The sanitation engineers finally made it to our block yesterday, after a two-week absence. The snow/ice storms set them back a full week, so they came on the regular day, just a week late.

Man, were we ever waiting for them. In front of our place, there had to be a good can and a half worth of trash for the landfill, plus two overflowing recycling bins with lots of the detritus from the holidays still lingering around.

Everything in the bins had gotten soggy with the frozen-then-melted precip. The proceeds of a major cat litter box cleanout were lurking at the bottom of one of the cans. The usual nasties from a household that uses disposable diapers were included, of course, only aged. It wasn't pretty.

Here's to the nice men (and woman) of Dave's Sanitary Service, and to all the garbage haulers around Portland, who are having one wicked week this week. As the solid waste management director at our house, I was very glad to have them stop by.