The temperature in the village was 78 today. So nice. I stopped in at Piper's office to review the tax forms, and ended up trying to help him to access his email. Roman had taught him, but Piper forgot. His account is with Frontiernet. I have email accounts on something like five different servers, and I have never seen a less intuitive less usable interface. Frontiernet is a mess. We ended up going to lunch, and I brought the tax returns home with me to review.
When I came home I checked my own email. One of my accounts I use for "groups" only. I usually see maybe 1 to 5 emails on that account per day. Today there were 26! At first I thought there was something wrong, but it turned out that the local Mensa group had gotten all het up on two topics, and went a little crazy. Unfortunately, nobody had anything interesting to say about any of it. One of the topics, in fact, was all kinds of suggestions to fix a monthly dinner that 1) isn't broken, and 2) is the provence of the host (who happens to be Roman, who was at work and not involved in the discussion), and others should stay out of it anyway. So I blasted off a blistering post to that effect --- and there hasn't been a peep out of anyone since. Ain't nothin' like pissing off half your entire social group in one fell swoop.
Do you know what the "fell" in "fell swoop" means? It means "destructive, or deadly".
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It's mid-April, and May is almost here. May, when the trees are in bloom, is my favorite month, especially around here, where there are so many orchards. My woods are mostly black locust, ancient apples (remnants of a colonial orchard), and wild cherries. In past years, when the locusts bloomed, long grape-like clusters of creamy flowers, the heavy sweet scent was heavenly. The last few years they've been hardly blooming. There's some kind of pest that's killing the locusts, and they aren't blooming because they're so weak. Sad.
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I have two dates next Saturday.
I'll be meeting Fishkill (he's a golfer, not an angler - Fishkill is a town down the road) for the first time Saturday morning, for coffee and yummies. After almost two weeks and about 30 emails, it's about time. I like the way his mind works, so I'm hoping for the best. His profile describes his match as "slender and fit". I'm hoping my smiling eyes and scintillating mind will distract him.
Saturday evening I'll have dinner with Dreyfuss. I'm looking for something for the long haul, and I think I'm going to have to tell him that although I find him interesting, I don't think the prospects are good. Our interests and backgrounds are too dissimilar. (There's the NASCAR thing. And his small tattoos don't bother me, but when we were talking about them on Sunday, he happened to mention that he also had some piercings. I was sitting across the table from him, and I could see his face and ears, and his arms to mid-forearm, and I didn't see any piercings. Um. Cringe. Super cringe. I didn't ask. I changed the subject. I really really don't EVER want to know.)
Roman called last night and we talked for about an hour, and as predicted, I softened. It looks like we are settling into a rather standard date every two weeks(!), and one phone call on the off weeks, and no "intimate time". This is not my choice. At first it seemed like he was trying to start over - we had been going dutch for a long time - now he wants to pay for everything. But now I'm not sure. I don't know what's going on. Last month he was teaching evening classes Monday through Thursday, so time was tight, but this week it's Tuesday and Thursday only, so I can't use that as an excuse any more. I'm trying to be very cool about it. (Well, warm to him, but cool about the situation.)
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The city of Schenectady, about an hour up the river, "accidentally" passed a really stupid law. For a few days it was illegal to park a car on any city street for longer than 12 hours. Vehicles parked for more than 12 hours would be ticketed. Duh? On the residential streets, the houses are close together with postage-stamp lawns if any, and no garages or driveways. A member of the city council said that the purpose of the law was to prevent trailers and abandoned cars cluttering up the streets. The reporter interviewed a businessman who pointed out a Lexus with flat tires that had been parked in front of his store "for the past year". The law has been repealed and is being rewritten after complaints from the citizenry.
Now, I'm having a LOT of trouble with this story. It's got so much stupidity it scares me.
Did no one on the city council READ the law before they voted on it? "12 hours" is pretty specific. That wasn't an accident. They didn't think about what that meant? Maybe they meant the 12 hours to apply only to trailers? There's no city attorney to review proposed laws? Did they think that putting tickets on abandoned cars would stop people from abandoning them? If a citizen goes away on business and leaves his car parked in front of his home, will it be ticketed? What's he supposed to do with it? Take it with him? There's an abandoned Lexus sitting there for a year, and no one reported it? No one investigated it? Sounds to me like it's probably a stolen car, ditched after a joyride. Wouldn't it make more sense to encourage citizens to report abandoned cars, and have the police attempt to locate an owner and/or then tow? Ticketing abandoned cars makes no sense at all. ("Yes, you owe the city of Schenectady $145,820 in parking tickets for allowing your car to be stolen and then abandoned on our streets for over a year, you careless person. You probably litter, too!")
Schenectady scares me.
Now, I'm having a LOT of trouble with this story. It's got so much stupidity it scares me.
Did no one on the city council READ the law before they voted on it? "12 hours" is pretty specific. That wasn't an accident. They didn't think about what that meant? Maybe they meant the 12 hours to apply only to trailers? There's no city attorney to review proposed laws? Did they think that putting tickets on abandoned cars would stop people from abandoning them? If a citizen goes away on business and leaves his car parked in front of his home, will it be ticketed? What's he supposed to do with it? Take it with him? There's an abandoned Lexus sitting there for a year, and no one reported it? No one investigated it? Sounds to me like it's probably a stolen car, ditched after a joyride. Wouldn't it make more sense to encourage citizens to report abandoned cars, and have the police attempt to locate an owner and/or then tow? Ticketing abandoned cars makes no sense at all. ("Yes, you owe the city of Schenectady $145,820 in parking tickets for allowing your car to be stolen and then abandoned on our streets for over a year, you careless person. You probably litter, too!")
Schenectady scares me.
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