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Well it certainly doesn’t take long to erase all the good that a vacation does. While you are taking time off you try to let go of all the ills that face you on a daily basis, in the hopes that they will magically correct themselves while you are gone. But sadly that rarely, if ever, happens. Once back in the daily grind you slowly gravitate or should I say descend back into the same rut you were in when you left.
During the time I was gone to my “Nirvana to the North” I noticed I didn’t have to use my car horn as a defense mechanism once. The only time I touched it was as a greeting to a friend or neighbor, not to avoid an accident. In the week since I’ve been home I am hard pressed to think of a time I have been in my car and not had to use it at least once. If not as a warning to somebody who was about to run into me, it was used as an alarm clock to wake up a driver who was asleep behind the wheel or on the cell phone.
Thank God for the poor cell reception in the High Sierras. That was one little irritant I didn’t miss at all, the constant reminder of how tethered we are to the cell phone. I know they have become an integral part of our lives and like the computer won’t ever go away. Not until the next massive meteor hits the earth like it did with the dinosaurs 65 million years ago and we wipe the slate clean once again.
I know some of you won’t believe this, but in the eleven days that I was gone, I went out to dinner numerous times and I did not hear a cell phone ring once. When I went to the grocery store there weren’t any people standing in the aisles or behind me in lines talking at the top of their voices about nothing. And you wonder why I refer to it as Nirvana.
But alas, like a good dream, these things come to an end once you have awakened or in this case re-entered the city. Once I returned I was hopeful that maybe some of the problems that I left behind might have been corrected, but I guess I needed to stay away longer. Perhaps my wishes were too lofty and I should have lowered my expectations, to say winning the Super Lotto jackpot.
Silly me to think that a problem that I have had for three years would have been corrected in my mere two weeks’ absence. That serves me right for being the eternal optimist. I am of course referring to the auto shop that one of my neighbors has been operating in his front yard had been shut down or at least been given another warning. In fact, the exact opposite has happened, his business has been flourishing. Since I have been home, there are twice as many autos being worked on. I felt better though after reading the City Manager’s column last week telling me what I could not have known, that the boys in code enforcement were doing a bang up job. I should also not feel alone by any stretch of the imagination for “the complaint basis has generated THOUSANDS of code enforcement cases over the last three years-plenty to keep the City’s TWO code enforcement officers quite busy.” Oh good, that makes me feel much better.
He also mentioned that “one common complaint from those who chose not to comply is that the City is “harassing them.” Well I’ve got a little news flash for him. I’ve heard that “common complaint” from many people who did not have a report made on them but were working making a renovation in their front yards, legal or not, only to have one of the two code enforcement officers stop and question them. Even though as he states that they have “neither the time nor desire to seek out additional cases” I keep hearing this little tale so often.
I don’t know why so many people feel compelled to pass these reports on to me. I can only assume that it’s because I write for this paper and have written about it in the past. All I know is that every time I hear it, it makes me angry that my problem still exists and they have the time to make unsolicited stops. Maybe they should make a note and go back to their office to see if there is any paper work on file before approaching a citizen on their property. At the property close to me there are two cars that have been sitting there for weeks collecting dust. Maybe it’s because both of the cars are Mercedes and they can’t believe that they are inoperable or maybe they could just be fans of German engineering.
If this problem hasn’t been resolved I must have really been kidding myself to believe that the city would move quickly on the suggestion I made about additional stoplights at Rosemead and Longdon and Rosemead and Broadway before the school year began. What was I thinking? Maybe it was that fresh mountain air and the altitude up there that when I thought of home, visions of progress filled my head.
At least the new parking lot, that looks better than the area that surrounds it, is finally done. Oh, wait a minute, scratch that. Well I’m sure it will be done soon. By the way, other than customers for Mama Petrillos, who will be using this parking lot? I must have missed the memo on that. Better still, why am I even worrying about it? Good lord I am starting to get stressed out.
I think I need a vacation.
The Shrub Speaks: QUESTION: Can we win [the war on terrorism]?
DUBYA: I don't think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the -- those who use terror as a tool are -- less acceptable in parts of the world. Interview aired on NBC's "Today Show” Aug. 30, 2004
B.D.’s Response: The next day you turned around and said we could win the war. So which is it? Talk about a flip-flop.
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