49 - In Which I Am The Rake

No, this is not about leaving a string of broken hearts in the Vieux Carré. As if. I don't think there are any hearts there to break.

This picture has nothing to do with this poast

I'm making a sign. What's my sign? "Welcome." It's ten feet wide and it's for a party and the idea and overall implementation were not mine, I'm just doing the painting, in the garage with the door up. Unbelievably beautiful day, so I let the dogs out. They jumped and leaped and chased each other out onto the lawn and I painted and forgot about them and they disappeared. Eventually I realized it and found them wa-a-ay down at the neighbors'. They were happy to come back since I was now paying them some attention and they were all wet from getting a good creek romp out of their system.

I was in the cul-de-sac now and saw the other neighbor's For Sale sign and took a flyer. "Country Elegance," 3-4 bedrooms, etc. It was built by our previous neighbor for himself and his wife, who had multiple sclerosis, and then he came down with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and they moved away. The next people bought the place in a pretty strong market.  They owned a recycling business and were doing well, and in fact after paying more than I thought it could possibly be worth, spent a few hundred grand extra on landscaping. All this while we were over here pulling weeds by hand and puzzling over lawnmowers that won't start.

Then one day the recycler guy was riding his Harley on the freeway and got run over by some gal who was talking on the phone -- by run over I mean hit, knocked down, and literally run over -- and while he was in recovery his children, assuming he would never walk again, took over his business and ran it into the ground. But he rose from the dead and damned their eyes and now he doesn't get to see his grandchildren. Maybe he does by now, I'm at least a year behind on the neighborhood gossip, but let's not let that ruin a good story.

Whatever the denouement of the family drama, they need to extract their money from the property and are trying to sell it. I on the other hand am just trying to keep mine from disappearing behind the long grass so after reading the flyer I started a lawnmower and mowed the grass. But I didn't feel like installing the grass catcher and left behind windrows of slaughtered grass blades, which in retrospect I decided would look funky once they dried out. So I braved the dogs who were now pent up again and retrieved a rake from the shed and set to, with back, arm, and fist, and cleaned it all up.

While doing so I decided that today's poast could not wait, because I will not be home tonight, I will be out late setting up for the aforementioned party, and so here I am now. Being here (I am), I went ahead and looked my neighbor's real estate listing up at trulia.com and *choke* they are asking $1.274M. Much as I like the idea of our house's value somehow being comparable to that, I really think they may be reaching a bit, concerned more with making up for their business than what their house is worth. But who knows? Once they see the nicely raked lawn across the street, someone might actually pay that.