esrosedotblog

BORDER WARS

Our first bit of tension with the next door neighbor.

He got an OK from the HOA Board to regarden in front of his unit. Our units stop at the inside of the garden wall.

We had talked about this a long time ago. He said that he was going to a desert planting. And asked about the bushes that were between our two sidewalks. Two big prickly plums, which are ubiquitous here, and a beautiful, tall purple sage which has bloomed three times since we came.

We said that we would rather not change them and he sort of passed on in the converstion. That was our input.

A qord about "desert" plantings. The plantings are water conservative but not desert. The standard here is to scatter the plants with pipette sprinkers and put stones between the plants. The stones are from non-local waterways and look a bit dumb but that is beside the point.which is not really desert but that isn't so much the point as that he tore out all the larger, older, well developed bushes in front of his own unit and also on the east side of our walk outside the gate including a beautiful old heavily blooming purple sage bush.

While we had discussed the general topic and had expressed our pref for not touching that part he did it anyway. So. We talked about filling it back in again which he has done with dinky little Lowe's prickly plums and a faux sage bush. Yellow. All these are desert plants as they were before he hacked them down.

SO we offered to get four or so larger plants like the one that was there and put them in. Get them at Mollers, a nursery down valley, which is much better stock than the cheap shit he put in his place.

We talked about this and I called and made the offer to do it today.

He called back and said it was too late, we would have to take it up with the Board as they had approved his plan.

Oh.

In my training business we used to call that "bureaucratic avoidance". Push it off to other unavailable authorities. And today he is madly installing the irrigation, repiping it, covering the dirt with "fabric" and now the stones are going on.

We have retreated. We are letting it go.

Sort of. You can tell I am still pissed.

We know that the "board" gave him an OK in general because that is what their ultimate aim is, desert planting. Just so they don't have to spend the money. The HOA.

It is too bad. One of those "neighbor" things. The people who have to cut down and reconstruct and repaint everything in their new home. And the fucking stones are not desert stones. They are from some stream somewhere or perhaps dug up in China and polished by high tech machines for export to the USA for the upward striving bourgeoisie who can't leave fucking well enough alone.

See? I am over it.

Labels: condo, life, neighborhood