My Winter Sucks Rocks

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.