Sunday, November 26, 2006
If you blog past midnight…
…The fuzzy Mogwai blogger turns into a very tired, grumpy, green gremlin blogger. Let’s pray that I can control myself.
The road of my Alberta adventure has been a twisty, windy one. There have been ups and downs and there have been lights at the ends of tunnels that actually turned out to be natural light and not the LRT waiting for me with retribution in mind because of the stories that I’ve included it in. And, unfortunately, there have been potholes. I’ve asked the city to do something about them, but, alas, labor is in great need nowadays, and there doesn’t seem to be enough hands to fulfill the positions.
One of those potholes lives next door to me. He doesn’t get in my way, but he certainly doesn’t give me a warm fuzzy feeling, and I have to admit that his latest action has bothered me more than I really should allow it to, but what can I say? I’m an emotional guy.
Let me clear up the fact that my other neighbors are wonderful. They are chatty folks, well, the wife more so, but they are both interesting and will give the time of day to us when and if asked. Lilly even got into their yard a few times, and the husband said not to worry about it even after I told him to just call me to come over and clean up whatever, er, leavings she, um, left.
However, Lilly also got into my other neighbor’s yard, and this resulted in my neighbor, Mark, writing letters to the lawyer(s) of my landlord. My landlord didn’t care as there really wasn’t anything he could do, but he thought I should see the letters as I and my family were mentioned in them. Believe it or not, Mark never even approached me once about my dog before writing the letters. We’ve tried to find all the holes that Lilly can get through, but she’s a little dog, and she’s a good finder of holes. We believe that problem’s been curtailed now.
I believe I’ve made mention before the strife between my landlord and my neighbor. My landlord has asked me not to discuss the legal matters between him and my neighbor, and I believe I’m honoring that by not giving out any details on the matter. I have told my landlord that I’m to be in no way, shape or form involved in such matters, and if I knew of the visits from police or the unpleasantness from across the fence that was to follow my moving in to this place, I would never have subjected my family to this part of the neighborhood. I must stress again that no one else in the neighborhood seems to act like Mark, and I’m about to give an example of what happened to make me feel the need to write about it.
My readers know about Kristen’s flyer route, right? She’s determined to be the little entrepreneur, and she’s got her sites set on a PSP, specifically for LocoRoco (this all sounds familiar for some reason). Anyway, Mark is on her route. Michelle was at work, so it was up to me, Kristen and Rylee, with Lilly in tow, to deliver these flyers on Friday afternoon.
Kristen delivered the flyers to Mark’s house and came back to the cart that I was towing across the street. Mark came out of his house, collected his flyers and called to me across the street.
“Are you from next door?” he asked.
I smiled and said, “Yes! Yes I am!”
Without a beat he replied, “Stay off my property!”
I was taken aback and kind of stammered, “Wh…what?”
“Just stay off my property!” It wasn’t a mean voice. There was a trace of an English accent, I believe. But he matter of factly told me to stay off his property.
I called out, “Whatever suits you!” as he went back inside.
I don’t even know if he heard me, but I didn’t think it mattered. I’m left wondering if he’s upset with me because of something I did to him, or if it’s just because of the neighbor-landlord strife I mentioned earlier. I’m pretty sure that I’ve done nothing to make him act like a jerk to me or my family, and I don’t believe he is a jerk because I haven’t really gotten a chance to know him. When I first moved in, and it was just me and Roger with my landlord’s father living in the basement, I went over and shook Mark’s hand and introduced myself. He seemed friendly enough, but also mentioned the legal stuff that was going on between him and (geeze, I’m tired of saying it) my landlord. But that was it! He hasn’t said “Boo!” to me since except for that little exchange above.
I’m a curious individual, so one day at work close to when I just started there, I did a little search on Google to see if I could find out anything about what was really going on between my, argh, lord of the land (hah!) and Mark. A couple of Boolean searches lead me to find out that Mark is an aurora chaser and that he has his own website where he invites other aurora chasers to share photos and comments on the subject.
Just seems weird that he’d be so social to perfect strangers around the globe, but wants nothing to do with the guy over the fence. If I’ve wronged him somehow, especially if it’s about the dog getting into his yard when we first moved in, I apologize, but if this has to do with my landlord then, buddy, your fight’s with him not me. Do you still want your flyers?
The road of my Alberta adventure has been a twisty, windy one. There have been ups and downs and there have been lights at the ends of tunnels that actually turned out to be natural light and not the LRT waiting for me with retribution in mind because of the stories that I’ve included it in. And, unfortunately, there have been potholes. I’ve asked the city to do something about them, but, alas, labor is in great need nowadays, and there doesn’t seem to be enough hands to fulfill the positions.
One of those potholes lives next door to me. He doesn’t get in my way, but he certainly doesn’t give me a warm fuzzy feeling, and I have to admit that his latest action has bothered me more than I really should allow it to, but what can I say? I’m an emotional guy.
Let me clear up the fact that my other neighbors are wonderful. They are chatty folks, well, the wife more so, but they are both interesting and will give the time of day to us when and if asked. Lilly even got into their yard a few times, and the husband said not to worry about it even after I told him to just call me to come over and clean up whatever, er, leavings she, um, left.
However, Lilly also got into my other neighbor’s yard, and this resulted in my neighbor, Mark, writing letters to the lawyer(s) of my landlord. My landlord didn’t care as there really wasn’t anything he could do, but he thought I should see the letters as I and my family were mentioned in them. Believe it or not, Mark never even approached me once about my dog before writing the letters. We’ve tried to find all the holes that Lilly can get through, but she’s a little dog, and she’s a good finder of holes. We believe that problem’s been curtailed now.
I believe I’ve made mention before the strife between my landlord and my neighbor. My landlord has asked me not to discuss the legal matters between him and my neighbor, and I believe I’m honoring that by not giving out any details on the matter. I have told my landlord that I’m to be in no way, shape or form involved in such matters, and if I knew of the visits from police or the unpleasantness from across the fence that was to follow my moving in to this place, I would never have subjected my family to this part of the neighborhood. I must stress again that no one else in the neighborhood seems to act like Mark, and I’m about to give an example of what happened to make me feel the need to write about it.
My readers know about Kristen’s flyer route, right? She’s determined to be the little entrepreneur, and she’s got her sites set on a PSP, specifically for LocoRoco (this all sounds familiar for some reason). Anyway, Mark is on her route. Michelle was at work, so it was up to me, Kristen and Rylee, with Lilly in tow, to deliver these flyers on Friday afternoon.
Kristen delivered the flyers to Mark’s house and came back to the cart that I was towing across the street. Mark came out of his house, collected his flyers and called to me across the street.
“Are you from next door?” he asked.
I smiled and said, “Yes! Yes I am!”
Without a beat he replied, “Stay off my property!”
I was taken aback and kind of stammered, “Wh…what?”
“Just stay off my property!” It wasn’t a mean voice. There was a trace of an English accent, I believe. But he matter of factly told me to stay off his property.
I called out, “Whatever suits you!” as he went back inside.
I don’t even know if he heard me, but I didn’t think it mattered. I’m left wondering if he’s upset with me because of something I did to him, or if it’s just because of the neighbor-landlord strife I mentioned earlier. I’m pretty sure that I’ve done nothing to make him act like a jerk to me or my family, and I don’t believe he is a jerk because I haven’t really gotten a chance to know him. When I first moved in, and it was just me and Roger with my landlord’s father living in the basement, I went over and shook Mark’s hand and introduced myself. He seemed friendly enough, but also mentioned the legal stuff that was going on between him and (geeze, I’m tired of saying it) my landlord. But that was it! He hasn’t said “Boo!” to me since except for that little exchange above.
I’m a curious individual, so one day at work close to when I just started there, I did a little search on Google to see if I could find out anything about what was really going on between my, argh, lord of the land (hah!) and Mark. A couple of Boolean searches lead me to find out that Mark is an aurora chaser and that he has his own website where he invites other aurora chasers to share photos and comments on the subject.
Just seems weird that he’d be so social to perfect strangers around the globe, but wants nothing to do with the guy over the fence. If I’ve wronged him somehow, especially if it’s about the dog getting into his yard when we first moved in, I apologize, but if this has to do with my landlord then, buddy, your fight’s with him not me. Do you still want your flyers?
