February 10, 2017
Dear Everyone:
I love being retired.
Especially around this time of year.
Back when I was a “working stiff” I would typically get up at the
“Crack-of-O-Dark-Thirty” in order to be at work on time.
I would be at my desk long before the sun came up.
And, like as not, the sun would set long before I got home in the
evening.
This is true of many people who work on the
West Coast. I once asked
our Dad why he had to be at work by 7:00 in the morning, when he worked
in Portland,
Oregon. He explained
that the “Home Office” was in
Boston, where they
typically began work at 9:00 AM.
By 10:00, they had been at the office for an hour and were still
waiting for him to call in with his “numbers”.
Therefore he had to be there before 10:00
Eastern Time.
So I was mildly surprised when I learned that the latest Board Member of
our
Homeowner Association (HOA), “Patty”, had contacted our Property
Manager, “Michaela”, to suggest that the outside lights be shut off
early to “save money”.
Evidently, “Patty” enjoys the luxury of going to work later in the
morning than before sunrise.
“Michaela” patiently explained that all of the outdoor lights are tied
into sensors
that turns the lights on at dusk and off at dawn.
Arranging to turn the lights off before dawn would involve an
expensive changeover to a timer system, which would present the added
complication of having to be reset at various times of the year.
Not to mention the danger it posed to early morning residents on
their way to their vehicles.
This earned “Michaela” a terse response from “Patty” that could best be
described as “snarky”. It
seemed “Patty” didn’t think a lengthy explanation was necessary.
“All you had to do was tell me about the light sensors!”
“Michaela” was less than pleased.
I found out about all this just prior to our latest HOA meeting last
month. The meeting itself
went on for about three hours, complicated by the fact that “Michaela”
kept stopping to explain things to “Patty” who has never served on an
HOA Board before.
Near the end of the not-quite-interminable meeting, “Patty” asked,
plaintively: “Are we allowed
to have bird feeders?”
About six years ago I received a “CC&R
Letter” denouncing me for having bird feeders on my patio.
Actually, there is no rule against bird feeders.
Instead, there is a rule, sufficiently vague in its wording to
allow it to apply to just about anything anyone designates as “noxious”.
Theoretically, bird seed could attract creatures other than
birds, which some people might find objectionable.
Or, as one of "Jeanie’s" neighbors called them, “rodents
of the non-cute variety.”
Some people just don’t like birds of any kind, “Patty” included.
In fact, last November she tried to start a campaign against the
wild turkeys
that occasionally saunter through the neighborhood.
We headed that off at the time with an innocuous “Friendly
Reminder” notice, encouraging people to not feed the wild turkeys.
So when she asked her question at the HOA Meeting, she expected to be
handed ammunition against all animal-lovers, myself included.
What she got was:
“Of course you can have a
birdfeeder! You just can’t
attach it to the outside of the building.”
“Michaela” then went on to explain, in detail, why residents were
discouraged from attaching a variety of foreign objects onto the outside
walls and rain gutters, and what she did, using her cellphone camera, to
cite transgressors. She also
assured “Patty”, repeatedly, that she, “Patty”, was
certainly allowed a
birdfeeder of any kind as long as she observed the non-attachment rules.
This was not the answer “Patty” was anticipating.
So she tried another approach.
“The reason I asked is, somebody
has been feeding the
squirrels. I’ve seen
peanut shells
everywhere.”
“Michaela” made no mention of the fact that there is no law against
feeding squirrels, just as it is not a sin for peanut shells to mingle
with the rest of the mulch around the grounds.
Instead, she deftly redirected the conversation to an admonition
against feeding “stray cats and dogs”.
(And, for the record, it is the
scrub jays who
carry the peanuts up into the trees, break them open and eat the meat,
then drop the empty shells on the ground for “Patty” to find.
The squirrels tend to carry the peanuts back to the nest, or just
bury them.)
In the meantime, “Phoebe”, the other HOA Board Member, kept jabbing me
in the side with her elbow, since she, along with “Michaela”, knew
exactly what “Patty” was trying to do.
“Phoebe” has no problem with birds and openly laughed at
“Patty’s” attempts to thwart the wild turkeys last year.
So, Kids, here’s our Lesson for the Day:
The reason the word is called “snarky” is because it sounds very
close to “shark-y”
and, like a shark-y, it can suddenly swim around and bite you in the
ass. So it’s best to avoid
snarky-ness, whenever possible.
A Lesson “Patty” has yet to learn.
Love, as always,
Pete
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