BLOCKHEADS

This year I am the neighborhood block head. (BLOCKHEAD!) This means I go around collecting homeowner fees every couple months, I pass around notices and memos from the community a couple times a week, I distribute pamphlets and schedules from the city offices monthly, and I attend regular meetings. I REALLY dislike being a block head (BLOCKHEAD!) but the job comes around to us every 7 years. Not too bad but nothing to look forward to.

Tetsu conveniently bows out of block head (BLOCKHEAD!) responsibilities. His logic is that if he goes to meetings or shows his face too much, then age-wise he would be handed chair responsibilities in the hierarchy of community service. He is not very fond of the homeowners association's politics... So he sends me... his foreign wife who isn't really very useful to the association.

Tanya can't lead meetings, she can't write reports, she's not even very good at calling people and asking (begging) for participation... (my formal, humble-style Japanese is not very good.) Thus I do my block head (BLOCKHEAD!) duties and the homeowners association doesn't try to involve me further.

This week I glanced at the city notices when I passed the block messages along.

Yuck. The district is allowing hunting again this spring, from next week to the middle of June. It is a war on the crows and wild ducks and herons that seek refuge in the rice fields and the forest. I am EXTREMELY ANTI-HUNTING! It breaks my heart to hear the rifles going off in the forest or see a duck drop down from the sky. STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!!

And there halfway down the city notice it said,

"Bird control and hunting will be allowed from April 29th to June 16th except for the week of May 4th to May 10th which is Bird Week."

BLOCKHEADS!