‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

I didn’t put up a fence in my garden, but I did run some string down the sides of the plot – lines of demarcation, if you will.

Last year the person on one side of my plot redrew the lines (just around HER plot, but it cut into mine!) drawn on the wooden boards containing the whole plot. If this were the suburbs, someone just increased their density by taking my land through illicit eminent domain. The year before, the person on the other side of me dug his irrigation trenches/walkways into my plot, and when I met him, he remarked how nice it was to meet me, and how it was no trouble for him to help with my trench….  Not how I saw it. I mean, sure, I’ll use it, but if we’re going to share a trench, half of the space should come from my plot and half from his. If only our garden plot could be divided with appropriate buffer space…an easement…

So this year, they only drew the lines to show the boundaries of each plot on one side. So 15-20 feet away, there is nothing keeping you from creating a bigger wedge than you should have and screwing your neighbor. OK, OK, I’m being dramatic, but after two years of not meeting my neighbors before we could talk about sharing space and having precious real estate taken away, I decided to go ahead and mark out the space. Now, if you’ve been to my apartment, you know that I occasionally walk around with a level making sure that my pictures are alles in Ordnung. So it should be no surprise to anyone that I went down to my garden with a level. Yep. I wanted to be fair, so I put in nail in the middle of each stripe of spray paint marking the boundaries of my garden, and measured the distance between them. I then extended string down the western side of the plot, and made sure the juncture of string and wood formed a right angle, drove in another nail, and measured (down to 1/8″) the same distance out as the other side, drove in a nail, and extended another string, forming a boundary on the eastern side of my plot. I am a colossal nerd, but a fair one.

Much of this was done to protect my neighbors’ plots, as well. I can’t eyeball a straight line to save my life, and I would have hated to start digging and planting, only to find out that I’d taken over some of their space.

So why do I feel like a hostile neighbor? Now that the trenches are dug and my plot is ready for planting, should I remove the string?

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Thoughts From a Snow Day

Nothing like an extended set of snow days to give my mind some space…and to remind me that I haven’t created a new post in a while.  Apologies to my audience (hey, you two!). Like many in the mid-Atlantic, I’ve been mostly homebound due to what some are dubbing Snowmageddon and SonOfSnowmageddon (Snowpocalypse was the storm that hit in December). Here are some scattered thoughts related to this uncharacteristic weather.

College Basketball Karma. My college basketball karma came back to bite me in the ass during this set of storms. You see, I was in attendance in January 2000 at the “Great Snow Game” between UNC and UMD. That game, during my freshman year at Carolina, sealed the deal for me – I became a die-hard Tar Heel basketball fan.

Let me set the scene: almost two feet of snow falls on Chapel Hill, NC. Most of the alumni can’t make it to the UMD basketball game at the Dean Dome; these folks are hereby known as the “wine and cheese crowd.” Not wanting the arena to stand mostly empty, students are invited to fill in empty seats around the wine and cheese folks, who dominated the lower level. My friends and I make our way from our dorm rooms down to the Dean Dome to watch Carolina sail to victory. I’ll never, ever forget the noise and spirit in the Dean Dome that night. The next year, a riser section was created for students to sit on the floor, a reflection of the atmosphere created by having students not resigned to the rafters.

Flash forward to this weekend: I’m in my first year of graduate studies at UMD. I put my name in the hat for student tickets to the UMD-UNC game in College Park on February 7, 2010. I secure a ticket, but, not living on campus, I can’t make it over to the game after over two feet of snow falls on the area between February 5-6. Worried about few people making it to the game, students are invited to fill in empty seats. You see where this is going. And, yes, the Terps won.

Guess you only get to attend Snow Games once in a lifetime. Seeing Carolina play again in person is still on my Life List. Was hoping to cross that off this weekend, but I’ll have to wait for another (hopefully more winning) season.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor. Shoveling snow has been snow no fun, but it’s been nice to chat with more fellow residents of my apartment complex than at any other time in my several years of living here. It’s nice to know that there is still some civility, as people have been lending out shovels to those who don’t have them, and helping out older residents who have trouble removing the snow from their cars and spaces. It’s a shame there isn’t more civility and neighborliness, as this article on etiquette during snow in DC points out.

Too Much Information. For all the time I’ve had to get work/reading done because of the snow days, I….haven’t really. I wish I could say that I was super productive and on top of everything, but I really wasn’t. After a few days of that, I feel like a slug. Conversations with my classmates have led me to believe I’m not alone. This just proves that a career involving freelancing or setting my own deadlines probably isn’t the best work environment for me. I appreciate bosses, peer motivation, and deadlines. Tremendously.

So why haven’t I been more productive? I think a combination of two things: 1) no end of this in sight. I work well and better under pressure, and 2) too much information. I have shocked myself at how much time I’ve spent on ye olde Internet over the last few days. I’ve read/watched most stories about the Snowmageddon, clicked on nigh on every Twitter link that came my way, and lurked on Facebook far more than what might be considered healthy. I almost wish I’d lost my Internet connection (temporarily) in the storm. Time to re-evaluate my Internet productivity, for sure.

I’ll leave you with a video from before I had high speed Internet (well before), but that serves as a reminder that even before high speed connections, we were possibly bombarded. I suppose that means we always adapt. But still….wow…signing off!

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Spontaneous Community

Sometimes I forget how much I like hosting my friends for a meal.  My decision to stay in my current town/apartment despite going to graduate school full-time soon instead of into an office proved to be a good one tonight.  It’s nice to know some of your neighbors, and, in a big apartment building, that’s not always the case.  Through a random confluence of events, starting with a purchase of sweet cherries at the farmers market yesterday, I was happy to host some neighbors and my roommate and her boyfriend for an impromptu ice cream social tonight.  [Yes, I was possibly born too late; I would have made a great 50s housewife, except that I’d like a job, too, and I wouldn’t mind if my husband handed me a gin and tonic upon arriving home from work.  Apron optional.]

Everyone met someone new, and turning the cherries into a warm sauce for the ice cream was a spectacular culinary delight.  It was short, sweet, and reminded me how much I enjoy time spent with others over something as simple and pleasant as dessert on a beautiful evening of the longest day of the year.

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