My CSI:Neighbor sent me this e-mail:
| Hey, neighbor. Go read that orange sign in the window of the house up the hill, closest to our mailboxes. I’m dying to know what it says.  |
My first thought was, “Why doesn’t she just walk up to the mailboxes and read the sign.”
I walked up there, and realized that you can’t read it from the mailboxes. Of course not, or she would have.
It’s kind of a long message on a piece of rectangular, orange paper with black magic marker for the writing, and stuck in the big picture window in the front of their house.
The townhouse we’re talking about is an end unit ― on the left end of a string of townhouses. The neighbors just to their right were out in front of their unit ― the guy standing in his walkway talking on his cell phone, the girl sitting on their entrance step, and their dog (not on a leash) actually sitting in front of the end unit.
I didn’t want to walk up to the window to read that sign in front of them. It just seemed too nosy.
A little while later, I went back out there, and the neighbors had gone inside. I walked up to the window and read:
| To Whom It May Concern: We would like to thank anyone involved in helping fertilize our yard. To share your pets in this way shows true neighborhood spirit. However, it seems we now have more than enough dog excrement to get the job done. There- fore, please feel free to keep the rest for your own use. |
Perhaps a better solution for all involved might be, like San Francisco, to harness the power of dog poo.
We have an internal IBM instant messaging system called Lotus Sametime, and in my buddy list I have a person with the nickname: “The Other John Martin.”
There are two of us ― John Martins ― at the Raleigh site, and we are forever getting each other’s mail, and less frequently each other’s voice mail. He has a middle initial; I don’t. He works for an organization called IGS (IBM Global Services); I work in an organization called Tivoli. We have never met in person.
Today, we had this amusing exchange:
| Me are you there? Me i had a voice mail from someone named Mimi (i think it was). she sounded asian-american.. and she was calling about some 2 yr old “net req” that needed to be closed or revisited or SOMETHING… it had to do with a project called “Global Imaging Workflow” Me does any of that ring a bell with you? Me i’m going to run and get some lunch… i believe her number (she said it real fast) is 1-800-555-1212. The Other John Martin I will contact Mimi Me great. The Other John Martin you can feel free to handle some of these issues, you know Me lol Me i’ll see what i can do The Other John Martin I make up random statements all the time about Tivoli pretending to be you Me rotfl |
I met Joe for dinner at the Olive Garden at Crossroads. I had the Ravioli Portobello, and Joe had the Chicken Alfredo Pizza. Yum!
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We each brought half of our meal home.
While passing my bed, I dropped down on it for a quick minute. Three hours later I woke up ― around 10:00.
I combined a need for exercise with a need to mail three letters, and walked over to the post office at Avent Ferry and Gorman to kill two birds with one stone.
