And the Audacity of This Bitch.
How was your Summer? Mine? Pretty weird, to be perfectly honest, which is kind of becoming the common theme around here. So, I guess that means it's not actually weird anymore, but then again, just because a thing begins to happen on a regular basis, it is by no means a reason to accept it as normal, so there's that ... But also, of course, sometimes you just need a laugh, and I suppose it's been good for that.
Let's start with the Lion:
I have a stray cat now.
Well, I've had her for about a year, and when I use the word "had" it is in the loosest possible way. She showed up around this time last year, just a tail-twitch past kitten stage. One evening, just as the sun was setting behind my house, I found myself sprawled out in a lounge chair praying for a breeze. When I opened my eyes there was a cat across my yard, sitting (ever so stately) in the pathway under my trellis. What's so wild is that in the dusky hues of early nightfall, she looked just like my college kiki that came with the house I rented with four other scoundrels for a bit ... In fact, she looked SO much like her, I called out her name, "...is that YOU???" And just like that she ran to me!
Reader, it was not my cat from college who died nearly ten years ago, but I maintain that she does look like her albeit with slightly darker coloring. What's more, she acts just. like. her. Which is to say, as my roommates, way back when, arrived at consensus: She acts just like YOU!
She demands ALL of my attention when she decides to grace me with her presence, then she disappears for weeks on end, and makes me worried sick about her. We're a perfect match made in Hell, and I hope she'll choose my place to be her main crash pad. At the very least, she knows my back yard is a safe environment to let her fur down, and kick her paws up when she needs to (even the dogs are getting used to her ... More than that, they miss her when she's not around). I'm hoping now that wild Leo season has passed, she will settle in with a sense of stability, and routine.
Oh that's me, for sure.
One thing of particular interest is how home & lawn maintenance seems to be an invitation of some sort to interrupt the person doing said maintenance. Like, right in the middle of it! Folks, let me be clear, I don't care if you have a "better" method, I am doing what I need to, how I need to do it, and I will run you over with my mower if you get in my way (I mean, mainly because it's new, and I'm still getting used to the whole lever system ... Pull this, hold that, release here). So, let's just skip this whole ego stroke in disguise, overly helpful cul-de-sac ritual, shall we? I've seen your methods, and they include a jug of Round Up, and a dead lawn. Which segues nicely into ...
The Audacity:
The entitlement of nearly every single person in this neighborhood is appalling. I feel like I can say that now with a decent degree of certainty. This month marks my 10th year here, and besides the renter of the other "shack," (because that's what the other folks call our houses ... To our faces) ... See, they live in 5,000 square foot "homes," and we live in "shacks," or what most Americans call regular 2-3 bedroom houses, but I digress ... Aside from Big Kahuna across the street, and my landlord, I've actually been here the longest on our little stretch of the street of about 10 or so houses, you know, if you don't count all of the people who died. They may or may not still be here, I don't ask too many questions, and I definitely won't be dragging out a Ouji board to verify. That being said, I've seen a lot of people come and go, and I've seen a lot of shenanigans. There's a lot of jockeying for position, and new pecking orders that form, and a good deal of pettiness, and a hefty dose of passive aggressiveness, and it's all very ... Well, if you've ever seen The 'Burbs then you get it.
Are any of my neighbors the Klopeks, exactly? I mean, probably not? But the entire rest of the ensemble cast are present, and accounted for. Moi? I land somewhere between the Carrie Fisher, and Tom Hanks characters. Easily 98% of me could not care in the least what is going on, and wants to be left completely alone. Yet, there is that 2% that is acutely aware of all of the completely bizarre antics perpetrated on a daily basis. I pretty much mind my own business. I keep my animals home, and when we venture out for a sniff, I clean up after them.
I find that the level of weird occurring here seems to happen predominantly in the upper middle class bracket the most. We're not talking about eccentrics here, this brand of weird is too boring, too basic, too pumpkin spice, too live-laugh-love to be that cool. These aren't the quirks of the artistic, the truly talented, or obscenely wealthy, well except for the guy who caresses my garbage cans when he walks by on Thursday mornings, he cut a check on the spot, and bought a guy a new car after his son's side-swipe job just to avoid getting the police involved. But I haven't exactly heard Robin Leach narrating anyone's daily activities down here, though this guy could be experiencing those champagne wishes and caviar dreams on the regular, who knows? So far he seems to be the only one genuinely idiosyncratic enough to be legitimately well-off while everyone else is more or less just pretending to be. Don't get me wrong, I don't go around counting other peoples' money, in fact, I think that's kind of gross, and you already know that if you're a regular reader around here. What I find endlessly fascinating though, is sort of the whole mating dance of it all; how a person's behavior is connected to their opinion of, and the value they place on their financial assets, and how that influences relationships. What I've come to notice is how some of the most badly behaved are oftentimes the biggest wannabes.
Take, for instance, the man who encourages trains his dogs to relieve themselves on everyone else's lawn but his own. For anyone keeping track, I'm talking about Mr. Round Up, himself ... I mean his yard is already covered in dead grass, what's a few urine spots at this point? Now, before I get accused of spying on the dude, it's not (intentionally) like that. I can't help that my kitchen sink overlooks the three ring circus of his property, and that my sink is the workhorse of my shack. I have no garage or utility room, so I'm doing dishes, hand-washing delicates, cleaning paint brushes, containing weird projects, and filling buckets out of this sink (what feels like) all day long, so if something cinematic is happening within the frame of the tiny accompanying window, I'm not likely to miss it. It's not as if I'm sitting in a darkened room, glued to the Ring Doorbell app like some kind of psychopath. I also can't help that the man releases the hounds each day for their morning constitutional by wildly (and no, I am not exaggerating) flailing his arms in these broad, and unrestrained movements, WOOSHING his beasts onto the lawn directly next to his, which they dutifully obey. But then, and this is the weirdest part of all, he screams and yells at the animals for leaving their yard ... THE VERY THING HE JUST INSTRUCTED THEM TO DO!!! He puts on this act like, "ohmigosh-WhatAreTheyDoing???-They'reTotallyNotSupposedToBeDoingThis-SOOOOOemBaRRasSiNg!"
Bruh.
All I'm saying is, if you're going to have the audacity it takes to train your dogs to defecate at your neighbors' houses, throw your own trash away in their (definitely not my (benefits of being the witch)) garbage cans, and dump poison straight into Puget Sound, then why not lean all the way into it? I just mean, it's hard to believe the person regaling the boys at the lamppost with tales of chasing off "bad guys" with a baseball bat (never happened) is the very same person who hides behind bushes, and runs on tip-toes (absolutely did happen) to make sure the neighbor weighing in at a cool 145 lbs. soaking-wet doesn't catch him letting his dogs do the doo in the wrong spot. And when caught dead to rights, why even bother rapid-fire apologizing for it? I'd actually respect someone who'd just shrug, and say, "Dogs man, they're just gonna go where they're gonna go..." Such is life, my friend, let me grab some bags, and help you clean up, we can just toss 'em in my bin since you're already here! It's the antics, with the sneaking, and the lying, and entitlement coupled with the goody two-shoes act that just...
It. Just.
At any rate, I haven't been messed with (specifically) in quite some time, though there was a second-hand request pertaining to duck food earlier this Summer. We had a Mr. and Mrs. Mallard sort of adopt our neighborhood this year; they mostly hung out in a ditch where folks would leave them treats. Naturally this made me a nervous wreck thinking they'd be run over at any moment, so since they also liked hanging out in my front yard, I'd slip a little dish of ducky delicacies under my rhododendrons, and let them languish as they liked. Everyone thought they were adorable, and liked having them around, especially ol' Twinkle Toes' dogs, which, you guessed it, were encouraged to chase them. Well it got to the point where the dogs were coming over every day, and eating the food put out for the ducks causing some unwanted results. Now, I'm not exactly sure how hard it is to get diarrhea out of golden retriever hair, but I imagine it's not exactly a walk in the park. Anyway, I was asked to feed the ducks out back, in the portion of my yard that's fenced off so his dogs can't get to it. I happily obliged for the dogs' sake, no furbaby deserves to have a sick tummy, no matter how insane the owner is. I just had to wonder though, long hair aside, what did it really matter if they had diarrhea since they never actually shit in their own yard anyway?
So many questions. So little time. Here's to the slow encroachment of Fall, and everyone migrating back inside, and leaving each other the hell alone for a few months! Until then, xoxo!
