Victory!

I know I just posted my Item of the Week, but I was so excited about what just happened, that I had to blog about it! I really wish I had documented all of this with pictures, but there was no time to get the camera. My dad, especially, will appreciate this post and I may even gain a little respect in his eyes with it, so this is for you, Dad!

First, a little background. Jared and I are house-sitting for my parents and my mom's car comes with the house. So, here's the set-up: my mom's car and Jared's car sit in the driveway and my car is parked on the street in front of the house. The street sweeper used to come every Monday to clean the gutters/streets. Due to budget cuts, the street sweeper now only comes once a month, so it is imperative that the street sweeper get an unobstructed shot at the street in front of your house or you live with the mess for a whole nother month. So, a few months ago, I decided to check the Sunnyvale city website to try to find out the dates that the street sweeper would be tackling our street. The schedule showed it would be Mondays, usually the second Monday of the month. No problem at the time I checked it because I was still working in San Francisco and my car was always gone by the time the street sweeper came in the late morning. Well, shortly after checking the site, I was home for some reason in the middle of the week and all of a sudden I hear the street sweeper truck coming! I run to the front window to see the street sweeper making a wide arc around my car leaving the gutters full of leaves and other crap. "This is not according to the schedule!", I thought. "It is not Monday!" But what could I do? The street sweeper was gone and the gutters were a mess. Irritated, I went about my business that month and hoped the street sweeper would come again before I stopped working in San Francisco. The next month, the city posted no parking signs on the street for street sweeping and street maintenance. Beautiful - some advance notice! Gutters/street cleaned. Fast forward to this weekend.

I like to walk around barefoot as much as possible, so this weekend I was on our sidewalks with no shoes or socks and was stepping on a lot of debris. Obviously, it was time to sweep the walks. So, this weekend, Jared and I swept/blew the sidewalks and front yard to get all of the leaves/tree crap out. Obviously, we just swept it into the street to be later taken care of by the street sweeper. I made a little mental note that I should check the street sweeping schedule so I could get my car out of the way because there were a ton of leaves! So this morning I'm sitting in the front room typing my Item of the Week, when I hear the street sweeping truck. I jump off the couch and run to the window. The truck was getting louder. He was definitely coming, but I couldn't see him. He must be on the other side of the street. So, I run to get my car keys and a jacket (still in pajamas) and sprint outside as the street sweeper passes on the opposite side of the street. I get in the car, start it up, and look in my rearview mirror to see the street sweeper turning around at the end of the street to head up my side. As I pulled away from the curb, leaving an unobstructed gutter/street in front of my house, I knew victory was mine. I beat that street sweeper this time! And now, the street and gutter in front of our house is clean and leaf free!