Category: Neighborhood

Don’t talk to me

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Joe informed me that once, quite a few months back, our next door neighbor remarked to him that we all had a “dysfunctional neighbor relationship”. Good thing I hadn’t heard that, or I might have went off on the guy.

Here’s the thing – I don’t talk to people I do not like. End of story. If you rub me the wrong way or wrong me, you might as well avoid me because I’m not going to waste my time pretending to be your friend, or even your acquaintance. Colleagues are excluded from this since I can’t just opt not to speak to someone I have to work with, although I will keep my interaction with them to a bare minimum. I don’t see the point in pretending to like someone you don’t. I have better things to do with my time. Therefore, I’m not friendly to someone unless it’s genuine.

So why don’t I like my neighbors? Oh may I count the ways? Let’s start with the fact that at the very writing of this entry they have three newspapers piling up in the driveway and a bent up wreath still on their door even though they’ve been home every day and walked past both the newspapers and the wreath (which should have been taken down no later than January 25th per our association’s rules). And let’s add to that they own a dog who barks at nothing when they let him out to pee at 10:30 every night when we’re already in bed trying to sleep. In addition, he barks furiously every time we come home. If I wanted a dog to greet me daily I’d get my own, thanks. Except my dog would be quiet and well behaved because I’d invest in obedience training!

In addition to the aforementioned grievances, instead of bringing the trash bins inside once they’re empty, the wife moves them from the end of the driveway to in front of the garage door where they sit from Thursday afternoon until Sunday or Monday even though the rules state they should be taken inside with 24 hours of trash collection. They also walk right past those advertisements people leave on the doors and leave them there for days, they slam their door constantly which is on a shared wall and shakes our whole place, and they wait until 9:30 pm to start watching a movie with the bass turned up which we can literally feel on our side of the wall (and which they know we can hear/feel since Joe has talked to them about it more than once before).

Gee, I wonder why I don’t say hi to them. Perhaps if they weren’t so inconsiderate of others and actually took some pride in how their unit looked I could find it in my heart to acknowledge their existence, but that’s not likely to happen. They are lucky I just act like they’re not there instead of giving them dirty looks because honestly I feel disgust when I look at them. Perhaps that makes me petty, but I can’t help it – I really do not like those people.

People & Their Pets

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Sometimes I don’t understand people.

A few weeks ago a lady from one of the townhomes across our courtyard was outside looking around calling, “kitty kitty kitty”. It wasn’t until she went back inside that I saw a cat come out from under a huge pine tree. I slowly approached the cat and he seemed friendly enough, but he didn’t have a collar on so I had nothing to grab and I didn’t want to try picking him up and chance freaking him out, so I left him and approached the woman’s patio door. It was open, but as I peered inside her home, I couldn’t see anyone, so I walked around to her front door (also open) and peered through the screen, but again, no one was in sight.

I rang the doorbell. After a minute or so, she came downstairs with a baby in her arm. I asked her if she lost her cat and she replied, “is he fat?” Well, I didn’t think so, but I described him to her and mentioned his lack of collar, to which she replied, “yea, he always takes them off” and just stood there. I asked her if she wanted me to show her where he was. Finally she came outside and followed me to the tree where he was still sitting, chewing on some grass. As soon as he saw her he ran back to the home and then she thanked me as an afterthought as I started walking back to my place.

This woman also owns an older dog who is very well-behaved. In fact, up until two weeks ago I had never heard him bark. She doesn’t leash him when she lets him outside to do his business and he doesn’t stray away from their patio, but the one day she let him out and forgot about him and eventually he got impatient and starting barking through their screen door to be let back in. After 5-10 minutes of him barking, her husband came outside to let him in.

Two days ago while eating dinner we spotted a small grey dog running around the courtyard but there weren’t any people in sight. He ran off toward the street but reappeared a few minutes later. I went out on the patio and he came running over, barking furiously at me, but keeping his distance. I noted he had a harness on – the type you’d clip a leash to – but no collar.

Eventually he began to calm down, so of course that’s when our next door neighbor decides to let her dog out, which prompts this strange dog to go into a frenzy and start barking in the other dog’s face. The neighbor’s dog barks at everything under the sun but for some reason didn’t bark at the little dog with the Napoleon complex. What I found bizarre is that our neighbor watched this for a moment, then turned around and went back inside, leaving her tied up dog to fend for himself. How did she know that the strange dog wasn’t going to bite her dog? Stupid.

Eventually some guy with a toddler started walking our way across the courtyard, but when he spotted the grey dog, he picked up the toddler and started walking back the way he came. The dog spotted him, however, ran past him, and they disappeared behind some trees. I still don’t know whether that guy was the dog’s owner or not. If so, he didn’t seem too terribly concerned about the whereabouts of his dog.

I don’t understand such behavior. Perhaps it’s because I can’t have the cat I’ve always wanted that I cannot relate to the indifference some of these people have to their pets running off. I’d be worried sick if my dog or cat got out of my sight while outside. It doesn’t take long to run into the street and get squished by a passing car. I saw it happen to a little baby squirrel on the way into work today, in fact. :(

Neighborhood Services

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Two new services our town has recently implemented:
Free dry-cell battery recycling (at the Village Hall), including old electronic devices
Expired or unused medications disposal (located at the police department, of course)

We’ve been trying to do our part for the environment like using the reusable grocery bags (although I will be the first to admit we could always do more), so I’m really happy to hear about these new developments. If only they had introduced them a bit sooner – I went through the medicine cabinet and chucked a bunch of drugs not even a month ago.

Ticketed

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Last weekend my brother came to visit and when he went outside to leave, found two $25 parking tickets on his windshield written within one minute of each other by the same cop. The first reason was he was parked with the left wheel to the curb instead of the right, and the second reason was because he was too far from the curb.

We felt responsible since he had asked us earlier in the day if he should move his car and we told him not to bother. I thought the way he was facing wasn’t correct, but I didn’t say anything because I second-guessed myself and thought maybe it was just me being overly anal and not necessarily against the law. My brother didn’t think much of it either since he lives on a one-way street where it doesn’t matter if the right wheel isn’t against the curb.

We originally went down to the police station just to pay both tickets but as we were walking to the building I started getting mad thinking about it and asked how to contest them instead. I realize they are two separate infractions, but they are listed together as one reason next to the check box so I think the cop was being a bit of a jerk about it. To add insult to injury, there’s an out of state car that’s been parked on the street overnight for going on two weeks now who hasn’t been ticketed at all. The rules are no street parking between 2am – 6am for vehicles that don’t have a city parking sticker, so I included that as one of the reasons I felt they should waive one ticket.

Today I got a response in the mail and at first got mad because the piece of paper stated that my request was denied. But then I noticed that there were two papers, one for each ticket, and one of them was approved, so that means we only have to pay one of the tickets! Hooray! Joe was surprised they agreed to waive anything, so that goes to show you it pays to at least ask. Also, we’ve learned a $25 lesson for the next time my brother comes over.

Froggin’ Under The Stars

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That’s what the event we attended tonight, sponsored by the forest preserve district of DuPage county, was called. We learned about frogs (there was a quiz!), heard frog calls from the native species in the area, and then hit the trails to listen to them in person. We heard American toads and Cope’s Grey treefrogs.

Along the way we came across an American toad which was quite fascinating to the kids in the group. I grew up in an area where they were prevalent so I wasn’t quite excited, but we did see a great horned owl which was cool. I’ve never seen one in the wild before.

We also saw a lot of stars, and could clearly see the international space station fly by which was really cool.

Normally the forest preserve is closed well before we had to leave (nearly 10 pm), so it was interesting to see how active the wildlife is at night.

All in all, a very nice way to start off our 10-day staycation. That’s right, we don’t have to work again until June 2nd. Woo hoo!