in the neighborhood

My, we’ve been social today. We had our annual Property Owner’s Association meeting at 10 this morning. We’d been kind of dreading it. Aside from the mingling-at-ten-in-the-morning-on-Saturday thing, we were afraid we’d have to volunteer to be president. Well, one of us would have to. Everyone takes turns, and we’ve never done it. Last year nobody would volunteer and the people doing it said they’d do it again on the condition that someone else would go ahead and swear to do it this year, so we figured we’d have to volunteer for next year. We’re nearly the only ones left who haven’t, and several people have done it for several years at a time. To our delight, though, the woman who lives beside us volunteered. Her husband did it for a couple of years, and I think they kind of liked it. They’re organized and friendly. We would be awful at it. We’re disorganized, antisocial, and hate dealing with problems.

Reading back, this sounds like I’m using the Royal “We”. Really, we’re not.

It was a fairly painless meeting, and to my relief the item for discussion titled “Lawn Maintenance” was, surprisingly, not directed towards us. I was really expecting Heather to say, “The next item on the agenda is … SwordfishT and Baker B’s yard. Could you two PLEASE try mowing your lawn more than once a month, and maybe wrestle that wisteria on your fence that’s staging its own private coup on your end of the street into submission, and while you’re at it, that rectangle of weeds in the center of your yard that you pretend is a flowerbed HAS GOT TO GO!!! NOW!!!!! And your forsythia needs a trim – it’s taller than your house is. And for god’s sake, wash your windows. Thanks, guys!”

Amusingly, the couple next to us with two small children were exchanging glances themselves, and I KNOW they were thinking, “It’s us!!! It’s the huge, brightly colored toys that have taken over our entire yard!! Everyone’s complaining!!!” Kim and I have had discussions about what wrecks our yards are.

But no, it was mostly directed towards the woman with six kids who is compiling a mountain of dead appliances in her front yard. Who wasn’t there, since she’s a renter. But it’s a testament to what a nice neighborhood we have that the general consensus was for our next-door neighbor to see if they can find someone to haul it off for her. She’s lived there several years with all these kids – apparently she and her husband had two kids and adopted four more, and then he left her. And at least two of them have mild handicaps. So it’s no wonder the poor thing is piling up junk in the yard.

The bad news was that the old lady who owns four acres of woods just beyond us, past the dead end, is selling it. Which may mean someone builds beyond us. It’s very steep, right on a ridge, but that doesn’t mean much around here. There are also plans for a road to come through part of that, so who knows what will happen. This road has been in the works for some time – it’s a bypass, with the very misleading name of “Daniel Boone Parkway”, so everyone will think it will just be another pretty little scenic road like the Blue Ridge Parkway, when in fact it will be a four-lane divided highway. And if it comes anywhere near us, which it will pretty much have to as it’s joining up with another road less than a mile from here – I’m moving. But anyhow, that’s still being planned and will take eons, if it even happens. I hope.

I wish we could afford to buy a bunch of land and move into the middle of it. The development here is out of control, and this whole area is nearly ruined from it.

But anyhow. After socializing at the meeting, we had a couple of beers with the Weekend People this evening. Who, bizarrely, didn’t go to the meeting. They NEVER miss a meeting, but just decided they didn’t want to go. I think Ben has issues with one of the other, younger, guys. They both are opinionated, to say the least. But they invited us over so we sat on their deck and drank beer and talked about the other neighbors. They’re probably in their early 70s – their kids are around our age – and have lots of good gossip since theirs was the second house here.

Well, this is quite the dull entry. Think I’ll go do something productive. Like see what’s on TV.