« October 25, 2009 | main | November 01, 2009 »

Fake Plastic Trees

\n\n\nI should have known that this week would be a little off after I ended up with two scratches ON MY FACE courtesy of the cat. It wasn't entirely his fault, but still!\n\nThis morning, I woke up to the sound of chainsaws. Which is not normal for a Tuesday, but I didn't think too much of it. It turned out they were doing something to one of the trees in the courtyard of my building. My building, which is often compared to the apartment building in Melrose Place, with all its landscaping and foliage and lovely-ness. When I left for work, it appeared that some serious pruning was happening.\n\nWhen I got home, it turns out there was more than pruning going on. They completely removed at least two very large trees. One of them was in front of my window. It's the tree that wee raccoon is clinging to in the photo above. It's true that this tree blocked some of the light that would otherwise get in, but I didn't mind. I liked that it was there. It made our little corner of the building feel a little more private. Not anymore. Now the WHOLE BUILDING knows when I get home and that there are two packages from Amazon sitting at my doorstep. GREAT. It's not just that though, the trees added something. They made it feel like this was more than a plain old apartment building. Now, it looks like I live in a motel.\n\nI figure there must have been something wrong with the trees. Maybe they had a disease? They were starting to damage the roof? There has to be some sort of explanation. The apartment managers go through a lot of effort to landscape and make things pretty, and cutting down those trees did not improve the pretty factor 'round here. I'm really hoping that they have plans to replace them, or do something else to make up for them. We like the location and neighbors too much to move, but I'm not above sulking and looking sad for a couple of months.