Send in the Ducks

Here’s another lesson on the trials of communal living and the on-going saga of the Tattooed Lady.

People who don’t have to live near her think she’s a nice lady.  If they lived near her or had to deal with her, they’d be cured of their ignorance.  Rent one of your homes to her (please!) and then see how nice you think she is.  The Tattooed Lady bullied me into not feeding a couple of starving cats or she’d call the board of health.  Then she bullied me into removing plants in my own garden that she insisted were weeds, although they weren’t; they were wildflowers and wanted me to separate my irises when they’re doing just fine.  Then it was the common water faucet; she wanted access to it.  That I couldn’t deny; those are the roles.

“I don’t see a single bud!” she claimed.  A week later, there was a sea of irises, thanks to the prematurely warm weather.

Meanwhile, she keeps garbage cans and other junk outside her back door.  She insisted that I’d let her dog loose when I hadn’t.  She’s been harassing other neighbors as well.  The neighbors above her, she insists, make a lot of noise going up and down the stairs.  Their dog is ruining the front lawn, she complains, even while her own dog is ruining the back, which she seldom has a collar on and never uses a leash with because of her disability.  And this is a big dog.  She insists the dog minds her, but it doesn’t.

And so it goes, on and on.  Now she wants my birdfeeder removed.  She and her lawyer were complaining on Saturday to the head groundskeeper that it’s attracting bears and snamkes (not in the nearly 20 years I’ve been here).  The mice were a problem, it’s true; until they made a nest in my car and met a horrific, squeaky death one morning.  Well, at least they’re no longer a problem.  Meanwhile, she continues to smoke two packs a day outside on her porch, which I was told she’s allowed to do, and probably smokes four inside, judging by the stench emanating from her windows and into my own.

But the rules are for the rest of us, not the Tattooed Lady.  Early in the Spring, she started inviting the mallard ducks up from the river. According to the by-laws, that’s a big no-no, although it was no problem with me, personally.  When she asked me if it was wrong, I told her, although by then I already had the incriminating photo of her feeding them.  Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

As it happens, however, the ducks are solving the problem of the scattered birdseed.  I emptied out a number of window boxes which I can no longer afford to fill with expensive annuals from Home Depot, and set them under the bird feeder to catch the excess because I don’t want mice bothering my upstairs neighbor, who is a good neighbor.

I don’t have many true joys in live, but feeding the birds is one of them.  I asked God if feeding the birds was such a mortal sin.  His answer was to send a flock of ducks – drakes – to deal with the scattered bird seed.  The only obstacle to a complete, thorough clean-up is the Tattooed Lady’s own dog, who naturally barks at the ducks.

There’s also been a to-do about planting tubulars along the top of the riverbank.  Gardening is not my specialty; these plants came from my mother’s garden.  She assured me they would hold in the soil. The TL, however, insists that this sensitive area must serve as a dog run for her dog, who loosens the soil with her paws instead of holding it in.  She successfully killed all the plants, allowing the dog over there, so this spring, having more time on my hands, I replaced all these plants.

The Tattooed Lady’s solution to this problem was to send the dog down the embankment to dig up the flowers.  The whole neighborhood heard her.  But Mom must have had me plant something disagreeable to dogs.  While she happily dug at the plants, the dog decided this was no longer a prime location for doing one’s business.  The Tattooed Lady yelled at the dog and even hit her until the pooch fled into the nearby parking lot (could that be another bad reason for having a dog you can’t control?) and did it there.

It was pretty funny, really.  The TL was bagging the metal pan with the scooper, but to no avail.  What a racket.  What a mess. Finally, she hit the dog with the scooper and the last I could hear, she was hitting the dog inside her unit (I could hear it yelping).

What goes in must come out, and what goes around, comes around.  Mom said I should plant plastic plants and flowers from now on.

 

 

 

Work, Study, Save, Shop

Tomorrow is Occupy Wall Street’s May Day Mayhem Day.  They are calling for a general strike with no work, school, shopping or banking.  Cities around the world are preparing for the Mayhem.

One group who will watch this event with particular interest is the unemployed.  No work? No worries there – we’re already not working, thanks to the Progressives who help begin OWS.  No shopping?  Well, we don’t have the money to shop.  No banking? Not much money is going into our savings.  Our savings aren’t earning any interest – the rate is at 0.25 percent and most banks are charging all sorts of service fees for the privilege of saving our money with their institutions.

But go ahead – hurt more little people like us, from the clerks in the banks to the customers who still have the money to make purchases. Yeah, that’s really going to help the economy, isn’t it? Protestors plan to block everything from the Port of Oakland to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge to the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and the George Washington Bridge in New York.

According to Bloomberg News, in New York, Occupy Wall Street will “join scores of labor organizations observing May 1, traditionally recognized as International Workers’ Day. They plan marches from Union Square to Lower Manhattan and a“pop-up occupation” of Bryant Park on Sixth Avenue, across the street from Bank of America’s 55-story tower.

“’We call upon people to refrain from shopping, walk out of class, take the day off of work and other creative forms of resistance disrupting the status quo,’ organizers said in an April 26 e-mail.

“Banks have pooled resources and cooperated to gather intelligence after learning of plans to picket 99 institutions and companies, followed by what organizers have described as an 8 p.m. “radical after-party” in an undetermined Financial District location.

“’If the banks anticipate outrage from everyday citizens, it’s revealing of their own guilt,’”said Shane Patrick, a member of the Occupy Wall Street press team. “If they hadn’t been participating in maneuvers that sent the economy into the ditch, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

“Organizers describe the May Day events as a coming together of the Occupy movement, with activists also calling for more open immigration laws, expanded labor rights and cheaper financing for higher education. Financial institutions remain a primary target of the protests.

“Four years after the financial crisis, not a single of the too-big-to-fail banks is smaller; in fact, they all continue to grow in size and risk,” the group’s press office said in an April 26 e-mail.

“Occupy Wall Street began planning for May Day in January, meeting in churches and union halls with a decision-making system that avoids a single leader. Instead, participants rely on group “break-out” sessions in which clusters discuss such tasks as crowd-building, logistics and communications.”

About two weeks ago, I had a dream about the Occupy Wall Street movement.  In the dream, they occupied the town where my former company has offices.  All manner of strange people were milling about; people you wouldn’t ordinarily find in this particular town:  guys in dresses, with tattooed legs and so far.  They were all gathered behind in an empty parking lot, hiding behind a building until the right moment came.

I had no idea why I was there, since I was laid off.  I knew what the Occupiers were going to do in advance, and I had bought one of those V for Vendetta masks to get by them.  But when I got into the office, I didn’t recognize the people or the company and wasn’t very happy with whatever work it was I was doing; I didn’t fit in with them, any more than I fit in with the Occupiers.

Finally, I found my old boss and warned him that these characters were lying in wait to ambush them as they tried to come out of the building, rather than trying to keep from entering.  OWS should realize that New Yorkers are accustomed to disruptions and have learned to adapt.  They’ve experienced transit strikes, power outages, heavy rain and snowstorms, riots, and of course, terrorist attacks.  New Yorkers will find a way around OWS.

Since New York is a “college town” you can expect some stupid students to show up, even though they’re supposed to be studying for their final exams. The stupidest students are the ones who can least afford to take a holiday from classes.

As for shopping, physical retail stores may experience problems, but there’s always online shopping.  A one-day disruption isn’t going to hurt many stores, anyway, especially not on a weekday. Gainfully employed peopled shop on the week-ends.

The main problem will come at banks, even though most people do their banking online these days, and on the roadways as commuters try to get to their jobs.  With the economy so bad, you can depend upon the commuters to push back, not join up with a Communist movement dedicated to destroying jobs and free-market economies around the world.