In article , Diane
wrote:
Ingrid,
Sorry about your mom's neighbors. As you know I have Neighbor Dick and
Mrs. Dick. So far they haven't sued us and we only "almost" ended in
court. Doesn't matter, still seems like no matter how little their
infraction on our life (and speaking in the sense of your mom as well)
it still sucks. It is a tiring war, I hate it. I just hope one of us
moves soon.
I'll buy you a flamingo for your collection. 
Diane
I have a whole lot of wonderful neigbhors, plus one crazy neighbor. The
first time he yelled at me it was because while I was watering the lawn, I
got the concrete of his parking pad damp. A stupid reason for him to be
mad, but what the hell, I have ever since been careful not to get his
parking pad damp. He cusses at his dog a couple times a week, the worst
kind of cussing, "**** you stupid ****ing ****-**** god damn ****ing dog!"
and even broke his own door slamming it. Dog loves him though, dogs are
like that. I hear he had a wife twenty years ago, she left him cuz he was
a short-tempered *******. The previous owners put up the big (but
pleasant) wooden fence to protect their children from his purposeless
rages, born I have to assume of deep loneliness & despair.
He got a fungus in his yard that killed grass patches & a tomato plant, &
he became paranoid & said I was sneaking into his yard at night & killing
his grass & his tomatos. First he told my partner Granny Artemis I'd been
doing this & got her all upset. I knocked on his door & confronted him on
the silly accusation & he held to his guns, said he knew I was doing it,
nothing like that ever happened before I lived next door, & if I wasn't
careful, "I'm going to sneak into your yard at night & kill your plants!"
Then he called the cops on me for the imaginary crime. The cops dropped by
-- I told them exactly what had happened. Though they're not supposed to
comment on who phones in complaints, they couldn't help themselves, they
said that my neighbor is on on a special "list" of people whose phone
calls aren't to be taken too seriously.
So what did I do about this annoyingly crazy old geezer? Well, he'd
threatened to trespass & destroy my garden, so I'm sure I could've played
his game & "won" on his level of nasty behavior & reporting him to the
police every time he's outside screaming dirty words for the whole
neighborhood to hear. Instead, I went over one day & gave him a big hug. I
worked up a teary-eyed expression of sympathy & said to him, "You're a
crazy old cuss swearing at your dog & getting paranoid about your
neighbors. But I like eccentric people because I'm eccentric myself, & I
think we should be friends." He said, "Damn right I'm a crazy old cuss, so
you just better watch out for me." But within a week he had hung a plastic
sack of tomatos on my back door with a little note saying he had too many
& needed to give some of them away. A couple weeks ago he asked if he
could help me cut the tent caterpillars out of a hawthorn tree, so I let
him help. His idea of helping was to take hold of my hand & guide the
tree-clippers to the right spots overhead. Hardly helpful, but it was
oddly sweet.
He's still a crazy old cuss who rants at his dog & probably still has
paranoid delusions about most of his neighbors, & I have no actual desire
to be his friend. And who knows, he could in some future month get it in
his head I'm watching him through his television or something. But he
begrudingly likes us for now, because I did nothing to escalate his
craziness, & went out of my way to undermine his paranoia & assure him
he's not nearly as hated as he might deserve to be. And I succeeded at
winning him over even while calling him crazy & paranoid to his face.
I'd heard too many stories about "neighbor wars" & just figured I could be
right & fight him on his level whenever he gets unreasonable, or I could
be at ease & cater to him a bit. In this case, being personally at ease
seemed seemed more reasonable than wasting energy attempting to impose
some level of punishment on a sad soul.
-paghat the ratgirl
--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl:
http://www.paghat.com/