Our Nightmare Is Nearly Over

 I was an English major, and I tend to truly listen when people speak, and react when they write. This is often a problem in this age of so many "Wasted Words," to quote a great Allman Brothers song title.

We have a neighbor I'll call Riva, since that's her name. She may be on the spectrum, neurodivergent, or something, but she's one of the people I avoid when I see her. As D2 would say about her, "Somethin' ain' right."

She's called Village government on neighbors for all manner of activity -- putting trash in her trash bins (which I thought was just a nursery rhyme and not against the law), parking near her house, and, her scourge, a neighbor who makes good money renting out her house for commercial and movie shoots.

Well the other day her name caught my eye in a local news site, and she was talking about the "conversion" FPL is doing in our 'hood. I love that it's called that -- they're digging tunnels and putting the electric service underground. I like to think that maybe some of our current will now be Jewish using the preferred term.

Anyway, it has been a long project -- they started last January and were to be done by June, but here we are in the following January and they're still at work. Last week, they called and said they were cutting our power for a half hour to do the conversion, and it went smoothly -- so I'm guessing our house is now converted. Yay -- hopefully fewer blackouts in relatively mild storms for us now.

Since our house was built in 1997, the supply line from the transformer to our house was already underground -- they just marked it's route with red flags. But for most of our hood, with houses built in the 50s and 60s, they had to actually install new supply lines. Riva had one of these, and apparently they cut her water line, messed up her sod, etc...

So it was an annoyance -- but to her it was a "nightmare." Ay por favor! A nightmare is a cancer battle, or loss of a beloved friend or family member. A nightmare might be fighting a criminal case. But living with street construction for a year a nightmare. Somethin' ain't right.

Wifey is prone to hyperbole when we speak. When the landscapers leave branches she had told them to clean up, "I HATE that they keep doing that!" I always say "You HATE that -- like your parents HATED the Nazis for killing their families and making them slaves for years?"

Yeah -- I'm a pain in the ass sometimes.

But words matter -- at least to me. And when someone says their life is a nightmare, I feel for them.

Unless said nightmare is torn up streets and missing sod...