HOME ALONE

This is the second day of the Greece trip that Patty and her son Dave are hopefully enjoying, and they should have landed in Athens by now. This trip was organized by the Tuolumne County Chamber of Commerce, the area where we formally called home in California. They boarded their plane yesterday, at about noon in San Francisco, and the return flight will get them back to CA. late on the 13th. So, I expect Patty will be making the drive back to Arizona on the 15th or 16th. A few of our friends, Lori East, her son Trevor, and his Fiance Kelsie, are also on the trip.

I've been working on yard projects for the last few days, and have added a couple of small circular planters in the front yard, with desert grass inside. When I first landscaped the front of the house, I added irrigation, but have not been able to grow anything very well in this full sun area. These plants are my latest attempt.


After several years of not being able to decide if I wanted to add a wall cap to the front yard retaining wall, I finally decided to do it when I saw that Home Depot had it in stock.

The most recent good news is that the house across the street is now empty and it's sooooooooo
quiet in the neighborhood, that it's almost deafening! Don't know the details, but our street problem child is now gone. Over the years, I had quite a few conversations with the folks, mostly to ask them to turn down the volume on their blasting stereos. It sometimes was so bad, that our windows would rattle, and even with the volume on the TV turned up, the outside noise would overcome everything inside. I never called the police, thinking that I could handle it myself, but I was getting to the point where that just wasn't working. Then a couple of days ago, right after Patty left for CA, I noticed that furniture was being moved out of the house. It didn't take them long to clear everything out, and then there was peace and quiet in the neighborhood.
In addition to these folks not having any respect for the other people living nearby, the house was built long before most of the other dwellings, and is kind of a sore thumb on the street. I'm not one to wish bad luck on anybody, but whatever the reason for the house now being empty, I'm glad that it happened, and now we'll see how the next chapter plays out.