Construction, eh?

Not that I ever considered the NaBloPoMo challenge of creating a blog post every day for a month. Or longer than a month (some bloggers are crazy). But if I had, it might go something like this, out of sheer awesomeness for engineering and administrative genius:

Day 1. Giant wrecking machine arrives to demolish Tony's garage next door for large scale side street redevelopment. My side street. Right beside me. Tony was never seen again. Probably retired to Costa Rica as a multimillionaire. Sadly, he still owes me for splicing cable into his office for World Cup Soccer in 2002.

Day 2 et al. Wire fences erected all 'round. Machine thumps and crashes all daylight hours.

Day 8. Fellow resident Sheila is seen staring bleakly into rubble. Lots of bricks.

Day 36 et al. Clearing the bricks.

Day 48 et al. Machines come to suck a stray underground creek out of the foundation. Good luck. It's the same stuff that regularly floods our underground garage.

Day 67. Water-sucking equipment takes a break. Where did they put all the water?

Day 88. The hole looks dry-ish. No activity.

Day 92. Trespassing archaeology buff triumphantly waves old spoon at Sheila—treasure in the muck.

Day 121. Pond forms in hole. Lake Ontario is baaaack.

Day 140 et al. Water-sucking resumes. Hoarding replaces wire fence.

Day 141. We outwit them with a view of the mess from our rooftop.

Day 153. Sheila and I discuss architect's vision now available on the internet.

Day 178 et al. Tanker trucks come and go. Busy mysterious noises.

Day 186. They think we don't know they have a water problem.

 

Day 200. New project! City guys arrive to rip up the sidewalk along the block. Under my windows.

Day 202. Nicely I ask foreman to move the generator a bit so not to asphyxiate from fumes.

Day 207. My city councillor gets the generator moved. Slightly.

Day 217 et al. They really love their cement-cutters and jackhammers.

Day 223. Foreman plants his mobile office under my window.

Day 249. Serious equipment arrives out front. Trees and poles topple.

Day 250 et al. Guys next door resume activity, riveting foundation things.

Day 250 et al. Guys out front take turns with the jackhammers. One works and three watch.

Day 279 et al. Both crews coordinate: stagger their breaks so a sudden quiet won't disarm us.

Day 298. Every resident on the street has gone deaf.

Day 307. Sheila and I discuss hearing aids. Yelling.

Day 311. Gigantic holes instead of sidewalks. To cross the street we must go around the block.

Day 313 et al. Guys next door work on and off at complicated foundation business.

Day 320. City guys fill in holes. Collective sigh of relief along the street.

Day 335. Uh-oh. Gigantic pipes and steel rails unloaded under our windows.

Day 340. City guys come to tear up same holes again. They forgot something?

Day 341 et al. Backhoes, pile drivers, jackhammers, generators.

Day 351. Fed up residents sneak out at night to deface excavation signs.

Day 365. Year One anniversary of next door construction.

Day 366. Sheila has developed a tremor.

Day 380. City guys spend one day untangling—by hand—some wires they buried before.

Day 397 et al. Project next door progresses to ground-level floor.

Day 406. Bus drivers have given up stopping here.

Day 412. Hallelujah, cement trucks lumber in all day to fill in the sidewalk holes.

Day 419. Mobile office leaves.

Day 420. Ugliest ever street patchwork. Old pavement, concrete, asphalt, potholes, still-visible ominous chalk marks, tons of parked pipes and steel girders.

Day 425. Message from city re ugly street: “Restoration pending.”

Day 426. Clarification: they will return about Day 540 to rip up patchwork and make it nice.

Day 430 et al. Next door: drilling, blowtorching, banging, shifting, backup beeping.

Day 434. Next door message: project will be a restaurant with patio.

Day Now: Clarification: canyon effect will amplify music and voices. Sheila looks faint.

Sorry I neglected to think of posting all that to bore the piss out of you.

Have another margarita for me, Tony.

Neighbourhood Watch

You’d think reading is all I do here (library limelights). Mind you, we all do have to read to Keep Up with the cost of living, medical procedures, celebrity gossip, plane crashes, and earthquake statistics. If you’re like me, you’re also desperate to find some uncontrived humour in a world they say is continually going to hell and we know it because the top and bottom bits are already melting. Reading for pleasure is thus mandatory for balance. OK, so it does take up a lot of my time, but one has to escape.

Nevertheless, other obligations call. The neighbourdamhood requires constant vigilance. So many urban issues. Encroachment, disrespect, and destruction are rampant. They will require separate blog treatments but for now, just a few tiny vents. 

Take the construction crews ripping up pavement and sidewalks with their big boy toys, as far as the eye can see.

Please. Take them. They need reminding to go home at night. They are ever so courteous when plucking people out of their holes, but really, guys. Time to take your unholy racket, vibrations, and noxious fumes to torture another neighbourhood. 

Then we can’t let the high-rise dinks take over what’s left of the sidewalks with their yappy li’l purse dogs and pram dogs. Accidents waiting to happen. Admittedly it could be worse ... it could be the sounds of yappy li’l kids bouncing around our brick walls. Little kids for sure turn into teenagers and who needs more of them around with even bigger voices and lurid late-night habits. We have the fitness club over there blasting the street with non-stop salsa music in competition with the Irish pub on the corner. Truly it has some awesome uplifting moments, but the jackhammers always win.

You can tell when it’s Wednesday because the fearless performing artistes get released from their low-rise lockup. Racing their scooters to the drugstore for seniors’ discount day, a few plate glass windows don’t slow them down. I have no problem with the groovy machines—pretty soon we will all have one—it’s the morons who operate them. Blessings on you, government, for the handout but it’s way past time for mandatory driving lessons!

Also, we were thinking of a mass intervention to outlaw speaking on cell phones in public places; six blocks all around me would be a start. No fines, just straight to army boot camp. Check: we still have an army? Oui, bon. Jail is reserved for the stubborn who feed the flying rats, thereby inviting the real rats and racoons to dine and multiply. The world is going to vermin on its way to hell. Polar bears would be preferable but they’re not this far south. Yet.

We probably need more signs put up to keep everyone on the straight and narrow. SIGNS. That’s it. A crew for designing and erecting signs. I can’t do it all myself.

 ~ Pigeon feeders will be snatched and fed to feral cats ~

~ This is a bus stop shelter, not your bedroom ~

~ Sniffing hand sanitizer won’t make you high ~

~ Tour buses: stuff your diesel exhaust up your noses ~

A good neighbour’s work is never done. Gotta run, you can see how busy I am. I’ll be back.

I do these things

In one and the same week, I:

Marched myself to No Frills for their toilet paper special. The timing was critical with the laundry machine going. When sharing facilities with other residents, one doesn’t want the guy with the Rotweiler throwing my wet stuff on the floor. Grabbed the President’s Choice special, paid, loaded it into my bulkiest shopping bag, and strode triumphantly home. If I do say so, I’m getting very good at estimating time. What I discovered ... more time went by ... was I’d grabbed the paper towels instead of the toilet paper. My timing is excellent but I need to work on my focusing skills.

Went to the Farmer’s Market to buy a cucumber for 75¢. That’s half the price at the regular stores. And presumably fresher. It was all I wanted that day because I’d already had my fresh corn on the cob quota for an entire summertime. Dropped the cucumber into my ever-present shopping bag (post passim) as I fished through my change. Came home, went through the ritual of stowing a variety of other purchases, no cucumber. Probably I dropped it onto the floor of the market instead of into my bag. Ultimately I crept back to the Market an hour later, certain no-one would recognize me. Now I have one $1.50 cucumber.

See what I mean about focusing?