Trampoline Trials

I find that as I get older and wiser, there are more and more things for which that I wish I could go back in time or retroactively apologize.

When I was growing up in England, our neighbourhood had a lot of kids. We would run around during the summer until all hours, playing our kid games and just having a fine old time. There would be other days where we’d do things like catching bumblebees off our neighbours’ lavender bush. There would be other days where we’d ride our bikes like demon riders, screaming and shouting the whole time. We’d play games like tennis and cricket and rounders and inevitably our ball would end up in the next-door neighbour’s garden and we’d have to ask for it back.

One of our neighbours was an old lady named Mrs. Olly. She didn’t like us much and we dreaded asking her for our ball back. She would shout at us and tell us to stop making so much noise. We used to laugh at her and dare each other to go get the ball.

Nowadays, I feel a little more sympathy for poor Mrs. Olly. I didn’t see this coming. One day, I’m a care free child, not worrying about the rest of the world around me, living in the now and just having a good time. Then, thirty years later, I’m seeing things through another point of view: That of a neighbour who’d just like a little peace from the neighbourhood kids.

It makes me feel rather bad for Mrs. Olly. I’ve had a few occasions where Son of Dog Whisperer is playing catch with himself in the back yard and he’s thrown the ball in my garden. Since the incident where he left my back gate open after, I suspect, retrieving his ball from my yard, I’ve chained that particular gate so that it doesn’t get left open again. This, however, means that whenever Son of Dog Whisperer’s ball lands over the fence into my garden, he comes to my front door, rings the bell and I have to go retrieve it.

It’s not so bad unless I’m trying to do something like cook dinner or read. However, I definitely have a little more sympathy and a whole lot more guilt towards doing the same thing to poor old Mrs. Olly. I know, I sound like a curmudgeon. I probably am a curmudgeon.

It’s just that I tend to try to be quite tolerant in the beginning. Sometimes, I tend to be too tolerant of the neighbour kids. See the Lemonade Stand Incident. Also, this weekend, I sold an old Game Boy at my yard sale for a very good price and I gave the kid a game to go with it it. He’s a young teen who lives three doors down from me. Yesterday, just as I’d finished breakfast, my doorbell rang. He wanted to know if I had any more games for the Game Boy he’d bought from me. Politely, I said I’d look and I’d let him know next time I saw him which is pretty often since I walk by his house with the dogs every day.

I did look for more games because I promised even though I think I only ever had three to begin with and I’d sold them at the yard sale. I figured I’d tell him that he was out of luck. I couldn’t help feeling it was a little assumptive in the first place to go ask someone that after the yard sale is done but he’s about 13 and that isn’t always the most common sensical age for boys.

I didn’t have to wait. He rang my doorbell just a couple of hours later, following up. He seemed very disappointed that I didn’t have any more games but I did tell him to look on Ebay. He bought the Game Boy, the game and the charger with a nice case for $5 so it wasn’t like I’d ripped him off. I only hope that he doesn’t come back to triple check. I don’t know how many ways I can tell him no without being a little short about it.

Still, he seems like a nice boy even if he is a bit persistent. I don’t mind him as much as I’m starting to mind Son of Dog Whisperer. I try very hard to be friendly to the child. I know he has some type of learning disability and, frankly, he’s a bit of a weird kid. Yet I try to treat him nicely even when he bugs the crap out of me. I do find it a wee bit disconcerting when he stands in the middle of my lawn, doing that “HUT!” thing with his football while appearing to stare in my window. Sometimes, when he’s playing alone, he plays with a light saber and he just walks up to me when I’m working outside, doesn’t say anything, points the light saber at me and walks away, muttering something incomprehensible.

All this, I can deal with. It’s just when he’s with his little pack of ruffian friends that I’m starting to get annoyed. In general, as a pack, they have that arrogance that only packs of children can have. They ride their bikes in the road with that confidence that the cars will swerve to avoid hitting them so they don’t really have to look where they’re going. Sometimes, one of the older girls will ride her bike, pulling a younger one who is crouched on a skateboard, behind her. They’re connected by a long rope and there are times when the skateboard is on one side of the intersection and the bike at the other. It scares me and I’m not even sitting on the damn skateboard but the kids seem to think it’s fun. All it would take is one of the cars to zoom through the neighbourhood, unfamiliar with its layout and geography of our Stop Signs and that child would be in some serious trouble.

The two little girls are siblings to Kenny who appears to be Son of Dog Whisperer’s BFF. As a group, they’re loud and obnoxious. They have no problem yelling at people when they pass by. They leave crap all over the path ways and their bikes are often cast aside wherever they feel like jumping off and running.

All this, I could deal with. It is annoying but I figure it’s penance for the years of my wild childhood and playing in the streets.

Now, it’s got worse. Son of Dog Whisperer now owns a large trampoline. The trampoline sits in the back yard. It’s got one of those ‘safety’ nets around it though I’m not sure what purpose it serves as the kids seem to be able to climb under the net and it doesn’t seem to be very stable.

For the past three days, those kids have squealed and screamed and run around Son of Dog Whisperer’s back yard like a pack of wild hyenas. They bounce and squeal. They fight constantly. They throw things at one another. Then they bounce so more.

I suppose from the point of view of his parents, buying the trampoline seemed like a good idea. Son could get some exercise and have something outdoors to do with his friends. Yay, trampoline.

Though…not yay. I can tell you what will happen. For the first few weeks, Son of Dog Whisperer and friends will bounce a lot. They will view it as a novelty. Then…they’ll get bored. The weather will get cold and that giant trampoline will sit there, gathering puddles, killing the grass underneath and just basically being a giant space-waster.

My sister has a trampoline. I’ve had friends who had trampolines. Unless a child aspires to be a professional trampoline-ist, chances are that bouncing will get old quite quickly. It’s like bouncing on the bed as a kid. It seemed like fun for a while but then it ended up being rather monotonous and that was that.

I know, I know…I sound REALLY crotchety, cranky and old. It’s just that for the entire duration of living in my house, I’ve suffered the yipping and barking of the Beasts of Dog Whisperer. There’s no control there. No matter how much I try to befriend the dogs, they keep yipping at me. Son of Dog Whisperer has been a wee bit of a pain but until the trampoline, it was easy to escape from.

Now, he and his friends are outside ALL the time. Good for parents of the child. Not so good for me who enjoys a little sanctity by looking at my vegetables and sitting out on my patio, reading. My reading is now punctuated with BOUNCE-SQUEAL-“HEY LOOK AT ME!”- “YOU’RE A DORK”- “NO, YOU’RE A DORK!” “WELL, YOU’RE A GIRL. GO AWAY. BOYS ONLY!”

I’m trying to be tolerant but, alas, it’s hard. There’s no escape and there’s very little I can do. The child is entitled to his trampoline. He’s entitled to play with his friends. He’s even bloody well entitled to that lemonade stand of his. It’s just that there are times when I can’t help but wish the neighbours could have a say in what’s allowed and what’s not. I can guarantee that those dogs wouldn’t be so noisy and there’d be no trampoline, that’s for sure.

Still, for now, I’m starting to contemplate that privacy fence again. I’m also mentally atoning for all of the times I probably had the same effect on my neighbours when I was a child. It’s a vicious cycle and now I feel bad. Poor Mrs. Olly and the other sufferers of our childhood oblivion.

I suppose the small thing to be thankful for is that we never had a trampoline because then, I’d feel really bad.

Ok…that’s my complaining for the day. It is Monday, after all…tomorrow will be better and Wednesday even best because that’s when the kids go back to school.

Poor kids. Happy Neighbours. I can live with that.

Happy Tuesday!

Hot Spring Days

We seem to be having a heatwave. We’ve officially had 90 degree temperatures for a couple of days now and we’re supposed to get up near 100 degrees on Wednesday.

I’m not enjoying the heatwave. While it’s normal in July and August, it’s just plain bizarre in June. June is supposed to be a transition month- the gentle balmy spring gives way to the more aggressive temperatures of the summer. June is NOT supposed to be summer. Not yet.

It’s odd, really. In April and May, we had near-record rainfall. We haven’t had rain in quite some time. Well, that’s unless you count the odd shower we had on Saturday when I’d just put my nice furniture outside so I could work on the floor project. The sun was shining, the skies were blue and then…it rained. It was most bizarre. I’m pretty sure if I hadn’t put the furniture outside, it wouldn’t have rained. It’s that whole Murphy’s law thing.

So, it’s really dry at the moment and hot. It’s also quite humid. It makes it hard to be outside for any real length of time. I try to still walk the dogs every night but I have to plan our route carefully. Rory lays down in complete protest whenever she’s hot and tired. It’s a little embarrassing when I’m walking and then, suddenly, I have a dog laying horizontally on the ground, refusing to move. I almost carried her yesterday but then I realized that it would be a little ridiculous to carry a dog when we were on a walk.

The neighbourhood seems to be suffering the heat too. There are less people out and about and more people sitting in lawn chairs. My neighbourhood seems to be very big on putting chairs on the front stoop and watching the rest of the neighbourhood. I feel as though I’m doing something wrong by sitting on my back patio in private when every other house has someone sitting outside.

The lawns are also suffering a little. Two weeks ago, there seemed to be an unspoken contest to see who could keep their lawn the shortest and tidiest. I didn’t compete. At best, my lawn looks ok but I can’t be bothered to try for those diagonal lines that seem to be in fad. Also, there seems to be a certain height of grass that the Meticulous Mowers aspire to achieve whereas my mower seems to mow on short, shorter or very short.

Now, the lawns are being left a little longer because mowing is a bit more of a challenge in this heat. In my case, I have to mow tonight because the grass is getting long and it’s inconvenient for my low-lying dachshunds as they run their normal path. I find it interesting that dogs have a regular path, by the way. My girls have a very set pattern when they get outside. The grass has a track built into it from their constant runs in this pattern. My parents’ dogs are the same way.

In this heat, the girls start out running but within moments, they become more sluggish, their tongues start lolling out of their mouths and they only give it a short time before they run inside to the cooler air conditioned shelter. Sookie will splay out on the kitchen floor which is cooler than the carpet. Rory will gorge on water and come away from the bowl still slurping so that the floor gets rather wet and drippy. Then she’ll inevitably come and try to lick me which is rather a wet experience.

Still, I’m trying not to let the heat deter me from doing stuff outside even though it’s hotter than it should be. I did plant some flowers yesterday. I need to plant some vegetables too althoughmy seedling harvest this year is pathetic. For every pack of seeds I planted, I think I got maybe 5 plants at most. I’m not sure why. I’m hoping for some zucchini, at least. I can get tomatoes and peppers from elsewhere.

It’s just that when I do garden, I come inside all sweaty and crotchety. Even when I’m working inside, that happens. My un-tiling project this weekend was in the one room of my house that wasn’t air conditioned. As a result, I’m quite glad I didn’t have anyone around to snap at and bark at- I wasn’t very pleasant. Unfortunately, during one of my waspish periods where I was very hot and rather sick of scraping tiles, Son of Dog Whisperer and his little friend rang my doorbell. They wanted me to buy a bottle of warm water for $1. They had their lemonade stand again and were trying to solicit from me. Normally, I might have been more polite but given their behavior last time combined with my rather crotchety frame of mind, I firmly told them I was too busy to mess around and they needed to not ring my doorbell again. They wanted to know what I was doing and when I told them I was redoing the floor, they started asking questions. I was a little rude, I know but I closed the door and said, “not today, sorry but I have to get back to work.”

I feel a little bad because I know I was quite mean to them but, honestly, if I didn’t tell them straight, they’d probably have started begging for money again and I was not about to indulge them. There’s a line between being cutely enterprising and being downright obnoxious and they far crossed the line last time.

Besides, it was hot and I was grouchy.

I’m trying not to become too grouchy on a regular basis even though it’s hot. I find that it doesn’t do to stay out too long in the heat. Regular air conditioning breaks are a good way to make it tolerable. Besides, this is only the start of the Dog Days of Summer and I better get used to it.

Still, I can’t help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, Spring will back for a little while and we’ll get our 75 degree days with a light breeze.

I’ll keep hoping as the thermometer begins to climb. It doesn’t hurt to hope…right?

Happy Tuesday!

The Penalty of Kindness

So, yesterday, I blogged about feeling slightly guilty for not mowing Mr. Enormous Trousers’ yard for him and I mentioned that I tend to get taken advantage of for being nice.

I think if I’m going to put that out on the blogosphere, I really should stick by my decision to stop being quite so nice because, well, it happened again last night.

You see, when I got home from work yesterday, I noticed two things. One, Son of Dog Whisperer was running around in the street in front of his house clad only in a pair of swimming trunks and two) he’d set up a lemonade stand with two of his friends from down the street.

The swimming trunks thing wasn’t terribly surprising because it was hot although since there’s no pool too close by and he doesn’t have a hose in his garden, it seemed like an interesting choice of attire but I attributed it to the fact that it was hot. Also, I’d much rather have Son of Dog Whisperer running around without a shirt than Dog Whisperer himself because, well, let’s just say that Dog Whisperer doesn’t exactly have the sort of naked chest you want to see, well, naked.

The lemonade stand was something different. Son of Dog Whisperer had taken his little table and chair from inside the house and set it up outside with a Tupperware pitcher full of lemonade.

Normally, I walk the dogs when I get home but since it’s been so hot, muggy and sticky outside, I was already contemplating not walking them. Rory has taken to just sitting down in protest when she’s hot and she gets extremely irritated when I make her keep walking. Sookie, meanwhile just looks at me with a sulk in her eye and her tongue hanging out in panting protest. Then, when we get home, she spends the rest of the evening sprawling out in various positions on the cool piece of linoleum that’s in my entranceway just to show me she is, in fact, hot.

The trouble is, the dogs think they want to walk so when I don’t walk them, they have this habit of both sitting there at our regular sojourn time and looking at me as though to say , “are we going walking or what?” Every move I make is watched and it just takes one step for them to run to the front door, waiting for me to put their leashes on them.

Still, last night, I hadn’t planned on walking them because of the heat. Also, I’ll confess, I was a little crabby from a not-so-great day at work and wasn’t feeling very social and I knew if I went out with the dogs, I’d be accosted by Son of Dog Whisperer to buy some lemonade. This only aided my desire to not walk.

However, the dogs didn’t seem to like my plan and they went into their traditional “WHEN ARE WE WALKING????” stance. Also, I started to feel a little like the neighbourhood Scrooge. I mean, the kid was just trying to have a little business, right? That sort of enterprising behavior should be rewarded.

It’s just….well, how to say this without being mean….the kid is a little…odd. He often walks up to me, says something random and runs off. However, lately, he’s been becoming a little friendlier. He gave me a signed hockey puck because he thought he might be a famous hockey player on his team. Only afterwards did I find out from Wife of Dog Whisperer, he didn’t really have a hockey team. Still, it was a sweet gesture.

Thus, I began to feel mean for not wanting to give the kid 25 cents for a cup of lemonade. Sighing, I tucked a dollar bill and some quarters into my jeans pocket and then got the dogs ready for walking.

Sure enough, as soon as I stepped outside, I was accosted. “WannabuysomeLEMONADE???” the kids yelled at me. Son of Dog Whisperer’s friends live down the street and the little girl, who is about six, is a little too aggressive in trying to pet the dogs when we see her. She runs up to them “CUTEDOGGGIEEEEE” she yells as she simultaneously tries to grab them. The pups, of course, skitter away in alarm at this little human who doesn’t seem to understand that the dogs might not want to be grabbed. Her brother is a little less affectionate with the dogs. I think they might even be twins because they look about the same age.

Anyway, combined with Son of Dog Whisperer’s enthusiasm, the lemonade stand was definitely not deprived of hawkers. I promised the kids I’d get a cup when I came back around the block with the dogs.

It took a wee bit longer than planned because we ran into Larry the Potential Serial Killer. He was mowing his lawn and was very sweaty but it didn’t stop him from coming over for one of his a-little-too-up-close-and-personal chats.

By the time we escaped, we looped back around the block and I saw Son of Dog Whisperer running in someone’s yard, clearly scouting the territory for me to reappear. As I said, he’s a nice boy but he doesn’t have many senses of boundaries and has no qualms about walking through anyone’s yard, including mine. I don’t say anything because I don’t want to be one of those “GET OFF MY LAWN!” cranks but I find it a little irritating.

I finally got to the lemonade stand and was told it was both 25 cents and 50 cents a glass. The kids had a bit of an argument about how much to charge me. I decided to be nice and gave them a dollar and told them to keep the change. I took my lemonade and headed inside but not before Son of Dog Whisperer ran up to me and asked “So, what have you been up to lately, [Captain Monkeypants]?” It seemed like quite a grown-up question for an eight year old to ask a neighbour but I figured he’d been learning manners so I chatted with him and then he left me to take the dogs inside.

I sipped the lemonade but, as anticipated, it was Kool Aid and was very, very sweet and I couldn’t drink it. I decided to start making dinner so I was just getting my vegetables ready to chop when there was a thump on my door. I opened it. This may seem simple but with two dachshunds, opening the front door involves some quick maneuvering to make sure they don’t run out. Thus, I stepped outside and shut the door behind me. The little boy from down the street had gone and it was just son of Dog Whisperer and the little girl.

It seemed I’d been the winner in a drawing that Son of Dog Whisperer and his little female friend had created and I’d won both a free glass of lemonade and a Mormon pamphlet that I know for a fact and been lying in their front yard for a while during several storms. Thus, it was muddy and mottled.

Surprised, I said thanks. Then Son of Dog Whisperer said, “Fifty Cents, please.” I was surprised because usually ‘winning’ doesn’t involve paying for said prize, particularly when it’s not really wanted but at this point, I still thought it was cute and I handed over the fifty cents I had in my pocket.

With a polite “thanks”, the kids scampered off. I went back to dinner. Then, moments later, there was another thump-thump-thump on my door. They were back. This time with a half-empty can of root beer that I’d also ‘won’ in yet another drawing. This time, I didn’t have any change or dollar bills and I told them that. Dejected, they handed me the can and walked away.

Again, I went back to making dinner. Again, I was interrupted. This time, they rang the doorbell. This time, there was no pretense of my winning a prize. They just wanted money. I was a little surprised and I joked that I didn’t have any more cash since I used my debit card mostly. That was fine. The kids ‘took debit cards.’ I laughed and said, “Uh-huh, sure you do.” The kids wouldn’t let it go. They just kept on and on about me giving them money and my debit card. I finally got annoyed and said I had to go. The kids decided then to steal my cute little dog statue I have in my front yard and run off with it unless I gave them a dollar.

During this time, there was absolutely no sign of Dog Whisperer or Wife of Dog Whisperer and I was starting to get angry that not only were these kids being brats but, also, they were unsupervised brats. Finally, I went inside thinking that if I ignored them, they’d just get fed up and leave and I’d get my statue back later.

This was fine until they both decided to literally plaster themselves up against my front window doing that horrible thing that kids do and stuck their mouths on my window, sticking out their tongues and leaving my window all smeared. I was furious by this point. The dogs were going crazy and I was at the end of my patience. They kept yelling “ONE DOLLAR” and held up my dog statue. Finally, irritated beyond anything, I opened the door and gave them the dollar since nothing else was going to get rid of them. Just as I did, Dog Whisperer stepped out of his house. The kids grabbed the dollar and ran off and Dog Whisperer went inside before I could even mention what the kids had been doing.

I figured that was the end of it. I was just getting the food on the grill outside when my doorbell rang, again. This time, it was Son of Dog Whisperer by himself with some flash cards he wanted me to buy to teach my dogs to read. Fortunately, this time, Dog Whisperer was hot on his heels and I got a very sincere apology.

I suppose it was my own fault. I thought I’d be nice and give the kids the money to help teach them the value of ‘earning’ a dollar. After all, isn’t that the point of a lemonade stand? I shouldn’t have kept giving in to them. I know I should never have given them that last dollar because I was just encouraging them but since ignoring them didn’t stop them nor did it deter them, it seemed like the best option. My next step was going to be MY knocking on HIS door to talk to his parents and I had every intention of doing that.

I’m not ruling that out because I have a feeling that the kids are going to think of me as the sucker who gave them money. I am a sucker. I stupidly thought that being nice would simply be appreciated rather than seen as a ‘ooh, let’s get more money from her.” I know that they’re young but at the age of eight, I’d been taught that asking for money from anyone but my parents was unacceptable. If offered, I could take it but demanding or begging for it was a no-no.

I suppose there’s a lesson to be learned there somewhere. I’m just hoping that there aren’t any more lemonade stands cropping up in front of Dog Whisperer’s house for a while. If so, I will not be buying. In fact, I think I’ll hide in my house until it goes away which is what I should have done in the first place.

Ah well, you learn something new every day, right?

Happy Thursday!