1:20 a.m. - 2004-11-20
Long Long Entry!
Thought I had you spoiled with short entries, eh?
Heh heh heh....
Gotcha!
First of all, the man next door to me is sick in the head...come spring and summer, he is a lawn jockey, but once the fall comes, there he is outside, obsessing over every fucking leaf on his property, everyone else's property, and on the street. He's out several times a day, every day.
It's his obsessiveness that saved us some money though. We had hired someone to rake our leaves (we have 18 trees on our property)and timed it so that the crew would come halfway after all the leaves fell and the second time after the rest of them fell. He raked and bagged some of our leaves a few days before the crew came, all the while loudly proclaiming, "Well...if I don't do these now, I'll be raking all winter!"
Well...the man next door is obsessed. He is so obsessed that we call him Leafman. His wife is the Leafwife and his kids are the Leaflets.
Sometimes they are all out there doing leaves.
This is a man that we caught taking a wheelbarrow full of leaves down to the woods. He rakes the fucking street. Twice this week, this asshole was on our property sweeping our sidewalk and our front steps.
He has way too much time on his hands. It took us awhile to realize that he actually had a job somewhere. He works 3 days on - 4 days off. New York's Bravest. And New York's Most Obsessive Compulsive.
This is the guy that came to my door holding a baggie of soot, claiming it came from my chimney and that it "dirtied" his backyard. When I went to reach out to examine the bag of soot, he pulled it away as if I was going to steal it. This was right after an explosion in NJ they left more soot on our cars than my chimney did.
This is the guy that rang my doorbell over the summer, kvetching that my husband butchered his strip of grass that was out by the street. Browneye was mowing and when he swung the mower around, he nicked some sod.
Oh dear.
I'm squinting, saying "Where? Where?" because I honestly couldn't see a damn thing...he's pointing "There! There!" and I still can't see. Of course, Browneye never answers the door, so I'm the one who gets to try to keep a straight face while he rattles off his stupidity.
Then, one fall, he banged on my door, complaining that our leaves went in his gutter ("ummm....that's what leaves do best when they fall off trees...clean your gutters the way we do - it works wonders!")...
Little does he know, me and Browneye are in our house snickering.
We headed out to the store today.
We had to go to the home decor/hardware store nearby. The folks in the store are great. We have a lot of windows, so we needed to buy anti-UV coating for our windows and a window treatment for the window closest to the shop so people can't see in that one.
We also headed to the bank where me and the bank manager schmoozed each other. She is the president of the local Kiwanis and they are scouting members. I need to get involved in the town, so she invited me to a meeting. I really don't want to overload my schedule, but I need to get involved so that I can make ties and hopefully get people to patronize my business. The most successful people are the most involved.
After that, we went to the store...I *had* to go to the Starbucks next door as everytime I go to the store, I get a crazy craving. Today's choice was "white chocolate latte." Browenye had the one I had last time "Pumpkin Spice Latte."
I also went into the florist to introduce myself. The property manager and his wife own it...so I gabbed with them some.
Then...we hung out in the store for a bit. This man walks in -- who I thought was an inspector of some sort. He turned out being the landlord (finally! I get to put a face to the name). He really would like us open by the first...but there is no chance in hell. I'm having difficulty believing I'll be open by the 13th as the franchise says.
Now for some pictures. I apologize for the quality as I had my cell phone today and was taking photos from that.
This is me by my favorite wall...the red wall. The color is actually much redder...and richer...!
A shot looking from one of the entrances in. You can see my red wall. All these walls will have art on them soon.
Here is a shot that includes one of my other walls...the wall looks grey in this pic but is actually an olive color.
I have not included any photos of my shop and I am not sure I will. It is on the other side of that long wall and runs the length of the store, but since I have all my equipment in, I am feeling kind of proprietary.
To top it all off...we got another car...I know, 2 people and 4 cars.
Deal was impossible to resist. My parents just bought a new Lexus and my father wanted to get rid of his 1998 Cadillac Deville with only 40,000 miles on it. He's giving it to us for a good price.
Who are we to resist?
After the Lexus dealership delivered his new car to his door by an out-of-state dealership, he came by and dropped the caddy off in our driveway.
People are going to think we are operating a used car lot.
