Paved with good intentions

Here's the view from just outside our front door on Friday morning. Our street's now paved for the most part, although the patches around the storm drains still need finishing off. As the work crew laid down and rolled out the asphalt, I was fascinated by its rich, dark smoothness--until people drove their vehicles over it, marring it with dusty tracks--and I imagined it must be like working a big piece of fondant, that candy-icing often used to coat wedding cakes.

If you look closely at the picture, you should be able to distinguish where our lawn ends and the neighbors' begins. That's because we've cut the grass with our noisy human-powered mow contraption, and they have merely stared down their green growth. You will notice that their laser-vision approach to lawn care has been equally successful in combatting the weeds beginning to camp out at the base of the tree; if they don't exercise caution or common sense soon, they--and we--could have a jamboree by summer's end.