Are you wondering what they served for free lunch at the park this week? Just visit the park.  I went over to the Westgate Community park this morning with the boys.  I wasn’t counting but there were at least 20 chocolate milk cartons scattered among the bark chips in the playground equipment.  They must have had chicken with barbecue sauce because there were smashed open bbq packets all over the playground equipment.  I know that cleaning up after yourself is one of the rules of the free lunch program but if the kids don’t do it (and some of them obviously don’t) the organization in charge should go around the park and clean up. This park is pretty new.  They just finished it a little over a year ago.  When it first opened they kept a close tabs on it.  I guess they wanted to protect their new investment.  Today the playground equipment had graffiti on it and the paint in some areas is getting pretty thick where they have to keep painting over the graffiti.  I don’t know why but they removed the roller slide, I expect somebody broke it and after the second or third time repairing it parks and recreation decided it wasn’t worth maintaining it.

 We’re not totally in love with Albuquerque, I think our neighborhood in the Barrio has something to do with it, but in general it is a lack of respect. A large segment of the population has no respect for property, laws, or regulations and they are teaching this lack of values to their children. People here speed and run red lights and then complain about getting a ticket because they were caught on camera breaking the law. What’s the complaint about?  You broke the law, you must pay for your crime. Not only did you break the law there was a sign stating the fact that their is a red light camera at the intersection as well as a rumble strip (in case you don’t read the road signs when you are driving.)  The fines should be more expensive when you are stupid enough to break the law and there is a warning sign. Next thing you know they’ll have to put warning signs up warning drunk drivers of a checkpoint so they can avoid it.

We have had to deal with graffiti on our own property the past couple of weeks.  One day we noticed our whole wall had been painted brown, we didn’t notice the graffiti but something got painted over.  A few days later there was more graffiti.  It was just done with a Sharpie, but its annoying.  We called the city and they came and painted over it.  At least it doesn’t cost us anything (other than tax dollars) to clean up the mess.  Further down the street it happened again.  Yesterday when I came home the neighbor kids were out “tagging” their own wall with sidewalk chalk.  I guess there is nothing illegal about that, but it is ugly. I say “tagging” because they’re not drawing innocent little pictures or things ordinary children would do.  They are putting their initials in large bubbly tag-esque letters and comments about your mother and the like. Oh and where did they get the sidewalk chalk? A bucket of Bug’s chalk that he bought with his birthday money went missing from the backyard this week.

Oh and since I’m ranting if any of my neighbors are reading this, pick your weeds.  Pretend like you have something invested in your neighborhood and pick up the trash out of your yards.  For one thing,  it is part of the municipal code, i.e. punishable by a fine if you don’t maintain your yard.  For a second thing, it is the respectful thing to do.  Be a good citizen will you?