?" The head guy made a quick phone call to his man in the field. I met him back at the house. He tried to tell me that there wasn't any pavement damaged. That it was ground asphalt filler. Wrong and I demonstrated that I could carry a large hunk of it in one piece...not ground filler. Then he said that the town really shouldn't be plowing the drive. Once again, "Fine with me!". I showed him where the drive used to end, a near four feet from it's present broken end.He assured me he'd have it fixed in the Spring. (That should be a fun experience). Meanwhile more snow is expected Tuesday, Wednesday, and maybe Thursday. By the time Winter ends, there'll be no drive left!

Maybe it won't get plowed this time!

Reason Number One

Why furniture refinishers should not try to do piano key work...

And therefore why sane piano technicians should not be willing to finish up said work.

I've never claimed to be sane, only saner than many.

So the email stated that the keys had been professionally prepped, sanded with 100 grit, to be ready to just glue on new key tops. "Could you discount the price?"

I think not! (Between you and me, I should have charged extra.)

So while they did save me the time of slicing off the old tops and fronts, I was left with this to deal with.Can't just glue those new key tops and fronts on to this jagged edge! Just imagine how messed up that supposed nice, straight, edge of piano keys would be with these two sticking out further toward the front! Yes, there were others of similar ilk. I trimmed them to match their neighbors. That was the most I could do to straighten what still will most likely be a rather irregular line of keys. Then I went on with the rest of the job. During the trimming of the top key wood using my rotary planer set-up, a large area of Bondo filler chipped off two blade tips on the planer. I wasn't happy. Thankfully I had a set of new blades on hand. Everything else went fine.

What do you think? I think that the refinisher got a piano in for a strip and new finish. I think they didn't take the keys out and managed to ruin the existing key tops. Then they decided to not tell the customer and take care of it before their customer could find out. How hard could it be to glue new plastic on? They pulled off the old, leaving several large rip-outs of wood which they then filled with Bondo. Then they sanded. Then they took a circular saw of some sort and wacked off the fronts. Most were sort of in a line. A few were way off. Then they found out that the new plastic key tops (they sent a set they had purchased) are made oversized and need to be machined to fit each key and they realized they were in trouble. I could be wrong, but...

The finished keys were sent back today with the photo enclosed and a BIG disclaimer and warning about future work.

Seven Varieties

If all weeks could just be like this past one!
Monday was retail, of course. It was just busy (or not slow) enough that it didn't get too boring. I knew it was giving me the opportunity to prepare for the upcoming week.
Tuesday it started with the first set of keys arriving. These were in for new bushings and needed to be finished up and shipped back out on Thursday. Everything went along quite well. Also on Tuesday, I got a special order for four ivory necklaces, so I did some ivory sorting and laminating at night.
Wednesday rolled around with keybushing in the morning and afternoon and evening! I worked it in around shaping and painting ivory and a late day tuning. The call for Wednesday's tuning went like, "We just got a piano for free. It's a white upright. I don't think it's been tuned since it was originally bought in the 80's."

Oh boy.

It turned out to be a 1986 Samick. The tuning record in the piano listed a free warranty tuning in 1986 and a second tuning in 1989! It was nearly a half step flat. I raised the pitch by 'tuning' the first note to the pitch of the next highest note, working my way up the scale. Then I went back and tuned. I'll be doing a follow-up fine tuning this week. At Wednesday's tuning I got to meet two ENORMOUS dogs. One was 11 months old and very pleased to have company. I was smothered in doggie kisses by the time I was finished. I also tuned with a picture of the second President Bush and wife watching from a picture above the gun case adjacent to the piano. The picture looked like it was taken on the customer's front lawn.

While I was at the tuning a box arrived at my house. Keys for new tops. A new customer. I stripped off the old tops and fronts, trimmed the key wood as needed and glued on new Wednesday night.

Thursday morning I finished up the keybushing job and got them packed and shipped. After lunch I did some more ivory painting while waiting to get ready to head for another tuning job. That tuning was a Kawai upright that I had tuned last year. It has extremely tight tuning pins and is really a bear to tune. It's nearly impossible to get a feel for the pin turning. I took several breaks during the tuning to play with the customer's cat. I'd dangle a long strip of felt over the edge of the bench for it to attack. Then I tied the end of that strip to the wire end of a tuning mute while I was using it. Every time I moved the mute along during tuning the cat went crazy. I went home and painted more ivory. I also had two phone calls for jobs in town and an email. Friday morning was free so I got both calls booked for then. The email was from the key top customer. She needed to find a couple replacement key coverings for a 1970's vintage Story & Clark piano. These are weird wraparound plastic coverings no longer available. I had a few and sold them to her - to be shipped with her key top job.

The first job of Friday morning was to solve 'knocking' keys (customer's description) on an old spinet. I knew a lot of the things it wouldn't be as I had worked on the piano and tuned it two years ago. Mrs. J. had thoughtfully put a smidgeon of tape on all the keys that were knocking. It took me far too long, amid a good deal of conversation, to notice that the fallboard (wood part that closes over the keys) had slipped slightly forward and all the sharps (black keys) were knocking on it when they came back up from being played. Whew! Easy stuff and I could go home before heading for my next in-town job. But wait...Mrs. J. decided that she would like the piano tuned...since I was there. Okay, at least there would be some pay for the trip! Once finished I headed for the second job, an estimate, arriving just in time. When this guy had called he had been hard to pin down as to what he wanted. Yes, he needed a tuning, but there were a couple missing bass strings, and well...he didn't know what else may be needed. Less than a mile from my home so I offered to take a free look. Turns out to be a Helpinstil (I think that's a close spelling) piano. One of approximately 100 still around (or maybe total made, I don't know). Built in the 1970's it's a hybrid of acoustic piano (spinet) and electronic keyboard. It folds up for traveling. I went over the immediate needs - 2 new bass strings (he had the old ones but, due to the location of the break, they couldn't be spliced and reused) and tuning. At some point there would need to be additional work like hammer filing, key bushing, regulation. I priced out the bass strings and tuning and he seemed unlikely to bother. I left a business card and headed home to work on that key top job. A tech called needing some player piano parts and I promised to find time to get them together and shipped.

Saturday morning I buffed the keys and got them packed and shipped. 'A' came downstairs to help me with collecting together the player piano parts and packing them up to be shipped next week. Then I painted more ivory jewelry. Around 2 in the afternoon, we decided to tackle some leaf raking. Then I made English pancakes for all of us for dinner.

Today, Sunday, I had a special piano job. Many years ago( in 1972 to be precise), friends of our family purchased my childhood piano. It's a 1961 Baldwin Acrosonic. They had just had it tuned a few weeks ago and ever since their tuner had left, the fallboard wouldn't work right. They had asked if I could take a look at it sometime when we visited. Today was the day. It was a gorgeous day today with temps in the high 60's. Hard to believe having a jacket free day on November 8th! Anyway, my mom and I made the drive while 'A' was at work. Once I'd gotten the piano opened up and a few screws removed I could see what had happened. I just find it hard to believe that this guy did what he did! There are four screws that hold a complicated array of metal linkage attaching the fallboard to the inside sides of the piano - two screws on each end. The top two screws on each end were fine. With the bottom two he had missed the holes and instead forced the screws in to new spots, creating two new holes in the wood. Why? Why would someone FORCEFULLY make new holes. Didn't he realize that he had missed the old holes? Four holes, four screws. Seems like it should have been simple enough! I lined up the screw holes with the holes in the linkage and screwed it all back together in the correct way. Guess what? It works now. Geeze. No charge, they are friends. They insisted on taking us out to lunch, though.

So, another week begins. So far I've got two keytop jobs that will be arriving and that fine tuning at the large dogs/piles of guns/Republican household. But first it's retail again.

Timely Things

I had to set the alarm this morning. I had a tuning in Beverly at 9:30 ish, a new customer, a Catholic elementary school. I knew pretty much the location and had no problems getting to the area. Finding a parking space was somewhat challenging, however. I had my instructions. I would find a metered, city parking lot with 2 hour meters across the corner from the school or on-street metered parking would get me up to 12 hours. Not knowing the condition of the piano and therefore not knowing exactly how long I would be there, I was hoping for on-street. As I drove down the street bordering the school, all the parking spaces were occupied. I came upon an intersection with a one way street and saw a vacant space on the corner. I loved it! Easy parking! I made sure I was within the lines and only a couple inches from the curb. I hauled out my tuning gear and headed for the meter with the load of change that I had brought. Quarters only. 2 hours for each quarter so I cranked in two of them. No worries with four hours to get in the school, find the room, tune the piano, and drop off the bill to the secretary.

It was 9:15 when those quarters registered in the meter. It was 10:45 when I returned to my truck, job finished, to find a bright orange parking ticket on my windshield.

Huh?????? There was still nearly three hours left on the meter. I was not a happy tuner. I racked my brain for the location of the Beverly police station and thought that I remembered seeing it when I had gone to tune at a different location a few months back. I headed that way, found the station and couldn't find parking. I did, however, find a parking spot at City Hall, and decided to start with them. I was very pleased to find that the first office inside the doors of City Hall was the parking clerk's office.

Now, before I finish this saga, take a look at this and tell me which meter I used when I parked for my job (A, B, C, or D). Notice it says 'Deb' on one of those parked cars!Well, I put my 2 quarters in meter D (bottom dot) and I was wrong. Yes, I knew that usually the meter is at the front of the vehicle. But, not always. I had even looked at the set up of the other cars and meters before making my choice! There was no other space behind me, yet there was that meter. Must be mine.

Wrong.

So, back to the parking clerk... I told her, "I parked at a twelve hour meter, put in two quarters, and went to tune a piano. I came back about one and a half hours later and had nearly 3 hours left on the meter and found this ticket on my windshield!" I explained the odd meter arrangement and that there was NO parking space behind me.

Her explanation was that they had painted the parking space lines incorrectly. There SHOULD HAVE been a space behind me.

Yeah, well, now what?

She voided my ticket.

You better believe I'm hanging on to two copies of that voided ticket so when the paperwork gets lost I'm not in trouble! (And take another look. If the meters were IN FRONT of parked cars, why wasn't there one for that top car in my drawing?)

I headed home. 37 miles round trip, a tuning fee, 3 quarters used in meters, and I wasn't going to add a ten dollar ticket to the day. The sun was shining and it was a pleasant trip on the highway. Once I got on to local roads there was a surprise waiting for me. You're thinking a police car speed trap, right?

Nope. (and I don't speed)

For the last 3 miles of my trip home I got to be the fourth car in a line-up following the trucks painting the center line in the road. 3 miles at an average speed of 5 mph. I wasn't going to let that get to me and cranked up a Beatles tape that 'A' had left in the truck. Cruisin' at 5 mph with "Ticket to Ride", "Kansas City", and "Revolution" blaring! (the paint vapors helped)

Evening Chuckle

After working two days dealing with (foul language deleted) tourists, swarms of them, more than I ever want to see in one place again, particularly in the place where I'm working, I came home and checked my email. A nice update from my best neighbor friend in FL, some piano stuff, Scribb's clever comment on my last post, and this photo, sent by some family friends, titled "The Boat Goes In First".

Things Aren't What They Should Be

A twist on a favorite song - "Things Ain't What They Used to Be"

That's true, too. (Or as Dorothy Donegan said, "Sure ain't.")

So, my darling, fellow clerk on Sundays has decided that she doesn't want to work the job anymore. Now, it doesn't seem to matter that thousands of people would love to have ANY job and can't find one. Nor does it matter that she gave her word that she would work through the Labor Day holiday. "Seems, according to them, that I signed a contract or something," she said to me. "I tried to quit, but they said I can't." I tried to nicely remind her that, contract or not, she had given her word, people were counting on her. That trust is one of the more important things. Yeah, life's real tough with just 6 days left to finish out her obligation (she works two days/week). She has come up with a solution, though. A solution bound to alienate many people. I'm first in line, another clerk second, and I'm sure many customers will walk away with bad vibes. She comes to work. Ten minutes late each time. Sunday, she stretched her 30 minute dinner break in to 45 minutes, throwing off everyone else having their break afterward. She blatantly text messaged in front of me (and customers). And she did almost NOTHING. Yep, a BIG fat nothing. Oh, she waited on some customers, but never lifted a finger to fill any candy or clean. Nope nothing. Just a sullen body getting paid the same as the rest of us that are forced to pick up the slack. No worries, she thinks. Next summer she plans to tour Europe with her boyfriend. Uh huh. I've only got three more shifts with her and I've got some plans of my own (sly grin). Did I mention she's 16? Lots of growing up for that girl.

****************************

Seems there are a lot of folks that you just can't trust. It's hard to know if you can even hold polite conversation. When a ten minute chat is later conveyed as 'spent the evening with', when a son changes to a 'friend'. When visiting a local college this week changes to setting up a visit sometime. A business client has sort of creeped me out. Spookier yet is that he stayed around the immediate area and I hadn't a clue. Don't know much about him. He has an in-state out of area cell number, out of state license plates, lots of 'professions' and stories. The more I hear, well, creepy.

****************************

A few weeks back I made a terrible mistake.

"Mom, if you want to, we should check to see if the Pergo that you have in the rest of the house is still available. We could continue it in to your bedroom."

Wasn't long before I was hauling 7 extremely heavy boxes of flooring from the back of her vehicle up the stairs to stack in her parlor - waiting for installation - by me.

Last Saturday, on a beautifully hot and humid day, with no air conditioning, I cut up and hauled out wall-to-wall carpeting and padding. I removed all the tack strips and all the baseboards. Tomorrow, all achy from work irritated arthritis, I'll begin installing her flooring. Oh yeah, another scorcher tomorrow!

But that's not what I really want to tell you. We had one extra box of the Pergo from when I floored her den and hallway nearly two years ago (wow, where did that time go?). It was stored down in the cellar on top of my weight bench (no comments on that please). On top of the box of flooring was stored a rolled up all-weather mat for the inside of Mom's front doorway. She uses it in the winter, usually, but didn't this past winter. When I moved the mat I noticed a puddle on the box of flooring. I confirmed that there was no plumbing overhead. I went to check the mat, which I had stood on end, out of the way. The concrete floor was very wet beneath the mat.

Huh.

I got my mom to take the mat outside and hang it over the deck railing to dry. Lots of water dripped out of it making a narrow river of moisture along one decking board. The narrow river looked a little dirty and I had just spent 5 hours scrubbing and cleaning the deck last weekend so my mom took the hose to it to wash it down well. By the end of the day the deck had dried. The mat was still oozing so it had been moved to a better spot, off deck, to dry. The next morning the little river was back! By day's end it had dried up... only to return the next morning.Here's a picture I took before it dried up today. And although it's just a short bit in the picture, each morning the entire wet stripe is about 8 feet long. I have figured out why the mat was wet. Can you? But what's up with the deck? Can't wait until morning to check it out again.

Too...

late, tired, achy, irritated, hungry, and brain-dead to write anything right now. It's been a weird start to the week.

Well, of course it has.

I'll tell you all about it later.

August

It was one year ago. I commented to my supervisor that the tourists seemed edgy and rude. "It's August," she said. "It's always that way in August."

Well, here we are in August again. And, you know what? They still are. Last Sunday around noon-ish the store was packed with people. I was the lone clerk until 1:30. A lady was browsing the taffy boat. She had about 5 kids with her. She set her VERY LARGE, ice laden drink on the edge of the taffy boat platform and one of the kids promptly rewarded her by knocking it off to the floor.

Where it spilled it's entire contents, of course.

I grabbed a roll of paper towels, left my area behind the counter, and approached the woman saying, "Here you go," offering forth the roll of towels. What did she do? Why she turned her back and left the store. The kids sloshed around amid the large puddle complete with ice cubes for a few seconds while watching the taffy being pulled, then walked out.

Thank you very much August tourist!

I was afraid that someone would lose footing on the slick, wet floor. The ice cubes were slithering in one direction towards the boxed taffy display; a river of liquid was heading for the front wall of windows. The customers were lined up for service as I headed for the large mop in the taffy room. It did no good. There was too much! I slathered a huge wad of paper towels around the worst of the spill, tossed them, and headed for the phone to call the other store for some help. A man at the counter shoved a bag of taffy toward me demanding to be waited on immediately. I held up a finger (no, not THAT one), turned my back and finished my quick phone call. Within a few minutes, help arrived to wait on the masses while I mopped and soaked up the mess.

August (maybe it's because it's the only month without a holiday?)

Turkeys

Now y'all know the recurring problem with the PRIVATE Way that runs along the edge of our property. Well, in agreement with the "appurtenant" property (the people who are entitled to use the way), I put up two, small, 'Private Way' signs. One on each end of the fence that runs parallel to the way. I very nicely explained to a particular neighbor that it is private and it does connect to the neighboring driveway, not a road, and that we did not mind if the neighbors used OUR portion reasonably (like if the road is blocked for some reason). However, I also added that I could not give permission for anyone (including ourselves) to use the connected driveway. (ed. note: this makes the use, well, useless, as the private way legally just ends, with nowhere to continue except on to the neighbor's driveway, which would be trespassing)

Anyway, the particular neighbor that I was conversing with seems to have taken offense. Now her adult son, who doesn't even live in the neighborhood, has decided to make it his 'out of his way' route of choice. Traveling past his parent's road and drive so that he can use the neighbor's driveway and the private way...long way around. Spite. As far as he knows, I'm ignoring him.
Idiot.

This morning, as I was having breakfast, I spotted one of our darling neighborhood brats riding his bike to school. Same brat that was told umpteen times last year to stay off our private way. So guess what he does.
He just had to make that turn up our neighbor's driveway.
I got up and waited by my window. Knuckles at the ready. Around the corner he sped on to our private way. As he careened past, down the hill, I rapped VERY loudly on the window pane. Wow, what a shocked look on that brats face!

I headed out and put up larger signs. If the brat continues, I'll be speaking to his mom.

At least this turkey knew how to read the signs! This morning he walked across our next door neighbor's lawn and sauntered across the street, through that neighbor's yard, and down to the woods. He stayed clear of our private way even if he did trespass on some lawns!

Out of Sorts

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I Should Have Just

rolled over and gone back to sleep.

It's been that kind of day.

Oh, it all started out swell enough with a good mug of coffee, breakfast, 8 piano related 'digests' in email, finish off another set of keys to ship on our way out of town...

Fantastic, the mail-lady arrived just before we were leaving. Should be a BIG check for some key work by now. What? Not yet? But, hurray, there's an envelope from the DTA! Before I backed out of the driveway, I opened it. Totally unbelievable. Well, the sad thing is, it IS believable. They have denied my application because...I didn't provided the needed information or documentation.

WHAT?????

I talked to 'my' worker last Thursday. She called to say that they needed my Sept. 08 and Jan 09 business records. (Even though they weren't requested in the initial list of required documentation) I told her that I would mail them that same afternoon. I stopped everything I was working on and first recorded all my business stuff for Jan. in my account book, then went to the library and photocopied both month's records on legal sized paper and walked directly to the post office AND MAILED THEM. ATTENTION A_______ G_______. This was an ordinary business envelope. It would have been received the following day. At the latest two days.

I called today and got HER machine. I left a very stern message. Now I wait.

So anyway, back to the day...Shipped off the package and headed up to Haverhill, to Ted's Leathers, to buy a suede split for gasket (reed organs and player pianos). It's a 45 minute drive and we were relieved to see the hours posted for being open Wed. through Fri., 12 - 4. Except, Ted's has changed. I think 'old man Ted' is no longer around. A young man opened the doors to the leather storage area (behind the retail clothing space) and it was near empty. Nothing I could use. From racks upon racks and floors covered with bins, it is reduced to four tables of dregs. How utterly disappointing. I loved being able to touch and inspect the leather before buying.

We drove around Haverhill a bit and then decided to head to Amesbury and have lunch at Friendly's. As I opened the single, glass door to enter, a woman barged her way past me, leaving. Honestly. She actually pushed me out of her way as I tried to walk in through the door that I had opened. Ooooh, I could just...We were seated, and told that Amanda would be our waitress. Amanda didn't have all her oars in the water. Our meals were borderline warm and it took forever to get them. Amanda kept forgetting things...like us...and water, butter, my fries. While we were there, we planned the rest of our dismal day. Since we were so far north, we decided a trip to the Home Depot and Walmart in Seabrook, NH would be in order. Mom would buy birdseed, 'A' would buy a new portable CD player. Well, mom managed the birdseed, but there was not one CD player in the entire Walmart.

Time to head home and a really cool sighting along the way. Yes, I even had my camera with me. No, I didn't take a picture. Because...what would I do with a picture of a windmill? As we headed across the Rte. 1 bridge in Newburyport, my mom exclaimed, "Look!" Well, I was paying attention to staying in my lane on the bridge, so it was pretty hard to figure out where she wanted me to look. Then I saw it looming over the city of Newburyport. A brand spanking new windmill out in the industrial park! It's enormous! Yay, for Newburyport! (I will take a picture next time, now that I know it's there and can plan ahead.)

Got home to a box of keys at the door and no message from AG at the DTA.

At least there's work.

How Stupid Can They Be?

No surprise it's snowing. No surprise 'A' is supposed to be at work at 3 p.m., during the height of the storm, of course. By that time winds should be gusting to around 55 mph blowing the accumulated 5 - 6 inches of snow.

And I suppose it should be no surprise that the DPW, in their vast amount of wisdom, sent a sand/salt truck down our street spewing it's mixture on top of 2 inches of snow. No more than 5 minutes later followed by the plow, which neatly removed all that sand/salt to the edge of the road.

So much for watching the budget. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Rolling Rocks On

An update.

After breakfast this morning I took a bit of time gazing out the front window at my mom's front garden. Smack in the middle was a large piece of granite. Now, this garden is a mixture of rock garden plantings and perennials, but that rock looked wrong. I called my mother to have a look.

"Is that piece of granite supposed to be there?"

It didn't look right to her either, so I bundled myself up against the cold and went to check it out.

Someone had pushed another boulder off the wall. This time in the opposite direction and it landed on top of some plantings. I rolled and shoved and twisted it back in to place on the wall.

This is getting ridiculous.

And It Continues

If you haven't yet read it...read my last post before this one!

I was sitting minding my own business, working on necklaces this afternoon, when.....

these two flew by the window,on our back 'common way' and down the neighbor's driveway. Now I'm really pissed off (sorry, at least I didn't swear). So I watched, waited, photographed, and verbally assaulted one of them on his second time around. They quit for the day.

So, today's total....they nearly ran head first in to the front end of a neighbor's car as the neighbor was returning home from work. I heard one kid remark, "aw, that was a close one." And they have once again trespassed on private property.

The pictures show them on the public road in front of our house. These kids are only about 9 or 10 years old, tops.

Another One?

I have never lived in an area where there have been so many self-centered individuals. Maybe it's a symptom of the times. At first I thought that it was parents not being parents. You know the type, have the kids and then let them do whatever pleases them. We have 4 or 5 on our street that think they own the neighborhood. They choose to cut through anyone's yard, play wherever, ride their motorized scooters (yes, motorized, and they travel faster than the cars on the road) and the like on anyone's property, and then look at you like your nuts when you politely tell them it's not acceptable. I'm amazed that there hasn't been a major disaster. On several occasions I've had to come to a complete stop with my car as one or more children have been approaching from the opposite direction, in the middle of the road, at about 20 mph, looking behind them at their friends rather than the direction they are heading. And who do you think would get blamed if there were a resulting accident?

So, we've done what we could to discourage them. They have been told (numerous times) to stay off our common way. We have a small 'road' behind our property which joins with our neighbor's driveway and the general public tries to make it an official road. It isn't. We own it and our neighbor's own their driveway. Sheesh.

Anyway, this bunch of kids hate us.

But wait, there's more!

Over the past several months, our neighbor across the street has been renovating their property. Inside and out. There have been trucks, big ones, maneuvering about to get on to their property. Not a problem except that they have torn up and rutted a rather large section of land in front of our house as they have twisted and turned massive tires. Our property. We like to keep it nice looking. My dad had cleaned up and seeded the whole bit so that it would be easy to mow and look neat. The workers had made a mess, created a mud hole. We had lost soil to the deep treads of the tires. Their trash was strewn about.

We were not happy. We had thought that maybe they would fix the mess they had created on our property. If it had been us or guys working for us that had damaged their property, we'd have been there with fresh soil and seed....and an apology.

No such luck.

So a couple days ago I headed to the front, rake and shovel in hand, and at least got it smoothed out. I also strategically placed some large granite boulders along the edge of our property so that my hard work would not be destroyed. (note: these pieces of granite had been there years ago but we had given permission to have them moved aside when a developer was bringing in house sections. we hadn't moved them back. mistake.) Guess what? We got grief from a neighbor about the rocks. This person had wanted to park there while some work was being done on his driveway. Well, park in front of your own house, I say. Pull in to your own yard and mess it up, not ours. Oh no, that can't happen. He's put a fence up so that people can't park in front of his house!

I just don't get it.

So...the kids hate us, one neighbor that my mom had given many garden plants to no longer speaks to us (huh? haven't a clue as to why), another's dogs aren't allowed to use our yard as their bathroom, and a third is angry that we don't want our property damaged. Then there's the one that we "threatened" by telling them that their dog was barking ALL DAY.

I think we have one household left that might like us.

I've never, never, never had neighbors like this!