Monday, October 8, 2012

The Seven Month Itch

Today I noticed, on my dusty descent to our wee corner, that something was different on our street.  Let me just digress a moment or two to say that for the last two and a half weeks, there has been an absence of the front loaders, dump trucks, 18 wheelers with pipes and lumber, workman yelling at one another, leaving their tobacco chewing tins in our gutter, dust and grime and dirt chucked up onto our sidewalks and cars. It has been quiet here without the TerraCon boys.  No kidding, I have heard birdsong during the day.

Still, cars screech around the corner and tear off down the street as always since we live in an urban neighborhood where people here act anything but neighborly, and plumes of dust launch into the air and down into our yard.  Our plants are still covered with filth.  Our fence is pitted with dirt from the heavy equipment since March rolling past our house. 

Today, the removal of the final front loader, steel planks and yes, the PortoLet seemed like a big change.  We have all been waiting and waiting and waiting for TerraCon to re-pave the streets that they turned into a pitted, muddy mess.  Especially gone are the loaders and the yelling hard hats.  No rattling windows but the grime remains.  Seven months of living in a war zone and now, waiting for a clean slate of paved road is something akin to the dangling participle.

I have a not-so-special place in my heart now for The City of Santa Rosa's lack of information or simply respectful preparation of what was coming when their subcontractor, TerraCon, invaded our privacy and our street to "improve our infrastructure." Nothing short of a clusterf..k, the end of the project looks like the circus came to town and left in a whirlwind of litter, dirt, candy wrappers(tobacco tins) with disappointment in its wake. 

Hell, a heavy rain right about now could wash us cleaner than a paving job.

 
A not so fond remembrance of this summer's main attraction.