Tree Hugger

All of my neighbors have OCD. They are all so busy, busy, busy with their projects around their houses. Pride of home ownership is a great thing and we, the neighbors are certainly gaining the benefit of the hard work, no doubt. Maybe when my kiddos are grown I will be busy, too. For now I'm just trying to keep the old plates spinning. My neighbors to the north have a beautiful house that sits above us on a hill. They have four very full linden trees leading off from their property to two more on the green belt that then connect with our trees. It's a spot kids come to to have their senior and prom photos taken. It's very picturesque and, who doesn't love big, happy, healthy trees? My neighbor, that's who. Yesterday, as we were outside playing with our kids and not doing house projects, a truck with a cherry picker, a wood chipper and four workers showed up and unceremoniously cut the neighbor's linden trees to the ground. My kids cried and I was freaking out. I caught the neighbor on her way off somewhere and asked if the trees were sick and should we be concerned about our trees? No, no, we just decided to do something different. We just don't like how big those trees were getting (20 ft.) and we want to move our oak tree to that spot and add a few aspen. Okay, the oak tree will soon be a goner, so count that among the dead. As for the aspen, I reminded her of the several aspen we put in just five years ago that were now taller than our house. She blanched. Really? It was only five years ago? Six, max. Oh! And we cannot forget, this is the same neighbor who was unhappy with a tree on the greenbelt to the west blocking his view so he crept out in the dark of night (this is a well known "funny" story we tell at neighborhood gatherings) shimmied up the tree and hacked down the offending branches. His view was saved! The 30 ft. tree was toast and the city had to come and take it down not long after. Of course, he never confessed. Next week he is painting his house again for the third time in 5 years and I plan to sit on my deck with a cool drink and watch. And probably take a nap.

Take a page from Oprah

Things are really bothering me and I just have to share:

Magazines with sporadic pagination. Pagination is a nifty little word that I may have just made up, but it works perfectly. If this liberal word usage bothers you, you are free to write about it in your own blog. I wouldn't blame you. Why bother telling readers what page a story is on if the page numbers are absent? It's a mystery! A treasure hunt! W, I'm talking to you. Also, let's not leave out the ability to find the table of contents. W, it's you again. Take a lesson from Oprah. Her Table is on the second page, right where you want it to be. And, it isn't split into several pages scattered throughout the mag. It's a Table of Contents and it belongs at the beginning. Any second grader could tell you that.

Email has no tone. Why is that? It has caused frequent problems in my life. As much as I dislike emoticons, there are times when I want to be sure the person I'm writing to knows I really mean, "Good job the other day". No really. Good job. No, I'm not being sarcastic. I really, really thought you did a good job. :) When I read what I've written, I read it in my voice with my inflections and I can't imagine someone could take my comments the wrong way. Well, they do. All the time.

And to you, person whose "for sale" house I have toured. Do you really, really want to sell your house? Then don't ask me, in a note that has no tone, to take off my shoes! Really? I take this as a precursor to how difficult you will be to work with should this sale proceed, which it probably won't. In one afternoon I toured 7 houses, 5 of which asked me to remove my shoes or put on those slippery hospital booties. I gave up and decided my own house was perfect, shoes and all.