Friday, October 21, 2016

Friday, October 21, 2016

Tonight's picture was taken in October of 2006. Mattie was four years old and we took him to Butler's Orchard that day in Maryland. We introduced Mattie to many fall festivals to celebrate the season. The beauty about Butler's Orchard is you get to pick pumpkins in the patch! As you can see Mattie and Peter grabbed a wheelbarrow and were headed to find the perfect pumpkin! They were very successful that year!


Quote of the day: Only the development of compassion and understanding for others can bring us the tranquility and happiness we all seek. ~  Dalai Lama XIV

Well given the Dalai Lama's quote above, I can safely say I lost my compassion and understanding for others today. Why is that? Well take a look at my deck! For TWO YEARS..... not a minute, not a week, not even a month, but for TWO YEARS I have been putting up with the State Department's renovations as they share a common wall with our unit. For the past two springs, the State Department has decided to do work on this shared brick wall without the courtesy of letting us know. As I always say.... they are BAD, BAD neighbors. They truly do not think about the impact of anyone else around them!

I am giving you a retrospective! So you get a feeling for what I have put up with for two years now! This is what our deck looked like in September of 2015. It was like this for over two months with scaffolding. Keep in mind, that even when they weren't on our deck, they were outside our deck for months with debris blowing in. 

Get the picture of what things looked like in September of 2015?

The work that they do in incredibly messy because it involves sand blasting, repointing bricks and then power washing. I can't tell you the amount of debris that has been coming onto our deck EVERY day. Each day I land up cleaning it up otherwise we will cart it inside. Not to mention that by the end of the day we look like we live in a war zone, with powder gray dust, concrete debris and so forth piled everywhere. I took this photo last week. 

But what truly was the last straw, was this hard hat flying from up above down onto our deck a week ago. Any one of us could have been hit by this. That is when I formally complained AGAIN to my building's management. Which was why I had a morning meeting today with the State Department's foreman and my building management. I should also let you know that they drop razor blades onto my deck too. I have picked up several. I am telling you.... a total disregard for other people and their property. 

This was the scene outside Mattie's bedroom window this morning. When I tell you I went into shock, I AM NOT KIDDING. I had a meeting with the foreman about an hour before this scene and the agreement was they were going to clean up their debris and power wash off my deck. That is all I agreed too! So when I saw 20 foot ladders outside, I LOST IT!

They placed my deck items outside in the commons area, and look what they did to my beautiful butterfly ginger lily plant. Which is in a ceramic planter. They literally threw it on its side and bent branches. 

What should have been an hour or two at the most of cleaning, turned into a 7 hour production. Again I got my building manager involved who chewed out the foreman. The foreman reported that more chalk work was needed on the wall, which is why the ladders came out. 

All I know is they better be officially done now. I don't want to see as much as a candy wrapper coming from their direction!