FEUDIN'

There have been some interesting backyard developments this week.  Firstly, it hit 75 today and the neighbors with the above-ground pool have been getting it ready for the weekend. Which means I have 48 hours to make them my best friends.  Secondly, I finally met my not-so-nice neighbors to the right.   I like to call them "The Neighbors Who Knock."  It first happened the night of my house-warming party in December.  It was around 4am and we were at that point in the night where we were getting a little rowdy trying to decide whether or not to scale the laundry ladder. I mean, fair enough.   The second time it happened, it was only 10pm on a Wednesday and my bestie and I were out back laughing at some inane thing the dogs were doing.  I know I don't have the best inside voice, but come on.  The lilting notes of ladies' laughter is no cause for knocking.   And the third?  It was 9am on a Monday and I was sorting piles of brick and concrete in preparation for the pond installation.  As far as I'm concerned, 9am is a perfectly acceptable hour to be sorting things in a backyard.  And if its not, the neighborly thing to do is to come out like a man, introduce yourself and ask me to quit my shenanigans.  I'm a very understanding person after my morning coffee.

The last thing you should know about these neighbors is, not only do they own the mysterious Door to Dimension X, but they also rigged a ship's sail from a giant oak smack-dab in the middle of their yard.  The effect is both rad and unsettling.  Not a day goes by that I don't wonder what they're doing with that thing. Between the door and the sail, half my time working out back is wasted staring into space, pondering the cosmic meaning of it all.  My trusty dogwalker has long suspected the N.W.K. have been building a steampunk airskiff back there.  Perhaps he's onto something.

Anyway.  This weekend, the Neighbors Who Knock actually decided to come out of hiding for a little backyard spring prep.  Being the gracious and sociable person that I am, I made it a point to introduce myself and Cricket Jean...which I thought went over reasonably well, even though they made the grand assumption I was living here with some kind of life-partner.  (Who could they be talking about?  My trusty dogwalker??) I also sensed some snark when the older gentleman mentioned they were tearing down their fence to better see all the impressive landscaping I was up to.  Well. I put on my best girl-next-door routine and Cricket gazed up with those vacant, doe eyes of hers, and it was all very civil and neighborly, and by the time it was over, I really and truly thought we were good. I was even gonna invite them to my BBQ bash in May.  

That all changed when I woke up to THIS:

Shut out.

Oh, I see.  You want nothing to do with Cricket and me.  Fenced out, huh?  Well, fine, Neighbors Who Knock, if that's how you want to play it, I'm game.  Just you wait until the 31st of May, my friends.  You'll wanna do a lot more than knock when all my funtime hipster friends rage until the dawn.  Just you wait. We'll burn your steampunk airskiff to the ground.