My
winter has sucked. Yes, it has. I believe the slide started when my beloved
neighbor moved into town. Her husband
passed away awhile back, and not being a driver, it made sense for her to
move. The public bus does not come out
here, and the Dial-a-Ride will only come once per week. That, and her being an extrovert, it just
made sense.
That being said, I have missed her.
She's a wonderful person: well-read, creative, and generous. And, she'd look after our pets when we were
away. We'd do the same for her. It was a lovely arrangement.
Even though we have a very busy household, just knowing she was across the
street made me smile. In the evenings,
the glowing lights of her home were a cheer, a comfort.
And
then she left.
That
was just the beginning. Right before
Christmas, the new tenants moved in. And
it was not good. My first inkling of
concern occurred the night they arrived; yes, the night. Well after dark a fleet of loud pick-up
trucks arrived, sounding more like the storming of Normandy. Sadly, all these vehicles contained the
belongings, and beer, of two young men.
And thus began my torture.
Our
neighborhood is quiet. Ok, our neighborhood
used to be quiet. With their beer and
trucks, the lads brought noise. And
inconsideration. And stress. This was amplified on January 2nd, when at
the end of a very loud, drunken party, they turned out a buddy onto the road,
to wend his way home, hopefully not to plow into a family of four on their way
home from the movies.
Instead,
this friend found his way into our ditch, and stuck there. We were still up a bit later than usual on
January 2nd (and I'll tell you why in a minute), when we heard an unholy cacophony
coming from the front of our house. My
husband went out to check, and the source of the noise was a truck struggling
to get out, the drunken remonstrations of the driver, and one of our neighbors.
My
husband, a veteran of working in the public and now a full time school teacher,
is a professional at handing difficult situations. He went out to help, kindly offering whatever
service he could. After a few minutes,
it became clear of the nature of the problem: alcohol.
Even
so, my husband offered to help and was rebuffed, with extreme prejudice. After a little while, I came out, in my robe
and slippers to see what was going on. A
quick assessment of the situation and I was a red in the face as my
nightgown. The only consolation was the
neighbors' yellow Lab, who kept coming over to me.
I
was taken aback by the pure belligerence of my neighbor. No apologies.
No consolation. Just angry words
and veiled threats and how, as he works for an excavator, he ought to come over
and fill up our offending ditch with rocks.
At my objection, things just seemed to get worse. I realized I was not going to help the
situation, and came back inside.
I
got out the number, thinking of calling the landlord, having recently gotten
the number from my friend, in case I needed to call, already having a list of
concerns due to noise and general suspiciousness of their behavior.
My
husband came in and told me the guy in the ditch had turned to threatening
him. When the guy was getting
increasingly upset--when it was discovered the CRUNCH noise wasn't his truck,
but the truck stuck on our telephone box, my husband told him not to worry
about it, that his insurance would cover it.
At that point, the guy got hysterical, saying he didn't HAVE insurance,
that he just got out of alcohol rehab (FAIL!).
He then turned to threatening my husband, who decided it was a good idea
to come inside.
We called the landlord. We called the
cops. We were pretty freaked out. The cops were to call back, and didn't. Eventually, unable to sleep, we called the
cops again, who returned the call. They
said the guy was pending arrest (being asleep on the side of the road near our
house), and that he had an outstanding warrant and was well known to them. He assured us it was safe to go to sleep, as
the guy wasn't going anywhere else but jail.
Around
1, we finally relaxed enough to try sleep, when we heard what can only be
described as cavorting. We opened our
front door, and heard clearly the drunken squeals of the neighbor's
girlfriend. For whatever reason, they
were capering around their front yard, evidently unconcerned about what had
happened.
It
was a bad, bad night, following what had been a bad, bad day.
You
see, one of my best friends in the world, a woman who had become a fill-in
mother to me after losing mine five years ago, died that day: January 2nd.
My
winter did not improve. The neighbors
have been hellish. For months--which
feel like years--they have driven us, and other neighbors, to distraction. The landlord, partly wanting not to be
bothered, and partly hoping it would just go away, made promises to us, and
counseled the young men many times. The
worst one has been the drunk guy; the other guy works a lot and seems to keep
to himself, more or less.
But
the noise continued, and the bad blood boiled.
Eventually, a month ago, the noise was so loud it could be heard inside
our house with the doors closed (a common occurrence under their regime of neighborhood
terrorism), we called the landlord at 10:00 at night, holding the
phone in front of us. So, from at least
100 feet away, with us standing in our house, he got the message, and started
eviction proceedings.
Well,
they're still here, but it's promised they'll be out by the 31st. Not too excited yet, as they were originally
to be out by the 10th. We live in hopes.
So,
yeah. My friend/mom died. And my neighborhood has been a place of
stress, instead of a place of rest. We're homeschoolers and are home a lot. I have health issues, and stress is not my
friend. It's just been bad.
Other
things have been happening, too. The
pounds I have tortured off with HCG diet cycles have come back. A lot of them have come back. I've gained a whole bunch over the winter;
that has not cheered me, nor has it helped my back, which has become worse.
My
husband has coached girls' basketball over the winter, so he's been gone a lot
more, too. Other frustrations have
abounded, such as getting the flu when we had plans with a dear friend. Then another time, we had plans, and their
car broke, making it so they couldn't come.
No cheer there.
It's
just been a long, depressing season.
I've been grieving the loss of my friend, I've been tormented by bad
neighbors, my health has devolved, and I've been lonely. I've felt rather neglected over the winter in
this bad season. While I can paddle my
own canoe, and do, there hasn't been a lot of support available to me. People get involved in their own lives, you
know, so I haven't been at the top of anybody's concern list. That's life, yeah?
But
then...the cat we've had for 14 years, our beloved Mia, disappeared. It's been two weeks today.
While
hope can be cruel, it seems likely she's gone forever. My little kitty. My sweet comfort we got when I was pregnant
with our daughter. Through thick and
thin, through my husband going back to college and changing his career, through
pregnancy, birth, nine horrid surgeries, two miscarriages, the death of my
mother, countless sunrises and sunsets, immeasurable victories and defeats, my
cat has been with me. And now she's
gone, disappeared as in a puff of smoke.
Like
I said. My winter has sucked.
