Tag Archives: neighbors

You may find it hard to believe but I have completely lost track of what I’m doing here.

I thought I had photos of my flowers out front all cropped and ready to post. Instead, I found this one tulip photo.

I wasn’t overwhelmed with my tulips this year. They were okay-pretty. But there have been years where I drove up and thought: my flowers are so amazing. Then I would get out of the car and stand there and admire them.

This year I thought maybe they suffered from too much rain. Does that happen? I also buy the cheapest bulbs. Maybe that’s the problem?

All the flowers out front are long gone. There are still a few tulips in the back and the irises are just coming in. Last year we had crazy hot weather just as the irises came out and that was the end of that.

Should we be so lucky this year.

I think I’ve mentioned that house across the street I refer to as the bro house.

Our cool neighbors moved and a couple of years later we still haven’t figured out what’s going on there. I am not the world’s most outgoing neighbor but I at least wave. No person who lives (stays) there has ever even made eye contact with me.

It is not a large house — I think maybe 3 bedrooms and 1 bath. The basement was unfinished last time I was there. Small yard. I think I have identified two regular residents (bros). One guy has a dog. There are any number of cars coming and going from that house. Different cars parked overnight – most of them black SUVs. Mostly guys but occasionally women.

I don’t think it’s drugs. Nothing about it seems like drugs. I’m wondering if there’s a company where people travel a lot and this is the place to crash when they’re in town? They’ve had a few parties but generally nothing to complain about — just odd situation.

About 6 weeks ago they woke me up at 2:40am on a Friday night (Saturday morning). I assumed it must be a sweetheart quarrel – why else would people be talking outside in the middle of the night? But then the following week, they woke me up at the exact same time. I could hear car doors slam and people drive off. Bob said it must be a party breaking up but why would the party break up at the same time each week?

I came up with the idea that maybe someone has an early shift and they are headed to work. Except why they stand around outside talking before going off to work?

The following week it happened again, same time. But I haven’t heard them since.

It’s a mystery.

This isn’t particularly relevant to where I’m at in my process, but so I can feel like I’m making forward progress I’ll post my latest stat:

The manuscript that ate my brain:

I’m going to break my rule about embedding Youtube clips because I have a terrible earworm and I want to share it with you:

This song was on the radio alarm clock one morning last week. I remember when it was a hit on the radio. I don’t dislike the song but I don’t want it playing my head all the time.

It looks like our next door neighbor moved out. I’ve written about the rental house next door a number of times. (e.g. 2013, 2011 and 2009).

My big takeaway is that it’s a pain in the butt to own a rental because I think only one tenant has lasted longer than 2 years.

We’re always nervous when this happens since you never know what you’re going to get. We didn’t get to know these tenants very well but when we saw them they were nice enough and they didn’t do anything terrible like crank death metal at 3am. We’ll see what happens.

I’m not kidding. Today I finished the last piece of Halloween candy in my stash. (Still working on Xmas) and I went to the store and Cadbury Eggs were out. It was a chocolate miracle.
– – –
I remember when I was a girl scout you actually had to go out and sell the cookies. You had to take a little paper form and go door-to-door in your dumb uniform and ask people if they wanted to buy any Girl Scout cookies. People would say no. And if they said yes you would have to collect the money and put in the order and then later deliver the cookies. I never sold any because going door-to-door to sell things is awful and I hated it. Last week I watched co-worker pull up a website and punch in his zipcode and then a list of stores came up with the times that the cookies would be available for sale out front. And he was in a panic whether he’d be able to get there before they sold all the good ones.
– – –
A long time ago I bought some bath sheets that I really liked. They were the perfect size with a nubby texture. I still have some of them although they’re getting frayed and see-through in the middle. A year or so ago I went and bought some new bath sheets and I guess America decided they wanted their bath sheets bigger or may it was just the brand but these things are like drying off with a bedspread. They are too big to be pleasant to use. I have to keep wrangling the ends so they don’t touch the floor. And it hangs all droopy on the rack. And the texture is sorta smooth in a way that would be nice for a bathrobe but worthless for a towel. I feel like I want to throw my towels away and start all over.
– – –
We’ve got new next door neighbors. Again. I saw them moving in and I felt bad because I don’t even know them but I wanted to dislike them. I saw a dog. I worked it out. The house has been a rental for 9 years and these are the 6th tenants. Bob remembers a couple that I don’t so possibly 7th tenants. The third in 14 months. So far they seem to have only two normal sized cars. They go to work at normal times. The dog hasn’t barked or bothered anyone. They haven’t had a whole group of people over that never leave. These may be the neighbors we’ve dreamed of.

Front yard today. Flowers are coming.

I know it’s only Saturday but I’m not loving this weekend. I’m not going to go into all the details.

This morning I was at my writing desk bright and early and then proceeded to beat my head against the keyboard in a non-productive fashion for quite some time.

I thought some exercise would help and went for a walk with Bob and later did some yoga. Then I ate a Cadbury Egg which was delightful except I’m not used to that much sugar at one time so I got kinda jumpy.

I returned to the writing desk for an equally unproductive afternoon session. Then I figured if sitting at my desk was going to be such a huge waste of time, I should do something else.

Downtown Portland: Broadway and Taylor

I went and worked in the front yard. I never did my usual autumn clean-up so there was all sorts of dead stuff that needed to be clipped and yanked. I found a major snail breeding and recreation center which I had to destroy. I also picked up a half ton of cat and dog shit.

Seriously, I would reconsider my “no pets” position if I could get a pet that would crap in other people’s yards. The dog crap was imbedded in the hydrangea. Does it make sense that a big dog would come in to the yard and squat on a plant right next to the back door? But it doesn’t make sense that a neighbor would pick up its dog crap and then dump it in the middle of a plant in my yard, either. I don’t know what’s going on back there.

I got some work done and, at last, felt some small measure of progress. Digging always makes me feel better.

Oh, so the latest issue of Asimov’s is out and my story isn’t in there. As I’ve said from the beginning, I don’t know when it’s coming out. I though I was being all cool and laid back and like, “Whenever.” But now I’m getting nervous like I’ve been punked.

Yesterday I left the office a half hour early since other than inhaling a bowl of soup, I skipped lunch. All the stars aligned with the buses thing and I was home at 5pm.

Since it was so pretty out I changed clothes and went for the regular route neighborhood walk. I saw our favorite neighborhood cat, Tiger, for the first time in a couple years. He was unusually aloof and wouldn’t say hello. Our favorite big house has been cleared out and a “For Rent” sign is out front. We’ve been waving the elder folk living there for years, watching them get a little more stooped and move a little more slowly. I want to phone the number on the sign, because I’m sure it’s one of their kids or grandkids, and tell them how sad I am to see that their time at the house is over. Then the playground at Franklin Park was all dug up. The slide was tilted over in the sand.

Winter’s coming.

Happy 250th Birthday Mozart. I was going to write some sort of informative blurb here but I forgot about it earlier and at the moment have no interest. My loss I’m sure. I like his movie, Amadeus and his Kugeln. (Jesus Christ, I wanted to link Kugeln just in case you didn’t know what I’m talking about {delicious candy treat} but I got about 100 links that want you to buy some shite. Commerce and information do not belong on the same highway.)

I found out why the rose bushes that divide our front lawn from our neighbors have been ignored for the past 2 years: they thought they were ours.

As soon as she said it I realized I should have figured that out. I guess I should back up. There are about 8 rose bushes in a narrow dirt plot that divides our front yard from the house next door. When we bought the house I asked about it and the realtors said it was theirs and sure enough, our neighbor Lorraine took care of the roses.

Then she sold the house and it became a rental and new neighbors moved in and being the anti-social person that I am, I only learned the man’s name when he dropped off our netflix that had been mis-delivered and I learned the woman’s name today, while they are in the process of moving out. Go team.

The roses have been 100% neglected since Lorraine left and I decided I couldn’t bear to watch this another year so I’d just buck up and take care of them myself. But as I was hacking away at them, it occurred to me that perhaps I should have at least asked first and paranoid visions of lawsuits passed through my mind, like maybe these roses were abandoned as part of an important NASA science project and there would be untold damages by my clippers.

As I was in the middle of it, the woman drove up so I went right over for the first time in 2 years and introduced myself and expressed my hope that they wouldn’t mind that I’d adopted their roses as a personal project.

“Oh,” she said, “When we moved in we were told they were yours.”

A lot of activity around here lately. Bob’s last day of school was on Friday and he had graduation so it was an 8am to 10pm day. I ran errands and did some yardwork. I got a couple more plants for the yard. I’d like to buy more but I need to figure out what I need first. I hate to just buy a bunch of stuff and have it sitting here wilting on the porch. Also I went to David’s last yoga class. I took two months off from class in the Spring and when I came back there were new teachers and other teachers gone and a new system with class cards and news that David was leaving. I didn’t go to his class very often and I should have because I need that kick in the butt to push myself to do the harder stuff. My home practice is regular but lazy. So I had a good practice on Friday which I can still feel and I did a good practice myself the past two days plus several long walks. I will fit into my summer clothes before August if I can keep this up.

On Saturday our next door neighbors moved and about 15 minutes later a FOR RENT sign went up. This doesn’t have to mean the clanging chimes of doom but we talked to the next door neighbor on the other side and she wasn’t pleased. Also on Saturday I had the writers group over and baked scones.