After a short night last night, I wandered through the morning today with a quiet anxiety when I awoke from sleepwalking, somewhere after 10:30.

For some reason, I felt a deep nervousness about tonight, which may or may not have been warranted. Tonight, I was attending my first HOA community board meeting. After a troubling email from the HOA office manager found me a few weeks ago, before she quit her job, after listing for me, and the rest of the community members, what questionable things were going on with the board.

I didn’t know who was right or who was wrong in the situation- her, or a few fellas she named and called out in her whistleblowing email. I didn’t know who to really trust between the two parties.

What I did know is that one of the guys, one of the new board members this year, lives up the street from me, and on July 4th, starburst and boomer fireworks were going off up the street from me, in front of his house. And he was home at the time. And they were illegal, and a group of neighbors had set up chairs in front of his house to watch them, and they continued until well after 11 PM.

And I felt I had to say something to him, or the board, about it at some point. And I didn’t know if I would.

My thinking was simply this: if you are a Board member, you have to keep the rules you are elected to produce and oversee impacting everyone else in the community. If you are indifferent to a city ordinance, what does it say about your respect for the other laws that are supposed to guide your behaviors?

I was fortunate to have my sister call during the afternoon and ask if I’d like to take a break with her, taking a walk, over at the zoo. We went and trekked through the Africa area, and saw a rhino crap and silly kid chimpanzees fall of stuff while their parents watched them and hippos swim and kids run from exhibit to exhibit. It was a good break. In the day. I went back to work, but still anxious.

After work, I met my folks for dinner at Papa Felipe’s, before the 6:30 meeting. I had not had lunch, so it was a delicious meal (taco plate) to wake me up for the meeting.

And then I went to the meeting.

And the meeting was well attended, with new faces, evidently, like mine.

It went along fairly smoothly, although the board president at times was a bit abrupt with people, and some attendees spoke at inopportune times. Old business was covered. New business was covered. The forum was opened for questions from the audience. A few people were anxious like I was and asked questions about procedures, and transparency, and progress.

I had questions, but I held them.

And when the meeting was done, I talked to my neighbors. “What did you think?” “I’m still not sure about everything going on.” “I hear you. Didi you have any other questions for them?” “I did.”

I wavered about approaching the board now that the room had cleared, and decided maybe it wasn’t the right time, and went outside with my neighbors. We found a spot by the road near the HOA office and stopped to chat.

And in a little while, the guy I wanted to talk to came out and walked towards us, and approached us, friendly, a little political, smiling, hand shaking.

And I asked him about the fireworks.

And my tone and my energy raised as I tried to make him see what I was thinking.

And I went a little far, and soon he told me next election are in February and he left us and walked away to go on home.

And I felt nervous again, after saying words like “Your responsibility” and “if you see it and let it go, you are complicit” and “what I’m talking about is integrity”. And anxious about reprisals, and offending, and being a jerk.

But it was done.

I stayed out with my neighbors and talked about stuff going on in the neighborhood and then walked up towards the board member’s area with them to talk to another neighbor who was sitting in a chair outside. Talk drifted into the fact we three men each had Tacoma trucks and we liked our Toyotas.

After a little while, our Toyota fan club adjourned, and I walked with my neighbor back to our houses, when the board guy was walking up the street toward us after another neighbor had let him know she had left a purse in the clubhouse where the HOA meeting had been, and he went with her to open it up so she could get her bag.

It was getting dark, and I still felt awkward about how my talk with him had went earlier. I was kind of hard and harsh.

I wnet across the street and met him as we were passing, and thanked him for his hard work on the Board.

That helped a bit, I think.

It helped each of us feel better.

I think.

Speaking up is hard, even if the reason to is correct.