Thursday, January 14, 2010

Neighbours

Well, I'm being slightly more productive. Laundry was done (& mostly folded and put away). Dishes were washed. Stuff always gets done eventually around here.

I was feeling a bit sad yesterday. Board meetings can be difficult at times. Put a dozen opinionated women (plus the occasional brave man) in a room together for 2 1/2 hours and someone's feelings are bound to get hurt. Mine got bruised, which left me feeling a little wary about my fellow human being. I was pretty wired after the meeting so I couldn't sleep.

PLUS, some person complained about ice on our sidewalk, which prompted a visit from the by-law officer! In our defense, shiftwork, holidays, sickness, and the fact our sidewalk is busy with pedestrian who pack down the snow faster than we can shovel it, creates a lot of difficulty getting our sidewalk cleared of snow. We've had some above seasonal temperatures the last week or so, so the snow melts quickly but turns to ice at night. We, of course, would have felt very badly should someone have fallen and hurt themselves on our sidewalk, and will probably do everything in our power to ensure that this type of ice build up never occurs again, but still. They called by the by-law officer. A kindly worded note would have worked too.

So, our sidewalk looked a lot like this. Only worse. This is after we (meaning mostly Javier) cleared away some ice. It was back breaking and arm exhausting work.


So I was feeling a bit delicate emotionally yesterday and very, very tired.

Javier and I took turns clearing the sidewalk. I'd like to emphasize that Javier did most of the work. We got most of it done in the afternoon. I sprinkled the remaining ice with some environmentally-friendly snow melter and we planned to finish the rest after dinner.

And this is where my faith in the goodness of humanity was restored.

Our very, very kind neighbour finished clearing the ice from the rest of the sidewalk while we were both out! "It was fun", he said. How nice is that? There are still good people in my world.

And I am very happy about the sunny weather, though it makes for very messy and wet footwear and dirty cars. I'm able to go out in just a sweater instead of a heavy winter coat.



I think I may have heard the lions panting from heat exhaustion yesterday. If it gets any warmer, maybe I'll have to swap the scarves out for sun hats and SPF!

3 comments:

wishful nals said...

enjoying your blog! xo

Shana said...

Sounds like my life cycle... one jerk makes me lose my faith and then some kind soul restores it. There's always another jerk waiting in the wings. Hopefully, there will always be another kind soul as well!

Marty said...

He learned that he would die in six months. The doctor suggested he move to Florida and join a Home Owners Association. "Why?" asked the bewildered patient, to which the doctor responded, "It'll be the longest six months of your life!"

Having experienced both ends of the spectrum of the HOA, I feel your pain.