We spent a few days in Toronto after our return to Ontario. M and C had family visits and gatherings to attend to and ML and I had to do some shopping. We drove home yesterday and it went quite well. Harrison is tolerating travel as well as can be expected, strapped and lashed into that travel tank as he is. We got home about 16:00hrs and were greeted by a very excited dog. She did not spend the night with us as this is part of the payback we will have to endure. I have not told her yet that we are only back for two weeks…
I have not been blogging daily and that frustrates me. As I’ve stated it’s partly due to the internet not being speedy but I’m not motivated. Yesterday an … incident occurred and at least for today I’m motivated. Further the… incident is kind of a Christmas story. I don’t mean ‘The Christmas Story’ I just mean a Christmas story. This particular story might even have a message embedded… pun intended (but only I get it at this point). So here goes
The Gift
without prejudice, a work of fiction?
As some of you will know, we live in our house. By that I mean we sold our house to our son and C, we live in the cellar. We have created a space that quite fits our needs nicely and more importantly keeps us close to our grandson. We live in the country and on the water. We have an acre of land, with trees and a coarse sand beach. You can barely see any sign of your neighbours. (foreshadowing) Like it is on our boat you have some freedom to run around your cellar in your boxers without much risk of being seen, squirrels notwithstanding. You might meet your neighbours on the road driving or walking but sometimes they live next door and you’ve never talked to them or formally met them.
This story involves one of the neighbors. They have lived there for many years. I’ve met him and talked to him on occasion and knew him before they moved in, her not so much. M and C have not had any contact with her and minimal with him in the five years M and C have had the house. There have been no issues that we know of. Well, one time she yelled across that Ozy was in their yard.
M and C were outside unloading the car, I was restricted to the house as there was a gift for me open and somewhere in the vehicle. We were all somewhat stressed, five of us sandwiched (a sardine sandwich) into the Chevrolet Orlando (a nice car purchased from the great people at McQuarrie Motors). It was at this point that the lady was making her way through the bush between our houses. As mentioned this was unusual to say the least since as she had never done it in the five years M and C have owned the house and ever while we owned it prior. Concern began to grip me. My stomach began to feel queasy…she was carrying a bag…holy crap a gift and we had nothing for her!
Normally ML could whip together a bunch of Christmas goodies in one of those emergency gift bags and disaster avoided. We barely had any food in the house other than some of the baby’s milk, the chicken we had picked up for dinner and Ozy’s food (a little more foreshadowing). We were doomed. We would just have to say “your gift is somewhere in the car, we will bring it over later… much later”.
It was at that point that I got a look at her face. To call it a scowl would be a like calling a tornado a twisty breeze. Dark clouds of doom and disaster were swirling. Her eyes on fire and her jaw clenched. My 17.25 years of education lead me to quickly surmise that this would not be good, and more importantly the bag likely did not contain a gift… we were off the hook in that category.
“I’m sick and tired of cleaning up your dog’s sh*t from my property” and then she deposited the bag on the step. She then spun and retraced her steps through the forest back to her property. M was basically speechless at first…then he recovered and said “Who are you?” to which there was no response followed by “nice meeting you”. If I could have got there in time I might have added “Merry Christmas, but I have nothing for you”.
Well you have to look don’t you. M opened the bag and it contained two… let’s call them ‘turds’, Christmas turds…
I don’t mean to make light of the core issue. It is their property and our dog should not poop over there. However it would have been nice to know that this was an issue from the first instance and we might have avoided the Christmas issue. I guess that might be the Christmas message/moral of the story. Don’t let things fester… certainly not dog poop. We will address the issue and perhaps some form of barrier is in order. I am glad that she didn’t light the thing on fire and knock on the door, as funny as that is when it’s someone else it’s a bitch when you are barefoot
Ed Ferguson, a local farmer, bard and historian wrote this little ballad ( click here )
more later…