It's a weird day in the neighborhood....
Jun. 6th, 2021 04:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogWe like it here. It's a quiet section within zooming distance of a major local interstate but virtually impossible to find if you don't know how to get here. The homes- mostly built around our birth years in the late 50s up to 1960- have been slowly turning over since we moved here, many from their original owners. We were the third to own this one, but the second couple was here only briefly, from 1992 to 1994. Even after almost 27 years, I still know fewer people here by name than I remember from my childhood block of my first 17 years. Lots more dogs, though, and Pepper and I know Nilla and Harley and Zippy and Scoob and my latest discovery Vader (who, despite the name is a wuss who cowers at doggy day care;).
These are three of their weirder stories:
----
Harley lives one house to the east of us. For the first 20 years, it was a beloved neighbor's home, roughly half with the house guarded ::koff:: by Woody their Dalmatian. It's been a rental since, for the past several summers with a couple and their now-teen kid there. We've had the occasional issue with them, but it's been mostly peaceful the last three or so. Most of the trouble comes from the layout: the house's former patio, now a rather jerry-rigged "deck" with an adjoining hot tub, is very close to the lot line. For this story, it's also important that the original family room of that house is also very close to both bedrooms along the east edge of our house.
I keep the blind facing them drawn at all times. Or did, anyway. About a year ago, Zoey added a new Stupid Pet Trick to her repertoire: she began jumping up on the nightstand and bashing at those blinds. This is now an almost every-night occurrence, usually around 4 a.m. The simple solution has been to raise the blinds until she's fed around 6; this room's dark and there's nothing to see from out there. The biggest problem, usually, is what sights come in: "Alcatraz lighting" (as Eleanor terms it from her landscape lighting days), around the back door leading into that room, is usually the distraction. But today at 4 a.m., the guard-tower lights were off.
Dude's television was on. And what a television. That family room has been converted into a Mancave for Dave, with a wall-size Home Theatre Flatscreen practically filling MY window. This morning, it was tuned to golf at 4 a.m. The whole yard was glowing green. I shooed the cat a bit early and rolled the blind back down. Probably I was to blame for the Memorial tournament leader having to withdraw due to a positive COVID test.
Sheesh, if you're gonna have the idiot box on that early, at least put the Mets on!
----
We now move across the street- home of Bernie Bob the braying Bassett, second-owned by Ellen after the original Italian Auntie Vinnie died ten years ago after living there for the first 50. This is the house that had the street tree dug up a month or so ago and then, a couple of weeks later, replaced with a sapling at the absolute worst time of the year. Eleanor has been running a hose across to it, to apologies and promises from Over There that she'd take care of it after she got a hose/ fixed her faucet/ finished waxing Bernie Bob/whatever.
Two mornings ago, the result of this procrastination was Eleanor faceplanting while bringing the hose across and causing major bruises on her leg and pain in both shoulders. She waited a day before finally texting over there about what had happened and asking if Ellen would take on more of the job. She immediately apologized, promised to do better, offered to help in any way,....
but so far it's been her overcompensating by getting her hose out too soon and risking overwatering of the poor thing. We did ask her for "help" in finding a tile contractor, since she's done a lot of improvements to Vinnie's 1960s decorating. Still waiting to hear from THAT guy.
----
And then there's the neighbor who's COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE....
Last week's birthday girl, re-enacting the parable of The Prodigal Daughter.
As I mentioned in my birthday post to her, Zoey's been jonesing to go outside recently, and we've been letting her: She never goes far or stays out long. In fact, I’ve written this entire post with her either lounging on the stoop in the sunshine or grazing about five feet away.
Uh huh.
Eleanor let her out the back yesterday morning, and next we knew she was at the FRONT door. So much for not going far. Then, sometime in the late afternoon she toodled out again, this time disappearing through feeding time. We wandered the grounds, put out treats and shook the Temptations package, and eventually tried to get away from the distraction by putting a new Netflix binge on (Sweet Tooth, which is quite good:) Finally, there she was at the back door- AFTER eating the treats.
She still seemed to want to go out this morning, so we tried rigging a harness on her and a dog-length cable attached to it so she could roam to grassy spots but still be in control. It took all of two minutes for her to slip out of that, and she was once again off to the Hidden Places. This time, Eleanor got especially worried and upset. She tried reading, chanting, sleeping, all to no avail. We tried to heart-to-heart it out, and I experimented with starting up the lawnmower in both front and back to see if that would spook her out of hiding. Finally, Eleanor said aloud what we both were fearing: She could run out into the street and get hit by a car!
Whereupon, the little shit immediately appeared at the back door as if to say, Bloody hell THAT's gonna happen!
So she's in for now, and unless she slips out or until we can come up with a practical solution she can't undo, she's in for good.
Besides, cat, the people out there are weird. Especially at 4 a.m.;)
These are three of their weirder stories:
----
Harley lives one house to the east of us. For the first 20 years, it was a beloved neighbor's home, roughly half with the house guarded ::koff:: by Woody their Dalmatian. It's been a rental since, for the past several summers with a couple and their now-teen kid there. We've had the occasional issue with them, but it's been mostly peaceful the last three or so. Most of the trouble comes from the layout: the house's former patio, now a rather jerry-rigged "deck" with an adjoining hot tub, is very close to the lot line. For this story, it's also important that the original family room of that house is also very close to both bedrooms along the east edge of our house.
I keep the blind facing them drawn at all times. Or did, anyway. About a year ago, Zoey added a new Stupid Pet Trick to her repertoire: she began jumping up on the nightstand and bashing at those blinds. This is now an almost every-night occurrence, usually around 4 a.m. The simple solution has been to raise the blinds until she's fed around 6; this room's dark and there's nothing to see from out there. The biggest problem, usually, is what sights come in: "Alcatraz lighting" (as Eleanor terms it from her landscape lighting days), around the back door leading into that room, is usually the distraction. But today at 4 a.m., the guard-tower lights were off.
Dude's television was on. And what a television. That family room has been converted into a Mancave for Dave, with a wall-size Home Theatre Flatscreen practically filling MY window. This morning, it was tuned to golf at 4 a.m. The whole yard was glowing green. I shooed the cat a bit early and rolled the blind back down. Probably I was to blame for the Memorial tournament leader having to withdraw due to a positive COVID test.
Sheesh, if you're gonna have the idiot box on that early, at least put the Mets on!
----
We now move across the street- home of Bernie Bob the braying Bassett, second-owned by Ellen after the original Italian Auntie Vinnie died ten years ago after living there for the first 50. This is the house that had the street tree dug up a month or so ago and then, a couple of weeks later, replaced with a sapling at the absolute worst time of the year. Eleanor has been running a hose across to it, to apologies and promises from Over There that she'd take care of it after she got a hose/ fixed her faucet/ finished waxing Bernie Bob/whatever.
Two mornings ago, the result of this procrastination was Eleanor faceplanting while bringing the hose across and causing major bruises on her leg and pain in both shoulders. She waited a day before finally texting over there about what had happened and asking if Ellen would take on more of the job. She immediately apologized, promised to do better, offered to help in any way,....
but so far it's been her overcompensating by getting her hose out too soon and risking overwatering of the poor thing. We did ask her for "help" in finding a tile contractor, since she's done a lot of improvements to Vinnie's 1960s decorating. Still waiting to hear from THAT guy.
----
And then there's the neighbor who's COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE....
Last week's birthday girl, re-enacting the parable of The Prodigal Daughter.
As I mentioned in my birthday post to her, Zoey's been jonesing to go outside recently, and we've been letting her: She never goes far or stays out long. In fact, I’ve written this entire post with her either lounging on the stoop in the sunshine or grazing about five feet away.
Uh huh.
Eleanor let her out the back yesterday morning, and next we knew she was at the FRONT door. So much for not going far. Then, sometime in the late afternoon she toodled out again, this time disappearing through feeding time. We wandered the grounds, put out treats and shook the Temptations package, and eventually tried to get away from the distraction by putting a new Netflix binge on (Sweet Tooth, which is quite good:) Finally, there she was at the back door- AFTER eating the treats.
She still seemed to want to go out this morning, so we tried rigging a harness on her and a dog-length cable attached to it so she could roam to grassy spots but still be in control. It took all of two minutes for her to slip out of that, and she was once again off to the Hidden Places. This time, Eleanor got especially worried and upset. She tried reading, chanting, sleeping, all to no avail. We tried to heart-to-heart it out, and I experimented with starting up the lawnmower in both front and back to see if that would spook her out of hiding. Finally, Eleanor said aloud what we both were fearing: She could run out into the street and get hit by a car!
Whereupon, the little shit immediately appeared at the back door as if to say, Bloody hell THAT's gonna happen!
So she's in for now, and unless she slips out or until we can come up with a practical solution she can't undo, she's in for good.
Besides, cat, the people out there are weird. Especially at 4 a.m.;)
Yeah, about that
Date: 2021-06-07 11:31 am (UTC)We do have a colony of ferals that live next door. Most of them are pretty wary, but we see one hit by a car once in awhile. The others are in various stages of health. The state of our TNR now is here:
https://www.lcsun-news.com/story/news/2021/05/18/las-cruces-approves-support-trap-neuter-return-program-cats/5132171001/
Hoping something better will be decided soon.
Neighbors--we have some across the street that make the county cops place an unmarked car in our lot from time to time to watch them. We've never been told what they're watching for. We try to pretend we don't notice.
Your neighborhood dog stories make me want to post some profiles of the dogs we care for. :)
Re: Yeah, about that
Date: 2021-06-07 12:29 pm (UTC)Most of the dogs here are rescues. The two either side of us, maybe not, since they're purebreds.
The aforementioned Harley, a purebred, never-fixed black lab, is loud AF but basically a good doggie. Oddest thing about him is, despite his name, he seems to be afraid of motorcycles; his humans don't have one, but he seems to whine when one goes by.
Nilla's an aging, very sweet yellow lab. Her humans have gotten to spend more time with her with the pandemic on, which I think has helped keep her at least not looking any older.
Across the street, BB's mostly indoors but you can hear him from space when Ellen does let him out. Next door to him is Buddy, whose grumpy old man owner got him an invisible fence a few years back and he just sits out there barking his brains out, frustrated he can't interact.
As for Pepper's backstory: the city shelter rescued her when she was around 2 in December of 2017. She had a chip with a 10/15/15 date in it but no other info, so we assume that's her birthday or close. (It is now registered to us, and don't get me started on Petwatch scams.) Her next owners were a millennial couple; he promised to take her if they broke up, they did, and he didn't. So her final months with "them" in April of 2018 were mostly spent cooped up in a crate 14 hours a day in a third-floor walkup until Pepper's grammy, a then coworker of Eleanor's, connected her with us. We still have the crate; she hasn't been in it since the second week.
Also, Vernon the grumpy-old-man looking Frug, another neighbor's two adorable and quiet collie mixes who have been joined by a hellhound, and the two goldens walked by Frau Blucher who won't let them so much as sniff a pee puddle on their training outings.
Re: Yeah, about that
Date: 2021-06-08 11:47 am (UTC)