mrs-roboto's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A True Sense of Community So far I have only mentioned the "good" neighbors here in my journal. I think it's because I like to pretend the others don't exist but they do and they've finally done something so bizarre that I have to write about it. I guess I'll give some background first. From the day we moved into our place, I got a bad feeling about Cory and Ellen*. I don't know if it was their house, which was obviously once a cute craftsman, but has had more additions constructed than I can count and now looks like a big box without any personality. Or maybe it was the number of vehicles in the driveway (five) or the fact that they have a large collection of whirli gigs and fiberglass statues displayed on their front lawn (and not in that kitsch, pink flamingo, way). Maybe it was all of these things and more that made me think "hmmh, we're not going to be good friends with them" but I did try to remain open-minded. About a month after we moved in, Pete and I were outside looking at the house and thinking about what color we should paint it. Cory was also out in front of his house, working on his monster jeep. Everything was silent for a moment and then Ellen pulled up in her obnoxiously loud Trans Am (have you noticed a trend in the type of cars they own yet? Form your own stereotypes here). She parked, got out of the vehicle, and without saying so much as a word to Cory or us she stormed into the house. She then reappeared less than a minute later. "Did you put the roast in the oven," she asked Cory. "No," he said. "I thought you were going to call when you were leaving and then I was going to put it in." "Good for nothing, useless, mother f**ker," she yelled. "I swear to god you and your jeep can go straight to hell. I am going to destroy that piece of crap, I am." She disappeared back into the house, leaving Cory, Pete, and myself standing around uncomfortably and shuffling our feet. Since that first incident, there have numerous public outbursts from both parties. Ellen likes to stand on her upper terrace when Cory is mowing the lawn and yell down at him to "do the job right or don't bother doing it at all." Cory usually yells back up that she can "put the lawnmower where the sun don't shine." I have heard Cory demand that Ellen clean the house and Ellen demand that Cory leave her the hell alone almost daily. I've taken to calling them the Lockhorns and avoiding them when at all possible but it's summer and Pete and I spend quite a bit of time in the front yard and so does Ellen which brings me to the incident at hand. I know that Pete and I should probably be more diligent about the appearance of our front lawn but somehow, it just isn't that important to us right now. Maybe next year when we are a little more settled we'll be into gardening and landscaping but this year, it's the basics - mow when it gets really bad and avoid looking too closely at what's growing. Our front yard is mostly grass-like stuff with a dogwood tree and a rose bush thrown in for pizzazz. It looks the way it looked when we moved in. We've made no changes. The one change I had in mind was getting rid of the roses. Although I love roses, I hate the way a thorny bush looks and frankly, I hate anything that requires constant maintenance. But as a result of having too many things on my plate, I never got around to digging up the bush. I was pleasantly surprised when the flowers started blooming earlier this month without me so much as watering them. I mean, they are everywhere, big fragrant pink blossoms with no effort. I bragged about how easy they were to grow to my friends and coworkers and happily accepted any compliments given regarding my green thumb. Imagine how frazzled I was when I realized that Ellen has been secretly watering and pruning my bush! Seriously, she has been sneaking over and caring for my plants when I am at work! I caught her the other day when she was expecting me to be elsewhere. After I got over my initial shock, I confronted Ellen. She said that old lady who owned my home three (yes, three) owners before me had loved this rose bush and had asked her to take care of it when she moved. She also said that the old lady drove by from time to time to see how the rose bush was doing! Okay, what's creepier? The fact that my neighbor is sneaking over onto my property and gardening or the fact that their is an old lady driving by periodically (of course in my mind she is being chauffeured slowly by in a black limo with tinted windows) and surveying my landscaping? Won't everyone be totally pissed off when I pull all this crap out next spring and put in creeping vines and wildflowers and other things that do not require tending? Anyway, in the meanwhile I will be living with the fact that all these weird characters have something vested in my lawn and that I am too afraid of the evil powers Ellen and the yet-unseen old lady possess to tell them all to stay off my property (sigh). *Names have been changed to protect my ass and the asses of those who live with me. 10:05 a.m. - 2002-07-16 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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