Kage Baker would be amused (wryly, I am sure) at some of my problems today. And also be cheering me on, I hope.
Today is my sister Kimberly’s birthday! She gets to choose the celebration, and she has chosen defensive gardening as today’s activity. So we are fortifying the perimeters, in sensible ways; the razor wire and deadfalls were lovingly considered but – on mature consideration – had to be set aside. Kimberly’s composter is small.
Anyway, today I need to help build the first of three new gates for the back yard, to keep out our demented commando neighbor. The first trip to Home Depot has already occurred, and my Cruiser valiantly fetched home all kinds of lumber, which was pleasantly reminiscent of Faire. (I can get 8-foot timbers in that car.) There is cutting and screwing and sinking of posts to be done, before we get to the fun part of painting it Kelly green.
I need to help re-seed portion of the parkway the neighbor has weed-whacked into oblivion; put up stakes and neon-oxalis-yellow caution string and a No Trespassing sign.
And a resident of Lord Howe’s Island took umbrage at my post of yestreday. I need to send a response and a guarded apology. It’s never nice to offend someone, even if you do it accidentally.
Have a very nice day, Dear Readers. I shall think of you all as I hold 2 x 4s and re-point the merlons.
Kathleen, Kage and the Company 
“Kimberly’s composter is small.”
One oughtn’t put meat in a composter, despite temptations bordering on provocation. Ahem.
Yes, by which I mean, no, I did not. Who knows where the young ruffian went? But, yes, thank you, we do have fine passionflowers and frangipani.
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Camo Weedwacker Man sounds like he wandered out of a David Lynch movie. Do you know where he lives or what possesses him to wreck havoc on other people’s gardens?
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Alas, Weedwhacker Man lives next door to me. He has a very nice house with a very manicured garden and front lawn. He wants every house on the block to look exactly like his. So as a public service, he helps them along.
I live in a 100 year-old California stucco that, admittedly, needs a pain job. We’ve been growing native grasses in the lawn, due to LA’s perennial drought conditions and watering laws.Sooo … my house doesn’t look like his. His foray into the back yard was apparently to discourage my bougainvilla from growing on the wall between our properties. Not over it – on it. On my side …
He now “voluntarily” takes his edger to houses three lots over on both sides of his. Also his leaf blower. When asked to please stop, he says he’s doing them a favour. One encounters people like him from time to time.
Kathleen kbco.wordpress.com
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Wow, you need my landlady. She chews people like camo-man up for lunch. Last month, our obnoxious neighbors kids next door, who are 20 feet above us, spent a day sending paper airplanes into our side and back yard, covering the ground. She picked them all up and taped them to their cars front window. No airplanes since. Good luck with the construction. Hope he stays away.
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Taped them to their car window? Holy moley, that’s brilliant! Lacking your formidable landlady, I have enlisted the precinct relationship lead; she’s the lucky cop who gets to try and defuse things *before* they become domestic disputes or Fox News. Since all my ideas involved things going all ‘splody, I thought it was a good idea to leave it to the cops for awhile.
Kimberly is hoping for a mandatory 72 hour mental health hold. In the meantime, the new lawn begins tomorrow at 7 AM, so camo man will be up the creek with no paddles except the stakes he stole from us. So, ha ha.
Kathleen kbco.wordpress.com
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Yes, “all ‘splody” is satisfying, but would deffinitely start a pitched battle. Really glad you have a copper to intervene. You can ignore him, she can defuse him. He stole your stakes? I’m with Kimberley. A great birthday gift would be the men in white jackets coming to take him away, heh heh, to the…wait, Reagan closed all the funny farms in California. Drats! Be careful in the meantime. Or hire my Chinese landlady who regularly goes over the fence to first explain reality, and second calls the cops, and third rounds up other neighbors.
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Jan – your landlady sounds wonderful. There are some drawbacks to home ownership, especially when the nutjob next door also owns his house. But at least Kimberly was able to import *me*. I have no legal authority, but I am just lousy with natural gravitas.
Kathleen kbco.wordpress.com
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“but I am just lousy with natural gravitas” – ain’t that the truth!! I heartily agree with you.
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