neighbors and earrings and milestones

I'll work backwards. Today I managed one full mile on the exercise bike. Since I started with one-third of a mile and could barely manage that, I feel as if I've accomplished a great deal. And I wasn't even jelly-legged when I completed the mile! Who knows--I may go for a mile and a half before the week ends.

My sweet spouse fetched my newly French-hooked earrings today. They look wonderful and fit perfectly! I will certainly wear them at every occasion that demands more than jeans and t-shirts. Heck, I might even wear them with jeans and t-shirts!

Now for neighbors, or (to be more precise) neighbors' children: Our neighbor to the immediate north, a lovely couple and their two sons, have been great, until this summer. This summer, the boys have gotten a bit out of hand. They cross our lawn to the willow tree and strip leaves off it for as high as they can reach, even though we've asked them repeatedly not to do that. Yesterday, after I'd fussed at the older boy for stripping leaves, he took his plastic bat and beat one of our sprinkler heads. The sprinkler was on at the time, and he got angry because it squirted him. (Hey, kid, if you weren't on OUR lawn, you wouldn't get wet!) He broke the sprinkler head, and it began to shoot water straight up in a heavy stream. He started walking away, but I ran out and yelled at him to stop right where he was. My husband marched him over to his house and told him to fetch his mother. When she came out with the boy, my husband asked her if her son had told her what he'd done. She said, "Well, between sobs, he sort of did." She offered to pay to have the damage fixed, but the magical fixer-upper himself was able to repair it after a little while, so no harm, no foul. Of course, I'm sure we are hardly endeared to the neighbors now, and I understand that children will play and that they don't fully understand concepts like trespassing and property damage. Still, it makes me think seriously about a condominium complex for older people. Or better yet, one with fences! We can't have a fence where we live because it would restrict access to the pond, which is a drainage pond that the city needs to be able to get to.

Of course, a condo would also mean that broken sprinkler heads weren't our problem. We've spent several hundred dollars on this underground sprinkler system, just trying to keep it in good repair. (We didn't even know we had it until one day, it came on and surprised the heck out of us.) I have to confess, I fell in love with one of the condo complexes we saw. (For the curious, it's http://www.koinoiniawoods.com/ and it offers slide shows and virtual tours.) Alas, even the smallest unit is expensive, starting at $300,000. Who knows? We might be able to afford it once my older son passes the bar (last day of testing is today!) and gets a good job. Of course, we'd have to sell Home Sweet Home first, and until the housing market recovers, that's not going to be likely.