Only in Frank's World

Me: I'm a bit of a geek.
Frank (loudly): You're not a bit of a geek YOU'RE A TOTAL GEEK. Own it.
Me: Ha! (thinks: Not in the circles I move in, Frank.)

related to:

Me: I'm a perfectionist in some ways
Frank (flabbergasted spontaneous outburst): YOU'RE A TOTAL PERFECTIONIST, not "in some ways."
Me: Ha, ha, Frank! I usually just do things once and don't change a thing - some things bring out that perfectionism, though.
Frank: (probably rolled his eyes)

Olympia, in its wisdom, decided to, in these times of depressed economy, and under the constant outsider impression that there is never anywhere to park downtown, rip out almost all the parking in Frank's block. They spent months ripping everything up, then left, in front of Frank's building, in place of the parking spot, a faux parking spot 6 inches too short to be legal. Therefore it looks exactly like a parking spot, but if one parks there the result is a 125 dollar ticket. Across the street, where one finds a restaurant, and a microbrewery with an attached swillery, all the parking is gone and the sidewalk extended out (the restaurant is happy as it wants to put tables outside on the 5 nice days).

I would guess it was a rehabilitation-of-the-culverted-salmon-streams including expansion of the (the old ones are lamentably small diameter) run-off pipes, but I'm not basing that idea on anything. I do know the city engineer of years past used pipes of too small a gauge, and I know there are salmon under Olympia, in part because of Lucia's poem (called, I think, The Salmon Under the City).

What happened, anyway, to the deculvertisation of streams that was to address an evil that human beings have perpetrated upon the earth? Nothing? Ugh, culvertisation, ugh, ugh.