It’s Saturday afternoon, and I’m enjoying what is, sadly, a rare treat for me these days: a weekend day not spent at the office. The sun is gradually breaking through this morning’s gray skies. And through my office window, I hear the twittering of birds stuttering of a jackhammer.
I took this photo of our house this morning, from the bottom of our driveway. It is, truthfully, a bad photo of the house, but I wasn’t trying for high art. I took the photo to document that which the jackhammer is at this very moment destroying: the old, mossy concrete retaining wall on our side of the driveway.
As is common in some of Seattle’s older neighborhoods, our house shares a driveway with the house next door. The property line runs down the middle of the driveway, and also through the middle of the garage at the back of the two lots. The upkeep of the driveway and garage are, therefore, a joint venture between us and our next-door neighbors.
This wall has a knack for taking bites out of unsuspecting vehicles, including ours during our first months here. Once we learned to negotiate the driveway, we didn’t think much of the wall until our neighbor sold his house. The driveway is narrow — only seven feet across — and our soon-to-be new next-door neighbors drive large vehicles. (Why any city dweller needs… no, don’t let me get started. Anyway…) As part of our shared plan for redoing the driveway (regrading, repaving, widening slightly), the wall is coming down. On Tuesday, a landscaper will come to regrade that edge of our yard, and install a a loose rockery to help retain the slope. Once planted, it will be pretty, and our driveway will be a safer place… even for oversized vehicles.
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I was just having a chuckle the other day over some people’s idea that they need huge vehicles even though they live in a town/city or commute to places with small parking spaces. I still don’t get it–I saw it a lot in the military… huge trucks on huge raised wheels, the family stuffed into the back, stopping at the gas station asking for $5 worth of gas (you just knew their last cent was going towards that truck). I also remember my 5′0″ best friend getting a truck– sometimes I think small people like them to finally give them a sense of power. I’m sure that desire carries over psychologically too.
Hopefully and presumably the people next door can afford their huge vehicles =) It’s still silly though!