There are two units below mine. One with...ahem...grown ups. The other with art students. There's a handful of girls (I couldn't tell you how many as there has been a slight rotation of occupants) but they are sweet and kind and pure and have a very nice well behaved yellow lab and they actually LIVE. They play music. They have Christmas lights on their deck which ALWAYS has people on it in the evenings, they sit of the front porch steps en mass. They inspire me to enrich my own life.

Well, it appears that most, if not all, of them have graduated and are moving on to bigger and better things. They've been cleaning house and packing for the past month. Some parents showed up with a UHaul trailer and took a lot of stuff away. They've been carting boxes and suitcases back and forth for weeks. Sunday they had a little yard sale. And yesterday, it appears that whatever they hadn't gotten rid of yet was hauled out to the street for the trash man.

Of course, this upset one of the grown up neighbors as this evening when I arrived, there was a Baltimore Public Works Trash Calendar taped to the mirror in the entry hall with the dates of the bulk trash pick up circled.

The heck with them. These girls were delightful neighbors.

Anyhow, Greta and I were returning from a walk when we came upon the (quite a huge) trash pile. (There actually was an issue to be raised - the neighbors just didn't have to be their usual uptight selves to make it.) It was quite an interesting lot, with picture frames and glass doors (presumably from some old cabinets), furniture, paint, LOTS of plywood and some no longer loved school assignments. Nestled in a box of debris was a 2x3' oil painting of a lovely green winged naked fairy. She had a less than runway model figure and must have been having a bad fairy day, though I can't imagine what that would be, because she looked, well, melancholy. Her shoulders are slouched in defeat and her face seems to say "What's so good about it" in response to a third party declaration that it's a great day. At one time after the painting was completed, someone had set a can of paint down on the canvas, so it is stained with a three inch ring of paint and splatters from another project. Greta and I adopted her. She now lives in the sun room where I hope that her *hrmph* expression will give me the inspiration to pick myself up out of the doldrums when I'm feeling blue as she should, for she is really quite lovely and I'm sure that with just the hint of a smile she would be beautiful.