I have no clue what this means but it’s in front of our mailbox.
A road crew came down our street and didn’t do anything except mark spots they’re apparently going to work on some time soon. I have no idea what exactly they plan to do even though the city has a new tracking website that sort of but doesn’t actually tell me anything. The street could use some improvement. There are no potholes but there are definitely rough patches.
And one thing I’d like to see, but probably won’t get, would be sidewalks. It’s just not likely because the neighborhood wasn’t designed with pedestrians in mind. The streets are very narrow, sometimes too narrow even for two cars to pass in opposite directions, and the driveways and long stretches of most yards have drainage ditches. In some places there’s a pretty steep slope down into the ditch right off the road, which I know from all the times I walked home from the bus stop and had to take a big step to the left when a car went by.
It’s not just for me, though, but for everyone. I see a lot of people out walking in my neighborhood, and a lot of people who live in the neighborhood have dogs. The dogs don’t run loose—that’s a problem sidewalks wouldn’t solve, although there was one guy who lived here several years ago who’d trained his dog to run alongside his beaten up 1973 El Camino, in chewing gum gray, while he drove up and down on the wrong side of the street. I suppose it was good that his dog was getting some exercise but the car really needed to be put out of its misery, and, with the cloud of black smog it left in its wake, the rest of us did too. Fortunately he moved away.
There’s also a dog who lives down the street who spends all day alone in her yard. I see the people who live there coming and going and the dog, whose name I’ve learned is Lucy, wags her tail and follows them around, and they completely ignore her. Why they even have a dog is beyond me, but I see other people who live in the neighborhood stop and talk to Lucy and give her treats. That’s how I learned her name: I met a neighbor out walking her dog, and she said, “We’re on our way to visit with Lucy.”
So at least she does get some interaction with people and, thinking about that, adding sidewalks is secondary on my list of personal neighborhood improvements, but it would make it easier to stop and talk and spend time with Lucy without having to worry about oncoming cars.
Agreed that The Hub is kind of useless for tracking purposes, but I have had to report my garbage not being picked up (x3), and it works for that. More or less.
We all have neighborhood dogs like Lucy. Mine was Zoomer, who was a full-time outdoor dog – I would always buy him a special treat at Christmas time. We also had a pair of Bluetick hounds, Myrna and Honey. They howled at sirens, and were very pretty girls.
I know the names of all the dogs around us more readily than their people.
It’s funny, when my wife introduces me to people at dog shows she often tells them “This is my husband, he might not remember you but he’ll remember your dog.” I’d forgotten there was a Schnauzer who lived next door to us, and also some people, and I remember even now that the Schnauzer was named Maisie and I couldn’t tell you the names of the people.
Well, at least we get our garbage picked up and don’t have to worry about loose dogs knocking cans over, which was a regular problem in my neighborhood when I was a kid.
Those markings popped up many times on our street this summer, Chris, and we DID get new sidewalks (as well as other noisy improvements). I wish better things for you and for Lucy.
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Fortunately Lucy gets some attention from people who walk by, and, also fortunately, we seem to not be getting any noisy improvements at the moment. The downside, of course, is that we don’t seem to be getting any improvements at all.