good fences make good neighbors

This morning I popped out my back door carrying the large bag of kitchen trash to find the sidewalk to my alley completely blocked off by the construction project next door. This construction project has been the bane of our existence for several months, as it has not only made a lot of noise, but torn up our garden, landed things onto our roof, pilfered our water, blocked our parking, hidden our trash cans, and left cigarette butts (ew! ew! ew!) on our lawn. Not only that, but when finished it will populate our neighborhood with yet more luxury SUVs and well-meaning yuppies carrying petitions to shut down the BBQ joint because "the smoke bothers us; doesn't it bother you?" Far from believing that the wafting scent of food or the park next door are assets, they want to regulate and sanitize--which I suppose might be how I felt if I were silly enough to drop half a million on a piece of property that doesn't even have land for a garden. All of these thoughts may, I admit, have been playing out on my face as I stood on my porch and held my bag of smelly garbage.

The man operating the backhoe in the middle of this travesty caught my eye and must have read this. He turned around with a "Yo!" to one of the hard hatted men and used a work glove to gesture my way. The guy in the hard hat immediately jogged over, clambered over the rolled-up chain link fence which was blocking the sidewalk, and held out his hand for the trash. "Don't worry, ma'am," he said. "I've got it." I was charmed. Completely charmed. I don't care that he ma'am-ed me, I don't hardly care that he may or may not have been as nice to my spouse, and for one glorious minute I forgot about the swath of my garden that had been destroyed. I just thanked him warmly and tried to ignore the juice oozing out of one edge of the trash bag.

***

I've been reading over the Harlot's "Knitting Rules" (yes! I read straight through books of knitting instruction for fun!) and have just gotten to the hat chapter, where she explains neat tricks for estimating the size of someone's head. I've been trying these out and giggling like a toddler when I discover they're true. Did you know that the circumference of a person's head is about three times the length from thumb to pinky on an outstretched hand? Go ahead, try it. Put your pinky fingers together and hold your hands around where your hat brim would sit. Imagine that third handspan on the back of your head. Tell me if it makes you a little surprised and gleeful. If it doesn't do that, tell me how long it took one of your coworkers to ask what crazy thing you are up to now. Or, if you're shy, duck down in your cube/office/kitchen so you don't get spotted. Because sometimes good fences do make good neighbors.