A bunch of little things from the past few months
1) The closing of the “circle” road around our apartment/housing area.
They decided they were going to re-pave this road, so the shuttles that usually stop right outside were re-routed to a new route. They annouced the shuttles would no longer be at my stop on the day before my birthday. What a pain in the butt! The closest stop was quite a walk away, and to top it off, they delayed the construction due to forcasted rain, but yet decided to keep the shuttles on this alternate route. However, the construction DID start at the end of March, unfortunately for us, the first area to be shut down completely was the one adjacent to our parking lot, and this was during Spring Break, when my sister was coming for a visit. I’m glad the rest of my family was here last year instead. This made parking a nightmare, as all the lots close to us are very small, and barely have enough room for their own residents. What killed me about the situation is there is a fire access road that could have been opened up for us to use to access our parking lot. It’s not even really “fire” accessable, because it is blocked off by giant pylons that have either been cemented into the ground, or locked in place. 
2) The path I walk up to work/the lab everyday.
Last year it wasn’t even a real “path” - it was just the place worn into the wood chips where EVERYONE walked to get up from one concrete pathway beside a building, the the main concrete walkway. This year they decided to give it some sort of status. But not actual, concrete, walkway status. They partitioned off a section, put some wooden “sides” to it - and filled it with sand! Yes, sand! So it still gets wet when it rains or the sprinklers come on, and you have to squish through it and get crap all over your shoes. But that’s not the worst part - recently someone decided it would be a good idea to drive their motorcycle up this thing. So on the side, there is a tire-tread shaped, and sized, hole, through the sand and down to the woodchips it was covering. 
Thanks, guys! Just make it a REAL walkway already, won’t you???
3) Tree trimming in the housing area and parking lots.
I told Kris about the email I got saying they’d be doing this. He automatically says, “Oh, I know what’s going to happen. They’re going to come in, and trim the trees - within an inch of their lives. So they will be bare, and offer absolutely no shade whatsoever.” This is what they did at his work (also in Irvine), and there’s no longer shade in the parking lot, or on his side of the building - where the sun beats down for 3/4 of the day. I did not believe him, but one day we came home and it looked like a hurricane had passed through our backyard. Now there’s no shade on the back of our apartment for the summer. Once again, thanks! 
4) Those damn birds - are they tropical or something?
We have some birds that, once again, who they heck knows how they got here, but they are definately not native. They imitate all the calls of the other birds, which wouldn’t be quite so bad if it was just during the day. But it’s not. They usually start up around midnight or one AM, just as we are drifting off to sleep. Kris has gone outside and tried shooing them; one morning I got out of bed and used a broom to try knocking them (to fly) out of the tree - I fell and cut my knee but not my pjs and didn’t even realize it until later because I was like half-asleep; we’ve now been trying to spray them away. But they are back - every damn night. I feel bad because we’re only shooing them away to another part of the housing area - where they bother other people. We’ve asked our friends if they hear them - they have asked if we know what they look like. We ALL want to get rid of them. Luckily, the tree trimming extravaganza (see #3) has helped a BIT with the problem 
, but occasionally they’re still out there squaking in the middle of the night.
I guess that’s all for now.
