We managed to accomplish at least the following tasks, all with a minimum of argument and bickery:

• Dinner at Cantina la Casita
• Full-force attack on the lawns, front and back (pictures forthcoming!)
• Complete kitchen organization
• Giant Target shopping trip for general outfitting
• Air conditioner installation
• Numerous minor fixture installations
• ALL of the laundry

Of these, the two about which I am most pleased are the kitchen organization and the yard-taming. For starters, I have a real pantry now — the kind where things are both visible and accessible in a convenient location. The yard has been heavily weed-whacked and is primed for the spraying of the environmentally semiresponsible Chemical Death. I look forward to the day when the word “poison” does not come up in lawn-related conversation.

As best I could gather from our rather hurried conversation on my front porch (during a dinner party, no less), he was concerned that I had been waiting for him to do something with these pieces of fencing, possibly because of conversations held between him and my realtor. This was his primary motivation for removing them and taking to them to the dump. Perhaps secondary to this was his belief that the items represented an obvious target for theft. I’m only guessing here, really.

At any rate, the mystery is largely solved, and with it part of my faith in the inherent decency of neighborhoodkind has been restored. I thought the internet should know.

The process would have been completely uneventful except for the fact that I seemed to have a real knack for spilling used motor oil on the ground, myself, and anything else that I came into contact with. Making prodigious use of a roll of paper towels, I managed to get most of it cleaned up, but there are still two rather unsightly spots left on the asphalt “driveway.” I will figure out some clever way to get rid of them soon, no doubt. Maybe I’ll just get rid of the whole driveway! Yeah! Cellular paving here I come… someday.

After the oil change excitement, Lucille and I went over to Steve and Missy’s place for a delicious chili cook-off. There were four five different kinds of chili (mostly pictured), all but one of which was vegan — all were amazing and amazingly varied. I probably ate too much. The Sweetwater 420 keg from the Cattington Acres housewarming party was there, and I arguably drank too much of that — but I just had to help finish, didn’t I?

I arrived at home to find everything mostly in order, but I noticed something strange when entering the driveway…. The dislodged wooden fence pieces had gone missing!

I know this must have happened before today, since I realize in retrospect that they were not there while I was doing the oil changing, but I’m not sure exactly when they were scooped up. I do know, however, that I didn’t really want them anyway, and I suppose that whoever got them — while still an insufferable bastard for having the nerve to steal something — will find them more useful than I had thus far.

The general concept of that occurrence does give me pause somewhat, as it is further evidence of the popular notion that anything not nailed down easily removed will be in this ‘hood. It is rather disappointing, really, but at this point an unchanging fact. Perhaps someday we’ll even have a neighborhood assocation that can organize some sort of collective dealing with this problem. Ahh, dreams.

UPDATE: The case of the missing fencing was resolved a few days later, and theft was not at issue.

Soon enough I found that one of the basement doors was unlocked, which was unusual. After opening the door, I quickly figured out what had occurred: someone had stolen the guts of my A/C condenser! Not only that, but they broke into the house just so they could cut off six more feet of the copper line running to it!

It didn’t take long to figure out that they had also taken the condenser from the neighboring house too, the bastards. I filed a police report just so they would know what’s going down. According to the officer, I’m lucky that they didn’t get more copper-greedy and start ripping things out of the walls. It’s rather amazing what desperate people will do.

So, now I’m in the market for a new condenser and a reliable installer for it. Any suggestions?

These developments have had me pleased as punch throughout the week. Today I actually finalized the sale of the car, money-in-bank style. This will come in handy tomorrow, when I close on my new house. I’m sure you’ll be hearing a lot more about that soon.

I got a call from the car’s new owner a few minutes after sitting down to lunch. He had let his redneck friend drive it back from our meeting to Conyers, and the dude was apparently not very smart. He drove it in Tiptronic-transmission mode and didn’t realize he had to shift. So there was lots of red-lining and the car generally got angry at him. But I think it’ll be OK. Not my problem either way, suckaz.