April 11th (A day late)

Yesterday was a pleasant afternoon on the porch. A bit chilly, but pleasant none-the-less. The activity started early. Tony (the neighborhood hoodlum) fought with his mother, chasing her out of the house. She yelled and one of the neighbors intervened before anything went horribly wrong. This sounds really awful, I know, but I have been here for almost 10 years and this scene has played out pretty much the same way as long as I have lived here and by all accounts, long before. It seems almost routine. The cops came and broke it up, but there is little they can do since the mother won't ever throw him out. Makes me happy to be childless.

Later in the day, we realize that there are beer cans all over the street. One here, one there, one a bit further down. We assumed these cans were empty and had fallen out of someone's recycling bin. It had been a windy few days. This assumption was reevaluated when we saw a strange man walking down the street checking each can. If they were empty he smashed them and if they were full he picked them up. He had two good ones that we could see (one in each hand). When asked my neighbor Krista, she verified that several beer cans were full and unopened. She found this out after her husband rolled one to their chocolate lab. She chopped down one, spraying beer all over. Apparently she is a beer drinker.