Rumor has it that our little town has a little bit of a budget surplus. California is generally against budget surpluses or balanced budgets. In fact, budget surpluses are down right unAmerican, so our local government thought they should spend their little surplus tout de suite before people started pointing fingers. They got together to decide on a cause worthy of the local funds.
Sure you can shovel that cash into education, but that seems like a lost cause. Are the children really the future? I mean Whitney Houston sang about it, but she was also shopping for some serious nose groceries at the time, so can you really take her word for it? (Crack is whack, girlfriend, and bathtubs are dangerous.)
I’m sorry, Whitney but children are for sewing sweatshirts and mining diamonds in 3rd world countries. (image via wikipedia)
Plus, if we give children a better education, they become better informed and better informed people make a whole lot of demands on their government, which is frankly a pain in the @ss for any government official. So they decided to dodge that bullet.
No, a better way to spend the money would be a sidewalk beautification project. Now I already thought our sidewalks were mildly attractive. Not that they were going to get picked for America’s Next Top Model or anything, but still, for a cement strip I thought they towed the line. But what do I know? I walk my daughter to school in the sweats I sleep in, so I’m probably not the last word in beauty. Luckily no one listens to me.
That right there is some beautification in progress.
They started the sidewalk beautification project, which consists of tearing up sections of sidewalk to cut out all of the tree roots underneath. Genius, right? They very thoroughly cut the tree roots off the tree in front of our bedroom on both the street side and the sidewalk side, so I’m looking forward to adding that tree to our bedroom decor during the next wind storm. It will give the room a more rustic modern feel, which is good, because I was really wondering what to do in there anyway.
They also tore up some of the driveways, including ours, and then blocked off street parking, which gave us a good excuse to try out that new hover-craft that hasn’t been invented yet. I got a ticket for parking on the street, but I wrote a very nice letter to the parking people pointing out that the 2002 Mazda models don’t evaporate into thin air and they kindly dismissed my ticket.
They are very serious about the beauty of the new sidewalks because when my daughter scratched a heart into the fresh cement, they came back to smooth it over. Just in case they had inadvertently missed the beauty of an eight year old’s artwork, we redrew that heart four times and each time someone smoothed it over. Apparently they really are serious about children not being the future.
Tell your kids to keep their art and optimism to themselves.
Riley was crushed about her artwork but Hubs is going to rent a jack hammer, so we’ll get that heart in there one way or another. We’re used to waking up to the sweet dulcet tones of the jack hammer anyway. Now the kids don’t have to miss it.
They finished the strip on our side of the block and WOW was it worth it! I mean the sidewalk used to just look like squares of cement, but now…well now it looks like a pathway to suburban righteousness. I’m sure bird crap will burst into flame before coming to rest upon its pristine surface. You best believe that I’m breaking out my good sweats to walk my daughter to school now.
Check it out! You wish you could walk on this bad boy.
Fathead Follies 
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Perfectly laid sidewalks are the key to a shiny soul. You can rip that quote off and use it as your own, because I’m all about giving away surplus crap too. =)
I think I might have bought a shiny soul on QVC for $19.95. If only I’d known that I’d get it for free (minus my tax dollars) right outside my doorstep.
Yes, you are all about giving away surplus crap, which is why you shouldn’t be in charge of estate sales.
Nice memory. Impressive. =)
Anyone who wipes out an eight-year-old girl’s heart not one, not two, but THREE times just plain sucks. What a grump!
Get that jackhammer ready and make the biggest damn heart they’ve ever seen.
“Luckily, no one listens to me.” Cracks me up!
Wow. Your sidewalks are way better than my sidewalks. I’m such a bad mother raising my kids around inferior sidewalks.
This really puts all of those other motherhood arguments to rest. It’s all about sidewalk quality. However, I don’t judge you or your sidewalks.
Don’t even get me started on sidewalk fixing projects… we had a huge fight with the city over our street a couple of months ago. They were just going to cut down 18 beautiful old camphor trees on our street to fix some little cracks. Crack-heads more like!!
Everyone knows that trees don’t do anything beneficial but sidewalks…those are little strips of cement goodness.
And this is why I live in a city. They’re so busy hunting gang members, they don’t have time to destroy children’s artwork. Plus, something about the suburbs kills my soul a little. I suspect it might be the sidewalks.
We’re city-ish, like a city once removed. We have drugs and gangs and even some organized crime, but what’s important to remember here is that our sidewalks are pristine. That’s important because it’s easier to hose off the blood.
Hmm. That’s a good point. Maybe I should petition the Mayor to have your Sidewalk Nazis come and re-do Baltimore.
I wish I could have seen your face when you got that parking ticket.
It wasn’t a friendly face and I did grumble quite a bit. I don’t think my kids enjoyed it that much.
I bet they wouldn’t have smoothed over Riley’s art work if Rusty would’ve been on guard! Also, if the ripped up YOUR driveway, why couldn’t She have put her heart there?
I know! I don’t get their logic.