It was a very nice day

I finally finished a letter about local traffic - I had been procrastinating for months. It took concentration, coffee, a Caribou environment, and three hours; interrupted once by a neighbor who sounded as if she had a desire to pick a fight. I needed to get back to my work and I wasn't wanting to parry words with her (she kept picking things apart). I'm afraid when I said I didn't want to go into anything right now (work and public place on a cell) she took offense, which I think she wanted to do anyway, and hung up. Not the first time and it won't be the last...she's one of two who seem to always be looking for something to disparage or tsk about.

That was a very small, but annoying piece of the day. I got home and Kenchi came running over with a hug, Samm asked if I was going to visit her at her house, Pedro, Jose, Jesus, John, Mario, Fermin, Cesar, Kenchi, were all out and I love the joking and teasing. John is so good with the boys. The boys know quite a bit about what goes on in the neighborhood. It's an active intersection and John filled me in on Brandon's run-in with his mother and the latest, usual petition for blocking the cul-de-sac. Supposedly it's for a 'block party', but the petitioner invites only a select few, not her neighbors for a private party. Several of us won't go after the first one because it was such a sham, plus she was appeared upset with more than half the people there. Now it's pretty much of a private party with public funds paying for firefighters to block the street with their truck. It's adds to the funkiness and weirdness of the neighborhood.

A plus is that several weeks back I serendipitously met a man who had just finished teaching a drumming workshop here at Metro State Library and he's agreed to hold a drumming workshop for my neighborhood kids. I have to come up with $75 and he can work with 10-15 kids, using the big plastic pails (like the restaurant pickle pails). They'll love it! I can invite some of the newer kids who live down on Maria and seem to have no supervision. It might be a helpful way of bringing some of them together.