Neighbors

Sound Of Security

(The image doesn’t accurately show the process of adding a storm shelter to a completed garage. The real process does not have a blade as anxious to incapacitate.)

As I awoke this morning, I heard the sound of concrete saw. This wasn’t the sound of someone breaking in to someone’s house; it was the sound of a storm shelter being installed.

In our Oklahoma neighborhood, the transitional seasons can have ugly weather. While a storm shelter does nothing to protect what is above the ground, it will secure what is under. With many completed homes for sale in the neighborhood, the sound of the saw is the sound of a realtor’s success. When spring arrives, we will find out how many times the tornado sirens summon us to its dark and safe depths.

You have to live somewhere. You and your property can be attacked by wind, earthquakes, floods, fires, and all sorts of natural phenomenon. You take precautions. You say prayers for the safety of those under your roof and those you love. When it’s all over and done, your Christian faith tells you it’s not yours anyway. The safety of eternity will have to do. 🙂

Liberating the Leaves

When we moved into our Texas home over 13 years ago, our little plot was full of a few sinners. In the backyard, we had an elm tree that stretched out over the back fence and over the fence in the neighbor’s yard. In the spring and fall, the tree was responsible for the leaves and seeds it scattered liberally across as many pools as it could. The neighbor on the other side must deal with our shedding pine trees. Not only do our trees dump needles on their roof, but the pine tree’s root systems are evident in their properties.

This brings us to what tradeoff occurs in the currency known as “neighborly love.” With our Texas winds coming largely out of the south, the most likely place for potential sinners to live was to our south. In our case, our neighbors have an oak tree that drops its leaves in December or whenever it feels like it. Based on our neighbor’s response, it doesn’t matter when the leaves drop. The only thing that matters is when the last leave drops. This tree and our similar oak tree have provided bags full of leaves and acorns. While lawn maintenance is an accepted part of suburban life, I feel I have been carrying more than my share in the past few years.

When the winds shifted and were coming north yesterday, I could not resist doing a little raking. Yes, it was Christmas. The gifts were done. My wife was finishing up our late lunch, and the kids were looking over their gifts. (The days of multiple new video games have passed. Trying on their new clothes or admiring their new domesticated item was the peak of excitement. ) Having two hours to invest in my yard, I changed my raking strategy to encourage the wind to be my helper. I had minimum success when raking the grass. The greatest success was on the sidewalk. The matted leaves along the edges of the sidewalk were happy to dance back toward my neighbor’s house once I liberated them from their brief residency along my walkway. I was not vindictive. I was just willing to see how far the liberated leaves were willing to travel. Not all traveled as far as I wanted. Some did.

With my early acknowledgment of my failure as a neighbor, I hope my credibility is improved. We all have pet peeves. (I probably have more than most with interviews for new pets conducted regularly.) With a rake as my weapon, I am grateful my imagination and my wife’s ears are the only place this pet peeve lives.

The Saga of the Dented Car

What has proceeded on Facebook…..

Andy Gruenbaum wonders if there is a nice way to ask your neighbor, “Did you back out of your driveway and hit our car and drive off?” He doesn’t have any good angles on this one…..
  • Ugh! Yea, good luck with that!
  • I would say; “Hey I don’t think you noticed but you hit my car on our way out the other day”
  • Andy Gruenbaum Unfortunately, he is of a different race than us. I try and be extra sensitive when being confrontational. It is just a little “ding” but we can see the white paint in the dent….
  • I wouldn’t worry about that, I wouldn’t be confrontational either, just mention it nicely and say something like “I wanted to talk to you about this instead of reporting it because I think neighbors can work things like this out since we live right next to each other, and its a small dent which you probably didn’t notice” this way you don’t sound like you’re accusing. They will probably respect that. Are they foreign?
    That’s a rough one. I had a patient’s neighbor hit my car. My concern was the man was elderly and did not realize it (I saw it happen, but he was too quick for me to stop him). I was concerned that his awareness was decreased and next time it could be a child. So I went to the door and spoke with the wife. She was very gracious and the man did call and offer to pay the repairs.
  • Andy Gruenbaum The problem was we noticed at 10:00 the night before we went on a 2.5 week vacation. When we came back, we still saw the dent, but the critical point of contact was past. And, the neighbor hasn’t answered the door when we tried him after returning. And, he is almost never out, so the “easy” answer is not so easy….
    Andy Gruenbaum The neighbor is a unemployed, black man from California who hates Texas. He has no kids, but his present wife has 4 daughters that visit way to much(in his opinion). AND, his mother-in-law lives with them and suffers from dementia. He is generally not a happy man, although, I have tried to befriend him. So, he may just be content to avoid us and not deal with the issue.
  • Isn’t your wife a lawyer?
  • Is the dent really a big enough deal to even worry about it? Maybe its better to forget if there is a posibility of a worse situation?
  • Many of California drivers don’t know how to drive…… not including me though It is good to notice them as to avoid the second chance…..
  • Judy Clausing Gruenbaum yes, the dent is pretty big.
  • Andy GruenbaumThe neighbor was out today, but the care wasn’t here. Maybe, we can find a way to casually mention it. If we keep our expectations really low, we will probably not be disappointed.
    JudysDamagedCar

  •  Wow, that’s a big dent! I don’t know what the answer is, but, I really think you’re neighbor owes you an explanation!

    Hey Andy. Start out with something like, “Can you believe what someone did to our car?” Then “I can’t believe they left the scene” “Good thing is we turned the video over to the police but they said it would be a couple days before they could review it…See More

  • Try this. Call the police, indicate when it happened for the record, file a report, and ask their advise. I know the answer will be avoid the incident. Call insurance, and note a hit and run. Should be comprehensive coverage and not your incident for your deductible. If you have to pay your deductible, say $500, find a way to distribute $500 worth of, I don’t know, pea gravel, in the neighbor’s yard.
  • Andy GruenbaumI don’t think I mentioned his house was for sale before. If possible, I believe this would make our car dent an even lesser priority than before….
  • AcrossStreetHouseForSale

     

    So, steal the sign tonight, and keep stealing it until he comes over and confesses. If he catches you, just tell him you are trying to “make sure the house does not sell before he gets a chance to tell you about the fender bender”.
  • July 26th:  I am working on cutting some carbon filter orders (sell them on my eBay store) when there is a pounding on the door.  It is the neighbor.  She wants me to move our car out of the street.  She has sold her “Skeedo” (snowmobile for water or whatever they are).  It is on a trailer and when it is picked up she does not want them to hit our car.  Ahhh…sweet of her.
    July 28th
    This is the moving van they were using Sunday morning.  It made the street pretty crowded and my wife didn’t want to park in the street for fear there would be some sort of deja vu experience.
    July 29th:  The last time I saw the neighbor with a U-haul it had a picture from Ohio with the serpent mounds.  (The one from Sunday was from Delaware)  I saw it parked near the boys school.  I thought maybe the neighbor was moving into some apartments a couple miles south of us.

    July 30th:  Spoke to the neighbor today.  (If he were wise he would have put his big pile of garbage/non-moving items out last night so the trolls could go through them)  They are moving out on Friday.  The new house is somewhere in Keller right next to a golf course.  And, he REALLY hates home owner associations.  (HOAs)  He said they are moving into a furnished long-term stay type place for a couple of weeks BEFORE they move into their new house.  I chose not to mention the dent in the car.  We were bonding so well, and I didn’t want to ruin it.  And, once you are beyond the 1 month window, it is hard to be in the mood to “nail” him.  The dent is there, and we will get it fixed eventually.  If I see the neighbor again around town again, we can wave at each other and be cordial….while I grit my teeth. 😉

    Winter 2014:  We got the dent fixed while getting some other winter damage fixed.