Recently in The "hood" Category
So you know how I mentioned that our neighbors were driving us fucking nuts with all of the noise? It went on until well into the morning on Wednesday of last week, and then just two days later started up again at full force on Friday night. Normally on a weekend night we would just ignore their hooting and screeching as much as possible, but I was way overtired already from all of the sleep I had lost due to their noise and inconsiderate behavior earlier in the week and I was dead set on calling the cops. Andy tried to stop me but it was not going to happen. I was so pissed. The noise died down about an half hour or so after I called and I finally fell asleep.
Interestingly, a guy that works with Andy was over at the house next door when all of this occurred. He said something to Andy yesterday like, "So you don't like your neighbors much?" Andy was very diplomatic and explained that the excessive noise goes on constantly and had kept us up just two days prior with wild screaming and music until the wee hours of the morning. He explained how even when we were laying in our bed with all of the windows closed and the TV on, that we could still not drown out the obnoxious niose produced over there at our neighbors' house. The guy he works with had gone inside the house (from the back porch) during the wild partying because it was too loud for him (too loud for one of the guests, but yet we were supposed to live with it). He was the one who had answered the door when the cops banged on it and they marched straight into the house and turned down the music. The assholes on the back porch started yelling to turn it back up until they realized it was the cops that had turned their music down.
I still have no regrets about calling. If they do not realize or remember how freaking obnoxious they are, then I will remind them every time if that is what it takes. It is weird because these people are about my parents' age, but still have no common courtesy toward those that are unfortunate enough to have to live around them. One day I will escape them and their noisy ways.
It must be nce
Our *wonderful* neighbors have gone out partying for the night and left their psychotic dog, Cooper, alone in a dark house with the windows open. He will not shut up. He barks the entire time they are gone when they do that. I have no idea why they would leave the windows open while they are gone (or at all, since it is gross and muggy outside). They left him there barking with the windows open one time on New Year's Eve, and he barked until about five am. Our bedroom is on that side of the house and it just reverberates off the side of our house, so there is no way we can sleep or anything. I really can't stand those people.
Okay, not really, I lied. But that is what I say to Andy when I look out the front windows and there are parked cars lined up all across the front of our property. This is pretty much a weekly occurence, so I say it a lot. It is like an inside joke anymore that we're nearly always having a party.
Our weekend has been good, but we didn't do much of anything. Just the usual crap like grocery shopping and laundry that we normally do, plus dog training for Annabel. We did go out and meet with some people at a kitchen design place and they are working on putting together a plan for our kitchen in the new house. We will go in again next Saturday to see what they came up with. And we did meet with our builder briefly out at the property yesterday. We were supposed to meet with the dirt guy and the land clearing guy at the same time, but one was stuck on a broken down boat in the middle of a river somewhere, and the other we don't know. It was storming outside, so we wouldn't have made much progress anyway.
We stopped in at a flooring store and looked at some options. We saw some neat things and started researching on the internet. We had planned to use carbonized bamboo flooring throughout most of the house originally, but after reading some reviews I realized that bamboo is not the right product for us. I researched some other options and I think we have settled on laminate flooring as the most practical for us. We want the same thing throughout the living rooms, bedrooms, kitchen, etc., and even real wood floors we were concerned would show too much wear in the traffic pattern. Laminate seems to be the perfect option; it is very durable and there are so many choices. Andy had a hard time switching gears for the new flooring idea as he generally does- he is less willing to accept change than I am and takes a while to warm up to something new, but he eventually comes around.
This afternoon there was a huge ruckus from the kids, birds and dogs alike, when someone came to the door. It was someone from the neighborhood to tell us that we had been chosen for "Yard of the Month."
Yard of the Month was started a couple of months ago by our successors as officers of the Homeowners association. They chose the first one, and then whoever wins each month has to chooose the winner for the next month, and they get a $25 gift certificate from Home Depot and a yard sign and such. I have joked with Andy since the beginning of the program that he needed to try harder so he could get Yard of the Month. He doesn't care in the least because we are just trying to get out of this neighborhood; our yard actually is one of the nicest ones even without him really trying and just doing the minimum required to keep the yard up to our standards. I guess most of the neighborhood is comfortable living below our minimum standards, though.
Just as a side note, we went out to lunch on Saturday while we had the oil in Andy's truck changed. I don't know if you have an Uno's where you are but if you do and you go there, you must try the buffalo chicken quesadillas. They were so effing good. I got nothing else right now. i hope you had a nice holiday weekend.
I almost can't believe my crummy luck sometimes. I mean, things are fine for the most part; Andy was able to fix the a/c blower in my Jeep today while I was at work and everything is fine. But after working twelve hour shifts for the past two days, starting at 3:00 am and going to 3:30 pm- extra half hour to account for lunch- I am about dog tired. I went to bed last night at around 8:30 but it didn't help much because my next door neighbors were up hooting and screeching on their back porch and woke me up just after midnight. I was not able to get more than a couple of minutes of sleep after that and had to get up at 1:30 to get ready for work and leave the house at 2:30. So tonight I am REALLY freaking tired.
When I got home today I was thrilled to see that there was already a large party underway two doors down from our house. Then just in the last hour, it became apparent that the same neighbors on the other side of us that kept me up last night would be doing so again tonight- they are having another, larger party. They have two grills out and are already at a low roar. Even the people across the street are partying tonight. A bunch of people just showed up there with huge liquor bottles in tow. What are the fucking chances? I mean really?
I have to go to work again tomorrow. I just want to get some sleep!
Florida in the summertime is infamous for afternoon convective thunderstorms. It is just one of those things. The intense heat and moisture causes thunderheads to build and usually around three pm it starts raining. Today was one of those days.
Imagine our surprise when we looked out the front windows to notice our neighbor, who hasn't mowed his lawn weeds in months just coming out in the middle of a terrible thunderstorm to do yardwork! He started out weedeating around the bases of some palms that were so overgrown you couldn't see the wooden landscape timbers that surrounded them underneath all the grass. It has probably been a couple of years since he has trimmed in that area. The storm got worse and worse and lightening was cracking all around- the power even flickered a little. And the neighbor finally finished trimming, and he went and got the lawn mower out and started mowing.
Add to this the fact that he was barefoot the entire time, and you have a real picture of safety. Of course, we don't think he even has any shoes because we have never seen any on his feet. I didn't think he had a shirt for a long time either. I guess we should be impressed that he finally did some yard work, but I can't help but to be puzzled as to why he did it in the middle of a thunderstorm. Especially since he doesn't work and just hangs out all day. Hmmm. I guess it is not for me to understand.
Just a few minutes ago, I was standing outside in the backyard with the dogs, trying to get Ramona to pee and poop. She was sniffing around and was just about to go when a huge firework cracked in the air right over our neighbors house. I am talking about a giant, 4th of July type firecracker; it was deafening. All of the dogs barked, but Ramona bolted. It scared the living shit out of her, but unfortunately it did not scare the actual shit out of her; she did not poop. She ran into the house and hid upstairs in our bedroom. I went up and got her and tried not to baby her, tried to tell her it was okay, not to be silly and come back outside. I brought her back out with some treats, and then two more huge ass fireworks crashed in the sky. That was it for Ramona; she was done. She went and hid and I could not get her to come out again at all. Fucking people.
Now it is not that I have anything against fireworks, but it is almost nine o'clock on a random Thursday night in May. Not exactly firework-worthy. And they were launched right next to my house, which is stupid, illegal, and asking for trouble. The worst part of it is that we are experiencing major drought right now in this area and are on high alert for fires. And these fucking morons are setting off fireworks. Why is it that I am surrounded by idiots? Sometimes I hate people.
Andy came home from work early tonight- he is still on second shift and he wanted to be able to watchthe Florida vs. Ohio State football game. It is a big game here in this area due to our vicinity to the University of Florida, and also Andy is from Ohio, so he is somewhat interested.
I noticed earlier when I glanced out the window from our bedroom upstairs, that out on the lanai of the neighbor's house they had set up a TV. Great, so they are going to watch the game too, like everyone else. Only problem is, I can hear every fucking word they say when they are on their lanai or glorified back porch when I am in my bed, trying to sleep with all of the windows shut tight. And my dogs that are in the bed with me can hear every time they cackle, or scream or their big dog starts barking out there as they party in the middle of the night. And then they want to bark, making it impossible for me to sleep.
And this would all be fine- it is a special occasion, a game that doesn't happen all the time. But unfortunately, their partying does happen all the time, and it happened until the wee hours of the morning last night so I hardly slept then. I have to get up at 4:30 again tomorrow morning as always, so I am in no mood for their crap again. Damn old fogies who act like teenagers, they are. It makes me wonder what is so horrible inside their house that they MUST BE OUTSIDE MAKING NOISE CONSTANTLY LATE AT NIGHT.
I have one of those "noise" machine things, that plays like different nature sounds such as a stream, or crickets or waves crashing. I use it to try to drown out the noisy neighbors, but they are exceptionally talented. I can't turn it up high enough to cover the noise they make. Yes, they are that bad- it must be the wine.
So, I was glad Andy came home for the game. That way he will be downstairs watching the game and the dogs will mostly hang out on the couch with him, where the TV will mostly drown out the noise from next door and I will be upstairs trying to sleep. I will still hear the neighbors but hopefully our dogs will not hear them and want to bark in my ear. Wish me luck!
Last night my next door neighbors were making a lot of noise as usual on their back porch and when I took the pups out to pee before bed their dog starting woofing at our privacy fence from their side. My dogs barked too, and they were really interested in the neighbors dog, so I walked over to the fence to collect them up and bring them back inside to go to bed. The neighbors dog kept barking and the neighbor was yelling at him, and then I heard him smack the dog, loudly. I flinched and I hate to think of that poor dog being hit. It is not his fault he has crappy owners that don't want to let him be a dog. Poor guy.
Ugh. I am tired. It doesn't help that I was awakened several times throughout the night by my noisy ass neighbors next door that still think they are teenagers or something. They are in their fifties, for heaven's sake and I feel like we live next door to a freaking frat house. My God, they are sooooooo loud! Their cackles and hoots and laughter goes right through the walls and into my room where they wake me regularly. I even have one of those white noise machines, but nothing covers up their inconsiderate yelling. And it went on until 5:30 this morning, believe it or not. I literally cannot fathom how they are able to stay up like that; I would be a zombie. This morning when we got up, Andy said that he wished the lawn needed mowing so he would have an excuse to make noise that would bother them while they are trying to sleep.
Last night just further reinforced our decision to build a new house on a lot more land. Our super inconsiderate neighbors were up until the wee hours of the morning on their back porch drinking and yelling so that we could hear them in our bedroom with all the windows closed. To make things worse, the neighbor behind us who has a lot of land currently has a relative living there in a camper, and they have some sort of hound dog that barks at every sound. Not that I mind the barking, but it causes mine to bark, and the neighbors on the side of us who are making all the noise are the ones who complained about our dogs barking. So, they go out there and make all kinds of noise which causes the hound dog to bark, their dog to bark in reply, and our dogs to want to bark. Meaning anyone wanting to get any sleep before 3 AM is out of luck. And really, I wouldn't even care about the barking, I would just let them run out there and get it out of their systems except that the noisy neighbor bitched about the barking and I am afraid that they will try to kill my dogs. We actually found one of them chewing on a chicken bone once, which can break apart in their stomachs and kill them, and we don't even buy chicken with bones, so go figure.
Anyway, so we are getting closer to coming to an agreement with a builder about the new house. I think we are going to have the plans drawn pretty soon. It is going to have thicker walls, insulated glass, and therefore be much more soundproof. This crap with hearing your neighbors' conversations while you are lying in bed has got to go. And if the dogs want to bark, they can go outside and bark to their hearts content.
We only have neighbors living on one side of us right now; the house on the other side has been vacant since last summer. The people who live next door to us on the west side are okay, but they are the type of people that think that the whole world revolves around them. Even though their house is on the same size lot as ours, theirs is one story and is situated strangely on the lot leaving them almost no back yard, and just a small strip of side yard towards our house. We have a six foot wood privacy fence, but their "lanai" or glorified screened porch is on the back corner of their house that is next to our house. They are out on that porch CONSTANTLY and they always talk loudly, cackle, and their very large dog barks, all of which drive my little dogs nuts, so they love to go over to the fence and bark at them. It is not very excessive, and the dogs on both sides of the fence seem to enjoy it, so sometimes we let them bark for a while before reining them back in the house. I don't mind the barking, from our dogs or their dog, but since I know they DO mind, I have to keep mine quiet, while theirs is not. Our dogs have a dog door, so they are used to going out there whenever they want. Our latest adopted dog, little Annabel, has a rather annoying bark; I will admit straight up. And her favorite thing in the world is to run outside and bark at those people. We yell for her to get back in the house periodically, and she comes in, because she knows she'll get a treat, but she runs right back out usually, unless we close off the dog door.
Yesterday at around five PM, the neighbor came over and asked Andy if we could let the dog in the house, as if we had locked her out there or something. He told the guy that she could come in whenever she wants, she wasn't locked out there, but we brought her in and closed off the dog door anyway. Now I am spending $60 to purchase a citronella spray anti-bark collar for her to try to break the habit, because I am a good neighbor, but this guy should be the last guy ever to complain about our little dog barking during daytime "legal" hours, when he is the same one that locked his dog in the house all night with all the windows open while they went out partying and the dog barked every ten seconds until five in the morning keeping us awake all night. These are also the noisiest neighbors in the entire world, screeching and yelling while they drink heavily on their back porch late at night. Our dogs are all in the house by seven PM, while these people whoop and holler until two in the morning on a semi-regular basis. I have been laying in bed in the middle of the night with all of the windows closed only to be awakened by them or their drunk friends singing, talking, whatever. I could actually hear every word they were saying. Here is a picture of their "lanai" taken from our master bedroom window (upstairs). You can see how there is a direct line of sight from there, and I guess that is why the noise from there carries so well too. The picture is horrible because it was taken through my window, but you get the idea. The roof you see below me is the roof over our huge back porch. Our house doesn't sit way back on the lot like theirs does- we have a nice big back yard. And yes, their house is purple.
So, I think that our neighbor should be ashamed of himself to complain about our dog when she wouldn't bark if they would just SHUT UP out there for a change. And I don't think it is fair that my dogs have to be trained not to bark, when their dog is allowed to bark and egg them on. Whatever. When we move to our new property, those dogs will be able to bark themselves silly.
Tomorrow night is our annual Homeowners Association Meeting, and the last one we will ever attend. We will be relinquishing our thankless positions, Andy as president and myself as secretary/ treasurer of the horrid HOA after three years, and I couldn't be happier about it. You may remember me announcing my resignation of this position a few months ago here, but there was no way to get someone else to take over it at that time, so I begrudgingly have done the bare minimum of work on it since then, just to get through to tomorrow night.
I didn't get to send the resignation letter that I wanted to send, saying basically "screw you all" but instead just left it as a simple statement in the meeting announcement that we would be stepping down due to us leaving the neighborhood shortly (when our new house is done).
Life has been very busy, lately, but I find myself without much to write about. I have already posted about my adventures in public speaking, and they are pretty much concluded now. After spending Sunday volunteering, I had to rush to put together the final mailing to the neighborhood, my last letter as secretary/treasurer (and Andy's last as the president) of the homeowners association. This letter was to announce the annual meeting next month when the new officers will be chosen. I was careful to state in the letter that we would be stepping down because we are leaving the neighborhood, so that people would realize that they couldn't just badger us into staying in office like they have for the past two years. The letter also serves as a collection notice for our annual dues. I included a pre-addressed envelope for homeowners to mail their payments to the HOA's Post Office box, and I wrote in the letter a statement saying for people to please be respectful of the officers and not come to their homes to pay the dues, instead to pay their dues at the meeting or mail them. I can almost guarantee that at least two of these people will show up on our doorstep while I am already in my pajamas wanting to pay their dues. I refuse to even answer the door this year.
Anyway, I am going to be really happy to be rid of the whole Association thing because it actually takes up a lot of my time that I would rather spend on other things like volunteering wiith the poodle rescue group. We have already signed up to volunteer at the next event, which is the annual Kennedy Space Center All-American Picnic in a couple of weeks. The poodle group asked us specifically to help at this event because we work at the space center and will know people there, so people will come up to our tent and talk to us, and hopefully meet some of the poodles.
If you have read this blog before, you will know that both Andy and I are officers in our Homeowners Association. We don't enjoy it at all, but no one else would do it, so we volunteered three years ago. It has been three years of hell, and I have had enough.
There is a renter that is in a house down the street from us who has been causing a lot of problems. We have sent several certified letters to the owner of the house, who lives on the other side of the state trying to rectify these problems, but they have continued. I even spoke to the homeowner on the phone once, several months ago, and she was the biggest bitch I have ever spoken to. I told her that the fence was falling down into another neighbor's yard, that there were problems with where the tenants were parking their vehicles, and that the house was in a horrible state of disrepair. She was a real jerk and said that it was hearsay; that she wanted proof that these issues hadn't been taken care of. I said "Fine, I will provide photos for you next time since you are unwilling to believe what I am telling you" and she agreed. Well, we got some more complaints from the neighbor behind these people that the fence is just rotting to pieces and she has been forced to make repairs on it herself, but that even those are not holding very well because the wood is so rotten. We went back there to take photos of it, and she was right, it was hideous. She showed us how she had been forced to take out all of her flower beds because of the massive amounts of weeds creeping through the other side. The fence had huge gaps and ugly repairs made to it and over all looked like crap.
When we were walking back home afterward, the shitbag renter of that house came out and chased us down the street screaming obscenities at us for photographing the fence because it was his, and we hadn't talked to him about it. We told him we were not obligated to deal with renters, that we are a HOMEOWNERS Association and he went off the deep end and threatened to call the cops, at which point I told him, "do it, we haven't done anything wrong, we had permission from the homeowner to take photos." Apparently the owner of the house is a relative of the scumbag renter, and that is why they don't want to believe that he is trashing their house, which he is. Some other neighbors stopped (that had formerly been officers of the Association) and tried to tell him he was in the wrong, and he tried to chase me down the street to our house at which Andy told him he had better not take another step in that direction. Andy would have beat his ass right there in the street.
So, I am resigning from this crappy, non-paying position on the association. I want it to be effective immediately, and I actually wanted to throw all of the books papers and other association garbage into the road and be done with it, but instead we are going to have to call an emergency meeting. I want out as soon as possible. When I was the maddest, right after this altercation, I wrote a letter that I want to send out to the neighborhood but Andy won't let me. I will publish it here, because it makes me feel better, and obviously I know I can't send it out, but it sure would be fun. I can't wait until our new house is built and we can move! Here is the letter:
Dear Homeowners,
I am happy to announce that we will no longer be officers of the Blankety Blank Homeowners Association. Thankfully we are building a new house and moving far away from this shitty neighborhood filled with assholes. Sorry suckers, but you are going to have to deal with this crap yourselves from now on. Hope you're happy.
The experience of being officers in this association has been one of the worst of our lives, and we truly feel sorry for whoever takes it on after us. They are pretty much doomed. The fucktards that are renting at 123 Blank Street can't keep their shitty house and fence from falling down and want to blame it on everyone but their own cheap lazy trailer trash selves. I hope they burn in Hell. The jackass that lives at 456 Blankety Street screamed and yelled at us because we didn't come down to his house after the hurricanes and make sure he was okay. For these reasons and others, it is our pleasure to leave this neighborhood.
Have fun!
Jen and Andy
You may remember the post I wrote in November about the nutty neighbor of ours at the front of the hood, who painted their house a sickening orange hue. When I turned into the neighborhood that day, I almost ran off the road in shock. Well I almost did the same thing today when I came home and found that the entire house had been repainted yellow. Now don't get me wrong, I consider it to be a vast improvement, I was just really surprised that they did it. I had thought we were going to have to live with that orange monstrosity forever, or at least until the Homeowners Association (us) could take legal action, which could be a long and drawn out process. Phew! That is a relief!
Update: I just noticed something odd. See the last photo to see that they painted absolutely EVERYTHING on the house yellow, including the door, doorknob, lock, windows, house number, etc. That is quite a strange way to go about things, but on the bright side now you can't tell that they are using bedsheets for curtains in the front windows.
You know with all the crap we have been through with our neighborhood and all of the scumbags that live here, Andy and I have been dreaming of living in more of a non-neighborhood kind of environment. I mean really, we just lost our only good neighbors a couple of months ago, the the morons at the front of the neighborhood painted their house bright orange, the drug dealer loser has been slipping back into his old patterns, and there are several other houses in great disrepair that make the whole neighborhood look bad. Why should we stay?
We went looking around in North Merritt Island, near the Kennedy Space Center for available properties with more land, just for the hell of it. I was particularly enamored with a stretch of road that was canopied in huge Australian pines, forming almost a tunnel over the road. I could absolutely live there. I have really missed being in the woods for a while in the neighborhood we are in. It is all just grass and landscaping, but hardly even any mature trees. I would so much love to be able to go on a walk around my home and feel like I was immersed in nature, with the birds and frogs and bugs and snakes all around.
From what we saw while looking around, we would probably have to build a house of our own to be happy. There wasn't much out there that was up to our standards. And I don't think it will happen, because generally one has to sell their house before they can get a construction loan on a new one, and with all of our animals it would be too difficult to find somewhere else to live. That, and the fact that land is so insanely expensive. But it was an interesting thought.
Click on the pictures for big.
The people in the very first house in the front of our neighborhood must be awfully pissed about something. They have gone and started painting their house the most hideous shade of reddish orange (for a house) that I have ever seen in my life. When I turned into the neighborhood this afternoon I almost ran off the road when I saw it. What on earth would posess them? The only thing I can think of is that they may be doing it to piss off the woman who lives next door to them who is a real bitch, and probably told them to clean up their shit because she is about to put her house up for sale. If that is the case than they fixed her good because no one is going to want to live next to that. They have only just started painting, too, so it is only going to get worse as more orange is applied. They are even painting the soffit and everything. I gotta get out of here; these people are crazy.
Our next door neighbors sold their house and left for the last time today. They have been great neighbors and friends for the past four and a half years and it is really sad to see them go. They are moving a couple hours drive away, so we may not see them again, and I know we will miss them.
We met the couple that bought their house this weekend and they seem nice but they are not able to move yet due to the fact that they have a son in college who does not want to move. They may be renting the house out in the interim, so who knows who will be living there, or if it will stay empty. It is just so strange not having Kaye and Jerry there anymore, I can't get over it.
Once again I will mention that Andy and I are officers of our neighborhood's Home Owners Association or HOA. President and secretary/treasurer respectively. The only other officer is Brian, and he is just well, rabid lately. He is part of the reason that Andy and I are getting out of it after this year.
There is a house across the street from us and over to the right a bit that is a vacation rental. It rents out by the week and is extremely well kept, better even than when it was owner occupied. This weekend, the renters had a fairly large (but very nice) boat parked in the driveway, and it was in less than twelve hours that Brian was already calling us, bitching about it. It was almost funny because as soon as we saw the boat Andy said to me "how long do you think it will be before Brian starts bitching?" It turned out that it was not very long at all. He called us wanting the owner of the house's telephone number. They live up in Illinois somewhere and I don't know if we have their number or not but we told him we didn't. The boat was gone in less than 24 hours anyway, they were apparently just keeping it there overnight. Even still, I wouldn't have cared if it was there all week. Brian just needs to get a life. He is a single engineer of around forty or so years old, and I don't think he even dates. That is most likely his problem- he needs to get laid or something. He has way too much energy to get so fired up about the most mundane things. He is a true HOA "Nazi" lately and I want no part of it. He pissed off the residents of one house so much already that they set off firecrackers and pitched them at his house as they drove by. Not the kind of act that I want to inspire personally. Only a few more months and we will let Brian and his SS (he will have to do some recruiting) take over completely. I can't wait.
Our next-door neighbors, who have been really great neighbors for the past four years are selling their house and moving away to take care of relatives. Every time I see a house near us go up for sale, I think, "please let it be someone my age" because as I may have mentioned before, this area has maybe three people that are between the ages of 26 and 34, and Andy and I are two of them. We haven't found the other one yet. Okay, maybe I am exaggerating just a little bit, but honestly I have only met one person within three years of my age that lives in this area. It is sooo hard to find friends that have things in common. Besides our neighbors that are moving away, and our "work friends" who are all a lot older than us and busy with families, all my friends are either blog friends or long distance friends. So I always hope that someone cool will move in; now especially so because it will be right next door, even though it will be hard to find neighbors as good as the ones we have now. Unfortunately, the chances are worse than ever for someone younger to buy the house, because house prices have climbed astronomically in our neighborhood and the whole county, for that matter, and the only people that seem to be able to afford it are retirees. So, anyways, if you are looking to move to Florida, I know of a great house that is about to hit the market. Let me know.
I am one of those people who has to get seven to eight hours of sleep each night or else I am worthless. Well, sometimes I am worthless even with plenty of sleep, but that is beside the point. So last night, I had been asleep for a little over an hour, and the phone rang. It was almost ten o'clock, and when that darn phone rings at night I swear it peirces my very soul. I am sure that someone is dead or maimed. No one was this time, but I wanted to kill or maim the person that called.
It was Brian, the Homeowners Association vice president. Those of you who are my regular readers will know that Andy is the president and I am the secretary/treasurer of the HOA. So he was calling to discuss some mundane crap that certainly could have waited.
The conversation went like this:
Me: "hullo" (in a sleepy pitiful voice)
Brian: "Hi, this is Brian, did I wake you?"
Me: "yes"
Brian: "Well, I wasn't sure of your schedule. I talked to so and so and blah blah blah blah blah.........." ( and about five or six more minutes of blah)
Me: "okay bye"
Not sure of my schedule? Stick your damn head in the window and look across the fucking street, for chrissakes. If you don't see any lights on, I AM ASLEEP!
Brian workes at the space center also (in a different area from me) and knows I work first shift, so he should have known better. Which brings me to the fact that Brian is an engineer. Calling someone at an inappropriate time is a very "engineer" thing to do. No offense, Ramblin' Girl, but I notice that a lot of times engineers (not all of them, but a surprisingly large percentage) do some pretty stupid things. Maybe it is just that they are too wrapped up in their thoughts and don't stop to think about what they are doing before they do things. We have one engineer at work who reportedly peed in the urinal, didn't flush, walked over to the sink, washed his hands and then walked out leaving the water still running in the sink. It's like something just isn't connecting in his brain.
Anyway, it took me almost an hour to get back to sleep after that, thank you very much, Brian. I can't wait till we get out of this association crap. Never again.
Andy and I took the day off work today for the annual homeowners association meeting. He is the president and I am the secretary/treasurer, so we kind of had to be there. The meeting was at 7 PM, so It seemed pointless to go in to work, when the meeting would have been right in the middle of the shift now that we are both working second shift. I always dread the meetings, but it actually went okay. It is not that I get nervous speaking in front of these people- normally I would, but these are people in my neighborhood, and I have seen how they live, and really don't feel I have to impress them too much. Including myself and Andy, we had repesentatives of 14 houses in the neighborhood at the meeting. There are 51 houses, so that represents some pretty poor turnout. It is like that every year, though. People just don't care. I don't care that much either. Just mow your freaking lawns for the love of God, people!