Hi, Guys,

Square Peg, if you want to tell me about errors you find, I'd love it, but no pressure. People pay good money for that service.. I'm redoing "Unfamiliar Waters" right now, but I plan to give TA another try.
I wrote the guy next door a letter in English and Portuguese. I hope it makes a difference. On my street, there are pipes in front of our driveways through which rainwater can flow. These pipes are covered with concrete, so that we can get out of our driveways without our cars getting scraped on the bottom. The pipes get clogged up. The same neighbor decided to clear out these pipes for me. I told him, "Don't bother," but I didn't say it assertively enough. So he cleared out the pipes. In doing this, he destroyed half of the concrete covering the pipe in front of my other neighbor's driveway. He cleverly left all his tools in front of my house, and he tucked the broken up concrete into my bushes. I'm not a Buddhist, but I think the lesson here is that I need to learn to be assertive without being combative.

I hope all this doesn't bode poorly for the new year.

Here's to a house free of cat pee and good relations with neighbors, and an assertive me.