Nothing really...

I don't really have anything to say, but I like updating this thing. I guess I'm a little frustrated with my hometown. I still live in it, and it just seems so idiotic at times. I live in a very small town of about 400 people or so. Well, lately, it seems the administration has gotten a little kooky with their rules and what not. Everyone in town recently received a letter stating that a new Ordinance Enforcement Officer was going to be employed to make sure everyone in town was compliant with the ordinances. This, in itself is problematic to me. First off, it seems the ordinances change fairly often. Sometimes we're allowed to burn in our yards, sometimes not. Right now, we're not supposed to burn. However, I was on a bike ride after our church council meeting tonight and I smelled stuff burning.. Hmm. Another reason having an OE officer seems problematic to me is because we are a very small community. Practically everyone knows everyone else, and so we should ACT like neighbors. We should be respectful and helpful; not complaining and snarky. Third, some people have their violations looked over, while others are targeted. It just seems bizarre and like a waste of taxpayers' dollars to me.

I guess I'm just upset because my brother recently fixed the roof over the front and back porch at my house. Bro said he would dispose of the shingles and stuff when he could borrow a truck from someone. So, Ma piled all of the stuff neatly by the tree out front so that when Bro got the truck, he could just load it up in a relatively quick manner. Unfortunately, Bro's wife has been battling some rare disease lately, and so he took her to Mayo's to try to get it figured out. Therefore, borrowing a truck has been far from his mind, understandably. Well, tonight, I was out here on the front porch (or foyer, or facade, whatever floats your boat) messing around on my computer when I saw a guy walking in my yard. I immediately knew that he was the OE officer, and since I was dressed kind of skankily, I ran to the bathroom to put other clothes on. Well, by the time I came back out, he was basically done talking to my mom. She told him that she had plans on how to get rid of the stuff, but that it was a matter of getting time and resources to do it. He was pretty cool about it, saying that he just wanted to approach us so it didn't look like he wasn't doing anything. I guess someone had complained.

I think that if my neighbors feel that their quality of life is affected so much by a pile of shingles, they need to see a shrink. It's not that big of a deal. When my neighbor to the west moved into a nursing home and subsequently died, leaving no one to tend her yard, you didn't hear me moaning and groaning. I went out there and DID THE WORK to help make it look nice again. Almost all of my neighbors have things that I could technically complain about, but I don't, because I choose not to let their stuff bother me. But, one or several of them going behind my back to a third party really bothers me. I read a book entitled, "The Moral Order of a Suburb" last semester. A great deal of this book deals with how people in communities rarely address each other with problems, but instead, they go to a third party, and usually only when their anonymity is guaranteed. Well, maybe we need to realize that these 3rd party people just make others mad. If any one of my neighbors had called me THEMSELVES and talked to me about the pile of shingles I would not be nearly as angry. But, no, they had to call the rent-a-cop, have him drive over to my house, and talk to us. So, everyone around knows that someone has been complaining. Talk about alienation. It just makes me dislike my neighbors. Unfortunately, I think the OE stopped at a few houses on my block, so I plan to talk with some more of them and see how they feel about having money wasted by the town to pay this guy when we should be helping each other and talking to each other instead of asking some outsider to come in and deal with this stuff. I was so mad I almost called Pastor to tell him I wouldn't be able to make it to our meeting tonight because I needed to go to the town council meeting instead. Unfortunately, as an elected person, and as the secretary, I decided that my responsibilities were more important. Also, I probably wouldn't have made wise decisions and said smart things considering my level of anger at the time. I'm calming down now, but I still am hurt that people could not overlook something that they should know we'd have cleared up soon, or at the very least, addressed to me or Ma themselves. Perhaps I'm overreacting, but I'm just upset. I don't know. Sorry about the ranting. I'll go now.