Random Stuff I wrote last year

So, get this. I got a nice loud knock on the door today from our friendly neighborhood fireman who informed me that we were in violation of a city ordinance. We have had parking issues like a fox ( ;)jessica--that's for you!) since November since apparently we live right on the city limit for Minneapolis. So, on one side of our street, we couldn't park from 3a-7a from Nov.3 to Apr. On the side our house is on, the St. Anthony side, we can't park from 3a-7a from Nov.15 to Apr.15, when the moon is full and a black cat runs parallel to the street while chasing a grey mouse holding a piece of cheese, every other week and twice on Tuesday. So, you know, it's been a slice trying to figure out. With 8 cars between us and our duplex-mates, we've been playing a sweet game of musical cars. Our history with cars up here the past few years has been a true comedy of errors. We thought we had a brilliant beyond brilliant plan of sticking some cars in the backyard, but oh, we were so wrong. Apparently, according to friendly fire guy, someone in the neighborhood reported us and 4 other houses for code violations. Which begs a few questions: 1) why does this person care? You really can't see the cars from the street, and we only do it overnight. 2) And, how is he so familiar with obscure city codes that he would drive around to 'do your job for you' as he told the firedude, who then felt obligated to come warn me. He said if it happens again, he'll tow. Now that, I'd like to see. How on earth would they get a tow truck back there?But I wouldn't put it past them. We've got one heck of a history in that department. I suppose though, a code is a code. The fireguy had been banging on our door for awhile, I guess, but I was downstairs, so I didn't hear him. When I finally came up, he was like, "Oh were you sleeping?" Umm, no. It's 12pm. I think he thought I was going to give him major tude, but I was just like, great. One more parking thing. Welcome to the saga. So, anyway, the only way we can get around this is to gravel our FRONT YARD to park cars. Lame-o. Big time lame-o. I feel bad for our landlords: they are first-timers, and its been real fun trying to get ahold of them too. So, we decided to just chuck it all and trade in our cars for mopeds and park them back there. Apparently, according to the the city ordinance info sheet the fireman was so kind to give me, mopeds are not considered 'vehicles'. So we can park a billion back there and no one can say a darn thing about it. The issue with mopeds is, well, it will be lots of fun driving to work in a blizzard--we'll look like the dudes in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles when they ride in the back of the truck and their faces get frozen. If anyone has any suggestions, we'd love to hear them. Apart from parking on our roof, we are plum out of ideas. We're pretty much up crud creek without a paddle here. We know God will figure it out, and we harbor no ill-will against the neighborhood tattler (although would like to ask him a few questions) but this is getting so out of control, it has almost gone from really irritating and worry-provoking to absolutely ridiculous. Laughable. Hey, you gotta laugh or you'll cry, right? Oh, let the good times roll....