Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Rubbery Nerdlets part 2

Newport Hills as I left it in July...



And so, back to Newport Hills, meetings every night of the week and my favorite topic: the mundane and wonderful day-to-day existence of my neighborhood.

First thing I did in the record-breaking temperatures was to go check out the state of the astroturf over at Robinswood Park, seen in the photo above. Hot and stinky. I stuck my finger in the stuff and it actually made a small hole--I wonder what soccer shoes do to it--and pulled out a black-coated digit covered in (you guessed it) tiny black rubbery nerdlets.

Folks, this is nasty stuff.

It smells like the inside of Les Schwab's and looks terribly unnatural. Like painted asphalt. Leaves lie on top of it in a very surreal way. There's no way they could be raked off--of course they're blown--I can only imagine what a McFlurry looks like spilled on this stuff. Click on the photo to identify litter: mainly leaves and an orange peel.


And then there are the rules. At Robinswood, the public can be asked to take their dogs to the dogpark, their children to the playground, the frisbee players and kiteflyers to the grassy field, and for anything else you do besides soccer there seems to be ample room. This is not the case with Newport Hills park. To ask us to compare Newport Hills' tiny but well-used neighborhood park with the massive expanse that is Robinswood's is ludicrous, to put it mildly.


Come on City of Bellevue--you know we're underserved in this department. You've said so yourselves. It's time to ask the people of our community what they want.

1 comment:

Sean Bentley said...

Nothing makes me feel more welcome in a place than a big ol' list of prohibitions. I mean, come on, no beverages but water? Who are they kidding?