random thoughts – Day 1,505 – (Thursday) – cleaning up

Spring cleaning is happening in the ‘hood. The other day, when the weather was warm, a homeowner from halfway up the street was busy wheeling her green plastic wagon down to the end of the street, then up the embankment along Beaver Brook, and dumping her yard crap. She’s been doing it for years. Clearly, the “No Dumping per order LPD” is no deterrent. Or maybe she’s just special.

My own yard waste is disposed of according to city rules – put out on pickup day, in a barrel with the City Hall issued orange sticker declaring “Yard Waste.” The barrel that went missing a week ago turned out to be in a neighbor’s yard and has been returned. During its brief sabbatical from my yard, I filled a paper leaf and waste bag, also acceptable under city rules. The bags have been in the gardening stuff for ages. Depending upon the fall winds, I either have a ton of leaves from neighbor’s trees in the yard, or practically none. Last fall, the winds blew in my favor and the bags weren’t needed to supplement the barrel.

Speaking of trees and cleaning … One day I returned home from wherever I was to find a card stuck on the front storm door with some sort of industrial strength sticky strip that won’t come off. The card says that my neighborhood has been selected to receive free trees. My yard is too small for a tree. What I really need is for someone from the postcard sticking campaign to come with some industrial cleaner to clean the industrial glue off my door.

Dumpster delivery.

Today, as I quietly toiled at the home office computer, a new sound interrupted the peace. A loudly rumbling truck was parked in front of my car and house. It backed up the street, turned around, and backed down the street, where the driver expertly executed a turn into the neighbor's half of the shared driveway. I watched from the office window, holding my breath as the truck bed seemed to pass just a hair’s breadth from the front of my car, which I would gladly have moved had I been aware that a giant orange dumpster was being delivered next door (right outside my little office). 

At 3:00, it got crazy loud when someone started hauling crap from the back yard into the dumpster. There was banging and clanging as the deck rails from the old pool deck were dismantled, and some metal stuff was beaten into submission and left in the dumpster. A silver car door leaned against the house. A pool ladder rested on the five foot tall pile of sand delivered last summer for no clear reason. I turned on YouTube Music and and blasted belly dance music in an effort to drown it out. After an hour, it got quiet again.

After work, as I left for the gym under a cloudy sky, the stuff in the dumpster was piled almost to capacity. From my back door landing I could see a car part with a Mercedes emblem on it, a wheelbarrow, corn hole boards, and lots of other undefinable stuff. I guess I never paid attention to the back yard over there because it was a surprise to see the volume of stuff in the dumpster. 

Yay. More rain.

As I left the gym, rain splatted down and I was officially off the hook for mowing the yard. I was not sad about the mowing part, but danggit, I am so sick of rain.

Behind The BungaLowell, there are changes in the window that the world’s most dedicated smoker would hang out of to puff and cough. For two nights now, light burns bright in the corner room, which seems empty as seen from my kitchen window. The Celtics flag that served as a curtain is gone from the window. The light from the room is now more of a regular lightbulb and no longer the colorful glow of what was probably a big screen. Several months ago, an occupant of that house was outside in the driveway bellowing into his phone about down payments and credit scores, so maybe the cougher bought his own place.

Change is happening all around. It feels like I should get busy with something big. I have been thinking about painting the bedroom. Maybe it’s time.