The Wicked Neighbor Of The North
2006-04-20, 16:07

Have you ever had one of those neighbors that will never ever be happy with the fact that they have you living next door to them? Lucky us, we have one. We've been in our house for six years now, and it's been pretty much nothing but enmity from the start. And all we did to have this situation is exist, apparently, because we've done nothing but at the worst be silent neighbors to her. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that she wanted to buy our house from my grandmother for her son, but we got it instead. That, and she hates our dog.

We have a pleasant nickname for this embittered crone-- Tube Top. I'll let your imagination wander on the whys and wherefores of its representation (hint: it's not because she looks flattering in one).

Anyway, last Wednesday, H and I were out walking on the sidewalk with the baby, who was pushing herself along on her little red car that she got for her birthday (she prefers to listen to the ABC's song whilst driving her car; hopefully this will carry on through to adulthood, though it may draw questions from her friends). As toddlers are prone to sudden changes of heart/scenery/mood/health, she abruptly decided that she wanted to walk for a while herself, and we continued down along the sidewalk with her intermittently holding one or both of our hands (yay!). Mind you, this is a classic suburban neighborhood, so we didn't think twice about where the little red car was, as it was only a short way away from our house and we had no concern over it getting stolen or any such thing.

So we get down to the corner, dawdle for a bit looking at various objects, and turn back toward home. As we drew nearer to home, I noticed that the car was no longer on the sidewalk, nor was it in sight at all. It was a fairly blustery afternoon, so I figured it must've gotten blown about somewhere and into someone's tree lawn. Worried it might have instead perhaps rolled into the street, I trotted ahead a bit to catch sight of it. And I did: it was, in fact, in a tree lawn. It was in the neighbor's - Tube Top's - tree lawn, on its side, in amongst her garbage she'd set out for pick up the next morning. She saw a child's toy in her driveway (she knew it was ours; she's seen the baby on it before), and decided to throw it away.

How's that for neighborly? How unhappy do you have to be with your life to get to the point of throwing away children's toys? She was even outside still, fiddling with some of the plants in the front of her house, I imagine to see how we'd react to her pathetic, passive aggressive maneuver. Maybe part of it was my loathing for confrontation borne of my not wanting to turn into my father of old; maybe part of me felt some pity that she would stoop to something like that. Either way, I chose not to speak, and felt okay about it afterward. H asked me, after I told her what the situation was, why I didn't tell her off, and I responded with, "Why bother?" As we headed into the house, she said, "Maybe because SHE'S A BITCH (yelled, for the benefit of the audience) - but you may have a point there." And that was that. H was convinced that if we'd gotten into it, it would have come to blows, though I'm highly doubtful about that. But there would have been much yelling, and I'm not much for entertaining the neighborhood with thunderous profanity, especially with the baby around.

At first, we started plotting our vengeance, devising the best way to show her what comes of such acts without, well, getting caught. But the more I think on it, the more karma tells me it's not worth the effort, and that she'll get what's hers in her own time. Just the fact that she's obviously so miserable in her closed-up little world may be vengeance enough for me. Thank you, Carson Daly, for showing me the light.

Meanwhile, rehearsal trudges on. Last night we had a majority of us in one place for a change, and we managed to have a little fun through all the unspoken worry over how the hell we're going to manage to get all this memorized by next weekend. I've got most of my solos to a point of being almost comfortable, but the group stuff? There's just so much music, and so little time to rehearse. I'm not feeling very confident about the show. Bu then, I don't think I've ever really felt very confident about any show, so that doesn't really mean much. So we'll sing and hop around and pretend we're having a grand ol' time. And while I'm trying to memorize, at the same time I'm trying not to work my voice too hard. One of the ladies is already nursing a sore throat and is deathly afraid of it becoming laryngitis. If that happens, we may have to cancel, because it's too late to replace her and there's so few people in the show that losing her would be a huge hole in the production. So get better, damn it.

I've been borrowing my dad's little blue truck since yesterday, because the minivan is in Ye Olde Auto Shoppe - Ye Olde Dealership, more specifically. It's getting a new transmission, possibly as I write this. Fortunately, it's going to be free. There's been a recall issue with their transmissions, and luckily ours falls under that umbrella. Problem is, I can't get plates for the thing (we just bought out the lease) until it's repaired, because the blasted E-Check won't pass the thing, and the clock is ticking. They said that the van might be done as soon as today, which is amazing in my book that they could change over an integral part of the system that quickly. I'm not going to complain, and they'll be getting muchos kudos from me should they deliver when they say they can. I'd been especially worried about the prospect of getting the thing looked at, because of the horror stories I'd been reading on the web from people with similar problems and he dealership trying to charge them upwards of 400 for the repairs, even though Honda headquarters says that the recall applies. That's the main reason I'd been pushing off the inspection, until we got closer to the time when we'd be getting our federal tax dollars back, just in case. I seem to be getting none of that from these guys, however, so they must really be interested in keeping us as customers, which is good because H's next car (and mine, for that matter, though the van's going to last a mighty long time, barring catastrophe, knock knock) is most likely going to be a hybrid Civic.

I'm almost done reading A Feast for Crows, and it's another thoroughly enjoyable read. Of course, there's constant tragedy and swearing and bad things happening to good people, but Mr. Martin is at least showing us that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel. There's a number of cliffhanger endings, to be sure, and I have a feeling that many aren't going to be addressed any time soon, since the next book, I understand, is going to focus on other characters that haven't surfaced but for a fraction in this book, mainly at the extreme ends of the known world, both north and south. But the world is a mess, and, as the ghost of Ned Stark would tell you, Winter Is Coming. All tragedy aside, though, there's just something about Martin's writing that keeps me wanting to read it. It's almost like a medieval fantasy soap opera, but without the maddening repetitiveness and droning of the likes of Robert Jordan (thank goodness), and without the utter darkness of a Stephen Donaldson (sing it with me: "Leper Outcast Unclean!"). I'm looking forward to the next installment, may it be soon.

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