February 8, 2010

The neighborhood is getting worse.

When I first moved into this duplex, the neighborhood was great, a lot of single family homes, kids playing safely, riding bikes, neighbors actually talking to each other, a really nice place to live.
Over the last few years, it has gone downhill big time.
I keep saying that I need to get a gun for home protection due to almost attempted break-ins, and low-lifes stealing things right out of my carport.
I want to get some home insurance, or renters insurance, not really sure how that works if you rent a house, do you get home insurance or renters insurance?

Anyway, it's getting worse, as I said.
Saturday night, it wasn't late, maybe 8:30pm, the teens wanted to walk up to 7-eleven to get some snacks for themselves, I was still feeling sick, and they had just gone out the door when they came right back in not even 10 seconds later.
There was a really drunk man, looked to be late 20s- early 30s, walking down the sidewalk screaming at anyone else who was outside, that he was "going to get them".
I opened the door a crack so I could hear him and see him, and there he was, walking really fast down the sidewalk trying to catch up to 2 other teenagers, 2 boys looked about Sebastian's age, maybe 15-16 years old, who were trying to get home.
The guy was screaming, staggering around, but looked really angry, fists clenched up, and the 2 teens were trying to walk as fast as they could to get away from him, and he kept yelling.
The neighbor guy next door went out to see what was going on, the 2 teens were by his mailbox now, and he asked them what was going on.
They asked him for help, they told him the guy was following them, had followed them all the way down the street, they asked him to please help, to call the cops.
The neighbor didn't go in and call the cops, instead he tried to talk to the drunk guy.
Tried.
The drunk took a swing, that's when I told Sebastian to get me the phone, I called the cops and told them what was going on, and they said they were sending 2 units out.
Lucky they were close by, they got here in about 1 minute, so they must have been just down Ashton road by the post office or something,
The neighbor was not fighting with the guy, not swinging back, but he did get hit a few times, the 2 teens were practically hiding behind the neighbor's SUV, they were still scared, being quiet, 1 of them yelled to the drunk guy to leave him alone because the drunk kept swinging at and connecting about 1 out of every 4 swings, to the neighbor.
The cops just grabbed the guy, didn't even try talking to calm him down, just grabbed him because he was being violent.
They cuffed him and put him in the cruiser and then got statements from the neighbor and the 2 teens, and then came and took our statements, then they hauled him off to jail.
We were in the house, the teens watching out the windows, and I out the cracked door, none of us were going to go out there, no way.
I'm getting really annoyed with the kinds of people who have moved into the neighborhood man.
I'm just tired of the attempted break-ins, thieves, and now, the belligerent drunks trying to beat up teenagers.

December 27, 2009

I'm going to get a gun somehow.

The teens and I were sitting here waiting for my sister to arrive so that we could all go see Avatar, when I saw one of the teen thugs who live across the street and have tried to break in my house before, walking toward my front door with a big, long, pointy thing, like a knife, to come break my door again.
Yes, the night they came in before, they thought the door was locked and they pried the door knob latch panel open, away from the door jam.
I know this because the next day the door wouldn't shut and when I looked at it, it had been pulled away so I had to screw it back into the door jam.
Anyway, I saw him coming so I ran to the window and opened the blinds up even more, he saw me and ran back across the street to his house.
I grabbed the phone and called the cops.

My sister showed up, I explained the cops were on the way to talk to me, so I couldn't go to the movies.
Plus, I'm not going to leave my house for 3-4 hours (they are going to Best Buy after the movie) and just leave it here for them to really break in and steal something this time.
So the teens are gone and I'm sitting here with the house all locked up tight, blinds open, and if one of those two thugs come back, they may get hit with a 2x4 before I ever even dial 911.
Rotten fuckers.
I swear, they ever try to get in my house again, one of them is going to end up fucking seriously hurt.

December 12, 2009

Stalking the mail man from now till Christmas.

I'm sitting here with the door open waiting for the mail man because my Mom and Dad sent out a money order this past Tuesday, and it should be here any day now.
I have to sit here and stalk the mail man because of what happened this past Monday night.
I Twittered it, but forgot to blog it.

Around 8:15-20pm on Monday night, Sebastian and I went for a walk to the corner store, Mark stayed home doing his nightly raiding in WoW, so off we went closing the door but leaving it unlocked like we always do when someone is staying home.
When we got back just 10 minutes later, Sebastian and I both noticed that the screen door and main door were open, not just a little open either, but open plenty wide enough that a person could walk through it without having to turn sideways or anything.
Carmine was out and sitting in the driveway, and Kali, Nova, and Shahiro were all sitting in the doorway but looked like they were just about to walk out when we arrived.

I immediately started calling for Mark, was he outside?
Inside?
Where was he and why were the doors open?
Mark was in the house and that's when he said that just about 2 minutes before Sebastian and I got back, he had been sitting in the other room playing WoW when he heard the front door open, so to be funny and scare Sebastian and I, he yelled "Who the fuck is there?! I have a gun!"
He told us that when neither I or Sebastian replied, he yelled out for me, "Mom?!"
He got no reply again, but that's when he heard the screen door scrape on the door step, he came out of the room, didn't see anyone, saw the doors opened, and started to look around the house in case someone was inside and just not answering him, and that's when we walked up.
Someone had broken into my house, and yes, even though we left the door unlocked, it is still a break in if the home owners didn't invite the person to come in.
My cats almost got out, if anything had happened to them, the teens would have been so upset, I would have been so upset, and those kitties were most certainly thinking about going out that door too.
Whoever it was that had opened the door and come in, left as soon as they heard Mark, but we were coming down the sidewalk, so this person whoever it was, was on foot and either ran into the back yard to hide, or ran back across the street to their house.

Yup, I said their house.
I truly believe that it was one of the two teenagers who live across the street.
They moved in about 4-5 months ago with their family, and one day I caught them looking in the windows of the duplex directly to my left.
They were looking in every single window around the house, I watched them go to every window, whispering to each other, and then they went to the guy's back door, and that's when I yelled that I was calling the police.
They couldn't see me, I was inside my house, but I know they heard me because they both yelled "Shit!" and hauled ass back across the street.
I totally believe that the person who tried to come in my house on Monday was one of these two teens with a breaking and entering problem.
I didn't call the cops on Monday night, I can't prove it was them, plus my friends had shown up in a big black SUV, and when I explained to them what happened, both of my guy friends started talking really loudly about beating some ass.
We could see someone peering through the mini-blinds of that house across the street, so yeah, I'm positive that it was one of those teen thugs.

The mail came today at a little bit past 12 noon, he had a Medicare statement, a note from my doctor about what my co-pay will be in January, (new year, new co-pays) and a box with an item for me to review inside of it, but no letter with a money order from Mom and Dad.
I will be watching for the mail again on Monday, Tuesday, and Mark will have to watch for it on Wednesday as I have a dentist appointment, (Squee!) and so we will just have to stalk the mail man every day until it arrives.
When other relatives let me know that they will be sending money down for the teens for Christmas, I will have to do the same thing.
If those thugs are willing to break into my home and try to steal stuff, they are probably willing to steal my mail too.
It's sucky people like that who make me want to get a gun.
Off and on for a few years now, I have wanted to get a gun for home protection, but then I change my mind, and now I'm changing my mind again.
Jerks.

December 4, 2009

If I had a nice yard, I would so have one of these.

When Sebastian and I took our nightly walk around the neighborhood last night, we could smell a wood fire burning and coming from up the street, so we walked that way to see where and what it was.
The new people (5 months new people) were sitting outside in their nicely done yard and had 1 of these kinds of outdoor fireplaces going.

It didn't have that dome cover, theirs appeared to be just a mesh screen type cover, I picked the 1 that I posted when I went searching for them online, found that awesome looking celestial cover, and then went to see how much they were.
The price isn't too bad, it's well out of my price range of course, (that is until I win the Powerball baby!!) but I just think that it looks really nice in a nicely done up yard.
If I had a really nice yard, maybe even fenced in, a lanai perhaps, maybe with a swimming pool too, I would totally have an outdoor fireplace or pit.

The people up the street just looked so totally relaxed and happy sitting outside enjoying the fall air and talking to each other around the fire.
A few weeks ago when Mark was spending the night with his friend Jeff, Sebastian and I went and hung out with some friends of mine who have a fire pit.
They got it going really good and it was so nice to just sit there on their wooden swing with the super comfy cushions, and chat by the fireside.
I sat with my friend Jen who is a couple months pregnant, and so swinging felt really good to the both of us.
We both got into a nice rhythm going back and forth, and talking about babies and weddings and stuff while the guys sat and talked sports and video games.
Sebastian was telling the guys all kinds of ways to get stuff in WoW, that game is still totally over my head, I know absolutely nothing about it, so once anyone gets talking about it, I just tune it out completely. haha
Jen and Rusty are getting married in February, so they are starting to plan things out, just a really simple wedding at the beach with a justice of the peace.
I've often thought about becoming an ordained secular humanist clergy-type person so I can marry my atheist friends and stuff.
I'd also be able to do things like baby namings, funerals, commitment ceremonies, affirmation of love ceremonies, invocations, renewal of marriage ceremonies, and holiday ceremonies.
All I would need to do this would be to get a Notary Public license, and then bada-bing bada-boom!
I could marry atheists and other secular individuals, or just couples who don't want the traditional religious ceremony done at their wedding.
I think it would be like a pretty cool little side job to have, and if gays ever get the right to be married in Florida, I could marry them and do those weddings too.
I think it's a pretty cool idea and so did Rusty and Jen, they asked me if I could possibly become a notary by February, so I said that I would look into it.
They don't want the traditional vows done at their wedding, they want to write their own vows, they want a peaceful and friendly ceremony, so I'm looking into it.
Pretty cool huh?
Me, an ordained clergy-type person. Ha ha haha!

November 23, 2009

One of these days I'm going to win the lotto.

When I win the lotto, I'm going to buy a new house and I'm going to install a good security system.
Sebastian and I just went for a walk to 7eleven to get some snacks for all of us.
Mark wanted some beef jerky, Sebastian wanted some gummies, and I wanted some Ben & Jerry's Phish Food ice cream.
I love that stuff.

Anyway, when we were coming back home, I saw someone go in my yard, not the driveway, but in the side yard.
It always makes me nervous to see people in my yard, especially at night.
I don't know who they are, why they are in my yard, or what they are doing or planning to do.
We've had stuff stolen quite a few times, 2 gas cans, 3 bicycles, a brand new trash can (?), and a basketball while the teens were playing with it one day.
The guy just rode right into our driveway, and grabbed the basketball, and drove off.
The teens were stunned, they had been playing with it, Sebastian didn't catch it, so it started to roll toward the ditch, and that's when the guy pulled in and stole it.
They came running in the house to tell me but they didn't get a plate number for the red SUV the guy was driving.
All Mark could tell me was that it was a Dodge Ram SUV, so that's all I could tell the cops when I called.
Yes, I know, I called the cops over a stolen basketball, but the teens saw the back of his SUV, it had bicycles in it and other stuff, like the guy was just driving around stealing stuff from peoples yards.

People in my yard makes me nervous, what if they are looking to steal things, or if they are trying to steal things, or what if they are scoping the house, ya know?
Maybe they are casing the house to see if anyone is home to break in, or if they can break in the front or back, and what way is the easiest way to break in.
I have an alarm on my backdoor, but the windows don't have alarms on them, there's no alarm on the front door, and even though I can lock the house up really good, if someone wants to get in, they will find a way to get in.
Because of people like that, I want to get a home security system installed, something that will deter people from trying to break in like a sticker on the windows, or one of those signs that you put in your front yard, but also a system that would alert the police if someone was already in, plus an ear piercing siren that would make them stop dead in their tracks and run.
The alarm on my back door is ear piercing, but as I said, I only have that one alarm.
My mom sent me a window alarm but I don't know which window to put it on, front or back.

I would love to get a cctv system.
Cameras at the windows and doors, in the side yard especially, that's where I see people the most, and my side yard goes to the back yards and back doors of 4 of my neighbors.
If someone is in my back yard, they can easily see the houses of 4 of my neighbors and their back doors.
A home surveillance system with cameras would be very cool to have, plus it would be even cooler if I could hook the whole thing up to my computer so I could see everything the cameras are seeing on my computer monitor.
I know that's possible because I've seen that kind of system in a friend's house in Tampa when he had a party.
He showed us on his computer monitor all of the different camera views, so we were all standing there watching the other people who came to his party.
When he saw a guy peeing in his bushes, he turned on the mic that's hooked up to it, and said over the mic and speakers, "Stop peeing in the bushes!".
Jason turned around and was looking everywhere for who said it, but there was no one there.
He came in the house and was like "Hey man, I think your neighbors are watching us, someone just yelled at me for peeing in your bushes".
We all busted up laughing at him, he had no clue why wee were laughing, he was so confused. hahaha
I did have someone try to break in here once about 7 years ago, I could see them turning the knob on my back door, I could hear them whispering to each other, I knew they were out there so I very quickly turned on the lights and I pulled the alarm trigger myself.
That ear piercing siren went on and the lights were on, and I heard them yell to each other, "RUN!", and that was that, they ran.
That's when I was home and awake, what if someone tries to break in when I'm not home or asleep?
That scares me, to be asleep and have someone break in.
I would hate to wake up, be in that half awake groggy stage, and see someone standing in my room or the hallway, I'd probably pee myself.

Anyway, the person in my side yard tonight?
It's a kid who is staying with Dave, my neighbor directly behind me.
Dave is a really cool guy and neighbor, and he has a woman and her son staying with him for awhile, I think it's his sister and his nephew.
The kid was coming back from a friend's house on the street one over from us, and instead of going all of the way around, it's like 2 really long blocks, so he cut through my yard.
Now that I know who he is, I don't have a problem with him cutting through, but whenever I see someone going through my side yard, I will be looking to see who it is and what they are doing.
If it's him, no problem, but if it's a stranger casing my house or one of my neighbors houses, I will be watching through the blinds and have my phone in hand in case they do try to break in to my house or a neighbors house.

People who break in houses, people who break in cars, people who steal cars and things, are like the lowest.
They don't want to work for what they want, they just decide to take it from people who did work for it.
I really hate thieves.

September 19, 2009

Parking, pictures, teens & shopping.

I've been up all night with insomnia again, and I was super bored around 2-3-ish am, so I went outside to see if anything was up in my hood.
One of my neighbors in the duplex to my left, had a party last night, and it looks like he was a good host and didn't let anyone drive home drunk.
The driveway is full of cars, about 6 cars can fit in a straight line from door to street, and 1 of his guests couldn't fit his Mustang in the driveway, so he had to park it in the street.
With all of the sidewalk construction, he took a risk parking there, somebody might have hit it because there are still barricades and tractors, and piles of dirt and sewer drain piping everywhere.
Well he didn't want his wicked nice and shiny blue Mustang getting hit, so he made use of the construction barricades, this guy was clearly thinking with his beer brain.
This is 1 smart guy.
Uh-huh.

Yup, he put those barricades to work letting people know to not hit his pretty blue Mustang...

Till the police came by at 7:45am and wrote him a ticket for parking in a construction zone and tampering with city equipment. ha ha haha
Man, he's gonna flip when he wakes up and comes outside to sees the ticket.
The cop let me take the pics by the way, and I asked him what the fine was for the things he violated, and he told me the total ticket is $1,200.00
Ouch!
I hope the party was worth it dude. ha ha hahaha

Later on today, like this afternoon, I need to go to the grocery store and grab some more food.
I always forget like 1 or 2 crucial food items when I do the food shopping, even if I have a list and the items are on the list, somehow a couple of things always get skipped over or forgotten.
For example, I bought the super yummy Bubba burgers that we love, and forgot the buns.
Sure I could just make the burgers without the buns and use bread, but then every time I even think of doing that, I start thinking about Eddie Murphy's welfare burgers (WARNING foul language, but hey, it's Eddie Murphy...LoL) and then I am laughing so hard while making them, that I can hardly breathe or speak while trying to tell 1 of the teens to go to the corner store for burger buns.
"We got McDonalds, and you ain't got none, cuz you mommas' on welfare". LMAO!

I forgot some other stuff too, and we need more lunch meat, soda, more bread, (for mommas' big, greasy, green pepper welfare burgers HA!) and some other stuff, it's on the list that I wrote out earlier this morning after the drunk car protection and the cop thing.

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you why I wasn't blogging all of that much the last few days.
I'm having this weird random body part swelling issue.
It's probably water retention, I do take a water pill everyday for my high blood pressure, so water retention might be why, but the pills usually work good so, maybe, maybe not.
Anyway, all day on Wednesday, my feet and ankles were swollen up, on Thursday, my knees were swollen up wicked bad, it like actually hurt really, really bad to try and walk, and sitting down and standing up, like having to pee and then leave the bathroom, was so freaking painful I wanted to cry!
Then all day yesterday, my hands and face were swollen.
My face wasn't too bad, I didn't look like a Campbell's soup kid, but my hands, holy crap!
My hands were swollen up so bad, like sausages in a microwave about to explode!
They were swollen and painful, they were like all tingly, so typing was out of the question.
I just laid on the couch most of the whole day until the swelling went down enough to at least use the mouse.
Once they got to that point, I was at least able to check into the forums and stuff.

It is very unusual for my face and hands to swell up like that though, my knees and feet I'm used to, they do that every few months or so, it is water weight in those areas, but the only time my hands and face ever swell up is when I've either eaten peaches or drank a juice with peach juice mixed in, or breathed in peach fuzz.
I am allergic to peaches (in case you didn't guess..haha), like really bad allergic to them, and swelling up is what happens as the allergy attack, it's like my warning sign to get some Benadryl in me, (I use the children's liquid, it works faster than the adult pills) and if I don't get some, I will have trouble breathing in about 45 minutes or so.
I usually get it and everything is ok, and last night I did take some allergy pills, I didn't have any Benadryl, and it did work, just not as fast.
The point is though, that my face and hands have never been that bad, they have never swollen up to that big and tight before.
I was really worried that the skin on my fingers was going to either crack or rip open, it was scary man.
I also have no idea what caused it, there are no peaches in the house, no peach products unless 1 of the teens brought it in, but they know what happens to me, they wouldn't do that on purpose, and I have not had anything out of the ordinary food wise, and to my knowledge, nothing where it could have been mixed in like a juice or food product.
It's very odd, I'm just going to have to be careful for awhile I think.

July 6, 2009

Monday morning can't sleep time.

It was a typical weekend around here despite it being a holiday.
While we value the freedoms that we have and thank the brave men and women who have fought and died to secure our independence, actually going out and celebrating the holiday is not something that we generally do.
I hate crowds, I hate the traffic to and from the fireworks, and all the smoke and different bbq smells get to me, so the teens and I stayed home and just watched movies and played video games and stuff like that.
I also wasn't feeling all that well, really super tired but unable to sleep, like right now, and I was having issues with my medication, so it was just for the best that we stayed home anyway.
Besides, several of our neighbors had plenty of illegal fireworks that they were lighting off and nearly setting everything in the hood on fire with.
One went off so close to the roof of our house, that our entire house shook, pictures fell off the wall, the cats freaked out, and I thought I was going to have a heart attack.
It was so loud and with everything shaking, I had no clue what the hell they lit off, but wow.
The teens went out to see what it was and who was doing it, turns out it was the drunk lady 2 duplexes down, with a driveway full of drunks, and they were lighting off these huge mortars and stuff.
Mark yelled at them to aim them the other way or he was calling the cops (all fireworks except sparklers and small stuff are illegal, those mortars they had are most definitely on the cannot have list) because that last one landed on our roof.
It didn't really, but him yelling at them was enough for them to start aiming in a different direction the rest of the night, they clearly didn't want to get caught with all of the fireworks that they had, it's a huge fine if you get caught, and so no more of our pictures fell and the cats were able to stop freaking out so badly.

It's very early in the morning and I can't sleep, so I've been browsing all over the internet, can't wait until the Fios gets installed and it gets faster, that's gonna be awesome.
I checked in on all of the forums I like to read and play on, posted to a few, caught up on 2 days worth of blog feeds, and then got bored, so I'm doing the laundry right now because Mark said that George is supposed to call in the morning and take the teens to the movies, so they need clean clothes, it had to be done anyway, and then after I move it over to the dryer, I think I'll go play Sims3 for awhile.
If you have not yet tried the new Purex 3-in-1 laundry sheets, you really need to.
I swear, they make doing laundry so much easier, just 1 product, no measuring, no extra products to buy to soften the clothes, it does it all, and it works just as good if not better than all of the other liquid laundry detergents that I have ever tried. You can get a coupon to try it out if you click that link so you can try it even cheaper, I am very impressed with it, that's why I keep telling people about it. I love how easy it is, how great the clothes smell, and how soft they are when they come out of the dryer, and if you have scent allergies, or sensitive skin, they even make a hypoallergenic version of it.

Those of you who are Sims addicts like me, do you find yourself playing for like crazy amounts of time without realizing it?
Like, I'll sit down at say, 1pm, and before I know it, it's about 7 or 8pm and the teens are staring at me to feed them or they begin asking me when dinner is gonna be.
Oooops!
And I hate that I get so wrapped up in the game, and then I have to do stuff, like answer the phone, or make dinner, or go to the bathroom. I think if I got even more into the game, I'd end up buying some of those adult-sized disposable diapers so I wouldn't even have to get up to pee.
I'd still have to get up and feed the teens and answer the phone, but at least 1 of the issues would be taken care of. haha

May 15, 2009

Sorry, no can do.

I have to go grocery shopping, we have like nothing in the house, and I got our food stamps today, and I'm a wee bit irritated.
My old neighbor called me this morning and had the nerve to ask me to sell her some of my food stamps for .50cents on the dollar.
She knows that I'm broke, and that I have a doctor's appointment and prescriptions to pay for on Monday afternoon, so she thought she would be generous, and offer to buy some of them off me for half their value, like she's some sort of cash drawer and wanted to help me.
It's totally insulting, not helpful, and why on earth she would think that I would do that or be ok with doing that is beyond me.
I asked her why she would think I would do that, if I did that, we'd have less food money, and she was all "Well, other friends of mine who get food stamps but need cash often sell me their food stamps for .50cents on the dollar because then they have cash."
I said yeah, cash would be nice, but then I'd have less food money, a lot less, and I'll find another way to come up with the money I need before Monday afternoon, I always find a way, if I have to, I'll sell something else, like dvds or something that we don't watch anymore.
I'm having a rough time of things right now, I owe out more money than I have, and I'm trying to work so that my next pay is big enough to cover everything that I need to pay for, but I've also been sick, been depressed, and just all around feeling like crap, but I will find a way to do what needs to be done without having to sell off food stamps.
I really can't believe that she thought I'd do that.
No wait, I can.

May 11, 2009

Smell and get stung.

The teens just left for the store, I needed them to go pick up something for dinner for us and some cat food for the kitties, and that's when I noticed what the landlord had been doing all day next door.
He planted some new flowers, a bush looking thing, and some nice perennials in front of the empty duplex.
I guess he's getting closer to finishing up next door, so maybe I'll be getting some new neighbors soon.

I used to have some bushes in front of my side, but all they did was attract bees, hornets, and wasps, and Sebastian is like deathly allergic, so we yanked them all out and haven't had anything planted there for about 6 years now.
I would love to have some beautiful flowers out there, but I can't risk him getting stung because of how quickly his allergy reacts to the stings.
His throat closes up, his eyes swell and close up, and we have to rush him to the ER.
I keep a supply of benadryl in the house, and we have to wait for 2 more bad stings before his pediatrician will give him an epi pen for it, but we try to avoid getting stung.

I just hope whoever he rents the place to will turn out to be nice this time.
And clean.
I'm tired of having mean, dirty weird people living next door to me.

December 24, 2008

Just until we find his owners.

It's been a bit cold here at night the last few nights, and about 3-4 days ago when taking the trash out around 8pm, I heard this wicked loud meow from the bushes in the side yard.
I saw this bundle of white and orange fur come running from the bushes toward me, but it stopped before reaching me.
I went inside and had Mark get a small bowl of cat food and another bowl of water, and we set them out and called to the cat.
We backed up a few paces and let it come eat.
It scarfed down the food and practically drowned itself drinking the water.

I have been feeding it every day since, and tonight, it let me pet him, and then it started rubbing all over my legs and Mark's legs too.
Seeing as how it was going to be cold again tonight, we brought him in the house.
At first, I thought it was a female, that's what I told Christine in my email a few hours ago anyway, but nope, it is a gorgeous, long-haired, fluffy, and soft-as-a-bunny, male cat.

Feeding him outside.

He made himself right at home on my living room sofa laying on Sebastian's big quilt. (Formerly my big quilt, but Sebastian pilfered it)

He is quite the lover, he absolutely loves people, loves to be on laps, loves to be pet, loves to cuddle right up against people, so when Sebastian laid down and took a quick nap, he just cuddled right up between the couch and Sebastian's arm pit, and went to sleep too.

He then found his way to my room and jumped up on my bed and dozed off with Nova, who isn't quite sure what to think of him, but at least she's not hissing and being all pissed off like Kali and Shahiro are about this new feline in their home.

We are going to be on the lookout for posters on telephone poles and the windows of the corner store, I'm going to print a few out myself and hang them up, and hopefully the owner will be found.
I really can't afford to keep another cat, but for the time being, I cannot leave him outside in the cold at night.
The way he devoured the food and water those first few nights he was outside, tells me that he's been outside for at least a week with nothing to eat.
He's in good health, not emaciated, no fleas, but also no collar to tell us who his owner is, but somehow this beautiful cat got outside and is lost.
He smells like old lady, you know how old ladies smell right?
Well he smells like that, so I'm thinking that some old lady either accidentally let him out, died, or was rushed away by ambulance, and in the ensuing chaos, this lovable guy got out and got locked out.
He is such a sweet lover-boy kitty, someone loved him a lot, he just loves people so so much, so I know whoever owns him took care of him until he somehow got out and got lost.
I'm really thinking that his getting out was some sort of accident, and either the owner is in the hospital or dead, or maybe just away on Christmas vacation, who knows, and I'm going to do everything I can to find his owner, but in the meantime, he's going to stay here in the house where it's safe and warm, and he can get and give lots of good loving like he's obviously used to.

October 30, 2008

Haunted house and cooking fun!

My ex-neighbors showed up again today and wanted to take Sebastian with them tonight to go to a haunted house down near the arena.
The arena is used for all kinds of things year round, but mostly for farm and animal shows, so at Halloween when they fix up the whole grounds for haunted houses and all the various food vendors and games to play, (think state fairs and carnivals) they have to move most of the cattle supplies around or remove them completely to make room.
They actually use the cattle barrier fences to help make the maze-like patterns in the haunted houses.

So anyway, Sebastian is gone to that, he'll be eating with them, and he'll be home around 10pm or so.
Mark didn't want to go, he said he was too tired.
He gets like this every "winter", the cooler air just makes him wickedly tired and drained until he gets used to the weather and the difference in time and daylight hours.
It is dark out when they leave for school, and dark around 7pm every night, so it always feels more night-time-ish than it really is, and it affects him for a couple of weeks.

Dinner tonight is deli-meat sandwiches for Mark and I, and hopefully I can go do some grocery shopping tomorrow to get more food and the food supplies I need to make on my new George Foreman grill to do a product review of.
I tested it out today to make a ham and cheese sandwich for my lunch, and it works awesome!
I love the little grill marks on it, and it tasted so good.

The grill was wicked easy to clean up too.
A little bit of the cheese melted out and onto the grill plates.
Once the grill was cool, I just used the little scraper/spatula things that are included, and the cheese just slid off.
Then I just wiped the plates down with a wet paper towel, and bammo! It looked as good as new, like I didn't even cook on it at all.
I freaking love this new grill and am so excited to show you how awesome it works.
I absolutely love kitchen cooking gadgets, love love love, I would buy every single cooking gadget out there if I could afford them all and had a much larger kitchen, and I have confessed this for eBillme's new shopping confessions contest.
Did you enter it yet?

October 22, 2008

And away they go!

The teens have gone off to Publix to get some food, and asked if they could take one of my self defense products with them.
The answer was a big no.
Knowing them, they'd start messing around with the pepper spray and blast each other in the eyes with it.
They went to get some subs for dinner for them, and some easy foods for me.

My old neighbor swung by again to see if I was doing any better.
Nope.
I feel like crap on a cracker.
I'm tired, achy, hungry, and annoyed.
Why am I annoyed?
Because it's non-stop Rays coverage on the tv.
The news is on and the top freaking story is the World Series?
The stock market took another dump today, and the top news story of the day is the Rays?
Gag.
I understand it's a big deal, the team had sucked forever it seems, and they are finally in the world series, but the top story of the day?
I don't think so.
Honestly, I'll be glad when this is all over.

October 12, 2008

It was a kid filled weekend.

On Friday afternoon, Bobby, the boy who used to live next door to us in the duplex, called and when Sebastian answered the phone, he asked if he could speak to me.
I hopped on and said hey Bobby, what's up?
He said, "Hey Kat, I was wondering, I was hoping anyway, that maybe I could come over and spend the night? Would that be ok?"
I said of course, you're always welcome here, we miss you guys.
And it is true, I do miss them, Bobby and his mom anyway.
Despite all of the drama and problems during the 4 years they lived right next door, he and his mom were good people deep down, they tried to be anyway.

He told me he had to go help his mom do some shopping and then he'd be over.
When he got here, he told us that he and his mom hate the new house, he hates it the most.
There are no kids at all in the neighborhood, not even babies or toddlers, no older kids, no one at all for him to play with, and how much he misses the teens even though they used to get into fights all of the time.
I told him again that he was welcome here, he can come back on the weekends and spend the night, no biggie.
He was so happy.

So the teens and he laughed and played all night, and then on Saturday, Mark went with his Big George, and Mindy was taking me grocery shopping and to get my meds, so we took Sebastian and Bobby with us to help pick up all the heavy stuff that I can't.
We got back home and pulled in the driveway, and Mark and George pulled in right behind us, so now I had 3 teenagers to help carry all of the groceries in the house.
Yay!

Sebastian and Bobby were having so much fun, they asked if he could spend the night again, I said yes, and so they all continued playing and having fun.
But having 3 teenage boys in the house means that it's loud, very loud, so I didn't get any rest at all, no lay down time on the couch for me, and both nights I had terrible insomnia.
I'm completely wiped out today, probably why I screwed up and posted the post below to this blog and not my other one.
I've been doing so good keeping my health issues off of this blog, but after so many years logging in here to blog, mixed with tired, I just started posting here again.
I would have deleted it, but the RSS had already picked it up, so I just left it.
Oh well.

Bobby went back home this morning, and he gave me a hug before he left.
There was a small hint of sadness in his eyes, he really does miss the boys, miss living here, and I think he finally realizes that all of the lying he did, all of the problems he created between his mom and me, may have played a really big part in his family moving away, he's really a different kid, more helpful, more kind, more mature.

Also, having 3 loud teens all weekend, made me unable to keep up with blog feeds and stuff, so I'm trying now to go through them all.
All 358 of them that came in since 3:20pm on Friday afternoon.
Yowza.

August 27, 2008

She's home and fine.

Just wanted to update this entry.

I kept calling my ex-neighbors cell phone and not getting any answer, and her voice mail wasn't answering either, so I just kept calling about once an hour since she left.
She just called me about 5 minutes ago, said that she made it home ok, she was very very tired the whole way, so she cranked the AC, the radio, and also drove along with the windows rolled down, kept smoking cigs one after the other, and she had a diet soda with her, so she kept taking drinks at every red light or stop until she made it all the way home.

Once she got in the house, she kicked off her Crocs, put her purse and stuff down, she went to her fave chair, and she said as soon as she sat and got comfortable, she fell asleep, like just passed out.
She stayed asleep until just now.
She said her husband and son just let her stay sleeping and they ordered pizza for dinner, because she so very rarely sleeps, they figured she needed it.
She apologized for not calling me to let me know, and said her cell was in her purse so neither her husband or son heard it ringing, otherwise they would have answered it and let me know she was ok.
Then she started crying because she felt bad that she made me worry, and how much it sucked that we lived so far away now, she's scared about having something like this happen at home and have no one around, how I was always around for her when her diabetes would make her all sick and dizzy and stuff.

There's not much I can say or do about that, but I told her I was glad she made it home and was safe, that's all that mattered.

August 27, 2008

She shouldn't be driving. At all.

My ex-neighbor called me a little bit ago, wanted to swing by and pick up any mail that was still being delivered here until the post office completes the change of address switch, and she said she wanted to talk about something important.
Now knowing her as well as I've come to know her over the 4.5 years they lived right next door, my mind wondered what she wanted.
Did she need help at her new place to finish unpacking?
Did she need me to watch her son, did she want to sell me something because she had a bill to pay?
It could have been anything knowing her.

She finally gets here, honks the horn on her minivan, I grab her stack of mail and head to the carport.
She's disgusted she says, just look at this house!
Look at how clean the outside is!
Why didn't the landlord come pressure wash the house when we lived here?!
Damn him!
I just shook my head, shrugged, and said he's just been doing outside cleaning, gotta keep up on the lawn and stuff I guess.
But in my head I'm screaming, "He couldn't come pressure wash the outside of the house you crazy dirty woman! You had stuff, crap, boxes, weight benches, Halloween decorations, fish tanks, Gar-bage, all over the place out here, not to mention your actual garbage from inside your house that you'd pile out here, stack it as high as you could, use my trash cans when yours were overflowing and teaming with rancid meat and gallons of rotten milk! You wanted him to move all of that crap so he could pressure wash?!"

Then she starts telling me about the new house, they've only been living there for about 1.5-2 weeks now, and already, just as I suspected, she's already found multiple problems, leaks, the toilet runs, one of the windows doesn't close all the way, the air conditioner makes this weird rattling noise every night at like 3am that wakes her up from her sleep, when she can sleep that is, because she keeps hearing things she says, like an animal, maybe mice, or rats, in the walls. (This was said oh so dramatically, so I used multiple commas for effect)
I nod, not really sure how to respond to that.

She then starts telling me about her day, I'm patiently waiting for her to get to the "important" thing she needed to talk to me about, and she says that she just came from her new diabetes doctor, the one she waited 3 months to be able to see, and how when she got there they tried to tell her they couldn't see her, that they tried to call and reschedule her appointment, but when they called, her phone had been disconnected.
Here it comes I'm thinking to myself, she needs to either borrow some money to get it turned back on, or wants to sell me something so it can be turned back on.
She says she refused to be shuttled out, demanded to be seen, she had waited 3 months for this appointment and wasn't leaving until they saw her.
So they saw her and confirmed that her diabetes was seriously out of control.
They checked her levels and it was bad, so they wrote her a script for glucose and a monitor, but she told them she couldn't afford the monitor, so the doc gave her one for free, and then they gave her an injection of glucose and told her to go get her scripts filled immediately, taught her how to use the meter, how to inject etc, and then she left and came straight here.

She said for a few minutes, she didn't feel anything, but then it started to hype her up, that the whole drive here, she felt like she was on speed.
I started thinking about the one time my dc gave me a glucose injection, how it made me feel, and how other diabetics I know who have injected too much, have the same reaction I had that one time.
You get all hyped up, feel like you could run a marathon, lift a milion pounds, you feel awesome.
For about 20 minutes and then you crash hard.
Because the crash can hit you quickly and you get wicked way tired, almost to the point of passing out, you really have to be careful.
I didn't tell her any of this, she's still talking about her appointments, the bills, how her son is doing at his new school, when I see it happening.
Her eyes are rolling in the sockets, her eyelids start drooping, she's slurring her speech, and has started to drool.
She goes to start the car back up to go home, says she'll call me from her cell later on, but she was starting to feel tired so she wanted to get home, but oh yeah, she needs to go grocery shopping and her son is at school, so can I go with her. *slurr, drool, eyeballs rolling back*
I ask her to come in the house, cool off, take a short rest, she's not looking or sounding good I tell her, she's sugar crashing, she shouldn't be driving.
She says no, she's fine, can I go with her to Publix right now.
No, I tell her, come in the house, you shouldn't be driving, your eye lids keep closing, your falling asleep sitting here, please don't drive, come rest, it'll be ok but you need to rest, please come in the house and I've got some juice, you need some juice and to sit for a little bit.
No she says, she's slurring really bad now, cranks the key again but the car is already on, says she's got to go, go home and nap, she'll call me to go shopping later or take her son when he gets home.

Their new house is about 10 miles from here, you have to go down some really busy 8 lane roads to get there, lots of traffic lights etc, and all I can think is she's gonna crash, she's going to get in an accident and be the cause of it, and somebody is going to get hurt and I know she let her car/travel insurance lapse, it hasn't been paid since May, they couldn't afford it, and so when she gets in an accident and hurts somebody or really bangs up their car, she's going to be in trouble because of the no insurance thing, they will either give her a ticket or arrest her, most likely arrest her because this will be the 4th traffic stop, the 4th time being caught with no insurance, and they warned her that the next time they caught her, she'd go to jail.
I told her if she insisted on leaving right now and going home, to please call me and let me know she made it in the house safely.
She hasn't called yet, I tried calling her cell and got no answer.

August 25, 2008

Pit hairs and mommy thoughts.

That is Sebastian's armpit.
He came to me last night right before bed, all excited.
"Mom! Come see! Come see in the light! I have pit hairs!"
Can I take a picture? Can I blog it?
"Yes! You can take a pic! You can blog it! This is awesome! I have pit hairs! Woo hoo!"
Ok, be right there buddy. Hahaa

So I went in the bathroom and he raised his arm up.
There in his little 15 year old armpits, were a few strands of hair, maybe 6 or 7, maybe less.
But the fact that he finally had pit hairs was a major huge deal to him.
He had this huge cheesy grin on his face, his cheeks were beat red from a combination of laughing and embarrassment over his excitement about "starting to become a man."
He called Mark to come in and see it all too.
Mark laughed, he laughed, and then he begged Mark to show off his manly pit hairs.
Mark took off his shirt, and Sebastian's glee turned to embarrassment and a sort of sadness.
"Mark has more than me, he's really hairy, more man than me."
I explained to him that having lots of pit hairs isn't what makes a man a man, it's the things that man will do in his life that will make him a man.

Then he looked down at Mark's legs which are covered in dark hair, then lifted his own leg up, rubbed it up and down a few times, and then told me to rub it, to feel that hairs are starting to grow there too.
I obliged him and said "Yup, I feel them growing, you'll have lots of blond hairs on both your legs soon enough, this is your year young man."
He got that big cheesy red-cheeked grin back on his face, and then ran to jump in his bed where he waited for me to come in and do the blanket flip to 'tuck him in'.
I've been doing the blanket flip almost every single night since he was 3 or 4 years old.
He lays down flat on his back, I grab two ends of his blanket, and do the huge flipping motion to make it float back down and cover him completely.
He always giggles, gets red faced, and then tells me he loves me, he'll see me in the morning.
I give him a kiss on his forehead, tell him I love him, turn off his light, and go to say goodnight to Mark.
Mark who is older, more mature, and hasn't wanted his blanket flipped in several years now, is already in his bed, blanket on, doesn't want to be tucked in or kissed goodnight.
He prefers instead to high-five me, says "love ya", and I tell him I love him and then pull the string to turn off his light and leave his room.

They are my kids, my baby boys, but they are becoming men right before my eyes with all the teenage giggles and embarrassment of growing hairs in all those places that hairs grow.
They are also as different as night and day, two totally opposite people with different ideas of fun, different life plans are being mapped out, they fight all of the time, yet they are also the best of friends.
They are both kind and respectful towards others, they helped our landlord this afternoon haul the crap from the newly emptied duplex apartment next door, to the curb.

It is amazing how much crap the old neighbors left behind.
A washing machine, a huge rusted out meat smoker that was behind the house, a kitchen table, boxes, all kinds of stuff.
He had to rip out all of the carpeting from every room, they really did a number on that apartment, but he's going to be fixing and cleaning, re-painting, and laying down all new carpeting.
He's been in there every day for a few hours a day, just busting his ass to clean up the property.
We asked if he needed help, he kept saying no, but both boys saw him struggling to haul things out and all the way to the end of the drive, and they just jumped in and started grabbing the ends of the carpet rolls and huge wooden beams that neither the landlord or myself, knew where the hell they came from, and helped him take it all out.

In between helping him haul stuff, they mowed our lawn, and Sebastian even did a few rows near the drive, he can't go all the way into the grass due to some underground hornets nests and his allergies, but he helped as much as he could.
Mark has a head cold, he's all congested, so Sebastian is trying to help him with his chores.
It was hot out there, Mark had to keep coming in, drinking a lot of water, and standing in front of the AC to cool down.
When they finally finished with everything, I gave him a couple cold tablets and told him to lay on the couch with the cold AC blowing on him, and kept refilling his water glass.
I finished making dinner, they ate, and are now playing some video game together.
It's quiet in there, a little too quiet actually.
I fully expect some name calling or some sort of disagreement to break out soon.
That's how they roll.
One minute, best buds working in perfect harmony, the next, shouting at each other and ready to gouge out each other's eyeballs.

It still amazes me every day that these are my little boys, my babies.
They used to be so small, so needy, so cuddly.
They are grown up, growing up, and becoming really cool and interesting people.
I marvel at this whole mommy job every day.
It's constantly changing, my role that is.
It used to be the do it all for them role, cut up their foods into itty bitty pieces, bathe them, cuddle, read, play, tie their shoes and all kinds of other things.
Now my role is basically cook and laundry do-er.
They can do everything else for themselves, they don't need cuddling anymore, they don't need help tying their shoes, they just keep on growing up and doing for themselves, becoming their own individual people and doing it all on their own.

It's been such an interesting ride, at times I feel like I missed a few things along the way, but watching them, having some intense conversations with them, I think whatever I did miss out on seeing or being a part of, I somehow caught up with it anyway.
They really are turning out pretty freaking awesome.
They are mine, they are their own, and they will be really awesome men when they get older.

August 18, 2008

Bye, thanks for the mess to clean up.

My neighbors have officially moved out.
They were mostly finished on Sunday evening, they came back today for just a couple more things, and then her husband came back over supposedly to clean up all the trash.
Wanna see his idea of cleaning up all the trash?
You can click for bigger.

He pushed all of their trash cans over near mine, and just dumped a bunch of stuff on top of them.
Broken garbage bags, pool floaties, moldy wet carpets, all kinds of crap.
Then over on that side of the duplex, is all the rest of their garbage.
There's no trash pickup tomorrow, it will come on Wednesday instead, but they aren't going to be coming back to put theirs to the curb.
Her husband said to me after I went out and told him about the no trash pick up due to the storm, "Well your boys can take care of this on Tuesday night then. You were good neighbors, the wife is really sad about leaving you, you were a good friend to her. All she's done is cry because we're moving away from you. Call her every now and then would ya? She really cares about you and your boys."

She is a good woman deep down, no matter how messed up their lives were, she did try to be a good person, she did care, and I know that when we said our goodbyes on Sunday, she was really choked up about moving away from us.
She said she didn't know what she was going to do now, what will happen to her when she has another diabetes spell, I was always there, I always heard her and came over to help, what's she gonna do, she just kept saying.
I told her she could call me anytime, I couldn't go to her, no car, but she could talk to me whenever she wanted.
She just cried even more.

But damn that man for leaving all that fucking trash for us to take care of.
The boys and I will take care of it, I don't want the landlord to have to deal with it, he works so much as it is, and he's going to have to do some major cleaning in there before he can rent it out again, so we'll deal with their trash on Tuesday night.
Well, whatever doesn't get blown away in tomorrow's storm.
I just can't believe they left all of that crap.
At the curb, he put a huge blue sectional sofa and a microwave before I finally realized someone was out there and told him about the no trash pick up.
I should have just let him take it all to the curb had I known he was going to be an ass and not come back to take care of it himself.
Sometimes, I just don't think things all the way through.

August 16, 2008

So much for that idea.

I was planning on going grocery shopping, but then the skies opened up and the heavy rains started. coming down.
And my neighbors who are moving, have parked all of their cars and trucks loaded with stuff. underneath the carport.
Yay.

August 8, 2008

Being our usual.

My neighbor called me, they needed a babysitter for a couple of hours tonight, and I said that I couldn't do it, and Mark offered to do it.

So Mark is watching a little baby named Jessie James and his older sister who is 3, named Loren.
They have Fios tv and the closed captioning is turned on, and I have absolutely no idea how to turn it off.
It's kind of annoying trying to watch the opening ceremonies with that on.
I keep going back over there to help Mark out, so he's not alone, but I said no to babysitting because of how much stress I'm under.
But I'll probably be the one doing most of the babysitting.
It kind of figures.

August 2, 2008

Why me? No really, why me?

My neighbors will be moving, yuppers, gone in just a few short weeks.
Not only will it be good to be rid of them, but also rid of some of their friends.

One of them, her name is Nikki, is always coming to my door trying to sell me stuff, like yard sale type items, but she personally goes door to door trying to unload them.
She just brought over some crib bedding and asked me if I'd like to buy it seeing as I have kids.
For the millionth time, I told her that yes, I do have kids, but they are almost adults now, I have no use for crib bedding.
Oh, she says, I forgot.
Yeah, ok Nikki.

It will be really nice to get rid of the whole lot of them.

August 1, 2008

They're moving.

My neighbor was one of the unfortunate people who called me this morning after I had finally fallen asleep after being awake for 39 some odd hours.
These are my duplex neighbors who were planning on suing my landlord.
So I guess I can be thankful that instead of a lawsuit, they are just moving away.
They're going over there tonight to finalize the whole thing, it's a lot more rent, but supposedly everything is included.
Good for them.
But knowing them, they will find a problem or two and start complaining about the new place or the new landlord within a month of moving in.

They will be moving out within 2-3 weeks, and so far she's super excited.
It has a HUGE kitchen she said, huge, all new appliances, the bathrooms all have those rustic looking farmhouse sinks, and big claw foot bathtubs, and there's no carpet anywhere in the whole house, it's all Mexican floor tiles in every single room.
They are renting the entire downstairs of this house, and there are two apartments upstairs, with a few people living in them.
I can almost guarantee that there will be problems with these new neighbors, I pity the new neighbors.
They will be drawn in to their world of anger and issues, and dependency, just like I was.

Now I just need to keep my fingers crossed that the next people to move into this other half of the plex will be somewhat sane, normal, friendly, nice.
Keep all your body parts crossed for me.
I've never had a normal neighbor on that side of this plex in 10 years of living here.

July 30, 2008

I'll be your hero today ma'am!

So my neighbor and I both had to go to Amscot today, it's not far from our house at all, and she had a quarter of a tank of gas left.
It should have been more than enough to get to us there and back to our street to get gas.

As we're coming back down US41, we swing that left at the huge intersection of 41 and Stickney, the van starts sputtering, dying, it's running out of gas.
Crap.
We manage to make it through the intersection and about another 150 ft or so, when it's just dead, not going to move another inch.
So her son gets out and starts pushing the van, he's 12 years old, he's small, you would think that someone would stop and help push the van to the gas station right?
But noooo, no one stops to help.
I tell her to let me out, that if I get out and just start pushing, we'll actually get a few guys to help us.
She doesn't think it will work, I bet her $5 it will, and I get out and put my hands on the car.
All of a sudden, da-da-da da dadum! I'll be your hero today ma'am! 3 guys are suddenly offering to help push us.
A guy on a bike, a guy parked his Bronco in a lot, and another guy who's walking, are all helping push the van to the gas station, about 30 more feet from where we were.
They were pushing that thing so hard and so fast, I had to stop. I couldn't keep up with them, and it's a good thing I did because her son dropped his Swiss Army knife out of one of his pockets as they were all pushing and running the van down the street.

We get the van to the gas station, her son is now putting the gas in and had gone in to pay for the gas and get us all something to drink, it was so hot out, and I put my hand in front of her, palm up, and said "$5 bucks please!"
We both started laughing, but it's amazing that nobody stopped to help a kid push a car, but as son as they see a woman, big strong men come out to help.
Female in distress! Help! Help! *laughs*
I didn't make her pay me the $5, it was just a funny thing, but it is pretty sad that no one helped the kid, but they'll help a woman.

July 22, 2008

Can it be replaced? Please?

Mark didn't mow the lawn yesterday because it started to rain a little bit, so he had to wait until this evening to do it.
And then the rip/pull cord on the mower broke.

We had to borrow the neighbors lawn mower in order to finish our front yard.
So can the rip cord things be replaced, or do I have to buy another mower again?
The mower itself is still in good condition, the cord just broke, and it's now inside the cord storage area thing, I can't pull it out to tie the two ends back together, or even if it can be tied back together.
Do they make cord repair kits?
Is it it even called a lawn mower rip cord repair/replacement kit?
Help!!!!

July 17, 2008

I wish I had taken my camera!

Mindy came to pick me up this morning for my doctor's appointment, and her daughter Katie started telling me about the car that was stuck in the ditch.
I know this happens all the time on my street, but usually I see the people do it and then attempt to get it out of the ditch.

So we rode back down the way they came so I could see the car.
The people must have had a party last night and one of their guests drove head first into the ditch, and the car is still there.
Hopefully no one got hurt, or they might end up needing some type of Chicago personal injury lawyers or something to go after the city.

The ditches on my street are really deep, about 4 feet deep, because the city comes along and digs them deeper every summer so the rain doesn't get backed up and flood the street.
I've seen tons of cars end up in the ditches over the last 10 years living here.
I've seen drunks swerve and end up in them and then try to get them back out before the cops show up.
I once had one of the elementary school lunch ladies end up in the one right in front of my house after she took out my mailbox with her car.
She was plastered at 4 in the afternoon!
She was trying to get her car out, spinning her wheels, it's not like you can just back up and get your car out, it actually has to be towed out.
She was crying, trying to push her car, I offered to call a tow truck for her and she said no because they'd call the cops on her.
I had to tell her it was too late, the cops had already been called.
She started yelling at me, and I was all hold on lady, it wasn't me, it was my cranky ass neighbor, and she was just screaming and freaking out.

The cops did show up and arrested her because she was hammered, and I look over and my neighbor Bill, he's dead now, is standing in his doorway, shorts on, no shirt, chest all covered in scars from his multiple heart surgeries, with this big smile on his face and a moon pie in his hand.
That guy was never happy unless someone else was miserable.

July 6, 2008

Dealing with a lying, scheming kid.

I went and dug through my archives, and nope, I haven't posted about the situation with the kids in the neighborhood, so I'll do that now.

A few weeks ago I got a call from my neighbor, she's the mother of the boy who about a year and a half ago, maybe longer, who had been doing all that lying/truth telling about his father abusing him.
The real truth has never been discovered, but what the kid discovered, is that lying to get people in trouble works in his favor, it makes things go his way for awhile.

During this phone call, she starts going off about how Sebastian is older than all the other kids in the hood, that her son and another little boy aged 12 or so, have been friends since the 2nd grade, and Sebastian just sorta moved himself into their little circle of friends and how violent he is when they play.
She said that her son told her that Sebastian punched this other kid in the side of the head so hard that his head split open and he had to go get stitches.
I said hold on a minute, this kid had to get stitches and this is the first I'm hearing about it?!
Why didn't his mother call me or come to my house, if my kid gets hurt by another, damn first thing I'm doing, any reasonable parent does, is notify the parents of the offending child that something happened.
She starts yelling even louder that this really did happen, her son said so, the parents of ALL the other kids don't want Sebastian around, etc etc.
I found that to be rather odd because one of the other kids in this little group had just been at our house that morning inviting Sebastian over to play.
So I went next door, this lying kid has a hard time lying face to face, he gets red, looks down and to the left.
Left lying, right remember, it's a cop trick to know when people are lying about stuff.

I get over there and start asking more questions, telling her what really happened that day, that it was another child who actually hit this kid in the head, but it wasn't hard, it was actually a finger flick, no skin ripped open, no being rushed to the ER, no stitches.
Her son wasn't even there that day, he was off at a swimming party with a different friend.
I looked right at the boy and asked him who told him this.
He starts stuttering, uh uh, that's what I was told, I don't know if it's true or not, they told me it was.
Who is they? Who are the parents who don't want Sebastian around? And exactly how many stitches did this require, and why did this mother not come to my door and yell at me for this?
A pissed off parent usually goes straight to the other parent and bitches them out for serious bodily injuries.

He keeps stuttering, looking left, has no direct answers, his mom is now yelling at me for interrogating her perfect son.
I said to her, "How many times has he lied and gotten you and your husband in trouble for child abuse? How many times does he lie about all kinds of stuff? You are constantly telling me that he lies about even the simplest things, yet you're going to take his word for this without speaking to the boy who supposedly got hurt or his mother? If your son and he have been friends all these years, you should have his phone number, call her right now and ask about the stitches. I demand to know how many stitches, I want to see the injury, and I want this kid to tell me Sebastian did it."

Her son starts stuttering even more, says he hasn't seen any stitches, he now thinks the other kids in the hood may have been lying.
She now starts saying oh, if there's no injury, then there's no reason to call this kid's mother.
I started yelling at this point.
"I'm sick and tired of the lying! I'm sick and tired of him lying about Sebastian all the time! So here's what's going to happen. Sebastian is no longer allowed to play with your son or any of the other lying brats in the hood. Period. That way, if someone does get hurt, no one can blame him because he won't be anywhere near any of them. They can find the real culprit of the bullshit, which is the known liar, and they can deal with him and his mother. I'm sick of this shit."

She yells at me for calling her son a liar, and I said you call him that yourself every single day, so don't start saying he's Mr. Fucking Innocent right now. Not going to happen.
She apologizes, makes him apologize to me, and asks if her son and Sebastian can still be friends.
I said "That's up to Sebastian, I can't make him be friends with someone who lied about him causing injury to another child, making people afraid of him, making the other kids in the hood not want to be around him. Why would he want to be friends with someone who lies about him all the time?"

She makes her son come outside and apologize, Sebastian doesn't care, goes back in our house.
I said "See what happens when you lie? You lose a good friend, someone who actually liked hanging out with you. Too bad. maybe one of these days you'll learn not to lie and make up bullshit stories."
He started crying, apologized to me again, I came inside too.

This morning, she calls me up and goes through this huge story about her husband being mad about the fireworks mess in the driveway her son made, he's not home right now, so could Sebastian go out and clean it up? She'll pay him to do it, $10.
I said he's sleeping and it's up to him when he wakes up.
I'm not going to make him save her son's ass even if Sebastian wanted the $10.
That kid is a lying, scheming, pain in my ass.
If her husband gets pissed off about the mess, he can yell at his own son who made the mess.
Not our doing, not our mess, not our problem.

June 19, 2008

The one time she should have asked me for help.

My neighbor called me this afternoon, she needed my help installing a new memory card in her desktop computer.
No problem I said! I've done this a lot, be right there.
I get in there and took one look at what she bought, and it was obvious it wasn't the right kind.
She bought laptop memory cards.
Laptop cards are fatter than desktop cards.

Anyway, she has a Dell desktop, and she at least knew her computer was a Dell when she went to the store.
But I'd like to know what kind of yahoo salesman didn't ask her if she has a desktop or laptop.
Or maybe she just picked one out on her own, looked for the little signs that say compatible with Dell, Acer, Gateway, Sony, etc etc.
So I had the oh so pleasant job of telling her she got the wrong kind, and she was pissed off, said she thought she was doing so good that for once she didn't need my help, started to get really upset and almost started crying.
I told her to put it back in the package and take it back, and hopefully the store will let her exchange it out for the correct kind which I wrote down for her.
I wrote down her Dell model name and number, and the size memory card she wanted, and her oldest son who is visiting is going to try taking it back.
He's the one who drove her out to get it, and tried to help her install it.
He's 19 and obviously knows as much about computers as she does.
Not much.
I told her when he gets back if they let him exchange it for the right one, that if her son couldn't install it to call me.

There are certain things I don't mind helping her with, like her computer stuff.
She's an older woman, and this is the first time she's ever had a computer, and she didn't even know how to get on the internet when she first got the computer.
She thought all you had to do was set up and plug everything in, and open IE up, and it would just go to the internet.
When it didn't just go and I had to explain that she needed an ISP, she had no idea what that was.
When I explained it to her, she was like, "Well how do I get one of those? Do I have to have a special kind of plug, and where does it plug into? There are no ISP plugs on my walls?"
I couldn't help but laugh, that was kinda cute, something an older person with no computer knowledge at all would ask.
So then I had to explain to her that she needed to call Verizon or Comcast, and tell them she needs internet service, DSL if she went with Verizon, or Comcast if she went with cable.
She had Comcast cable for her tvs already, so I told her to just call them and they would come out and hook it up.

She's getting better at it all the time, she finally learned how to print things after only showing her about a dozen times.
Then when she got a little cheapo digital camera, I taught her how to upload them to her computer, and then taught her how to attach them to emails.
She takes tons of pictures now and sends them to everyone, she loves it.
But of course being so new to the internet, she is caught up in the annoying forwards and chain emails.
She sends me dozens of them every single week.
At first I tried to tell her that all those forwards and chain emails are junk, crappy stuff that people send and expect to get back after we've sent it on to all our friends, but the majority of people on the net hate them with a passion.
She apologized, but she keeps doing it.
I just delete them now and when she asks if I read that cute email with the little bunny and the angel, I just say yes, it was so adorable and funny.

I don't even want to tell you how long it took me to help her when she bought a camera phone.

June 18, 2008

I am not the 411.

My neighbors.
*sigh*

I was laying on the couch trying to catch a little nap, not much sleep last night thanks to Shahiro, and they called.
They wanted the phone number for the cab company.
Um, the cabbie gave them a card last time, and she programmed it into her phone, but ya know, gotta call me for it anyway.

What I need is like a cell phone repeater or some kind of machine, that repeats information and just replays it for when they call.
I can record some scenarios that they would need answers to like the cab company, the phone company, and all the food delivery places.
Then when they call, instead of answering, the machine will pick it up, recorded with my voice of course, make it say hello, and stuff, then ask what they need.
"You need the number for the cab company? It's 922-6666. Is that all, cuz I'm right in the middle of some important stuff here? It is, great. bye."

Some get right on making that for me ok?
Thanks.

June 12, 2008

Neighbor, not servant.

This afternoon and evening, is just dragging by.
Probably because I'm not as busy today as I normally am.
It's been rainy off and on, so my joints are stiff, so I've been trying to take it as easy as possible today.
I have a long car ride tomorrow, and tend to get super stiff riding for that long, so yeah, I tried to have an easy day.

But that's just not possible when you have a needy neighbor.
I try so hard to be understanding of her, I really do.
Disabled, lonely, bored, lonely, Oh I said that one, um, alone even if her husband and son are home, so she's very needy.
She calls literally 5-10 times per day, needing help with a multitude of things.
She dropped her glasses and can't reach them, she doesn't understand her health insurance, can I come explain it to her, she needs help with her laundry, or like today, her cat knocked over the tv stand and now everything is on the floor behind it, and she can't watch tv.
Oh, and then she needed stuff from the store, and was I going to be going.
Um, no, I went yesterday, with her, and she bought $241 worth of crap.

So yeah, she needed someone to come fix all of her tv stuff.
Sebastian is not home, won't be home till tomorrow morning at 8am, and Mark was asleep all day.
I let him sleep, I don't have a problem with that.
She did though.
She wanted me to wake him up to come pick up and fix all her stuff.
I said when he wakes, I would ask him, but I'm not going to make him do anything he doesn't want to.
We are not going to spend our whole summer taking care of her and her home.
It's already started, it's been this way for awhile.
Her son is a lazy jerk, he won't do any chores even if she pays him, so she asks my boys, and because I've raised my boys to help people who need it, they do.
So she's taking advantage of us.

Today, I said no, I wouldn't make him do anything, he needs a break, a day to just have fun.
And I also played sick.
I know, it's terrible of me, but she has called no less than 7 times today, and each time I have told her I am not feeling well so I won't be going to any stores or doing anything, plus, my back hurts and I need to rest.
And when she kept calling, I had Mark answer and tell her I went to bed due to not feeling well.

I feel horrible about lying, but even after having said no to her, she continued to call and request help with stuff.
I felt like I was left with no choice but to lie.
I do not like lying to people, but when I say no and it's completely ignored like I should just do what she wants, I had to in order to just get some peace and quiet.
And I really believe it is because of how needy some of the people in my life are, that I have a very hard time asking others for help even if I truly need it.
Mindy offers so often to help me, and I know I need help sometimes, but I don't ever want to be seen as a burden or hated because I need help sometimes ya know?
Does that make sense?

So I'm going to go take care of a few things I need to finish up for myself tonight, and then I'm going to go make some popcorn in the popcorn machines, and watch some bad tv shows or play with my Sims until I need to go to bed.
I set several alarms including a wake up call, so I will be ready in the am.
Later days.

June 6, 2008

Delivered to the wrong house again.

I'm pretty sure my street has a new mailman, I never see the regular guy anymore at all, heck, I never even see the mail truck anymore.
But whoever is delivering the mail now, keeps giving me my neighbors mail.
Not my next door neighbor, but a neighbor 10 houses up.
Our house addresses are exactly 1 number dfferent.
I'm 5328, and they are 5428.
I don't know how they can make that mistake repeatedly, there's a big difference in the appearance of the numbers 3 and 4.

But anyway, once again, I got their mail which includes the husband's guitar magazine, and the wife's furniture catalog.
From reading the address info on the back of it, I think she's an interior designer.
I have to confess something.
I flip through their magazines before I send Sebastian up the street to stick them in their mailbox.
Is that a crime?
I know you can't tamper with other people's mail, like open envelopes and stuff, but these are magazines with no seal keeping them closed, no plastic wrap, just wide open and ready to be read magazines.
Am I breaking the law by flipping through them?

The guitar magazine is very cool, there are some beautiful ones in there, custom designed and painted ones, and an order form to get a custom painted one if you want one.
They are way expensive though.
And her furniture mags, oh man, I love looking through them.
The pieces are just so gorgeous, and the beds and sofas look incredibly comfy, and there's all these paintings and throw pillows and stuff that you can buy to make the whole room come together.

But I get done flipping through them, get done oohing and ahhing over the stuff, and then I send Sebastian up the street to plop them in their mailbox.
What's funny about this mail mix-up is that they never get any of my mail, I've asked, and nope, they don't.
I need to stake out my mailbox one of these days and drive home to the mail person that 3 and 4 are not the same number, and he needs to pay closer attention to what he's cramming in my mail box.

May 29, 2008

I would like to call a do-over for today.

I have been pretty much going non-sop since 8am, taking care of my neighbor and my own home, and my kids.
Mark is done with school for the year, so he was home all day.
Sebastian only had one exam today, so he was back home by 9:30am, and now he's done for the year.
I installed another expansion pack for his Sims game, and then he went on a download spree and screwed up the entire Sims installation.
So I had to uninstall all of the game packs and all of the crap he downloaded, and reinstall the whole thing again.
I was running back and forth between doing this at my house, and trying to help my neighbor again today with all the medical appointments she has to do.
And at some point in running back and forth and trying to take care of everyone and make people happy, I yanked my frigging shoulder muscle again.
It's on fucking fire right now, and burning all the way across my chest too.
Gah.
I need to take a muscle relaxer and get a nap in to make this stop.

May 28, 2008

A follow up to the scary morning post.

I'm just following up this post I wrote the other morning about my neighbor who was in really bad shape.

Ok, first of all, the reasons she didn't want to go to the hospital.
Number 1, her husband is a dick.
Yes, this is that neighbor.
Second, she was worried about her son, the what ifs were scaring her.
If she was admitted, who would care for her son, her husband is a dick, she didn't want her son coming home to her not being there, he'd be scared.
The reason she was so out of it was because her oxygen tank had been turned off completely, she had taken 2 muscle relaxers and 2 very potent pain pills, and fell into a deep pain pill sleep.
Her pupils were like pin dots, I should have known it was pain medication that was causing this.
But when you combine those potent pills with a diabetic with congestive heart failure, and no oxygen getting to her, you end up with someone in a very bad state.

Her doctor did not admit her to the hospital, but he did order an xray to try and determine why she's in so much pain and unable to move much.
Well the results of the xray are back, and she's in very bad shape.
Cervical discs 3-7 are pretty much destroyed, and there's a rotator cuff issue as well.
She has to go for an open MRI tomorrow morning at 9:30am.
She then has an appointment with an endocrinologist on June 2nd, for her diabetes and a TON of blood work, and we are waiting on the neurologist to call back so we can schedule that appointment.

I was over at her house for about the last hour or so, helping her make all these appointments because she can barely move at all, and she has no one who can help her make all these calls.
She called her husband who was out of work already, and he basically told her to do it herself, he'd be home when he gets home.
The doctor put her on even stronger medication for the pain, and so I'm also trying to make sure she doesn't take more than she should be taking.
Personally, I think her doctor wrote her script too high.
He put her on 30mg oxycontin, 2 at at time, every 4 hours.
That's way, way, way too much oxy.
I read the pill bottle and was like whoah, that is far too much, and she handed me her papers from her appointment today.
That's what he wrote out for her to take.
Still, I'm just thinking it's far too much at once and every 4 hours.

She has to have surgery ASAP, on those cervical discs and the rotator cuff.
She is terrified she won't survive the surgery.
She was crying, thanking me for helping her, and she said she knows she won't come off the table alive.
She said to me "Kat, I'm 44 years old, I weigh 450 pounds, I have congestive heart failure, diabetes, fibromyalgia, and have already had major back surgery 10 years ago. I won't live through this one."
I told her to stop thinking like that, that she can't start thinking negatively, and if she can't try to be positive for herself, she needs to try to be positive for her son who was in the other room, scared out of his mind.
I continued making the phone calls, leaving messages where I had to, leaving her phone number and mine in case they can't reach her, writing down all her appointments on one piece of paper so she can have them all in one place, and organizing her meds for her.
She told me she was very tired, so I told her I was going to let her get some rest, and I'd come back over when the neurologist calls back.
I brought the phone into the room where her son was, told him to answer every call and not make her talk to people, tell them she'd call them back later, she's resting right now, and come get me if it's a doctors office.
I was keeping track of all the appointments, so I need to make sure this one gets scheduled right for her, not on the same day or time as another one.

He asked me if she was going to be ok, he was really scared.
I told him that the doctors are doing everything they can to make her better, that she will get good care, and we'll do what we can do here at home to help her when she comes home from the surgery, just like she did for me when I came home.
She cooked meals for us, helped the boys when she could, gave them rides to get groceries etc. I'll do the same for her.
So that's the update.
I'm scared for her, this is the worst I've seen her in the 4 years they have lived next door to me now, her health is very bad. Part of it is her fault, her weight is a big issue, her doctors have been telling her to lose weight for a long time, but it's too late now.
She just needs to get to all these appointments and get the surgery.
She needs to think positive about this as best she can. Her son needs her to be positive, he's so scared.

May 23, 2008

Scary morning!

My day started off kind of scary.
I called my neighbor to check on her, make sure she was ok and able to get to her doctors appointment, but I got no answer.
I figured she was up and in the shower already, so I was going to wait like 10 minutes and call again.

Then one of our friends comes banging on my door around 8:45, and is yelling that something is seriously wrong with my neighbor, she's not breathing my friend says.
I run over there with her, and my neighbor is in her chair in the living room, her oxygen tank wasn't on, her glasses and phone were on the floor, and she was slumped over in her chair.
We turned the oxygen back on, placed the tubing back in her nose, and started trying to wake her.
She had a pulse but it was very faint.
We finally got her to come around, but her pupils were constricted, like the op of pins, and her skin was a really pale shade, she was slurring as she was trying to speak.
We couldn't make anything out that she was saying except for "no hospital".

We kept talking to her, asking her questions, what medicine did she take, how many etc.
There were 5 different pill bottles dumped on her end table, we had no idea what medicine was what, nor what she took, or how many of these pills.
We got her some coffee, made her drink it through a straw, and the two of us kept saying we need to get her to a hospital.
My neighbor kept saying no, no hospital, please. She started crying, begging us not to take her to the hospital.
It was just scary and sad.
We finally convinced her to go to her doctors office as scheduled, and my friend called off work and drove her.
She said she would tell the doctor how we found her this morning, and if he calls an ambulance, there's nothing my neighbor could do about it.
My friend said she'd call me if her doctor calls an ambulance and has her admitted, so I can contact her husband and take care of her son.
I'm hoping that doesn't happen, but she was in really bad shape.

I thought she was dead when I first walked in.
Slumped over, an icky gray pale color, the oxygen not turned on, things all a mess on the floor and table, and her dog laying near her feet with his head on her foot.
Very scary.
I hate things like that.

May 22, 2008

It's a windy hot rainy kinda day!

My neighbor out back's wind chimes woke me back up.
He has about 4 of them attached to some trees back there, and the wind picked up so it's like a symphony of clanking.
Kind of annoying when you're trying to sleep.

I have some stuff to do this morning, and then an appointment at noon, but I'll be around off and on most of the day.
Later days!

March 29, 2008

That will be 10 per hour, thanks.

I'm trying really hard to get up and get going here, but I stayed up late, couldn't sleep, and then my neighbor needs help with computer stuff again.
Maybe I can charge for computer rental and printer ink?
She has all kinds of stuff she needs to print out for her lawyers and she's not so good with her pc, and personally, I think there's something seriously wrong with it.
It behaves weird.
I've tried fixing it, but I can't find the exact location of the problem, so she comes over here, we login to her email, print out her stuff, then she asks a million questions on 'how do I do' stuff.
I don't really mind, but I have things I have to do today.

I'm trying to gather all my coupons up for the grocery store, find the list I know I wrote out yesterday, and then I need to get in the shower which will help my back loosen up a bit more.
Then, I can go.
Hopefully.

And I seriously need to eat something.
My stomach is rumbling, and meds on an empty stomach is nausea in the making.
Ok, going to go eat, then shower, then attempt to get out of here and get my shopping done so I can come back and clean the house.
Later days!

March 25, 2008

Great tasting meatballs.

I make some really awesome meatballs, and they are really hard to screw up, but even after telling my neighbor how to make them step by step, she messed hers up.
So I'm writing them down for her, which I had not done, just the verbal recipe and directions, and I figured I'd share it with you too.

What you need:
1- 80 count regular flavor frozen meatballs (Armour makes a great product)
1- 12 ounce jar of Concord Grape jelly
1- 18 ounce bottle of original flavor BBQ sauce
1- crockpot or as some people call them, slow cooker
A package of hoagie rolls is optional, we usually just eat them out of a bowl, or get toothpicks and serve them as hors d' oeuvres at a party.
Cheese slices on the hoagies is also optional.

Take the jar of jelly and dump it in the pot, dump in the BBQ sauce and stir the two together, breaking any big clumps of jelly.
Add in the frozen meatballs, and stir them gently to coat with the sauce.
Set your crockpot on low for 6 hours.
Stir gently once an hour during the 6 hours.
Done!

Most people will tell you to not open and stir the contents of your crockpot during cooking, because it lets out the heat.
But with this jelly/BBQ sauce mixture, if you don't stir them at least once every hour to an hour and a half, the meatballs will A) not get all saucy, and B) the meatballs on the bottom will burn.
That's what happened with my neighbors meatballs.
All of the ones on the bottom burned, along with most of the sauce from the bottom, and this gave the flavor a really nasty aftertaste.

Mark and Sebastian can eat these like they've never eaten anything in their whole lives.
They go from making a hoagie, to just grabbing a bowl full of them until the pot is empty.
I try to get in there and get myself some, and set aside a bunch for some leftovers, but I have to do it quickly or the bottomless pit teens will devour them all.

Do you have an awesome and easy meatball recipe?
Post it on your blog or tell me it in my comments.
I'm always up for new and tasty recipes!

March 19, 2008

Money in, money out.

Well I won't be going on any luxury vacations for a long while.
I won't be going on any vacations for awhile.
I just get caught up and slightly ahead on my bills, and something big breaks, like the lawn mower.
But I finally replaced the charcoal exploded lawn mower on Sunday.
Wanna see the one that got blown up?
I kept it in the shed until I could get another one, so the explosion holes are rusted around the edges now from the weather, but just check out what happens when you run a lawn mower over charcoal briquet's that have the lighter fluid already in them.

It blew a massive hole in the side, and it's no longer connected to the rest of it here.

It blew the handle completely off on the left side, it's no longer connected there either.
The back piece where it faces you, this is where sparks were flying out and hit Mark in the face.
He's lucky he didn't get hit in the eyes.

The front of the mower where it got ripped open and sparks were flying out.

I was going to go to the dreaded Walmart to get another one on Sunday, they were cheaper than even Home Depot. They had a mower for $138.99, but one of my neighbors said they had a friend with a mower for $75.00, so I went and took a look at it.
It was a brand new mower that they had sitting in their shed since they bought a riding mower.
They replaced the fuel hose because it had dry rot from just sitting for the last 4 months, but other than that, it was like new, no rust or dull blades or anything, so I bought it.
Mark mowed the lawn Monday after school, and it worked great.

Now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that nothing else breaks and needs replacing.

February 6, 2008

True southern natives.

My neighbor man came home tonight with a whole bunch of stuff in the back of his pickup, and tied to his truck rack.
What kind of stuff?
Stuff his wife didn't want, but he insisted she make room for.

He came home with it all, they argued about the pile of crap as she calls it, and he won the battle, unloaded it in the house, and left for the bar.
He warned her first, that it must all be put away when he comes home.
She called me up, told me what he brought and what he said, and told me to come take a look.

I went over and yup, it is indeed crap.
Old dining chairs that are in really bad shape, another television that probably doesn't work, a big padded foot stool with worn and faded fabric, and a set of old pots and pans, and many more items like knick knacks and old lamps.
He thinks it's all good stuff of course, she thinks it's junk and I agree.
No clue what she'll do with it all, but she probably has until about 11pm to figure it out.

Crazy junk collecting man.

February 4, 2008

I'll report it to his supervisor.

The mail came, and none of it was mine.
My mailbox has HUGE numbers on it, my name is clearly written inside my mailbox, as a matter of fact, it says 'COOPER ONLY' on the inside.

What came in todays mail?
9 pieces of mail for a house 3 doors down.
A name on the envelopes that doesn't even remotely sound, or even spelled close to COOPER.

I called the post office and asked if my route has a new driver.
The guy who answered put me on hold, then came back and said yes, and asked me why.
I explained that I received mail for a house name and number, 3 doors down, and none of my own mail.
He said he'd report it to that drivers supervisor.
I said ok, that's all well and good, but where is MY mail?
I am expecting tax forms and other important documents this week.
We take the mail that isn't ours, and give it to the rightful owners.
Other people don't always do that.
They sometimes throw it out, or write return to sender on it.
If some of these papers I'm expecting get returned to sender, it's going to cause problems for me.
These are time sensitive documents.
I need them.

The guy said he doesn't know where my mail is, but the supervisor will deal with the new driver and tell him about his mistakes.
That doesn't answer my question, all I can do is hope my mail is not lost.

February 3, 2008

Now that was an exciting night!

So we were having the BBQ and watching one of the most intense and well fought super bowl games I've witnessed in a long time, when things got a little exciting right here in my own hood.

The duplex to the direct right of me, the one where the drug dealer just recently moved out of, has new tenants.
They have been in there for about 2, maybe 3 weeks now.
Anyway, we're all cheering, screaming at the tv, eating ribs, wings, pasta salad, deviled eggs, beverages of all kinds, and then we hear screaming of a different kind.

The woman in the duplex, was screaming in pain, the man, be he her boyfriend or spouse, is unknown to any of us, is yelling and screaming back.
Things are being thrown and smashed, dogs are barking, and someone dialed 9-1-1.

At first, just one cruiser showed up with an ambulance for possible injuries in a domestic dispute.
Then another cruiser, and another, and another.
We were all told to get in our houses, so the teens and I came back in ours, Dave went back in his with the rest of his guests.
Within just 7 minutes, there were 9 cruisers and 2 swat vehicles, and the ambulance, and a K-9 unit. They were lined up in front of my plex and that plex, and 3 cruisers were in my driveway.
All the officers were in tactical positions, guns drawn, and aimed at the front door and windows of that duplex.

The man was now holding the woman hostage with some kind of weapon.
It took from the end of the 1st quarter of the game, until the beginning of the last quarter of the game, to get the situation under control.
An officer finally had gotten in the back door of the plex, and got up behind the man, tackled him and disabled the weapon.
The woman was taken by ambulance to the hospital, and the man was cuffed and dragged out by 5 officers.

I was able to watch the entire thing go down from my driveway, no photos, I did try, and got yelled at to turn the camera off and get in a safe position behind a vehicle.
When it was all over, an officer came and apologized for disturbing our super bowl party, but they had to take tactical positions around the property, and that required no citizens to be in the back yards or peering out windows.
I was only allowed to stay in my own driveway because 2 officers and their vehicles were in it, and I stayed behind them.

Between this all, I kept going in and out and checking on the game, the teens did watch it for me and kept me posted through the screen door.
I got to see the awesome last quarter, and am so freaking impressed with how well both teams fought their asses off.
I couldn't believe how it ended, but wow, a damn exciting game.
17-14, un-fucking-real.
Congratulations to the Giants, and well played to the Patriots.
They fought like hell, they should be proud of their season, and how hard they played tonight.

How was your night and super bowl party?

February 3, 2008

Go Pats!

Ok let's see, the teens slept over my sisters house on Friday night, I laid staring at the ceiling until about 6am, and then only slept until 9am.

Last night, Susan stayed over, and once again I couldn't get to sleep.
I was awake the entire night, all day today until 2pm, and I only slept until 3:45pm.
So in the last 48 hours, I've slept a grand total of 4 hours and 45 minutes.
I knew this was going to happen without the Ambiens, but I was taking an insanely high dosage of those every night, and that's no good at all.
I'll have to force myself into a sleeping pattern again. It's rough, it will take me about a week to do it, but eventually I'll sleep for at least 5 hours a night.

We will be watching the game this evening and chowing down on some BBQ and other snacks, with my neighbor Dave out back, and a bunch of his friends. He invited us to come hang.
He does this every year, so it's nice. He's a huge Patriots fan too.
We were just going to have some wings, chips, dip, that kind of stuff, but a big ol' BBQ is much more fun.
I'll probably be back and forth talking about the game, commercials, and checking in on stuff all night, because I just can't sit still.
There will be other kids and I believe I even saw a few teenage boys back there, so I know the teens won't feel awkward hanging with a bunch of adults.

Will you be watching? Who are you hoping wins?
What will you be eating?

January 30, 2008

Lots of strong opinions on the post below.

Most of the women would be as upset as my neighbor, one guy blames the wife for not pleasing her husband in bed, some think she should just tell him she knows, some think she's a liar too, some people think porn is just fine, others think she's violating postal laws by opening his mail.

On the mail issue, the husband has given his wife permission to open all the mail no matter what it is, because she is the one who does all the bill paying.

For the guy who says she's not pleasing her husband as the reason he's turned to porn, what if she is pleasing him? Does that change your view on his porn ordering?

For those who think porn is just fine, remember now, to each person their own. Not everyone likes or enjoys porn like you do. Some people find it nasty and disgusting, and truly oppose it.

He may indeed call the company and ask where his product is, and when they say they were shipped, he'll just keep checking the mail even more. This guy is not the brightest bulb in the bunch here, he lies about where he ate lunch everyday, he's not gonna come out and ask her for this.

For those who think she's a liar as well. Yes, she is, but as a wife who opposes porn of any kind, and has this show up in the mail with her husbands permission to open all mail and packages, she's doing what she thinks she needs to. This is her marriage on the line, not mine, not yours. Two liars under one roof makes for a lot of secrets about a lot of things on both sides of the marital bed.

Would it make any difference to any of you if they had a 12 year old son who shares the exact same name as his father, and could possibly open these packages thinking it's for him?

Does having a kid in the home make any difference at all?

January 29, 2008

Hey honey, did you get the mail?

My neighbor called me up yesterday, asked me to come over for a few, so I went.
I get there and she's wicked upset, like crying shaking upset.
I ask what's wrong and she hands me this package that she opened, it contains 2 DVDs.

They were 2 of the girls gone wild DVDS, uncensored, and the girls on the cover look to be way under the age of consent, but maybe that's one of the reasons why Joe Francis is still sitting his ass in jail.

So anyway, she's super upset that her husband ordered these, and she asks me to help her get rid of them because he'll just look in their trash for them.
I say yeah sure, why not, I'd be pretty upset if my husband ordered this stuff myself.
If I had a husband that is.

About 20 minutes later, her husband pulls into the driveway and checks the mail box.
He comes in the house, asks if the mail came yet, she says yes, she shows him what came.
I've got the package hidden amongst my huge stack of crap junk mail and Netflix movies.
He just stands there and says he has to get back to work.

Now today, he comes home at lunch time again, and again looks in the mail box and asks her if the mail came.
She asks him what he's expecting to come, she'll keep an eye out for it.
He says nothing, just curious what came in the mail.
He leaves and her and I crack up.

He is not gonna tell her what he ordered and waiting for. He ordered porn basically, so he'd be really stupid to say honey, I ordered girls gone wild and they are coming to the house.
What husband in his right mind, would tell his wife about those DVDs, if he ordered them behind her back?
He isn't going to tell her, but every day this week, it will be hilariously funny watching him race home to check the mail.
He won't tell her what he's waiting for to come in the mail, but he thinks he can get the mail before her.
It's funny to me that he's trying to get them before her, but oops, she already got them, and they have been sent out with this mornings garbage collection in my trash cans.

January 22, 2008

I want my power back!

Was the loud cry out in the driveway on Saturday night by my neighbor. He was out there yelling at midnight.
We all just sat in here laughing because it sounded so ridiculous.
Like yelling to the sky was going to somehow get it back on.
But now that everything is back on, I get to listen to them complain about the house, the weather, the lightning, the customer service of all these companies who made us go without service for all that time, and now he's talking about looking at South Carolina land for sale to get the hell outta here.
Every single time there is some type of weather situation, he starts talking about buying land in some state.
Last time, it was Tennessee, the time before that, Utah.
He claims all those places don't have severe weather problems.
She however, does not want to move, so I get to listen to him yell they are going to move, and listen to her yell that they aren't going to move.
It's pure entertainment people.
I just wish they would wait till a decent hour to start this yelling.
5:00am is not the best hour to be out in the driveway arguing about moving to a new state.

January 18, 2008

It's a huge monster, BIG, scary. Roar!

I'm totally overdoing it and I know it. I'm exhausted.
Blah.

Cloverfield was excellent, I really enjoyed it and would love to tell you about it, I just don't know when I'm going to have time right now.
I will say though if you are planning on seeing it this weekend, if you suffer from motion sickness, take some dramamine before you go, or look up at the ceiling a lot.
The entire movie is done with a hand held camcorder from the point of the view of the victims.
Lots of running, therefore, lots of shaking.
None of us felt sick, but they warn you when you go into the theater.
I'd say, the shakiness in the Bourne movies is worse actually.
It has some excellent scare the shit out of you moments. Good stuff.

Right now I'm making some un-fried chicken legs for dinner, something for a side dish, no clue yet, I'm so tired I can't think straight.

Oh, people need to stop being asshats.
My neighbor has driven me bat shit the last 2 days.
She's uber needy, and apparently she thinks it's perfectly acceptable to call me a dozen times a day because she needs things and she can't reach/get them.
Um, I'm busy, I have company, I have a ton of things to do and I'm barely getting any of it done, and seriously, people need to get off my case about what I need to do or I'm gonna snap so freaking bad.
I just really need a night to just sit still and do my stuff or I'm gonna be useless.

Ok, gotta go figure out what the hell else we are eating.
Later days.

P.S.
The Mad Money swag give-a-way will be coming up at around 6:30pm.

January 16, 2008

I've begun without them.

Cleaning the house that is.
I've started the laundry so I have clean sheets and blankets for Shell to use, I need to do the dishes, vac, mop, and then the boys can do the bathroom and their rooms when they get home.

I stayed up really late last night, it was about 4am when I finally went to bed.
the alarm went off at 5:45, I got the teens up, sent them off to school at 6:30, and then went back to bed, hoping to sleep till at least 10am.
I set my alarm to get up at 10, but I didn't need to, my phone woke me up over and over again starting at 7:30am.
Grrr.

I have a feeling it was my neighbor, because at 9am, she called, and when I answered the phone in a gruff, she was all 'what's wrong Kat?'
I explained to her about the phone ringing repeatedly, and the person hanging up, and she was all sorry, I didn't wake you did I?
I said some jerk kept calling and hanging up, so I'm awake now, but I hate it when people do that.
She just kept saying sorry.
I know it was her.
Grr.
Then some doctors office called looking for a patient.
I said no, wrong number.
The nurse said 'are you sure?'
Why gee lady, let me double check my ID, I might have forgotten my name over night, or maybe(!) that person moved in while I was asleep, let me check the rooms!
I said yes, I'm absolutely sure that person does not live at this phone number, check your number again.
'Oh, I dialed a 5 instead of a 6, I'm sorry.'
Uh huh, and I'm the one who doesn't know my last name or who lives here. *eyeroll*
Stupid people.

I have tons of stuff to do today, I need to get busy on all of it. Home stuff and work stuff.
Oh, what did my neighbor want?
She wanted to know if I was going to the store because she needs dog supplies, dog food, a de-wormer, and some flea stuff.
She said she's too sore to go anywhere today.
Um, she have a car, I would have to walk, and I'm sore today as well.
See, Shell is headed down, and it looks like she's sent some cold Maine air ahead of her so it will feel like home.
It was 40 degrees last night.
It's warming back up again though.
High's will be mid 70's for the rest of the week, nights will be low 60's.
That's perfect Florida weather for winter.

November 23, 2007

Turkey carcass is yummy.

So I'm all hanging out by myself, chilling watching some tube, cuddled with a blanket and the kitties, and I hear noises coming from the back room.
Lots of noises.
All 3 o the cats were with me till we all heard the noises, then they jumped off the couch and flew to the door way of Mark's room, ears perked, hissing.

Um would you kitties mind telling me what the hell you're all hissing at?!

So I go in, flipping on the light of course, the kitties follow me in, rush past me, jump on top of the dresser and start trying to get at whatever is outside.
Now, I'm home all alone, I have like no intention of flipping those curtains back when I'm by myself, so I call the neighbors, I know they are always on their back living room, and I'm all hey, something or someone is right outside my back windows, I'm home alone man, can you please take a look?

The husband went out and looked, and sure enough, the wild critters were in their trash eating the turkey carcass, knocking over the bins, ripping through everything.
Damn animals, scared the shit outta me.

November 13, 2007

Keeping up appearances.

After my last post, I decided to go for my daily walk, help take off some of this stress and work it out so I didn't take it out on anyone else.
I walked around my neighborhood, some of my neighbors have really nice homes and gardens, but one of my neighbors goes a wee bit overboard.
As I was walking down the street, one of his lawn aerators was spraying way out into the road, completely missing his lawn.
There are droughts in some parts of our country, and here's this guy watering the street.
*sigh*
I kept walking and looking and another neighbor had a gorgeous yard, flowers everywhere, roses, wildflowers, all sorts of beautiful flowers and plants everywhere.
He takes part in the natural Florida lawns, but he's added other plants like roses and peonies. It looks gorgeous.
He was out there plating some new grass seed.
Some parts of his lawn are dead from the scorching sumer heat and the lack of the normal seasonal rain.
He had seed and sod, and was busily working away on his yard.
One of these walks, I'll go take some pictures of it.
It's the kind of yard I'd love to have.
So beautiful and peaceful looking.
Like just looking at it calmed me down and made me smile.
I would love to be able to do something as beautiful in my yard, I've lived here 9 years and the best I've done is keep the lawn mowed.
Maybe tomorrow on my walk, I'll take the shots.
It's really gorgeous.

November 4, 2007

Neighbor news!

Oh my gosh! I forgot to tell you this!
I told you about my neighbors who have been driving over my lawn, how they stabbed the 50 gallon drum of water my landlord put up, and how the cops went over to speak with them right?

Well last night, I went outside after the girls went to bed just to get some air, stand in the cold, (we're having awesome chilly weather!) and I see these same neighbors packing up their car, a minivan, and a trailer attached to the minivan.
I don't really think much of it because they had him and his wife, her two sons and one of his sons, all living in that tiny two bedroom duplex.
I just figure one of the adult sons is moving out, or maybe all three of them.
Nope.
The entire family moved out in the middle of the night!
He and his older son looked over at me, said something to each other, and finished packing, then they all left.

This morning, there was a real estate agent in the driveway putting a sign in the yard, and she had a laundry basket of cleaning supplies and a broom, a vac, and a mop.
I guess they really did all move out.
I wonder what the reason was for the hasty departure.
Could it be the fact that the cop who came over told them that a Sargent for the sheriff's office, owned this property and he "knew" who they were?
I really have no idea why they left so quick, but I am so greatful they did.
Now I don't have to worry about the cars on the lawn or him or his kids trying to "sell" to my kids.
I warned him the day he came over and introduced himself to me and offered his "services", that if he ever tried to sell to my kids, I'd kill him. Not call anyone, not have him arrested, kill him.
He swore he would never sell to kids, that selling to kids is truly evil, but that adults are free to make their own choices, blah blah, blah.
Anyway, just really glad he's gone now.

October 31, 2007

Update on the lawn story.

So I told you my landlord came over and put up a 50 gallon drum, we filled it with water, and thought that would work.
Well, it didn't.

I go out today and the drum was tipped over, all water drained out.
So I stand it back up and go to refill it with water when I notice this.

They stabbed my drum!
So the landlord had me call (he's out of town) and file a suspicious incident report.
The cops come, they already know who my neighbor is and the "stuff" he does, and she explains to me that he does car detailing and other neighbors complained that he was doing it in the driveway, so now he must be doing it the backyard so those neighbors don't complain anymore.
While she's standing in my drive talking to me, my neighbor pulls into his yard in a 2000 Mustang and goes in the house.
That's not his car. He owns a pos rust-bucket.
So she went over to talk to him, to tell him to stay off the lawn, and then she comes back and tells me if he does it again, to call, that it's been filed and he's been warned.

October 31, 2007

It's a changing day in the neighborhood.

I took my walk a little earlier this evening, not as far as yesterday or even the day before, just a small one around 3 blocks.
I spent time thinking and looking around at all the various houses and landscaping, kids playing, dogs barking, couples sitting outside talking around their little fire tables, watching the wind whip through the palms.

Parts of my neighborhood are still really nice, and some parts are slowly degrading.
As people get pushed out of one area because of development, they gradually move into other sections and change it to what they're used to I guess.
I don't understand that.
If you move into a nice home in a nice part of town, wouldn't you be motivated to keep your home, your part of that new neighborhood looking nice?
I don't understand how or why, people can be so sloppy and disrespectful of their own homes.

Take the dealer on the right hand side of me.
He moved here less than 8 months ago, and his house and yard already looks like trash.
Cars always on cinder blocks being fixed, a huge bbq pit thing in the side yard, an actual couch underneath the carport where he and his buds sit and drink their 40's on the weekend, trash piled up, beer bottles strewn about.
And on both sides of him, people mow their lawns, keep their yards looking nice, trash is contained etc.
I don't understand why they wouldn't want to keep their home looking nice too.

October 29, 2007

50 gallon drum.

So the landlord came back about an hour ago with a huge blue drum and we filled it with water.

He did this so that if the neighbors tried to drive over the lawn again, they'd smash head on into a 50 gallon drum full of water.
It should stop them dead in their tracks.
Also, there's a guy up the street with two huge old railroad ties sitting at the end of his driveway.
If he's throwing those away, I'll find a way to get them down here and line my driveway with them.
I saw those on my walk this morning.
They will cover the main section of lawn that the neighbor has been using to get onto my lawn, and he won't be able to drive over those.
Like I said, the landlord was pissed when he saw the tire tracks across the lawn.
Building a fence is out of the question because the city is supposed to be installing sewer lines sometime in 08', so it'd be a total waste of time and money to build a fence now, and have to tear it down when they begin the construction.

I wonder how the neighbors are going to react when they see this?
Oh yeah, there's a reason Mark hasn't been mowing the side yard, the landlord and I saw it when we were out there.
There are about 15 hornets nests on the side of my house.
Mark had sprayed some of them with bug killer, but he didn't tell me there were more.
So the landlord is going to be coming back over with some industrial strength poison to kill them all.

October 28, 2007

The landlord swung by.

He came by to talk to my neighbors, and then just as I thought, he wanted to know about the tire tracks across the lawn.
He was quite pissed just as I expected he would be.
So tonight all my outside lighting will be on all night, both front porch and back yard flood lights.

He also told me to put up a sign on a stick or pole, that says stay off the lawn, which I did, but then it rained so now I need to make a new sign.
He also said that whoever is doing it, can be arrested because intentionally driving over a septic tank drain field, is intentional damage.
But I have to actually catch them in the act of doing it, get a license plate number and all of that.
So yeah, I'll be having to keep my blinds open all night every night, to try and catch these guys.

October 28, 2007

Don't drive or park on my lawn!

I certainly hope my neighbors to my right, yes, the drug dealers, are able to find themselves some good truck accident lawyers or already have one, for what they did.
This is my front lawn.

These are the tire tracks going through my front yard, all the way through my side yard.
(I know, the lawn needs to be mowed. Mark is actually doing it right now)

This is the tree they hit.

And this is the back of their house where the tire tracks end.

Why is this such a big deal and they may need a lawyer?
We have a septic tank in my front lawn, the drainage field runs the entire width and length of my front yard.
There is also a septic tank in the side yard belonging to their own duplex.
If they have broken my drain field, my landlord is going to sue them.
This is the second time they have done this, and now I have to go out there and place huge signs or get a barrier fence, to prevent them from driving on my lawn again.
I don't know why they did this in the first place, but it will not be happening again,

September 20, 2007

I'm totally gonna scarf dinner down!

I'm like starving! *laughs*
I'm making BBQ chicken legs and alfredo pasta.
Yums.

Doc B still hasn't called back, I called two more times, and the nurse said he has the message.
I'll be calling again first thing in the morning, and I'm going to call Doc F and ask him about it too, seeing as it was his idea to go to the hormone doc about the low testosterone.
Maybe he knows if it was a reaction to the med or the needle or something.
I get to do it again on Saturday, so I need an answer like quick.
I don't really feel like being sick for 4-5 days again ya know?

Oh, my neighbors, yeah, those neighbors, are pissing me off again.
They have been having a ton of people at their house for a few weeks now, I think they actually have a bunch of people living with them now which is kinda gross considering how dirty their house is all the time.
But anyway, someone keeps moving my basketball hoop and parking their cars on my side.
I went over there and knocked on the door and the bitch was all "Don't answer it, it's my fucking neighbor!" So I hollered through the door, "Who ever owns this gold Toyota, has 10 seconds to get the fuck out here and move it or I have it towed!"
I stood and waited, counted to like 5, and this lady comes out and is all sorry sorry, I was told I could park there.
I was like "No bitch, you can't, and neither can anyone else who comes to that house. I pay the rent on this side, this is my half of the driveway. You better tell that woman in there she best be telling her friends not to park on this side, or every vehicle will be towed. I have Upman's on speed dial."
She just looked at me, so I said "Are you moving that or do I hit pound 2 on this phone?"
She ran to her car and moved it to park on their side of the driveway on their grass.
Seriously, I'm becoming like super bitch over this issue.
They did it on Saturday when Mikey was here and needed to leave, and a lady who was visiting was all "oh, do you need to get out?" Like I need to ask my neighbors if I can move a vehicle off of my own side of the drive!

Yes, I really do have Upman's towing on speed dial. Since they started this shit, I just decided I'd give them a 10 second warning or I have all vehicles towed.
Maybe I should just start having them towed, fuck the warning.

September 11, 2007

No more kings.

I had one of those days around here.
After I fixed my net connection issue, I had a problem with the AC, and spent a few hours fixing that.
There is nothing like fixing your AC in a house that gets hotter by the minute, let me tell ya.
I got it fixed, then spent about 20 minutes in the shower cooling off, and washing about 3 hours of sweat off.

Then the boys came home and argued like I posted below.
Then Mark went out with George for dinner, and Sebastian and I had some tacquitos for our dinner.

Then the toilet attempted to bubble over for some unknown reason, no one had used it or flushed it, it just started coming up.
I think my plex neighbors may have done something, or had a problem on their side.

Then there was still just as much confusion as the last few days, and I'm just so over legalese, I give up.
I have taken a leave of absence from a pay to blog company, for an undetermined amount of time, due to a ton of ongoing issues which are never fixed, and I was seriously starting to feel ugly inside.
Regardless of how badly I need the money, no amount of money is worth the stress it was causing me on a daily basis.
I'll stick with contextual links and no rules, and continue to do paid reviews privately, and seek out more sponsors, in order to pay my bills.

And then I amused myself with some old Schoolhouse Rocks videos on youtube.
This is one of my favorites, No More Kings.

September 4, 2007

I may end up in jail over this, but enough is enough.

These images are clickable for bigger.

This is my neighbors pos minivan once again, parked drastically on my side of the property.

As you can see from the picture, her van is clearly on my side, it's well past my shed door, well past the middle of the carport.
This is another view from my shed door, right in front of my shed door as a matter of fact, that shows just how far on my side she is.
My basketball hoop is laying down, the hoop head is on the dead center divide of the carport.
It's actually 10 inches to the left, (my side) of the center divide.
This clearly shows just how much she is on my side.

Why am I so pissed about this when I don't own a vehicle, you might be wondering?
Because I pay for my half of this property for one thing, and for two, my sister came over today with my niece Susan, and they could not get her vehicle in my side of the carport.
Even if I had moved the hoop, there is not enough space between my bitch ass neighbors van and the concrete pillars, to allow another vehicle in.
Maybe if my sister had an MG, (the really tiny 1976 Midget), she may have been able to squeeze it in there, but it's doubtful.

We went to the grocery store and came back with a lot of groceries.
We could not park under the carport, out of the scalding hot sun, to unload them.
Ice cream is melting, milk is getting sun directly beamed onto it, frozen foods getting warmed up, all because my bitch ass neighbor has chosen to park like a fucking dumbass, day in and day out.

The basketball hoop will stay right where it is.
If she needs to move her van, she's going to have to do a 10 point turn to get it the fuck out of there, because I plan on sitting here with my blinds open all day and night, and watching to see if she moves it, or makes her son move it. (my hoop)
If anyone goes near my property, my hoop, and tries to move it, I'll go outside and sit on the freaking bar part of it so they can't move it.
If she starts shit with me, attempts to hit me, I will not hesitate to punch her fat fucking lights out.

On Saturday, there were 7 vehicles in this driveway, none of them mine, and one of them was on my grass.
On my grass folks.
Do you know what's under my grass, and my landlord has warned about many times?
The septic tank and the drainage lines.
You cannot park any cars on my side of the lawn, because it will crush the drainage lines and ruin the drain field.
I'm done playing around with this bitch, and if I do punch her out and get cuffed, the boys have been instructed to call my sister.
I'm so fucking over this shit with her.

September 4, 2007

Slow going.

I'm having internet troubles.
My dsl modem is dragging and I can't figure out why.
I've checked cables, restarted it, checked security settings, and it's still off and on having a slow connection issue.
Like, sometimes it's loading pages quickly, and other times it's not. It's not waiting on stuff to load, it says connecting.
*stumped*

I'm doing laundry, cleaning, my neighbors are pissing me off.
Again.
There were 7 cars in the driveway all night last night, all over my side of the driveway and my grass.
You can't park on my grass, my side has the septic tank.
I wish I had taken a picture of how fucked up everyone was parked.
My neighbor herself, is parked on my side.
I'm just so over it.
I'd like to be able to just ignore it, but I can't go shopping and come back in a cab, and be able to unload from my side.
Bleh.

Oh, the hair finally swallowed down.
Hopefully it won't get stuck in my intestines on it's way out. *laughs*

September 3, 2007

Stupid dog!

Hahahaha! I love watching Shahiro torture and tease the dog next door.
It's so funny!
He's all barking and growling, choking himself on his chain to get at her, and he can't! Ha!

In other news, my nieces won't be coming over today. *sad*
Their daddy is not feeling well, but hey, at least we don't have to super clean the house today right?

September 2, 2007

Why do they have to be like that?

Sebastian had gone up to 7-11, and grabbed us some chilidogs for lunch today. Every now and then, you have to eat something that may or may not be food, just to prove you're still alive.
They were tasty as usual, (something about that cheese man) and we all just goofed off for a bit, then I took a nap.
I meant for it to be like an hour at the max, but I slept for 4 hours.
OOopsie.

I awoke to the sounds of my neighbors next door, having some sort of get together involving a bbq grill, beer, too many children, and lots of arguing and yelling.
Typical redneck labor day.
I fully expect cops to be involved by the end of the night.
They've also parked a few vehicles on my side of the property, all crooked.
I'm not going to say anything about that, but if one more of those little brat children who were tossed outside so the parents can smoke up some of that new weed they bought this week, touches my fucking basketball hoop one more time, mama fucking migraine is gonna do some yelling of her own.

July 7, 2007

To a head.

The situation with the neighbors grows increasingly bad.
Yes I know, they were already lying, nasty people, but to steal from my kids and then lie about it, well, I blew a gasket.
Big time.

The boy who we all know lives in shitsville in that damn disgusting house, where he is abused verbally and emotionally, and physically, borrowed Sebastian's gameboy color and a game when his grandfather died. We loaned him the game because they had to take a Greyhound bus all the way to Ohio because the pos husband would not buy plane tickets for his wife and kid to go say goodbye to the dying grandfather.

So they come back, we ask for it back, he asks to borrow it a little longer, he has almost beat the game.
We say yes.
A month goes by, I ask him for the game back. He says he'll go get it and come back.
This question and answer has been repeated well over a dozen times with the last time being this Tuesday July 3rd.
On Tuesday, he came in the house to play, I asked him to go get and bring it back.
He says he'll go get it and bring it back. He never did.

July 5, 2007

Step 1 in reclaiming my carport.

She finally left the house, so the plans to take back my carport have begun.
For the record, I asked her really nicely one more time to move her vehicle, to park it straight.
She glared at me.
So, the take back my carport plans have gone into effect.

I have taken our basketball hoop, and laid it down dead center line of the property division.
This should prevent her from parking all freaking crooked on my half.
If she hits it with her pos van, and moves it out of the way, step two will go into effect the next time she moves her van.
I have a whole summer of fun filled things lined up in order to get my property back.

I have to get it back.
Mark is getting his license this August, he's getting a car. He needs to be able to park it under our carport because they have two vehicles, and Mark is going to need that room on our side, to back out of the long driveway.
We need our half to be able to get in and out of our side anyway.
It sucks when it rains and I have to unload our groceries from the cab out in the rain.
Every single cabbie says something when they pull in. The landlord says something when he comes over.
People cannot understand why she parks like that, so consider this parking training.
If I had orange cones, they'd be out there.
Park between the lines bitch.

July 3, 2007

I've had a month of peace.

Peace and quiet with no neighbor drama.
That all ended yesterday.
She wants something, not sure what, but again, she needs my help with something or other in her life.

I have none to give.
The giving well is dried up and burnt down.

Yesterday, her son comes to my door, wants to play with the kids. I let him in, he plays for about an hour or so. I ask him to please return the gameboy he borrowed 4 months ago.
He says he'll go get it and bring it back.
He never came back.
I fully didn't expect him to.
That house is a fucking stye and if it's even in there, it's lost in the heaping piles of dirty laundry and dog shit.

Today, several times, he came to the door.
Asking for stuff.
All answers were no.
He came back again and asked if his mom could use our phone.
The answer was no.

Why would she need to borrow the phone?
Oh, because her jackass of a useless dope smoking, coke snorting husband, didn't pay the bills again.
Not.
My.
Fucking.
Problem.

They have been semi back in my life less than 24 hours and I'm already fucking pissed the fuck off.
I have nothing left to give.
No help.
No kind words.
No money to loan.
No gas to put in her car.
No toilet paper to wipe their asses with.
No food to feed them.
Nothing.

Empty.

May 26, 2007

Different neighbors, more drama.

One of these days, I'm going to have the money to move the hell outta this hood man.
About 4 or 5 months ago, we had some new neighbors move in to the duplex to my right.
They live on the far right half of the plex, and are nothing but trouble.
They get into arguments with people all the time.
They have 3 pitbulls, 2 large males, and 1 female pup.
This is why they get into fights.
The dogs are constantly getting out of the house, and off of their chains.
And this new family is not exactly nice.
They um, "sell things."

One night about a month ago, I get a knock at the door, it's the patriarch of the family, a black man who speaks very poor English, smells like he bathes in beer and dog crap, and wants to introduce himself to me, as well as offer his "services."
He's got 'bars' and oxys, and weed, and pretty much anything any one looking for a high could want, he's got a way to get it within an hour he tells me.
He's like the Avon man of getting high.
"Ding Dong! Your dealer's here!"

I say no thanks, I don't do that shit, but nice to meet you, this is a good place to live, it's quiet, I tell him.
I also ask him if he could make sure his dogs stay on his property because I have kids, and one of his dogs chains is very long, and it's been under my bedroom window barking at my kitten a few times at night.
He says sure no problem, and goes about his way to visit my plex neighbors, the ones with all the problems. The abusive fucktard dad of that family, welcomes him in.
He loves the green stuff among other things, and enjoys "skiing the white slopes" from time to time.

Well right now, this new family is yelling at my plex neighbor behind me, Dave.
Dave is an awesome guy, he's quiet, stays to himself, very friendly and helpful.
One of the new families pits got loose again, and Dave brought the dog back to them.
Apparently, they didn't appreciate Dave touching their dog.
The drunken, smelly drug supplier, just went out back to Dave's with a steel bat screaming at the top of his lungs that no one is "gonna ds'respect him like dat!"
Dave is a rational man, and is talking to the guy, calming him down, he didn't mean no disrespect, he just was bringing the dog back before someone called animal control.
No dogs in our county are allowed to be off of their chains or out of their owners site and reach at any time.
Dave was bringing it back before animal control came and took it.

The screaming has subsided for now, but I swear, they take a bat to Dave's body, I'll be on the phone with 911 stat.
I imagine half the neighborhood would end up outside trying to help Dave. He's the kind of neighbor you want to have. Minds his own business, quiet, yet you ever need a cup of sugar, he's your go to guy.

I really dislike my new neighbors.

May 14, 2007

The talk has been had.

I laid it all out, what I will and won't do anymore, no more food/household supply help, but I will always be here to listen and try to help her get away from it all.
She said that the husband has agreed to family counseling, and if it doesn't work, then she will leave.
I know in my gut, that nothing is going to change and I told her that.
I told her that I can't do this anymore, that it's far too hard on me and my family emotionally and financially, to keep doing this, and she has to decide what is best for her son. If she can't leave for herself, she needs to leave for her son.

She said her son loves his father, which he does, he loves him in the hopes that his father will love him back. All he wants is his father to love him and be good to him, he's always trying to please that man, but all he ever gets in return is negativity.

She sat there crying and thanking me for being a good friend, and for all the help I give to her because it helps her and her son. I told her that by giving her the things she needs like toilet paper and milk and bread, that it enables him to keep on not providing for his family. He knows that she will ask me for it, so he doesn't have to do it, he likes knowing she has to beg and ask others for help.
He makes her sell her medications to pay bills and give him money.
That's just sick. He forces her to do that, and then when she's suffering from lack of her very necessary medications, he yells at her to stop crying.
I told her I have to draw a line so that he will hopefully be forced to provide those basic needs, but I know he won't.
I've watched this situation escalate since the day they moved in, it has only gotten worse. I told her how much I worry about her and her son, how much my kids worry. They are helpless to do anything at all except remain this kids friend and try to just give him fun whenever he is here.

So many of you said that you would have never gotten involved in the first place.
I don't think you can honestly say that without actually being in this situation.
These are not neighbors 3 or 5 houses away, they share my duplex. I hear the verbal abuse through the walls.
Could any of you really ignore that?
Would any of you really not open the door to a crying child who came to you for safety? Would you really not try and comfort that child, feed him because he's hungry, and try anything at all to help him?
No it's not my job, but the people whose job it is, Florida Department of Children and Families, have failed this family repeatedly.
And no, I'm not taking on the weight of the world and trying to do their job, but I cannot ignore domestic and child abuse.
I. Can't.
It'd be so easy for some people to ignore it, to turn away and not help anyone else in need. We are a society of me first. Everyone is out for themselves and not wanting to get involved.
But can we really ignore the hurt of others?
This child doesn't deserve what he lives with day in and day out. I may not be able to convince her to take the offer, but I cannot ignore this child.
Thanks for listening.

May 13, 2007

Not excuses, facts.

I am getting some comments, and a few emails from people on the entry below.
Yes, I know by helping her, I am enabling her and HIM, to keep this cycle of crap going.
I understand that, but there is a child involved who doesn't deserve to be without basic things like toilet paper because his father's a cock sucker.

Someone mentioned food banks and pantry's, department of children and families for food help and stuff.
They cannot get any kind of financial help.
Why?
Because her husband makes too much money to qualify for help.
He is not withholding items because he doesn't have the money to pay for them. It's because he won't.
There's a huge difference between affording, and withholding to control people.
He makes very good money, this is about control, not finances.

I do know that I need to sit down with her and tell her I can't help her any more, that real help has been offered and she needs to take it, or I can't help her anymore.
I do have to tell her that by giving her these things, I am enabling him to keep on doing what he does.
I know this. But I also have an innocent child who lives in that house and is verbally and emotionally abused all the time.
I have to think about him and what my actions, stopping the help, will do to him.
The situation could get much worse for him and his mother, but I know I have to say no more.

Department of children and families has been to that house several times. Each time they walk away not doing anything.
The father is a master manipulator, he knows what to say, how to say it. He blames the kid, he says the kid is lying about stuff. He says his wife is lying about the stuff.
I have even spoken with DHS myself, told them all that I know, told them the conditions of that house, and they still walk away.
Department of children and families is completely over worked in Florida. Getting them to pay attention to repeated calls for help, falls on deaf ears for some reason.
Believe me, many people have called them about this family.
A few of our neighbors have called, teachers have called. They come over, talk to them for a few minutes and leave.
Many of us have tried many times to get that family help, and DHS isn't doing their job.
What do we do when the people who are supposed to help, don't?

So no, she can't go get food stamps, she can't go to food banks, because all of those places require proof of income and the husband makes too much money.
The problem is, he won't spend it because money is power to him.
Holding back needs is power to him, it keeps the wife and son in his control because they have to rely on him for these things.

I thank you all for what you said, but the answers are not as easy as people think they are.
I've tried all of these things. I've gone with her and helped her apply on line for food stamps and even medicaid for her son, and it gets turned down because he makes too much money.
I've gone with her to food banks, same thing, too much income.
This is about power, not the money.

I really thank all of you for your advice and opinions, but it's not quite so easy as just saying no. There could be repercussions on the mother and son, that I don't even want to think about.
I am going to talk with her tomorrow while he's at work, talk to her again about the offer of real help, tell her I can't do it anymore, and hope that nothing goes bad.
No one really has any idea how much this sucks being the one who this woman and child confide in, and knowing what they live with, and not being able to convince them to leave.
I have to try and convince her to take the offer and go.
This whole thing sucks.

May 13, 2007

I am a nice person.

Every now and then I have to remind myself that I'm a nice person, because I think really bad thoughts.

I hate being used. Hate it.
I think most people hate the feeling of being used.
You all know by now about the family next door, and the really crappy situation that the mom and son are in.
I cannot control other people's choices. I have to remind myself of that too.
A way out was given, and not accepted.
As hard as it is for me to accept that, I have to. It's not my life, I cannot control it.
But I am tired of the abuses that take place.
The verbal and psychological abuses that take place inside that home.
I am also tired of the small abuses that happen.
I was tempted to say minor, but there is nothing minor about the many forms abuse comes in.

Some of the things this man does to control his family, is to give an exact dollar figure with an exact list of groceries, and if she comes home missing an item, or doesn't have the exact change the receipt says she should have, because she dropped a penny or a dime, there is hell to pay.
One of the most insane things he does, is to horde the toilet paper.
He allows one roll of it to be in the house, and he keeps the rest of it in his car and takes it to work.
I am always being asked for toilet paper because they ran out, and he won't give them anymore.
This "control" covers many other necessities as well.
Like feminine hygiene products. He very rarely gives her money to take care of her needs. I have given maxi-pads to her when I had them, but I don't get many cycles myself due to my own back and health issues, so many times I've had to tell her I didn't have any.
It covers band-aids, antiseptic ointments, dish soap, laundry soap, shampoo, body bar soap, turning off the water from outside the house, so they can't bathe or shower.
It includes cooking supplies like pans, aluminum foil, plastic wrap, milk, bread etc.
If they run out of milk from the weekly $100 purchases he let her make, too freaking bad for her and her son, but there had better be milk when he gets home.

I am constantly being asked for items, and I know the situation, I know what she goes through, but I am tired.
I am tired of helping.
I feel horrible about these thoughts, I can't even tell you how being angry and tired over the constant helping, makes me feel.
I shouldn't feel this way ya know?
People helped me when I was down and out, I said I would pay it forward, and I have, multiple times over now in gas for her car, food, toilet paper, soap, just general supplies.
I don't know what I am supposed to do anymore.
I feel like I have given and given, found her help. That offer to help her run away? That is a huge thing. I put myself out there because of frustration, told someone the situation, and that amazing offer came.
That amazing offer has been turned down.
Part of me wants to start saying no to requests, but the kid, I feel for this kid.
Does he not deserve to be able to wipe his ass?
Is it his fault that the father is such a mother fucking prick, and hides the toilet paper in his vehicle?
No.
But what am I supposed to do anymore?

In the last 3 days, I have given her gas money, rolls of toilet paper, antiseptic ointment, a gallon of milk, two loaves of bread, and countless hours of emotional support.
I am not bitching about the emotional support, I don't mind trying to help her.
I am just very frustrated that the emotional help I am giving to her is not being taken.
It upsets me greatly.
I can't keep helping her with 'stuff'. It creates a situation of constantly being the one to hold up her family, when I still struggle to pay my own bills and my own household needs.
Something has to change with this whole situation.

If you were me, what would you do?
Would you start saying no to these constant requests for things?
Would you go over there and yell at that man and tell him to take care of his own family?
Calls have been made, don't even think they haven't. The proper authorities have been there numerous times and nothing ever freaking comes of it.
I'm lost right now.
I know I can't keep supplying things. I can't afford it.
But what am I supposed to do?

January 17, 2007

There's a reason parents get pissed off.

My day has been kind of crappy.
Firstly, my neighbor owes me money and hasn't paid me yet she keeps asking me for things.
Not ok. Pay me what you owe me first and then we'll discuss any more loans.
I'd like my muffin and cake pans back too please.
Thanks.

As for the school.
I got a call this morning from the school counselor at Mark's school wondering why I haven't called her back to RSVP about a meeting she scheduled last week to discuss Mark's future.
This call was at about 10:30am.
I said what meeting. She then proceeded to tell me she mailed it out last week and that I obviously didn't care enough about my sons future to read the mail from the school.
What letter I asked.
She said she mailed me a letter on the 11th and she knows I received it and blah blah blah, started to get all huffy with me saying things like if I didn't want to be involved in my children's education, that I was doing them a huge disservice, and that Mark should have been doing so much better in school last year.
I said I know about last year, the school knows about last year, you all had a letter, every single teacher, and the principal, received a letter from me last January before I went in for surgery, explaining what was going to take place regarding my surgery. I even took full responsibility for them not excelling last year because of my surgery.
I just posted that last night telling all of you about their education and what happened.

She continued to berate me about it and kept asking if I was coming to the meeting. She didn't want to discuss anything with me, just wanted me to admit I got her letter and was blowing it off.
I kept telling her that I received no such letter and she kept insisting that I did, all the while her voice was steadily increasing in volume and tone.
Then she hung up on me.
I called her right back and told her off for hanging up on me and then told her to shove her meeting up her ass.

The mail came at 1pm today. Guess what was in it?
A letter from his school postmarked January 16th. Yesterday. The letter inside the envelope was written on the 11th, but the counselor never mailed it till yesterday.
Yeah, I blew off his education. Uh huh. Who was supposed to mail that letter out last week?
So I called her back and told her about that, and she got pissed off and called me a liar.
I have a damn good mind to go up to that school tomorrow with letter in hand, and shove it up her ass for calling me a liar.
What is it with people doing this kind of shit this week?
I called a different counselor and informed them of how I was treated on the phone and about the letter.
That counselor apologized, and is going to call me back to reschedule a meeting with her instead of queen psycho counselor.
I have no problem having meetings to talk about their future, but don't lay blame at my feet for not mailing stuff out on time.
Stupid people.

Then I laid on the couch and drifted in and out of consciousness thanks to the new pain meds.
Now I'm making oven fried chicken for diner and am probably just going to chill for the rest of the night.
Hopefully.

October 26, 2006

It's another absolutley gorgeous day.

The weather is perfect, maybe high 70's, perfect.
I've done some laundry, some dishes, did a little cleaning, worked on my cat burglar costume for Saturday nights party.
Yeah, I'm lame this year. I usually go all out as a dead person, (car crash victim, stabbing victim, zombie, dead teacher etc) but this year, I want/need to be as comfortable as possible.
I don't want to get home as late as I know we will be, and have to spend an hour peeling off face glue which held in dirt and gravel or pockets of fake blood that when pressed lightly, would ooze. I don't want to peel stuff out of my hair either.
Comfort is key this year, but next year, I am already planning it.
The boys will be spending the night with my sister and my nieces so I don't have to worry about them calling me every hour either just to "check up on me". It's cute but oh so annoying after the first 5-6 times.

Last night I posted about the predator search and that one really messed up guy with all those convictions. It baffles me that he is still out there somewhere, but I also posted his search results elsewhere and got some startling replies to predators in general.
It really surprised me.
Some people don't think that regular people should be able to tell others about a predator in their neighborhood.
The reasons they gave in some cases were valid, like a guy who is 18 and sleeps with his 16 year old girlfriend (in FLA, 16 is legal consent age but not in some other states) and then she gets mad at him and calls it rape. That guy is then forever, labeled an offender.
But in general, these people don't think that as a parent, I should have the right to warn other parents about predators. To not give them the database to search for them, or even go door to door when a new and dangerous one moves into the hood.
Sarasota county does not go door to door when predators move into your hood like they do elsewhere. That means, no cops come door to door with fliers alerting you to a new offender.
So then how will parents know if they don't know about the database?
Should we not have access to it?
One reason that was given was that ok, maybe the guy did make a mistake in his life and have sex with a child. That was one time, he's now an offender, but it doesn't mean he'll do it again.
Uh? Hello? He made a mistake and had sex with a child?!
I don't call fucking a little kid a mistake. I call it child molestation. I don't care if the guy did it once or 100 times, he still fucked a child. People should know that someone has done it before.
"He only did it once" they say. One time is one time too many for me.
I think people have a right to know that a) he did it, b) he lives here at such and such an address, and c) what if he wants to do it again?
The best way to ensure he doesn't do it again is to make people aware that we know, that we know where he lives, that we are watching him.
Knowing won't always stop them, but it has to help in some small way.

Last year, I went trick or treating with the boys for about an hour or so, as long as I could tolerate all the walking. About 2 streets back from us, there are 2 pedos living in the same house. Terms of their release say they can't be within so many miles of a school, they are warned about kid holidays like Halloween, no decorations, no handing out candy, keep your porch lights off so that kids don't even go to your door.
Last year, those 2 pedos had decorated, were sitting in their driveway with huge bowls of candy. Kids were going to them.
I started telling kids no and told them to just stay with me and my kids. I don't know where their parents were but obviously, not with them.
If I saw other parents walking with their kids, I warned them not to go there and why. People had no idea, no clue just how many pedos lived in our 8 block radius, never mind our whole zip code.
There are 67 pedos in our 8 block radius. Scary thought.
I told those parents about the FDLE site and to do a search every month or so. Just to be safe, just to know.
I also called the police and told them about that house. They went there and took both of those men in for violating the terms of their release. The cops came to my house after to tell me thanks, that I had done the right thing.
So this confused me when I had posted this and got the replies I did, that some people felt I was in the wrong warning other parents and kids.
There's also the guy who works at the Publix in the bakery, taking orders and making cakes for kids birthdays. Publix had no clue about his conviction for an act on a child under age 12. Either they had no clue or were covering their butts. They didn't fire him, they just moved him to the store room as a storage clerk.
Someone told me I was wrong to do that. That I invaded this guys life and might have cost him his job.
Ask me if I care. This man did something sexual to a kid under age 12 and I'm supposed to feel bad that he might have lost his job? No, I don't think so. I will not feel bad about it. If anything, he should feel bad for lying about his conviction and Publix should feel bad for not doing a more thorough background check, or, if in the case they were covering butts, never placed him in direct contact with kids. At the bakery, they hand out free cookies, I had seen this man handing cookies to kids all the time before I recognized his face on the FDLE.
Am I wrong to do what I do? To care enough about not just my kids, but other peoples kids as well, to tell people about a predator?
I don't fucking think so. Not today, not tomorrow, not fucking ever.

August 18, 2006

Holy yummies!!

One of my neighbors just stopped by with a friend of his and in the back of his truck they had a bunch of coolers full of deer meat. OMG YUM!
They gave me 3 huge deer roasts and a package of deer steaks.
Heaven!
I'm thawing the steaks to eat tomorrow and have some kickass roasts for another day.
Free no less.

May 1, 2006

You're kidding me aren't you?

So I'm laying down this morning after sending the kids to school. My back is acting funky. I see the surgeon on Wednesday to discuss this and other things but I digress.

She calls me to yell at me because her son is covered with bruises from yesterdays scuffle with Sebastian.
Yes, there was a fight. Sebastian's first with anyone other than his brother.
Bobby and Sebastian got into it after a game of football. Sebastian tackled Bobby, Bobby got pissed, called me a whole bunch of names.
Sebastian is my baby. He still comes and lays down with me on weekend afternoons to nap. He's just a moms boy. No harm in that.
Until you say something bad about me.
Then, you better take it back or run like hell.
Sebastian hit him with a right hook.
Bobby hit him in the head with a plastic baseball bat.
The two of them continued to fling mom insults back and forth at each other and bruise and scratch the piss out of each other.
Boys fight. This is a normal part of growing up.
Talk smack about someones mom, get the shit kicked out of you.

So anyway, she calls me over because he's so bruised up. I said yeah, so is Sebastian.
Bobby tried to lie (what else is new about this?) and weasel his way out of his share of this fight. He said he did nothing to provoke it. He didn't tell his mother about the name calling or the baseball bat, nope, he just said Sebastian went psycho.
I went off.
I'm sick and tired of this kids lies.
They both got their assess handed to them on a platter by the other and they BOTH fucking deserved it.
They both were swinging and name calling and acting like idiots.
Sebastian is grounded for his part in this.
I don't take fights lightly at all but I'm not gonna let him take the whole blame for this considering after he came home and told me he kicked the shit out of Bobby, I made him take me over to where it happened so I could make sure the kid was okay.
That's when other parents in the hood who witnessed and tried to stop the fight, told me the whole story.
That little kid is lucky I didn't tell his mother everything he said about me.
I am fucking pissed.
That kid is never welcome in my home ever again.
I don't care if his father DOES take his belt to him and beat the ever loving shit out of him and he gets so badly abused by his dad. I don't fucking care anymore.
That kid is a liar with other serious issues.
He needs help but I'm sick and tired of trying to help him by being kind to him and letting him sleep over whenever he wants to and feeding him and giving him a place to hide when his dad is shit pissed drunk.
The kid can stay home and take it now.
I am not saying if I heard through the walls the kid getting beat, I wouldn't make a call, but I am no longer listening to any of his stories about his parents.
His mom still thinks it's all Sebastian's fault and fucking whatever.
Sebastian came home and told me what he did and the neighbors confirmed his story.
Bobby lied to his mothers face and to my face when I went over this morning.

I cannot wait to move. I really can't.
I need to be away from this kid.
I never know what is truth or a lie with him anymore and the things he says about his parents and other people in the neighborhood is seriously going to ruin someones life someday.
It's really bad when my neighbors a street over are calling me asking if the father really cut Bobby's dogs head off. They were going to call the police.
Nope, the dog is alive and well and trying to jump through my fucking front window every time it goes outside.

April 30, 2006

I will be happy when I can move.

I hate this house and I'm sick of my neighbors. Not all of the in the hood, just the ones right next door.

People really fucking amaze me.

January 14, 2006

Holy hell people are whacked.

This crazy screaming old bat lady just came banging on my door because my kids were outside waving around these sticks that light up.
Yeah, um they are lightsabers.
They were scaring me!
Um, they are lightsabers.
I'm calling the police on you and your kids! You're a bad mother letting them wave those things around!
Oh please fucking do.
I triple fucking dog dare you.

May 27, 2005

Where'd the time go?

I just spent about 2 hours meeting and chatting with my new, friendly neighbor!
Woo hoo! Nice neighbors!
They are down to earth and funny and normal. They have a 9 year old boy who is just a little sweetie and he's been here everyday playing with Sebastian.

Not too much else going on here right now. Just hanging out and stuff, have some ideas I want to tackle later but that's about all.
Later days.

March 7, 2005

On many occasions I have stated my hatred for my neighbor Bill.

He was a mean old bastard.
Always complaining about cats, kids, dogs, rats, trash, noise, cars. You name it, Bill complained about.

Bill passed away this afternoon around 3 o'clock or so.
He suffered massive cardiac arrest.

His younger brother Russ who has taken care of Bill for the last 20 some odd years is beside himself. Has no idea what to do or how to do anything. All he has known is taking care of his brother.
He's never lived on his own without his brother. Never had a girlfriend or friends. Just Bill.

I feel horribly sorry for Russ.
My boys said I'm going to hell because just last week after Bill made some nasty crotchety remark to me again about all the "damn cars going up and down the street at all hours", I came in the house and said when the hell is that nasty old man gonna die.

Am I sorry I said it? No.
Am I sorry that he's dead? Not really. Every neighbor on this street hated that man for one reason or another.
I am sorry for Russ who has known no other life and doesn't know what to do now.

He's up at the hospital with the rest of his family who hated Bill too.
Making funeral plans I suppose.
He asked me to call the landman and let him know what was going on because he just couldn't make anymore calls right now and he really doesn't know what he's going to do about the apartment as he can't afford it on his own. Bill got SSI and Russ worked so together they could afford the house and bills and food.
On his own, he doesn't know.
So I made the call and told him all the above and he said to tell Russ not to worry about it right now.

So anyway, that's what I've been doing.
Feeling sad but not for the reasons my kids think I should.

February 24, 2005

Fucking fantastic.

When I went to bed last night sometime around 1am, my neighbors car was fine.
I know this because I smoked my last cig out there at that time.
Now, one of side strips of like metal decoration, you know that like line of metally stuff that goes down the length of older cars, is off. On the ground.
Like someone fucking ripped it off.
I swear to fucking god if I get blamed or my kids get blamed for that shit, heads will roll.
I'm not saying I know who did it because I was in bed and I didn't notice it this morning when I sent them off to school, but and just but, if it was someone who lives here or someone who comes here, I will murder them myself.
My neighbor is a big fucking asshole and all he needs his another reason to start yelling about shit to me and the landlord.
This is not cool.
This is not funny.
This is passive fucking aggressive childish fucking behavior.
Yes he's a big dink, yes he's a major pain in the ass to live next door to but you just don't go destroying peoples shit no matter how much of a fucking asshole they are.
I swear, someone may get hurt today.

*Update*
Talked to the younger brother, not the asshole, and he said he heard something in the driveway around 3am so that clears all of us.
Phew.
I really didn't want to have to deal with that shit knowing my kids and I stay far away from their side of the duplex.

January 6, 2005

Make me a tin foil hat and pass the shotgun.

Here's the fishes. Note the plural now.

Click for bigger.

The second fish is below my bedroom window. We didn't see this one yesterday so I do believe that it was tossed there over night.
Seriously people, toss 'em over and let the feuding fun begin or just call the cops?
I don't want to over react and maybe falsely accuse them. It could be some weird bird or animal thing right? Right?
And if I do call the cops, what do I tell them?
Hey, uh, I got these fish thrown in my yard and I think my asshole neighbors are responsible and open up a whole new can of worms aside from the dog situation or what?
I could just throw them over the fence. They don't smell, yet, so tossing them wouldn't be an issue for me but what the fuck?
Is this like my warning to shut up about the dog or is an even deeper message and not from the neighbors but from the teens mom?
I got a letter Monday giving me new dates for depositions on the 19th.
Hrm. *makes tin foil hat and considers pulling those "fillings".*
Enemies abound.

January 6, 2005

The Corleones put a horse head in your bed,

the Mexicans behind me put a rotting fish in my shed.
Yup, they did. Want a picture? I'll get one for ya as soon as it gets a little brighter out there.
It seems the war with the Mexicans behind me has escalated.
They continue to leave the yapping mother fucker outside barking at all hours of the day and night and I continue to place calls and the police continue to come over right in time to hear nothing cuz the owners see the cop car coming.
Now, I have a huge rotting fish in my shed.
I thought about ways it could have gotten there. Some animal swiped a fish from someones fishing bucket and put it there for safe keeping (yeah right), one of the herons that I always see in my yard brought it and left it there (yeah right), or the assholes behind me threw the fish over their fence and into the shed.
Totally doable.
It's not a stockade fence, it's just a waist high wire fence and my shed is about 5 feet from their fence if that.
There's nothing in the shed of any value. Cardboard boxes full of peanuts from when ex-roommate was moving back and she has yet to take care of them, old rusty furniture from way back previous tenants, paint cans, crap like that.
Trying to stink up my house?
The sheds not attached you dumb fucks and in case you didn't notice, I nailed my window shut on the outside, duct taped a piece of cardboard on the inside and nailed a blanket over the whole thing.
My room is pitch black and now on cold nights it stays slightly warmer than it did before I did all that.
The shed ain't mine either.
It's the landmans.
He's a sheriff.
Dumb fucks.
I may just leave the fish there until he comes to pick up rent money tomorrow afternoon. Tell him what's been going on with the dogs and cops and he could easily verify it all and then he could go scare the crap outta them. He did it before to some other neighbors we had who were letting their dog take a crap on the front lawn and he caught them. Scared the shit out of them he did. Uniform, gun, tazer, 6 ft 3.
Or, I could go stab the fish with a giant carving fork and wing it back over the fence and splat it on the side of the house.
What do you think?

November 29, 2004

Muuuurder.

I'm so frigging close to killing those dogs.
I had to call the cops again last night about the dogs. They barked for 45 minutes straight starting at 10:30. I screamed out the back window to shut those little yapping things up and nobody did a damned thing so I called the cops and begged him to help me. It's excessive noise, they have to help right?
Well, the owners must have seen the cop car pull in or coming down the street and so they brought the dogs in.
Excessive noise only applies if the cop hears it.
ARRRRRGGGGHH!!
So very very close to dogicide.

Mark went off to school in a huff again this morning.
Sucks being healthy when you're a kid I guess.
Sebastian has to go get his glasses today and I think Mark just assumed he was going to get to stay home on account of you know, like moral support or something. Who knows what kids think.
He sat on the couch grumpily waiting for time to pass to go catch the bus answering my questions with quick and short answers and then didn't take his coat. Probably thinks that not wearing his coat is somehow going to hurt my feelings but uh, I don't care, I'm not the one standing at the bus stop freezing my arms off in a short sleeve shirt.
Kids don't think their guilt trips through enough.

The bus comes and I'm sitting out there watching and this jack ass in a black car comes right up on the buses ass and starts honking the horn.
Hello? Bus. Flashing red and yellow lights, little stop sign protruding from the side, rules and laws about buses? Any of this ring a bell with some drivers?
I guess not cuz this loony stayed behind the bus at the next two stops doing the exact same thing.
Ding ding. Give the idiot a prize for being this mornings road ass.
I'm sure they'll be more, it's going into season here. I've already seen a huge caddy do a u-turn right in the middle of a no u-turn street with a meridian causing the caddy to go bumpity bumpity over the thing and almost ramming two other cars in the process.
Had a huge wheelchair attached to the back of it too. One of those big electric ones like a hover round.
Dangerous on the road and probably run you over in the store too.
I live close enough to the fire station to hear when they go for accidents etc. It was non-stop all weekend.
Our accident rates are way low all summer and then you hit season and they skyrocket because seniors, some seniors, who come down here, 1) think they own the road and 2) think they can still see like a hawk and have the reflexes of a teen.
Crazy.

Later days.

November 6, 2004

I'm going to kill that dog.

This is a very obscene word laden post. I don't even know how many times I said the f word but it is in the extended entry for those of you who find it foul.
Mabe this time it is a little foul...lol

October 17, 2004

Well, my asshole neighbor has done something.

I went outside this morning for my smoke and I smelled that urinal cake smell again. It could be mothballs, who knows.
But I glanced over at his "flowerbed" which contains nothing but the same bushes that have been there since I moved in 6 years ago, and there was a little yellow soda cap.
So what you say?
Well, this guy never leaves any type of trash anywhere on his property so I went in for a closer look.
Little white crystals everywhere and the yellow soda cap has liquid in it.
I ran back in, got my camera and the phone.
Took 2 pictures of the area and then called the non-emergency line of the police.
They sent a cop over.
The cop took a report and talked to asshole who said it wasn't poison and said he knows he can't just kill peoples pets but that he is tired of animals in his yard.
Bet he's mad at me now but I don't care.

October 16, 2004

Help! My neighbor wants to poison peoples pets!

Help!
My asshole neighbor wants to poison all the cats in the neighborhood with moth balls or some other chemical when it was clearly a possum digging on his side of the yard.
I brought my cat in even though she hates to be indoors and simply cries all the time to go back out. She never leaves the front yard or does any damage. She eats lizards and that's about all she does.
I am worried that he is really going to go through with this and I'm going to come out one morning and find dead cats in the yard and people blaming me for it.
What can I do?
I already warned one guy that's cat comes over to our side of the yard but how can I stop this lunatic from killing peoples pets. They all have collars and tags so he can't legally just kill peoples pets can he???
I'm so scared for all the little babies.

June 2, 2004

Dear neighbors to my right;

Your new dog sure is cute.
Man can he bark huh?
Great protector right? That's why you got him right?
Cute as hell.
But I swear, if you leave that fucking dog outside all night again and he barks all fucking night again, he might not be there in the morning. Barking or no barking, I might just let him off his leash so he can go play in fucking traffic.
Hell, you wouldn't know that he was out of the yard. He barked all night and you never came to check on him once to even see if there was a problem. That right there tells me that you know he barks for no fucking reason other than to bark!
How do I know you never came to check on him?
Cuz I stood there at 3:30 this morning debating whether or not to kill the little fucker.
Take the damn thing in the house at a reasonable hour please or you may just find the cops banging on your door at 3am or come out in the am to find that poor little doggie woggie has somehow gotten off his leash and run away.
Fuckers.

May 12, 2004

I think I might hurl.

My neighbor, the healthy brother but still extremely overweight, the one that can work, has gotten into the very bad habit of too much cologne.
I know you all know about my allergy to certain types of perfumes and colognes and well, he wears one of them.
I am inside my house.
There is barely a breeze blowing.
My windows are open but the breeze is going right to left not front to back and the stench of his cologne is now in my house, up my nose and in my lungs and I am gagging.
Yes I could shut the windows and doors and turn on the evil money sucker but I don't have money to feed the evil money sucker.
And it's not so bad sitting here with the fan on if you don't move around too much.
I wouldn't recommend coming in the house and doing your favorite jazzercise tape.
Comfy cool it is not but it's tolerable.
I want to beat said brother over there every single day when he leaves his house after having taken a bath in that shit.
I love perfume I really do. I think it smells purty but in the florida heat, it sort of bakes into the flesh and then when you sweat, the smell that was sweet and sexy when you put it on, now smells like eau de old dead lady or fragrance of dumpster.
gag.
Deoderant and a few small spritzes should do you just fine folks.
You don't have to go overboard in the smell department.
Trust me, that nasty baked in stench of your favorite scent is so not sexy.