April 16, 2021
Dear Everyone:
Attack of the Fuzzy-Wuzzies!
They’re everywhere.
Actually, they’re not Fuzzy-Wuzzies at all,
they just resemble the woolly-looking caterpillars, dropping from trees
in the spring.
Specifically, I’m talking about the “Chinese
Pistachio” trees that abound in my neighborhood.
They are particularly popular with landscape architects because
they have shady, pinnate leaves which turn into gorgeous colors during
autumn, and they are fairly drought-resistant, thus rendering them
amenable to our desert-prone climate.
In early spring, buds appear on the bare
branches of the trees. These
buds expand, developing into rather fluffy outer-buds, which drop off,
revealing tender shoots which will, in turn, grow into long leaves that
branch out on either side of a central stem.
It is these outer buds which begin landing on everything around
this time of year.
They really are rather fluffy at first, soft to
the touch, greenish-brownish in color, and completely lacking in any
legs such as caterpillars tend to have.
After a short time, these “Fuzzy-Wuzzies” turn stiff and will, at
the slightest provocation, collapse into greenish puffs of dust.
And how that dust loves to be tracked inside on
the soles of people’s shoes!
Not to mention turning the windshield of one’s car into a streaky mess.
This is the time of year when the landscape
company’s minions wander through the area armed with leaf blowers.
They happily blow the Fuzzy-Wuzzies off the walkways and
incidentally under the fences and onto people’s patios such as mine.
As I happen to possess a leaf blower of my own,
I happily blow the Fuzzy-Wuzzies right back out again.
This sometimes results in a duel of blowers on either side of the
fence, Fuzzy-Wuzzies scattering in all directions in a maniacal
profusion of little bits of fluff.
One good rain and they vanish into mulch.
Unfortunately, we haven’t had a good rain in months.
So we settle for blowing the stuff off the walkways and let the
sprinklers melt them away.
In other news…
My front door sports a deadbolt lock, which I
replaced as soon as the ink dried on the transfer deed on the property.
There is also an “old-fashioned” latch which presumably goes with
the “antique” lattice grille windows.
Sometime last year, the latch began to stick in
the extended position. This
is not a locking mechanism; pressing down on the latch simply retracts
the bolt, allowing the opening of the door, while an internal spring
mechanism automatically extends it again.
Opening the door from the inside, which uses a
standard round doorknob, has always been easy.
But when the bolt is extended, typically inside the strike plate
in the door frame, opening it from the outside was becoming more and
more difficult. I was
becoming concerned that I might not be able to open it from the outside
at all.
So, I did what anyone would do:
I covered the strike plate with duct tape.
This way, the bolt was prevented from fully extending.
Thus, the latch on the outside was not required to open the door.
Of course, there was a downside.
A good breeze could easily blow the door open.
Keeping the deadbolt in place took care of that, but this was a
temporary remedy at best.
Being a “Do It Yourself” (DIY) kind of person,
I naturally tried to replace the latch myself.
What I discovered is that the door, most likely installed in
1988, is not the same size as current models.
The internal mechanism was either too long or too short for the
job.
In the meantime, there was always duct tape.
Someone compared duct tape to “The Force” made
famous by all the Star Wars movies.
It has a Dark Side and a Light Side, and it binds the Universe
together. At least for a
while.
After a year or so, I decided it was time to
engage (no pun intended) the expertise of a professional locksmith.
I found one through one of the online review sites and made
contact.
The locksmith requested that I use my
smartphone to actually video record working the latch in question and
send it to him via text messaging.
Then he quoted a date and time that he could come and fix the
latch.
While he was making the repair, he mentioned
that I was not the only person with this problem.
He had another customer at a community called “Reflections”.
I had heard of Reflections a number of times,
particularly just after I bought my current condominium.
The Homeowner Association (HOA) meetings at that time were
Standing Room Only and filled with angry homeowners who had just
discovered a number of problems that had been omitted or glossed over by
the developer who had purchased the apartment complex, renamed it and
sold the units as condos.
There were numerous remarks about suing the
developer. The current and
possibly first HOA president cautioned against such an expensive
“solution”. Instead, he
advised, let the good people at Reflections, another community
established by the same developer, do the honors and see what developed.
I wondered where Reflections might be until one
day when I was waiting at a stop sign behind a small nearby shopping
center. Looking across the
intersection, I suddenly realized that the entrance to a gated community
proclaimed “Reflections” on the wall.
I also noticed that the gate was disabled, possibly another
reason the denizens were in the process of suing their developer.
In any case, the locksmith had just the right
materials on hand to repair the latch on my front door.
He even replaced the strike plate, having ripped off the duct
tape and determining that he didn’t like the leftover adhesive.
An excellent job, and I have added his website to my list of
helpful “repair and service” operators.
Love, as always,
Pete