Darkoshi

One of the bothersome things about Nextdoor is that their email notifications only display the beginning of each message, with a "See more" link. In the past, if it sounded interesting and I wanted to see the whole message, I'd have to click the link to read the post on the Nextdoor site.

Now I've discovered that if I view the emails as plain text instead of HTML, it shows the whole message!

If I want to read the replies to the post, I still have to open the website. But at least now I know what the topic is really about beforehand, and if it is worth reading more.

I'll have to try that with the Facebook-like Workplace emails we get at work.

I'm trying to go for walks more often. So I've been taking a break from work before sundown, and walking around the neighborhood.

I smell weed while walking past several places. I wonder if it's that obvious to anyone else who walks by too.

There is much litter all over. Much is recyclables; beer cans and soda bottles and glass bottles. Lately, I've noticed more than the usual amount of beer cans in the area around my house too while picking up trash. I'm not sure whether to be mollified that it's not only my intersection where people litter so wantonly, or dismayed by the larger scope of the problem.

I feel like taking trash bags with me and picking up some each day, at least to clean up the places that aren't right in front of people's houses. I've thought about doing that before, but I felt self-conscious about doing it in areas that aren't even near my house, and then I stopped walking.

There's also a difference between walking for walking, and walking to pick up litter, and I'm not sure I want to make that switch. Maybe I ought to do it once or twice a week. Maybe one day to pick up recyclables and one day for other trash, to avoid the number of different bags I'd need to carry.

I might not get more than a couple blocks away from my house before the bags being full.

..

Wearing a face-mask while walking makes me feel more anonymous and less self-conscious, even though I know some of my jackets are quite distinctive. I think it's also less clear to onlookers what sex I am, which also makes me feel more comfortable.

When getting back from my walks, my eyelashes have tiny beads of water on them, from my moist exhaled breath coming out the top of the mask. (I had read that someone else, walking in colder weather with a facemask, had ice or frost form on their eyelashes.)

..

I read something funny earlier, like: "When friends don't call me, I take comfort in knowing that their computers are working well."

Woken up by a door bell.
Get up, check the door thinking it's something I ordered.
Then see that it's a car seat for a baby.
First think, oh that's what Qiao ordered for my niece's baby.
I see a FedEx truck driving away down the street.
Then remember that Qiao ordered a stroller, not a car seat.
Worry that Amazon sent us the wrong item.
Check the label on the package, see that it's addressed to our neighbor, not us.
Oh! I wonder if they got our package instead?

Walk over to neighbor's house for the first time and wonder which door to use.
There's no package of ours by either door.
I choose the front door, as it has a door bell.

They've rung our doorbell before, to bring back our little dog who had dug out of the yard.
We've said hi before.
I may have given them Qiao's phone number, but I don't think we have theirs. Qiao has spoken with them briefly a few times.

Ring the door bell. Wait. Ring door bell again. Wait.
Knock on the outer glass door. Wait.
I see a dog inside through the glass of the doors, eating or drinking or something. It didn't hear me yet.
I knock harder, and the dog hears me, and barks. It jumps up on the door.
Hi there! (Nice doggy!) Tell them someone's at the door!

I can hear kids running around inside.
They've heard the door bell or the knocking or the dog barking by now, I'm sure.
I hear one of the kids say "Don't answer it!"
There are 2 cars outside the house. I'm pretty sure an adult is home.
I keep waiting. Maybe it just takes them a few minutes to get out of bed and dressed, like me.
I knock a few more times, waiting.
Waiting. Kids running around inside.
Waiting.
I decide to send them a message on Nextdoor.com instead. For F*CKS sake.
Sudden irrational anger.
(Remembering the other times I've rung neighbors' doorbells & knocked on doors, waiting in vain for someone to answer. Dammit; people not answering their doors anymore in this day and age.)
I walk back to my house, maybe stomping as much as one can stomp in flip flops.
I bang the top of the package with my fist in passing.
Maybe we should just keep the dang thing.
That'll show them, not answering their frickin doorbell.

Now I'm all riled up; certainly no chance of falling back asleep.
I send them a message on Nextdoor, from Qiao's account.
Any reply they send will go to his email, so I guess it will have to wait until he gets up to see if they've answered.
I start writing this post.

Noonish. Our door bell rings.
It's the neighbor.
I give them their package.
They don't have ours.
Not surprising. It'll probably come later in the day. Hopefully.
I wonder if FedEx will notice their mistake.

Then I remember that I can check for a reply on the Nextdoor.com page too.
They sent a reply before coming over. They didn't hear the door bell; "guess it needs to be fixed".
Great. I still don't have their phone number. I forgot to ask.
I'll ask via Nextdoor.

Half an hour later.
Zorro growls and then barks.
I check the front door.
USPS mail carrier walking back to the mail truck.
(Dithering here over whether or not to use the gendered word "mailman" even though the person looks like a man. But what word would I use for a woman?
Mail carrier. Mail carrier. Mail carrier. Say it enough and it will sound natural, I'm sure. Mail carrier. Mail carrier.)
USPS for this delivery, not FedEx.
It's the stroller.
They didn't even ring the door bell this time.

Ten minutes ago (an hour ago now as I post this) I heard what sounded like gunshots, 6 in total, much closer than usual. After the initial shock, I looked out a bedroom window (thinking to myself, this really isn't the smart thing to do; that would be to get away from the windows. But I was curious.)
There was something odd going on 2 houses down. It looked like a car parked in the street, and then another one drove up and parked. It's hard to tell as it is dark; maybe they are on the side of the road, not in it. There was a flashlight flickering by their driveway. Maybe it's unrelated to the shot noises.

I anticipated hearing police sirens. But no, it's been quiet since then. I guess no one called the police.

No dogs barking, even.

Now I'm wondering if it could have possibly been a car engine back-firing. But, no. It wasn't anything like that.

.

This evening's news was somewhat bewildering.

An escaped inmate was shot dead by a homeowner after breaking through her back door and coming to her bedroom door with a knife. (That sounds like an ad for the NRA.)

An motorcyclist driving on the interstate shot at a car with 6 people in it, including 2 kids and a baby.
(Why??) (That sounds like an ad against guns.)

An intruder was trying to drown their grandson in the bathroom (WTF?) so the homeowner shot him, but then police shot the homeowner. (That sounds like... uh...) Wait a minute, that story is from August. Why did they report it on TV tonight?

During one of the clips on President Bush's funeral, I had the sudden thought. When Trump dies someday, flags will be lowered to half-mast for a month for him, too. Whoa.

I got home tonight expecting the whole road to be paved, considering how far along they were this morning. But no, it's still just ground up on one side, and looks pretty much like it did when I left this morning, except with gravel on top instead of dirt.

I forgot to mention, the driver of one of the big pieces of equipment* appeared to be a woman. That was nice to see.

*I looked it up, and it's called a sheep foot roller.



Back when my brother was staying here for a while, one thing he said has stuck with me. He was commenting on how quickly roads over here deteriorate and need to be repaved. He said that in Germany, they have better paving technology (or they use a better paving substance?) and don't need to pave roads as often.

Since then, I've wondered if that is really true. First I thought, "well the climate is different here than there, that probably makes a difference." But there are probably a lot more freeze-thaw cycles over there per year than here, so if anything I'd expect the roads to deteriorate faster over there. Then I wondered if my brother was mistaken about roads needing to be repaved less often over there. But still, I wonder if there is any truth to what he said, and if so, why can't it be done better over here too?

The other night, around midnight, I went to check my mailbox. There were 2 youths/teenagers walking up the street at the same time - I had seen them before leaving my yard, and had a brief thought that I could just wait until they had walked on by. Because shy little me doesn't like having to interact with other people. But that would be acting like I was afraid of them, and I wasn't. They weren't giving off any bad vibes. So I headed down the street, enjoying the night air. As I approached them, I heard one of them say, fairly loudly, "Spect!" In the first moment, I thought he must be saying something to the other guy, but I wasn't sure... so I just dipped my head in greeting as I walked past. By then it was too late to say anything anyway. I got the mail, walked on back, and kept thinking about it. He must have been saying "Respect". Was that a greeting? Oh dear, maybe he was greeting me in a friendly way, and I just walked on by without saying anything. Maybe they didn't even see me dip my head. Maybe now they think I'm an unfriendly snob.

There have been a few times when I've said hello to other strangers while walking by them in this neighborhood, and they didn't say anything back. (That may be why I really wasn't expecting these two to say anything to me.) That gave me a feeling like... not that I clearly remember... like they were thinking "Why are you talking to me?" But I brushed it off, thinking maybe they didn't hear me, or were just surprised at being talked to. Or whatever, not important. So maybe this is what it's like from the other side.

After getting back inside, I googled whether "Respect" is ever used as a greeting. Apparently it is, in Jamaica.

Another reason why I'd rather just nod my head in greeting to people, is that if I hear them say something that sounds like a greeting, even if they are alone, they may really just be speaking on their cellphone, with an earpiece... Had it happen a few times where I replied "Hi" to someone, and then felt chagrined, realizing they were talking on their phone.

Saw some people sledding down the road this afternoon. They had 2 real sleds; the old wood & curved metal variety.

I actually shoveled snow today! I shoveled the steps to the garage this morning, and again this evening to get off the additional layer of compacted snow/ice that had accumulated since then. I also cleared off part of the front steps hoping that it would make Serena more inclined to go out to "potty". I'm still not sure if she's done her business at all today.

Took the dogs for a short walk. I thought that Serena wouldn't even be willing to go as far as the gate, but she was a trooper and walked the whole way with Zorro and me. Zorro was in a playful mood after seeing the people on the sleds. She would have been running and jumping if she hadn't been on the leash.

A few hours later and the snowy stuff has started to ice over.

I'm been watching out my window as a big ole pickup truck keeps going forwards and back, trying to make it up the hill after turning the corner. It's not succeeding. I wonder why the person in the truck wants to drive that way so badly.

Now I've finished writing this whole post, and that pickup truck is still at it. It's not stuck in place; it just keeps reversing backwards around the corner, and then trying to turn and drive up that hill again (instead of turning left).

Boy. It's gone now. Maybe it finally made it.

So many creative Halloween ideas!

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Yesterday evening, we had the porch light off, the curtains closed, the dogs in the house, and the gate closed. I hadn't put up any decorations or bought any candy. (I wore my bright red wig to work, but that was it.) Yet around 8:30pm, someone was yelling trick-or-treat from outside and I heard the gate rattle. I thought that perhaps my niece or nephew had stopped by. But it was some lady with a small kid at the gate. I said, "Sorry, I don't have anything", and so they left. Afterwards, I felt bad for the kid, and remembered that I did have a few wrapped chocolates I could have given away. Later I also remembered the packets of peanut butter crackers. But as I totally didn't expect a situation like that, I hadn't planned for it.

I think the lady may have brought her kid trick-or-treating to my house in past years. I remember someone speaking to me on the street a year or 2 ago, saying they were glad I did Halloween as there are so few houses to take their kids to nowadays.

But there was also a lady last year who started harassing me, repeatedly asking me (and Qiao) for money. She would come to the gate and yell out until I came out to speak to her. The first time, she needed money for food because her sister had left her kids with her. The next time, her mom was in the hospital, dying, and she needed money to go there and stay with her. (After her mother died, she gave me one of the flyers from the funeral service. It looked real.) Then her sister (a different one, maybe) who had come for the funeral needed bus money to get back home to NC. Those first few times I gave her $20 to $40. The last time, she said she needed help with rent or bills. By then I realized she wasn't going to stop until I did, so I refused to give her any more money. I had already said one of the prior times, that it was the last time, anyway. As I walked back to the house, she even started yelling at me in an unpleasant tone. What little sympathy I had left evaporated.

So maybe it was *that* lady. But I still feel sorry for the kid.

Based on the current vote tally, in South Carolina, Romney got 54.67% of the vote, and Obama got 43.98%. Here in Richland County, one of the state's more urban areas, Obama got 65.77% and Romney got 32.86%.

Based on some census figures, South Carolina's population is 68.4% white and 28.1% black. Richland County is 48.9% white and 46.3% black. As a kid, it always surprised me to hear that blacks were a minority in SC, as at my schools (also in Richland County), it seemed that at least half the students were black. It still surprises me sometimes, considering how many black people I see in my day to day life (other than at work).

In spite of Richland County having almost the same percentage of blacks and whites, some neighborhoods and institutions are mostly one or the other. At my place of employment, I'd estimate that 10% or less of the people I work with are black (I'll use that term here for simplicity, rather than "African-American"). That's probably true, even without counting the people who are here from our India and Vietnam offices on temporary work visas. On the other hand, the support personnel (security guards, cleaning crew) are nearly all black. Most of the people in higher paying jobs, with higher education, seem to be white. Even at the hospitals, from what I've seen, most of the nursing and medical staff are white.

Many churches (in my limited experience) are mostly white or black. When I go to some grocery stores, nearly all the other people I see there are black. In other grocery stores, there's a more even mix of races.

My neighborhood must be mostly black, although it doesn't seem that way to me, as two of the nearby neighboring families are white. Whenever I go to vote, nearly all the other voters are black. It was the same way in my last precinct, when I was still living with Forestfen. During last week's vote, that is one of the reasons I would have felt very uncomfortable having been allowed to skip standing in line, due to Qiao's (temporary) disability. It would have felt like I was being given privilege due to my skin color, even though I know it wouldn't truly have been due to that. Other than me and Qiao, there might have been 1 or 2 white people standing in line (possibly not even that) during the entire time we were there, compared to probably over 100 black people.

Dogs barking at turtle on other side of chain-link fence.
Turtle in its shell, too scared to move.
Dogs looking ready to start digging.
Human puts dogs on their cable tie-outs.

Hours later.
Human looks for turtle, doesn't see it, is relieved.
Human lets dogs loose.

Minutes later.
Dogs barking at other spot along fence.
Human comes out to look.
Dogs have already pushed away the bricks along the fence, and started digging under it.
Turtle is half-covered in dirt from the digging.
Human puts dogs on their cable tie-outs.
Human pushes dirt around, stuffs bricks in the hole under the fence, and adds a few more bricks.

Hours later, night.
Human wonders, what am I going to do with those dogs?
Human lets one dog loose.
It slinks off to investigate.

Minutes later, the dog is back.
Human is relieved. Turtle must have gotten away.
Human lets other dog loose.

Night passes.

Morning passes.

Dogs barking at another corner of the fence.
Apparently turtle is having a hard time finding a way out of neighbor's yard.
Human sighs.
Human is trying to work! And has to spend so much time protecting critters from its dogs!
Human has had enough of this.
Human will take care of the problem for good this time!
Human puts dogs on their cable tie-outs.

Human wonders, how to get the turtle?

How, how, how...
Shovel!

Human gets long shovel, bucket and gloves.
Human leans over fence and picks turtle up with shovel.
Turtle tries to crawl off while human lifts shovel over fence.
Turtle falls off shovel on human's side.
Human yelps.
But turtle seems ok.

Turtle put in bucket.
Bucket put in car.
Gate opened.
Car driven down the street to pond.

Human lifts turtle out of bucket and puts it next to pond.
Maybe this isn't such a good spot, so close to the street, human worries.
Human sighs. Turtle has probably had enough of being human-handled.
Human drives back home, closes gate, and lets dogs loose.

Dogs rush off to investigate.