My driveway

I believe I have mentioned that I have pretty interesting neighbours. There's nothing that says wacky like getting a text in the middle of the night, waking you up, announcing that the family of four have had a family meeting about you pointing out that them driving out across their driveway onto the grass and onto your driveway makes it difficult to get the snowblower across the snow they're building up and packing down on your already shovelled and very neat and tidy driveway and that they're "...sorry for using your driveway, you are a great neighbour and we should respect your driveway. Thanks :)"

Thanks for waking me up to announce a successful WTFM. (White Trash Family Meeting or WTF! Meeting)

Big cry baby

I'm the kind of person who lays on the couch when I have the flu sending out text messages to my friends and family such as:
"my nose boogies are glowing green"
"i might only have a few more hours to live, i just expelled a lung"
"the man who walks his cat on a leash three times a week has a wife who's walking laps around the block with her hair in curlers. i got a picture"

Here's the proof:

Inappropriate Attire

I have a crazy neighbour. Well, I guess he's not technically crazy so much as obsessive compulsive and hilarious but I still like calling him my crazy neighbour Sam. He's got 5 inside cats, works from home (which allows him to be a one-man neighbourhood watch) and he loves shoveling snow. Like 7 times a day starting at 5am.

Although he does like my cat, he has made it obvious that he does not generally approve of my cat being allowed to roam freely outdoors because you never know what could happen to her. There are cars! and mean people! and maybe even coyotes! When we first started letting her outside he dutifully brought her back to us 3 - 4 times before he realized we were actually OK with her being outside by herself. So naturally, when my husband called down to me from upstairs that Sam was coming to see me I assumed it would be something about him noticing my cat was sitting near a car or something equally dangerous.

I answer the door and see Sam standing there in nothing but an undershirt and hip waders.

Since it's my crazy neighbor Sam this doesn't really register in my brain as unusual. He asks if he can borrow my phone since he's lost his in his house. I think to myself 'Ok, that is reasonable, I too have lost my cellphone in my house'. I go to the kitchen to get it and he shouts out after me 'And I actually do have a good reason as to why I'm in hip waders!'

Me (just now realizing it is weird considering that most lakes are still frozen and we're also millions of kilometers from any real water source): "Oh yeah.... why are you in hip waders, Sam?

Sam: "Well, you see.... I was getting some Easter stuff ready for the nieces & nephews and accidentally locked the door between the house and garage when I went into the garage. And well, you see... normally when I'm walking around the house I only wear an undershirt and underwear... and well you see, I couldn't really pull the undershirt down far enough to be decent (envision a 50-something, pony-tailed, ex-hippie tugging at his imaginary undershirt over top of his waders) and the only thing I had in the garage were these waders, so......"

Crazy neighbour update

The kid next door that has been playing in and around my compost heap (yes, in the heap) took one of their four dogs for a walk at lunch today. And it lasted for more than 15 minutes. This is the first time I've ever seen anyone walk any of the dogs. I was pretty sure poor thing had forgotten what its legs were for.

Birthday party!

I've been invited to a birthday party not happening for six more weeks... for the kid next door. She's turning 18, and apparently her parents and their friends are all going to be at the bar waiting for her to be allowed in at the stroke of midnight. Her parents believe I am one of their friends but I believe she knows better...

Last year, for her 17th birthday, her parents allowed her to have her boyfriend sleepover for the first time.

For New Years this year they had a supervised under-aged drinking party for the hoodlums.

Keeping the neighbourhood classy! Awesomesauce!

Teh Funniest!

Picking crab apples off my lawn (and picking them off the tree before they sully my perfectly manicured lawn because I'm German!) I noticed my neighbour had a queen-sized bed in his pick up truck. Coming or going?! Ugh, having another teen move in would quadruple the noise their 2 rowdy children, 4 yappy dogs and 7 wind-chimes produce at every hour of the day and night. The kids are too young to be moving out. (le SIGH) Hopefully, I hoped, it was just a replacement bed... and not their 17 year-olds' boyfriend moving in.

Eventually he came out with a measuring tape and started grumbling about how he was gonna fit the dang bed in the dang house in the dang boys' room. I asked about the bed. His niece had to move home because she couldn't afford the rent after her boyfriend dumped her, because she felt she was entitled to a new car, a cellphone, some cable tv, new clothes and going out, but couldn't buy food and pay rent. The bed wouldn't fit into her room at her parents, so there you go.

Talking to the neighbours is like getting sucked into a vortex of verbiage. Not sure how we got talking about home decorating or realtors next but we did and I mentioned I enjoyed going to see other people's houses to see what weird things they'd done, like for example a condo I viewed where the closet doors had been taken off and the bed jammed into the closet. It was the single weirdest thing I've ever seen. I couldn't imagine waking up with my head in a closet/cave. I can't believe people have a closet as a headboard. WEIRD. And by weird I mean wrong!

He slowly remarked "oh, well that's how the boy sleeps now, we put his bed into the closet. That's why this bed might not fit, I have to either take the trim off or enlarge the closet."

"Well. This isn't awkward at all." I thought.

The neighbours

From the vantage point of my bedroom window I counted seven wind chimes around their front door. SEVEN.

Four dogs.

Thirteen hockey sticks in a 5-gallon pail by the side door.

And their bedroom window is boarded up with plywood attached to the most gigantic A/C unit that runs loudly all night long.

Hockey neighbours

To say that my neighbours love hockey would be like saying all people like to breathe oxygen. They placed him in a private school this fall and recently pulled their son out of the private school in order to place him in a private hockey school. This is a good thing, as the private school made him cut his hair when school started, so it will still take a little time before the mullet grows back in.

When I moved into my house last year I noticed that there was a bucket beside the side door with 13 hockey sticks in it. This winter they poured a rink for their kids in the backyard. It's not just the kids that play, it's the entire family. But good for them!

Crazy neighbour

Early on a long weekend Monday morning is not the best time to be mowing your lawn. Your neighbours will look out their windows and think things about you. I, for example, thought "what in the world is she doing??" This is because my neighbour was mowing the wrong lawn early on a long weekend Monday morning. When I talked to her later in the day she mentioned that it looked like Robin had gone away for the weekend and she wanted the exercise.

Best part: his lawn didn't particularly look like it needed to be mowed.

Love thy neighbours

I've decided to document neighbourhood stories as someone keeps providing me with ample amusement.

On Sunday evening I got home about 5 pm and decided to weed the front lawn. Shortly thereafter the flyer guy dropped off flyers and things in everyone's mailbox. At 7 the neighbour sent her oldest child (age 15) over with her friend (who was visiting) with a plastic bag. They knocked on the door and started putting the flyers into the bag. When the guy across the street eventually opened the door he was disheveled, in sweats and looked like he'd been greatly enjoying a Sunday afternoon nap... they attempted to explain that they'd been sent by the kid's mother who figured he'd gone out of town and SHE who was standing in her kitchen yelled out the window across the street at him: "WE'RE JUST WORRIED ABOUT YOU ROBIN!" The kids handed him the plastic bag and ran home.

Wow. Just wow.

I guess I'd better take in my mail within minutes of it being delivered...

Have your neighbours cake and eat it too

In a bizarre turn of events, I was invited for birthday cake at the neighbours. The kid is 15 and I'm sure had no idea that I was invited. I was also invited to part take of their swimming pool once they have it set up. And also was quizzed about my boyfriends. Many boys have been coming and going out of my house, some might be my brother or cousins, but clearly not all.

It's sort of inevitable that people look out their windows. It's even forgivable that they notice what's going on, and laudable that they'd keep an eye on your place if they know you're not home. They count on me to do the same for them. It's ok. I get it. And since both our driveways are 1 foot apart and our front doors face each other it's even easier to watch the neighbours. It is weird however to have neighbours that comment on it and quiz you about your comings and goings. I have a "mothering" neighbour, even more motherly than my condo neighbour.

On Saturday morning, for example, she was out bright and early at the fence separating our driveways to let me know that her son had been looking out the kitchen window when I had gotten into my male friends car the night before and alerted the whole family that I had a boyfriend. Yay for Maria! When we returned with take-out only half an hour later she was delighted when my "boyfriend" drove up on the driveway. In an act of goofiness he'd driven all the way up the long drive and parked in front of the garage, so the entire family was alerted again that I was back with my "boyfriend" and he was parking in the garage. Of course this was just a fishing expedition to find out if it was really my boyfriend or not.

Then she invited me to have birthday cake with their family that evening, it was the firstborn's birthday. I thanked her for the invite but as I was going out I would not be home. That was ok with her; they'd save it for Sunday then, or any day I could make it. Weird. So Sunday night in between hosting my own friends and going out I took an hour out to meet the neighbours. I'd noticed their yard is in want of some TLC and their fence and gate could use some sprucing up -- there is a tiny section at the back of the yard that is gated off with what looks like farm fence; I wondered if they had a goat. They have a broken down tree house, 13 hockey sticks sitting in a pail near the back door, 3 garbage bins, an old gas oven in their garage, too much patio furniture, an old trailer, and hardly any grass. Their house wasn't much different. Furniture that even my grandparents had reupholstered and house plants and stacks of sports equipment... it was an eclectic mix of stuff. All of it old, most of it junk. In fact, they not only have 3 dogs that ALL look the same but are different sized and coloured (but one is a poodle and the others are some other sorts of mutts) they also have 2 cats and some hamsters and gerbils and lizards.

Anyway, I'm sure the 15 year old and her friends were mortified that the neighbour lady was invited over for her birthday -- but what could I do? It's like going over Niagra Falls with a bucket. I brought the kid something small and signed a little card over which the mother exclaimed delightedly and the daughter dismissed. No matter, I enjoyed their cake and listened to the never ending flood of info about all the neighbours and ended up learning a great deal about them too. Nice people, messy, but really nice.