“Remoted” – Day 379 (Tuesday)

Signs of spring.

Signs of spring are appearing in the yard. Green shoots are pushing up  through the dry earth of the flower bed formed last summer where irises and lilies were moved from the front yard for the fence project. The big shame is that the big hosta root ball never made it into the ground after it was hurriedly dug up for the fence post hole. There was no relocation plan and no obvious place to put it, so it sat in the yard. Heck, it’s still sitting in the yard. 

Two dudes came knocking on the door to try and book an appointment for solar panels. Um, no thanks. The main dude just kept talking, because to a hardcore door-to-door salesman, "no" clearly means, "oh, yes, please do ramble on for ten minutes and tell me more." His companion stood there nodding his head the entire time. The only reason I even checked the door was the dogs were barking like we were under attack and I was expecting a Prime delivery. I hadn't yet seen the message the delivery was delayed by a day. 

Monday’s wind blew the caps off the end posts on the gate. They were both in place when the trash went out in the morning, but when the mailbox was checked after work, one was laying in the yard. The location of the second one is anyone’s guess.

Not mine, luckily. But whose?

The wind left an offering in the yard today, perhaps in exchange for the gate cap. It wasn’t money or a winning lottery ticket or anything that could be exchanged for a new gate cap. It’s somebody’s $40 fine for parking on the street during designated hours without a resident sticker. The driver of the blue Toyota probably doesn’t even know they got a ticket. I considered walking up the street looking for the car and license plate noted on the ticket, but I’m not sure I’m in the mood to play Nancy Drew in The Case of the Flyaway Citation. And if I find the vehicle, do I really want to be messing with it putting the ticket on it? Maybe I’ll just mail it to City Hall with a note. 

The level of patrolling over resident stickers is surprising. My neighbor just got a new Jeep a couple weeks ago and hadn’t managed to catch the parking office during business hours. She works from home part of the time, and one work-at-home day got her a $40 citation for parking in front of her home without a resident sticker. The city is not joking with those resident stickers.