Street Smarts

Holy shit this has been a bad morning. The street cleaners/sweepers took over Northwest Portland this morning. A few times a year the City of Portland gets this bright idea to clean the streets. Why, you ask? Because they dirty, goddammet!! A couple days before they put these big signs up everywhere, for about a 15-block radius (I work right in the middle of it, of course), so you can't park on the street between 7:30 am and 10:00 am so they can make the streets pretty enough to eat off of. Hey, homeless people can't buy dinnerware!!!

Let me stop here to talk about the parking situation out here. There fucking isn't any!! It's street parking, no parking lots anywhere remotely close. This isn't downtown, but about a mile north (assuming my horrible lack of a sense of direction is telling me right). It's a very trendy area filled with apartments, shops and restaurants/bars. Very neat area. Except there's no fucking parking!!! Every morning I have to try my damndest to time it right so that I arrive right when the people who live nearby leave for work, so I can snag a spot. Yes, it's that bad. Usually I can find something within a block or two. Today all that was blocked off (and if you dare park there anyway, your car will be towed within 2 minutes of leaving it unattended, they're waiting like vultures, daring you to try it).

So, I had to park about 6 blocks away from work, which doesn't sound like much, but at 7:30 a.m. before coffee - mildly annoying doesn't begin to cover it.

When I did finally get into work, I was rewarded with donuts from the Voodoo Bakery, we had our morning staff meeting and I got to cram in a couple donuts. Then I wanted to take a nap, so it probably wasn't the best idea. While we talked about cases and trials and shit we needed to get done a week ago, the street sweepers or cleaners were outside making Portland beautiful. The sound was deafening, we could barely hear ourselves chew!! Then, when we get done our meeting at 10 am, I walk really really fast the 6 blocks back to go get my car, so I can get a parking spot right outside the office. It's one of the few times I ever get a spot that close, and no one was going to fucking stop me. I was on a mission. So, hopefully, I worked off at least one donut with my little power walk. As I was power-walking, I looked down and realized that the streets weren't fucking clean!! They were just wet!! WTF!!!!!! They did this to us to just wet the fucking streets!???? I'm sorry for all the "fucks" but I was not a happy camper. Why even bother cleaning them if they're not even clean?

I decided I must run for Mayor of the City of Portland. This misjustice must be stopped, and I think I'm just the girl for the job. After all, I've got nice legs, I'll get more votes than the old wrinky guy ;)