love thy neighbor? um, no...

ok, i'll admit to being naive. i figured when i moved into a house, i'd stop having to deal with annoying neighbors. you homeowners can all stop laughing now. i said i was naive.

now when we started out it was all swell. we had ruth on one side and walter and nancy on the other and the endless parade of people in the apartment building named villa boitano–which we promptly renamed "boytowno"–across the street.

our favorite boytowno-ite was "bandana boy" who was in deep infatuation with his car and had to walk around it admiringly every time he got home. he was also known for his spectacular steering wheel drum solos. sadly, he moved away about six months ago and it all went to pot shortly after.

next thing we knew, walter and nancy had bought a house and were moving. for the record, they were perfect neighbors: never heard a peep from them. worst that ever happened was walter hit my car once, but that was all handled nice and neighborly like through insurance.

well, once they moved out, the owner of their house showed up, puttering around, getting the place ready for rental, you know. So my boyfriend, being the friendly sort, goes over to say hello and promptly gets an earful about how our retaining wall is falling down and needs to be fixed. so much for being neighborly.

ok, so we figure the guy is crochety and decide to keep our distance. but then i go out one morning and see that the curbs beside his driveway are painted a suspicious shade of yellow (a quick perusal of the street tells me no other curbs have been painted). the guy has PAINTED HIS OWN CURBS! who does this?

well, i'm all up in arms about it because we've got a crappy parking situation as it is and these painted curbs are only going to make it worse. i can't even go into the parking situation while i'm on this rant. it's a whole other rant entirely.

anyhow, next thing we know crochety man has chopped branches off our huge maple tree.

then the new neighbors moved in. for some reason, they think it's ok to hammer at 1:30 in the morning. why did walter and nancy move? why? why?

oh, and did i mention the new boytowno-ite whose car alarm goes off every time a loud car drives down our street (and you guessed it, this happens quite frequently).

so today the thing that happened that prompted this blog entry after a notably long hiatus is that apparently some neighbors in the townhouses behind us have taken issue with one of our bushes and whacked it mercilessly and left the mess in our driveway. lovely.

i should remind anyone who may have arrived late to the party that i live in seattle where all the people are “nice.” right. they will stop in the middle of the street if they sense that a pedestrian might be considering walking across the road, but they drive that very same car home and take up two parking spaces in front of your house. (oops, i said i wasn't getting into my parking rant. sorry...)

yes, it’s all maddening. but it’s an easy frustration. a shallow one. the kind i have so i don’t have to worry about my deeper frustrations. but then maybe i’m meant to let these go easily as practice for letting go of those frustrations I cling to more tightly. who knows?

all I know is, they’re not driving me out of this house because I love living here, despite all the frustrations. and besides, from the sound of this post, i've gotten way too old and crochety for apartment living anyhow.