Commercial Break

OK so it's been more of a summer hiatus than a word from our sponsor. I've been bizzy. I've been home for about a month and just found the stove a few days ago.

Still unpacking while painting/updating a few more rooms in the house. It's like moving all over again, every other day. Moved everything into the house, moved shit from room to room, moved it to other rooms, then back into the first room... We'll do this a few more times before we're all done.

We'd left a lot of stuff behind when we moved - partly because we could, partly because family stayed here now & then and needed stuff. That's all dandy, except there was no time to remove the leftovers before we got back.

Also waiting for us when we returned were a couple of assey neighbors. We lost one while we were gone (Crazy Bob finally moved) - we have two more to outlast.

One is the shitty troll on the corner who wants us to cut down the oak tree so leaves won't fall in her driveway, while they hang piñatas in it for the grand kids... The other is the shitty curmudgeon (Plumber Bob) who actively ignores us even when directly across the street with full eye contact.

He's such a treat. He never speaks to us and won't respond to a friendly wave. However, he has no trouble using our recycling bins for his trash.

Last night my next door neighbor came over to ask if she could use the remaining space in our recycling bin, then realized it was full of styrofoam sheeting and plastic tarps. I told her that was odd - we had none of that in the move packing... Turns out her bin was full of it too. It was some sort of spa/hot tub packaging. I told her I'd wished we'd had a new spa...

Whoever dumped it had just done it as we'd both been in & out of the house all afternoon & evening. Not sure what to do about it, I said we could split it up among the trash cans along the street. I went to ask the other neighbors about using their cans.

Shitty Curmudgeon wouldn't answer the door, but I saw him walk by the upstairs window. The other neighbors readily agreed to help dispose of the trash. While talking to another neighbor, he said "Well Bob (Shitty Curmudgeon) just had a spa delivered on Sunday." Hmm... Really.

So, SC gets a new spa and as soon as it gets dark he sneaks across the street to dump his trash in our bins. What a prick! Seems someone's going to have to christen that new spa with a special treat. I'm pretty sure their gate isn't locked...

Trolls Secretly Love Trees

As I've mentioned before on The Nootsmaak, we have a troll that lives next door to us and she's only happy when she's bitching at me about our beautiful oak tree.

If she could, she'd chop it down with a serrated butter knife, but she strikes me as terribly lazy, so maybe that's why she sticks to verbal attacks that don't take much physical energy.

I ignore her now and rarely speak to her, but every time I see her I know she loathes me and our tree, which is why she's going to end up in a heavily forested region of hell.

This afternoon while working in the front room I heard a guy next door speaking in a loud, enthusiastic voice and I thought Who the hell is this jackass and what is he going on about in the front yard?

I looked out the window and saw a guy with two big cameras around his neck taking pictures of a guy in a tux. The tuxed-up dude was casually leaning against our tree just like a JCPenney's model.

I thought that was funny - not just the JCPenney pose, but that the folks next door were using our lovely tree for a photo back drop.

After that shot, the photographer grabbed another suit and maneuvered him in front of our house for a red-shingled backdrop. It was too much to resist.

I skipped out onto the front porch and in my very best Cheerful Happy Neighbor voice said, "Wow, this looks like a very important day!" [translation: If you keep shooting your wedding photos in front of my house, I'll need your billing address for invoicing.]

The photographer looked a little startled and replied, "Uh, yes! Someone's getting married today!" I told him I thought that was FANTASTIC NEWS and CONGRATULATIONS!

To that he said he was using our tree as a backdrop. I told him I thought that was WONDERFUL! and my grandmother would be SO PLEASED!

He went on to say he had a tree just like it at his house and how he hires a guy to clear out its deadwood. Riveting, no?

I cheerfully responded that we just had that big, gorgeous tree pruned and ISN'T IT BEAUTIFUL?! He said it was and that it was a wonderful complement to the house. I thanked him heartily and repeated my congratulations and well wishes for the happy couple. I was so incredibly sweet, everyone had an instant cavity.

As I talked to the photographer, I noticed the groomsmen, who had been scattered about the driveway/outer area of the neighbor's lot had all drifted back to the patio, behind the fence. The photographer followed and they didn't come out from behind that fence again until it was time to go.

Won't it be wonderful when they see the pictures of the happiest day of their lives, our tree will be right there with them every time.

Easter Weeds & Trolls

[photo from thefuntimesguide.com]

I spent a lovely day in the yard today, something I thought Jesus would appreciate when he came strolling by to tell me Happy Easter.

After years of watching it grow larger and larger, we finally cut a huge vein of ivy off the giant sequoia in the back yard. That tree is around 60 years old, give or take a few. It was planted as a sapling, brought home in a milk carton from somewhere by my grandparents.

Rather than let the ivy go any longer, I found the tree saw, the ax, hatchet, hammer and chisel and went to work. After much tedious hand-sawing, the vein was finally cut in two. Then I gently chiseled it away from the bark to get it loose. Then I went to town on that sucker with the hammer. That felt great.

Like being in a batting cage - but guaranteed contact. I beat the SHIT out of that parasitic piece of crap. Then took an ax to the base of it. The tree looks relatively unharmed - just the ivy was torn apart and after a while, hopefully what's left of it up in the tree will die off.

Enjoying the beautiful weather, I continued finding things to do around the yard and ended up in the front of the house pulling out the weeds & clover from under the oak tree - a tree started from an acorn by my grandmother, and now it's huge - about 2' in diameter and beautiful. We do love our trees here on Green Acres.

Unfortunately, the troll next door is a tree hater. We call her The Troll because there's really no better nickname for her. She's short, squat, waddles her way from her house to her car, and instead of speaking in a normal human-like voice, she barks words in a grating, accusatory fashion, looking for the biggest Billy Goats Gruff.

Working on the side of the tree that faces her house, I had my ass pointed in that direction when someone behind me said, rather cheerfully, "Working on Easter?!" and without knowing it was her, I responded in-kind and said "Of course!" Because, well, who gives a shit that it's Easter, and this isn't really work, it's just something to do that will help the tree and the azaleas, but I didn't get into all that.

When I realized it was The Troll, I turned my ass back toward her face and returned my attention to the weeds, ignoring her as she, for the umpteenth time, said, "We really have to do something about this tree! Look at the mess!"

The mess, I believe, is the leaves the tree drops that inevitably end up in her driveway from time to time, though I've never considered it a mess. They make for a wonderful mulch layer wherever they end up. And they actually look kinda nice.

Anyway, leaves are unacceptable to The Troll. Let's call her Sandy, which is her real name. Sandy The Troll. If she had her way, she'd pave over everything green. A few years ago, instead of pulling the weeds on her side of the property, she shot weed poison all over them and killed not only the weeds but two lovely azaleas I'd planted a little too close to the property line.

But all that aside, I'm actually happy to get the tree pruned - it needs it. What troubles me is that she can never pleasantly talk to me about it. She *always* has to make shitty, passive-aggressive comments, like, "I'm sure your mother doesn't want me trimming your tree," as she waddles her lazy ass into her house.

Is it so hard to say, "Hey, we love hanging our piñatas in your tree for the kids' birthdays [which they do, the hypocrites], but would you mind getting it pruned someday soon?" How could I argue with that? But nooooooooooooo.

Every single damn time she sees me, she complains about "the mess" or some other problem, like one day she was upset that a family of birds happened to roost on a limb directly over her shitty car, and appropriately, they shat all over it - a beautiful carpet of guano from the roof all down the side of her door. I couldn't have been happier to have birds living in our tree.

If she had her way, she'd have the tree cleaved in half, right down the property line, even though without it, her concrete back yard would be a good 20 degrees hotter in the summer. What a dumbshit.

The bitch of all this was, it was late in the day when I started on the weeds and I was only going to clear those closest to the azaleas, but as a gift to her (and to prevent another round of poisoning), I pulled them all, starting with her side of the tree.

On top of that, this troll waddles her way down the street every Sunday to go to church, and she probably feels pretty good about herself for being a good Catholic. Unfortunately, she hasn't retained many good Christian values, like Love Thy Neighbor, or Don't Be a Shitty Bitch.

Regardless, I remain optimistic. We didn't think Crazy Neighbor Bob would ever be out of our lives, but his days are numbered. Now Sandy The Troll is waddling around that house all by her lonesome, retired from her many years under the local bridge, and I'm betting that she'll be long gone before we ever have to worry about her getting anywhere near our beautiful oak tree.