July 30, 2006

Neighbours who suck a$$

I live in a townhouse. I used to be flanked by neighbours who, to the right, screamed at each other and their kids, constantly; and to the left, had a revolving door/unofficial drop-in centre for teenaged boys who liked to drink and gamble online. Good times for all.

I found myself shaking my head in disbelief at my good luck earlier this spring when both units were vacated within a month of each other. I did so, of course, with the trepidation of not knowing who their successors may be.

On one side, I now have a lovely young couple with a small child, and a dog who, despite being the size of an elephant, has never had an offensive "deposit" left on the lawn for more than a moment before his owners scooped it up and disposed of it. This huge dog also never barks (whines occasionally, being a husky). Could not ask for more friendly and respectful neighbours.

On the other side, we have Hillbilly Heaven. The patriarch of HH is a quiet, middle aged gentleman. He isn't the problem.

His adult son and daughter-in-law, and their 3-year-old, are the problem. They keep their own unit and lawn, tidy and clean enough. Everything looks nice. It's their utter lack of respect for others that sends me to the moon.

Adult son has never worn clothing on his upper body. Like, ever. And lives in a red ball cap, camouflage shorts, and workboots. Daughter-in-law is quiet enough, but I'm guessing she's not overly bright. 3-year-old is disrespectful of others' things, particularly my garden tools which I place neatly on my front step for the next time I'm to use them; and my six-year-old's toys; he has also squirted me in the face with a water gun - twice - while his mother, 20 feet away, said nothing.

They have a friend who visits with two little white dogs; these dogs are prolific in bowel elimination, and it never gets picked up. Fab.

They have parties that last till after midnight. Said parties happen to take place outside our bedroom windows at the back of our house - pop quiz, does excessive alcohol consumption make a group of people (a) quieter or (b) louder? You only get one guess.

This morning the daugher-in-law was sitting on her front step with a friend who lives in another of the townhouse units here who coincidentally also has a 3-year-old, who loves to screech at the top of his lungs incessantly. His pronounciation is really poor, so I guess he makes up for it in volume. But I digress. They were sitting outside having their morning coffee and cigarettes, watching the two boys play. One of the little boys had to pee. Braniac from the other unit tells him to go pee on the tree. So he hangs it out in the middle of the lawn (nowhere near the tree - not that peeing on the tree would have been okay) and lets a stream go, while the two "adults" who were responsible for him laughed their a$$es off. He got some great arc, I'll give him that. Too bad that next time someone walks across that part of the front lawn, they'll be walking through another human being's body waste.

On a related note, I recently discovered the album "Specialist In All Styles" by Orchestra Baobab, a great Senagalese band. The album sounds (to my untrained ear) like Indian or Algerian singing style, with Mexican music. Talk about fusion jazz. :) My personal favourites on the album are Ndongoy Daara and El Son Te Llama.

I've chosen this morning to listen to it. And you know, you really can't get all the nuances of the music unless you've got it at a pretty good volume.

It's sooooo beautiful today. Think I'll go open all my windows.

July 29, 2006

WHAT is with the heat??

I hate to say it, because I hate wishing my life away, but the heat is killing me, and I am so ready for fall. :( Or at least a cooler summer. This house retains the heat like crazy (in summer at least - in winter, not so much!) so I think we are in desperate need of some new insulation & weather stripping & so forth. Unfortunately, that's not up to us. :(

**sigh**

July 19, 2006

Toddlerspeak

My daughter C. is two. She has a language all her own. It is, in fact, much like English and definitely has all the inflections and sounds reasonably similar - but it takes a finely trained ear to pick up the little nuances of the language.

Here, then, a small C-to-English translation guide:

Melmow: elbow
Beebee seepy: baby sleeping
Beedee: blanket (this one was tough to figure out since it sounds so much like beebee)
Deuce: juice
Up: mouth (this one is my fault, from having said "Open up" so many times and never saying "Open your mouth")
Hoo hoo hock: cuckoo clock

But her all-purpose word, the word that is appropriate in almost any situation, is:

Owie!: stop, don't wash my face, don't try to pick me up, don't try to change my diaper, don't hug me right now, I don't want to kiss you, don't put sunscreen on me, don't make me leave the park, don't try to stop me from doing what I'm doing right now, don't put my hair up, etc.

July 18, 2006

Cute little blog things

You Are Sensual Sexy

You exude a luxiourous sensuality in your everyday life
Turning heads everywhere you go, it's all about your sexy attitude.
You're naturally hot - gorgeous in both sweats and stilettos.
Your biggest problem is that your utra sexy self sometimes scares men away.


You Are a Passionate Kisser

You are the most likely type to kiss a sexy stranger

Your kissing style is unpredictable and free spirited

You could kiss anyone at a drop of a hat

It's all about where your passion leads you


You Go For Brains!

You want a guy with a big... brain.
And of course it would be nice if he were a total hottie, but you're not counting on it.
What's on the inside is what counts for you. (Besides, you can always change the outside later!)

July 13, 2006

Michael the Turtle

Summertime

I am on holidays. In fact, I'm nearing the end of two whole weeks of unscheduled bliss. During this time we (hubby and I) have redecorated our kitchen. I spent time with my kiddos, went swimming, built sand castles, read (finally got into The DaVinci Code and omgosh, it was so much better than I ever thought it might be; very, very exciting!!) and just generally enjoyed the change of pace. It's been really nice.

Son is at a day camp today. We're expecting super-hot weather over the weekend, which will be great for my garden. Hot and humid makes my climbing plants (morning glories, sweet peas) jump up. Our tomato plant is already almost as tall as my six-year-old. (Yes, that's tomato plant, singular - we do live in the city with a very small backyard, and honestly, we just don't need *that* many tomatoes!)

Next week will be back to work and back to the regular routine; but I still have a few days left and I'm going to enjoy them for all they're worth.