Miscellaneous Shellfish

It's been a busy few days at Casa Flora y Enrico. A few highlights:

• The arson investigators were back, and it turns out that the recent neighborhood arsons are NOT thought to be related. That's nice to know.
• However, the nice investigator politely suggested we might "take this opportunity to make our property less arson-friendly." By which he meant we might clear the pile of broken-down chairs, cardboard boxes, and discarded cat scratching post out from our carport. (Yes I know, we've never owned a cat. Don't ask.)
• Enrico has a new job! He will move from one municipal utility to another, hopefully for a signficant net increase in the functionality of the office, the decisiveness of the managers, and the intellectual curiosity of the employees. He will be a Senior Economist, which I think is pretty impressive since he (a) has no academic degrees in economics, and (b) is catapulting right past Junior Economist!
• I actually talked directly to the city planner today about Garry. She knows all about him - oh yes, she has definitely heard from us, the common people, about that amazing tree - and she does indeed have the power to mandate preservation of the tree. She is requiring the owner to get an arborist's report on the health of the tree and what would be necessary to protect it. I don't know if she will actually use her great power to save Garry, but it's heartening to know she seems to be taking it seriously.