Fall into Fall

It is fall and even though we live in a house on a small urban-sized lot, we thankfully have a lot of trees, both in our yard as well as in the neighborhood as a whole. We may get a lot of rain in Seattle but the upside is that green things will grow, and grow, and often cannot be stopped from growing. During this time of year, when the leaves fall and our yards and sidewalks are covered in gorgeous reds, yellows, and oranges, this is the time of year that most assuredly, most viciously, drives my next door neighbor BAT POO POO NUTBALLS inside, although she is too mild mannered to show it.

For the most part, I love my next door neighbor, Maria. Maria is a sweet, kind elderly lady who wears smart hats and waves hello whenever I walk by. The only thing about Maria is that she is kind of obsessed with having a perfect yard. You should see it. You could eat off that shit. She sweeps her sidewalk and porch every day, often more than once a day. She has a landscaper come and make sure everything is trimmed, clipped, mowed, shaped, licked, frosted, cherry on top, amen. I have seen Maria literally move small rocks into more of a uniform line on her ground. To be honest I am quite jealous of that dang yard. Ours is horrible next to hers, and I know that has to pain her something terrible. We often have construction scraps and dirt heaps and all sorts of renovation ugliness everywhere, and we have not invested one bit of attention to our yard because of it. It really is terrible, and I feel bad for Maria about it. I only can say in our defense that some day, I know, for sure, that we will have a passable yard too, once we get to that project on the project list. That day, however, is not today. And it burns Maria to a crisp, I just know it. How do I know it? Because this is what she does. She comes out of her house, and she sweeps the leaves on her porch, collects them, and puts them in a yard waste bag. Then she sweeps off her sidewalk, collects the leaves, and puts them in a yard waste bag. Then she sweeps our sidewalk, collects the leaves, and piles them onto the bottom of our entry stairs. And then she sweeps a little ways down our street, and collects the leaves, and piles those onto the bottom of our entry stairs. So. When we come home after work, our side of the street will be totally pristine, except for the fact that there will be a pile of leaves, sometimes as many as 5 steps deep of our entryway, piled up, waiting for us. If you try to walk through it (which is mostly what we do because we have just gotten home from work and it is dark), you cannot judge where the steps are and so you are likely to misjudge and maybe if your name is ME and you tend to be wearing heels you may or may not completely or almost completely bite it which is a hell of a way to be greeted by your front steps each day. I do not know what Maria is saying to us with this gesture. Is she genuinely trying to be helpful? Here, I have swept up all of the leaves and made a lovely pile so as to make it easy for you to collect and put in your own goddamn yard waste you effing slovenly hovel-owning kids. Or is Maria trying to murder us via our own detritus? You will not sweep your shit up so you must DIE, DIE, DIE! I do not know.