What the hell !???

I recently learned an interesting thing from my neighbors. One of the children, a young girl, advised me of two different yet equally surprising comments yesterday. The first was that she and her siblings are apparently no longer allowed to come visit at my place, but I was assured it's OK to talk with them when they're out in their yard. I thought this was odd - they used to come over on occasion, sometimes not even to chat, but just to sit in the front porch swing. Sometimes for 5 minutes, sometimes for 20. No big deal, and always outside visits.

I've resigned myself to the thought that this might represent the fear I've had for a few years: being the "weird" lady on the block: lives alone, has cats (thankfully I only have one), has a tattoo or two, is outdoorsy, kind of a loner. In my former fears, this would present itself as a scenario in which the neighborhood kids hit a ball or throw a frisbee that ends up in my back yard (which - horrors! - is fenced). In this scenario, the kids debate who's going to fetch the toy, or worse, knock on the door to ask permission to fetch the toy. "But she's that weird lady who's been all over the place and who has all these weird things from weird places in her house, like statues from Asia! And tatoos! She lives alone! I hear she eats kids who go in her yard!"

Thankfully, as with most fears actualized, it's not as bad as all that. In fact, it's no big deal. I really don't care, but what I have become is really curious about the reasoning behind that decision. It's a small town. The neighbors are in law enforcement. Surely if they suspected I was odd they'd look me up and learn the contrary. I mean, for chrissakes, if anyone on this block is odd, it's my other neighbor - the self-proclaimed intellectual musician and general contractor who doesn't work, is over 40, and waiting for "any number of major record labels to ink a deal" with him. Any day now. I tried to hire him for what would be a 10 minute job for someone purporting to be a general contractor, with tools and such. Two months later I gave up. With all the work I've had done at the house (all of which he's commented on, unsolicited), surely he realizes a missed opportunity when he sees one. But, when you're waiting for your record deal to come through, maybe being away from the land line phone for more than 10 minutes is a greater missed opportunity risk than earning a quick couple of bucks to replace a piece of fascia board.

So, the other weird thing I learned from my neighbor's child is that I should cut down the maple tree. The maple tree in my back yard is, according to the tree guy, a rare gem, becacuse it's over 100 years old. It's trunk is as massive as a great oak's. The downside is that, in spring, it sheds massive volumes of helicopter seeds that spread into that neighbor's yard. Earlier this month, I noticed that one of the gutters in that neighbor's yard was jam packed with 4 inches of maple sprout growth. I'm not an expert gardener, but I know enough about seeds to know that they have to have something to root in, to faciliate sprouting - and 4 inches of growth. My hunch is that gutter had at least a year's worth of other clog and buildup that provided the foundation for the maple seeds to grow.

This weekend, I noticed the gutter again looks normal. The neighbors probably got frustrated after having to clean them out. Anyway, I told the girl that it would look so ugly if I cut the maple tree down - there would just be an ugly stump, and isn't it better to have this pretty tree to look at that gives some shade to both of our yards? She thought so. I also mentioned that, as far as the seeds go, they see a lot - but not as many as what I see, since the tree is in my yard. And, even without the tree in my yard, there must be a hundred other maple trees in the area that shed seeds throughout the neighborhood. Surely she remembers that from all the springtimes that she's lived here from before I moved here. Plus, the tree is over 100 years old, which is rare for a maple, so it's a special tree that's lived longer than me or my parents or her or her parents and even older than her grandparents. I said all of this knowing that it would be immediately pipelined to mom and dad.

So, next time I see mom or dad, I think I'll mention that the one girl mentioned she's to refrain from visiting, but assure them that the kids are not a bother at all when they come to chat or sit on the porch swing - that I don't mind. It'd be interesting to see what the reaction is. There's a chance that the parents made comments along the lines of "don't bother the neighbor", so I'll remove that as a barrier proactively, and see what falls out. Not that I mind. Except when they were putting the cat in the mailbox. I didn't like that very much, but I suspect that cat was especially perturbed.