Hey Harrisburg, Yesterday Would Have Been A Good Day To Clean The Street

Yesterday was street cleaning day on my block. And it came at exactly the right time, since due to the vagaries of the calendar -- there were five Thursdays in November -- the street hadn't been cleaned in three weeks. In that time, every single ginkgo tree in a two-block radius had gone bare, and as a result the gutters of the street are filled with a solid 3-4" of wet, matted-down leaves. Come to think of it, so are the gutters of my house -- I should do something about that. Or should I wait until after Christmas?


It's like this, only mushy and gross. Oh -- picture used without permission, I'll probably have to take it down soon.

Anyway, with the ice storm looming (as well as this weekend's potentially huge snowstorm), we were looking at the possibility of the street becoming just about unparkable pretty quickly (as opposed to last winter, when it took the Valentine's Day snowstorm, aka The Day Daryl Didn't Get Her Brownie, to render it such), so I was happy that the street cleaners were scheduled to come.

My happiness lasted until the moment got home from work last night, got out of my car, and saw the same 3-4" of matted wet leaves sitting in the gutters that were there when I left. The street cleaners apparently never showed up!

Now I know I've already written about how I should stop being disappointed when Harrisburg neglects to give its citizens basic services. But I guess I just can't help feeling that, in return for paying my taxes and abiding by the cities laws and regulations, the city should do things like clean up the three weeks of leaves which are about to turn into a solid, immovable block of frozen ginkgo badness. Call me crazy (or naive).

Oh, and the best part? My neighbor's car got ticketed for parking on the block during street cleaning hours, despite the fact that THE STREET DIDN'T GET CLEANED. If that had been my car getting ticketed I would totally contest that ticket.