It`s an ill wind that blows no good

posted Fri, 22 Apr 2005

It was too dark to see much outside, but I checked in the attic and saw no holes where the tree would be resting. I waited a while, then walked out front so I could figure out which tree had fallen. It was not the tree of my neighbors to the east, as I thought, but the tree of my neighbors to the west.

The good news is that the tree is to the west of my neighbors to the west, so their roof took the brunt of the blow. It is crushed. I didn’t see any cars in the driveway – this was at 6:15 a.m. – and I hadn’t heard them or their stupid, yippy dogs for a while, so I surmised they might be out of town. I still couldn’t see what had happened to my roof because I wasn’t willing to climb over the porch and behind the bushes.

When I got to work, I called Julie – the neighbor to the west – at work to tell her about her roof. I kept getting her voicemail, which didn’t surprise me, as I didn’t think she was in town. Every time I zeroed out, I got other voicemail. I could not find a single live person who could track Julie down to tell her that her house was falling down. I finally left messages on every phone I could reach, then started calling everyone in the phone book with her last name trying to find her parents.

I left my office for a meeting and returned to find a message on my voicemail. It was Julie. She had gotten my message. She was in town. She and her husband had just sold the house and moved to the new one.

Just sold the house.

Is that luck or what?

They have moved into their new house and taken those stupid dogs with them – and the new owner has a crushed roof.

PS Oh yeah – their new house is on a much more expensive street – but remember they didn’t have enough money to help pay for the fence I had put up between our houses last year.