D.O.P.-T.

I woke up late and found the landlord next door was outdoing himself: not only had he cut off his two little ornamental trees level with the fence-top, and cut off any bits of the weedy trees in our front and side yards that had dared to poke branches over the picket fence there, throwing the trimmings into our yard, he also had a guy up in the huge oak tree in someone else's back yard on the other side of his property, lopping off all the sideways branches, and a chipper was running in the street in front. That poor oak, which is probably older than the houses, already lost most of its front half (the owner of the house there asked the city for permission to cut it down but they actually had the guts to refuse). It's trash day tomorrow and I was already putting out the greenwaste bin again, so I got rid of the mess this afternoon, including sweeping the sidewalk and getting the bigger bits of debris out of the gutter. Monty watched me go to and fro, sprawled out under the magnolia tree beside the driveway.

( Pumpkins 4. )

Somebody rang the doorbell ...

Ms Bella was hit by a car and died. They're trying to find out who was feeding her and maybe housing her.