It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

07 Jul 2012 5 Comments

by Suelinhess in Moving Tags: , , , , ,

Any night is apparently the night to partaaay in these here parts…and my new neighbors seem to live by this mantra. We lived 5 years in a little house in Hawaii, and then moved to Banff to live blissfully in a 100 year-old cabin in the woods for 3 years.  It has been quite the adjustment to live in an apartment with neighbors below our floor, now.  You either get lucky in the neighbor department, or you get crazy people.  I don’t recall ever having a neighbor in-between, and I’m not feeling so lucky here.

In Hawaii, I had a balanced mixture.  To the left of my house, a lovely little family of 4 lived, with a gentle-voiced, traditionally raised Japanese-American Mom, a laid-back Dad, and 2 precious girls.  The first day we moved in, Sweet Lady was on my doorstep with a freshly-made plate of mochi to welcome us to the neighborhood.  Of course my family, being the circus act we are, let 2 year-old Simon open the front door.  Buck naked.  It was hot; we’d just moved there from the cooler central coast of California, AND he was potty training.  Needless to say, we nearly lost that plate of mochi, but caught it just in time.  It didn’t help matters when Sweet Lady later invited my kids over to play.  I looked out my window to see Sweet Lady and her husband frantically hosing down the mattress of a queen-sized bed in their back yard.  Then naked boy appears out of nowhere and buries his face in my lap.  Turns out, naked boy was caught standing on Sweet Lady’s bed, PEEING.  Not the best way to make a good impression, but we are now 8 years into our friendship and still going strong.

On the other side of the house, lived the Scary Family. Let me start by saying Mom is a Hot Mess, Dad is tired out Mr. Italiano Americano chef guy, and children are absolutely wacked out beyond belief.  I’m not saying Mom is a Hot Mess just because I was jealous…while we were house-hunting in the area, before buying the house, we drove by her on 3 separate occasions, jogging in her black bra and tight shorts, tanned skin gleaming, long blond ponytail swinging. Stunning from behind. Shocking to find you’ve moved into the house next to hers.  Yes, I would like my husband to say, “Wow” if he ever saw me jogging 6 blocks ahead of his car.  However, up close and personal, the tanned skin was actually saddle leather, and the blonde 5 o’clock shadow on her chin and the low voice when she began to speak, startled us a bit.  Turns out, Hot Mess is a former bodybuilder, and I don’t think steroids completely leave your system—even decades after taking them.  Or maybe she was still taking them.  Anyway, Mr. Italiano Americano may have worn the pants in the family, but Hot Mess definitely wore the jock strap.

I am a Live and Let Live kind of a person.  You could live next door to me and make love to monkeys, for all I care.  As long as the monkeys seemed happy, I would let you go about your business and I would tootle away in my garden.  The problem with living next to Hot Mess was that her part time job at the hotel (yes, she worked for my furry guy, which ended badly and then she had more reason to hate me) gave her much time to get into my business.  I wanted to dig in my garden, read my books, and enjoy the peace and quiet.  Every single time I stepped into my back yard, I heard the slam of her patio door, and then her manly voice would call out, “SUSAN.  SUSAN!  I need to tawk to you!”  I lost count of how many times I had to tell her, “My name is Sue.  Just Sue.  My parents were lazy and maybe the name should have been Susan, but it isn’t.  It’s just Sue.” To no avail – I gave up after 2 years.  After calling me over, she would proceed to lecture me on whatever was her topic for the day.  My family has a little tradition of saying “I Love you” and kissing each other goodbye every morning.  Then whoever is waving goodbye has to wave until the others can’t see you anymore.  We’re just too wild and crazy, I know.  Well, Hot Mess told me one day, after the family had driven off to work and school, “You need to stop telling him you love him.  You’re a freaking doormat.  Men want a little mystery.  I don’t tell my husband I love him all the time.  In fact, I hardly tell him. Ya gotta keep ‘em guessing.  He’s gotta know that THIS fine package could walk away at any time so he’d betta treasure me.  Ya know?”  God, I wish I could say she smoked cigarettes, because everything about her was so loathsome to me that it would have been absolutely perfect if she had been taking giant drags off of her menthol cigarette and squinting her eyes through the smoke while she was bitching at me.

Anyway, for some inexplicable reason, she hated Sweet Lady.  It was odd, because her Psycho Son was known to do really fun things like locking Sweet Lady’s girls in garden sheds and torturing small animals with the knife collection that Mr. Italiano Americano supplied (“My BOY.  My boy is a MAN and real men have GUNS and KNIVES”).  If anything, Sweet Lady should have hated her.  No worries, though, that ended up happening soon enough.

Hot Mess was very much into her Chardonnay.  So much so that she had a rendezvous with an entire bottle of Kendall Jackson Chardonnay every single evening.  It HAD to be Kendall Jackson – she was sooo proud that she could call herself a wine snob.  For Kendall Jackson, no less…go figure.  On some days, depending on how Psycho Boy was acting out, her evenings began at 3pm.  The neighborhood kids would play outside on the cul-de-sac, and she would sit on her back patio and sunbathe.  And drink.  And drink some more.  Psycho Boy had a little sister who had the misfortune of sporting a little black moustache.  Moustache Girl was Hot Mess’ PRECIOUS and God help you if you scorned her mustachioed Precious.  Moustache Girl liked to drive her battery-powered hot-pink Barbie Jeep all over the neighborhood, doing her best to run over every child she could, screaming and cackling.  Sweet Lady’s girls and my younger daughter Hanna (who later earned the nickname Assassin, but that is another story) would ride their bikes around the neighborhood and do their best to avoid becoming Barbie Jeep road kill.  One evening around 5, when Hot Mess must have been down to the bottom of her bottle of  oo-la-la Kendall Jackson Chardy, Moustache Girl went running to her mommy to scream that all the girls were SO MEAN cuz they wouldn’t play with her.  Sweet Lady and I are standing in my driveway chatting, watching the kids play, and Hot Mess comes tearing out of her house, resplendent in her animal print bikini, boobies bulging, her diaphanous genie-pants billowing, and her words slurring spectacularly.  She heads straight for the girls, yanks them off of their bicycles, and starts screaming, “YOU little girlz are bitchezzz.  BISHHHEZZZ!  You are NOT allowed to play with each other ever again – ever!  How can you be so mean to my baby?  She juz wanz to drive her car for Chrissssesake!”  You should have seen Sweet Lady morph into Protecto Mom in 2 seconds flat.  She runs over, plants herself between our girls and Hot Mess, stands up straight and tall and starts shaking her finger in Hot Mess’ face.  All I knew was that I was too scared to put myself between those two women, for fear that Sweet Lady would scratch out my eyes and Hot Mess would punch me in the face.  But I used my words, convinced Hot Mess to return to her bottle, and hugged Sweet Lady until her adrenaline rush had calmed down.  Desperate Housewives had NUTHIN’ on us, let me tell ya.  It was like I lived for 5 years with the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other.  The scale finally tipped when Hot Mess was so horrible at work that my husband had to ask her husband to find a way to convince her to quit before she got fired.  Then venturing into my backyard got so unpleasant that I had to buy 2 dozen poplar trees to plant along the fence line so we could enjoy our time out there without the acidic looks and snide comments floating over to us.

Wait.  I started out by complaining about my current neighbors.  They are CAKE compared to Hot Mess.  Now I just need to shut up and calm down about their cigarette smoke coming up through the heating vents, their complaints that my children talk in the morning on their way to school…yeah, children talking – outrageous, right?  I need to be thankful that we live above them, not below them.  I need to be thankful that I can look out my windows at an unobstructed view of Lake Mildred and the Rocky Mountains.  I have no mochi and I have no Sweet Lady, but I also don’t have to hear, “SUSAN.  SUSAN!!!!! I need to tawk to you!”  And Kendall Jackson Chardonnay?  You have been replaced by Blasted Church Hatfield’s Fuse.  Cheers!

Welcome to Jasper

07 Jul 2012 2 Comments

by Suelinhess in Moving Tags: , , ,

My furry man had just been promoted as general manager of a beautiful resort in a tiny little town nestled in Canada’s largest national park.  He trudges off to work there a month before we move, while the kids finish the semester and I organize the movers.  A few days later, one of the biggest cabins on his hotel property burns to the ground.  In the past, it was used as the General Manager’s house…and I wondered, “Is that a little message from the universe?  Naaaahh….”

We moved to Jasper in the dead of winter.  In our last job, we were spoiled rotten with a humongous log cabin on the hotel grounds that we were given to play in for 3 years.  Here, we lived in the hotel with our 2 giant dogs, hedgehog, snake, and children, while we waited for rental properties to open up in town.  Surprise surprise, landlords don’t take too kindly to the magical combination of dogs/hedgehogs/snakes.  Why, I have no idea, as I know that my 2 children could do much more damage to a house than all my pets put together.  As a result, we lived in the hotel for 4 months, changing rooms and moving to different cabins  every couple of weeks.

It seemed like every day brought something new and horrible into our lives.  And with each new event, some snarky local would say, “Welcome to Jasper” AFTER delivering crappy news or saying something rude.  A sentence beginning with, “welcome to” should be a positive thing.  You BEGIN by welcoming someone, right?  But my new tactless friends either had wicked senses of humor, or maybe they were just plain stupid.  So on our first day of school,  I ask the sourpuss office lady in the elementary school where I should meet my son for lunch, and she replies, “everybody walks home for  lunch in Jasper. “  Our “home” was 3 miles away in the hotel and she KNEW it.  “You can pay me a dollar a day and he can eat in a classroom with the few kids who have to stay at school, or you can go to a restaurant for lunch with them.  Welcome to Jasper.” She didn’t crack a smile for the entire length of the conversation, while my cheeks were cramping from my eager attempts to be friendly.

Another day, Housekeeping left the door open in our cabin and my little boy helplessly watched his dogs run away into the forest where a pack of coyotes stood waiting for them.  Then he had to watch his mommy run into that same forest to look for the dogs, and he thought he would never see any of us ever again.  So Hotel Security strolls up to me (as I’m hollering for the dogs in my t-shirt and jeans in the snow) and tells me they’ll start searching as well, and by the way, “Welcome to Jasper!”

We finally secured a home on the hotel property, squishing 2 little apartments together  to house our small zoo.   They tell us our new appliances have arrived and to prepare for the installation.  As they stand in the kitchen watching me, I empty out our entire freezer/fridge and place the items on the kitchen table.  2 hours later, the engineers amble up to me and say, “okay, we’re ready to go; we’re done.  You have to wait for the plumber to install the dishwasher.” When? “I dunno.  I dunno if the plumber is even here today – not sure if he can do it before the weekend.” And where is the new fridge? There is no fridge!  “Oh, that’s on back-order. Prolly won’t see that for another few weeks, but who knows.  Welcome to Jasper.”  When the plumber finally installed the dishwasher, the water line blew at 2 in the morning, flooding the apartment below ours.  Instead of knocking on our door, the neighbors call Hotel Security to complain.  When the plumber finally gets around to fixing the line, he mumbles, “well I never.  I never seen such a modern dishwasher that used so much water pressure.  Heck.  Kind of a funny way to welcome you to Jasper, EH?”

It’s gotten to the point that when something ridiculous happens, like watching the town sprinklers shoot out tons of water  every morning during a week of pouring rain, my kids just turn to me and drawl, “welcome to Jasper.”

We had that one cabin burn down, then there was a fire in town at another hotel, then just a couple of months ago, our main lodge roof caught on fire.  My son remarked, “tourists must be like, ‘oh no!  fires on the left, fires on the right!  What kind of place IS this?!’…..welcome to Jasper!”

Even the wildlife wants to get in on it.  We have wild animals around every corner here.  Wolves, bears, elk, cougar, bighorn sheep…you name it, we got it.  The coyotes love to trot down the middle of the road, forcing me to slow down, following their swishing tails as they giggle amongst themselves.  And there are suicidal squirrels.  They dash across the road in front of your car. And if one car doesn’t hit them, they dash back again hoping another car will.  And do not get me started on the damn elk.  They own the hotel property.  We even have to put up signs that warn the tourists about them.  Think: Horses With Attitude.  They are that big, and the girls are bitches.  Truly.  One night, while I was out-of-town, my honey gives me a call while he’s out walking the dogs.  In the middle of the conversation, he suddenly sounds out of breath and starts exclaiming, “Oh, OH OKAY – I’m going I’m going, shoo SHOO—AAAHHH! I’ll call you back!” and hangs up.  He called back after a harrowing 5 minutes, to tell me that a she-elk had chased him all the way up our front steps into our doorway.  He had to slam the front door in her face.  Welcome to Jasper.

Lest you think I have only complaints, bear with me.  I grew up moving every 2 years of my life as we followed my father’s Foreign Service assignments all over the globe.  He specialized in communist and socialist countries, so you can imagine the scenic spots of tranquility in which we lived.  Russia, China, Malaysia…places where you only drank the water if you wanted to die a terrible poop-filled death, and where a walk to school meant possible encounters with cobras so our mother gave us walking sticks with which to beat the bushes along the way.  To me, Canada is Paradise.  The people are gentle and kind, polite and modest.  The animals might kill you and eat you, but a grizzly bear just doesn’t seem as sneaky and evil as a poisonous snake.  You give the bears their space and respect, and they usually mind their own business and leave you to yours.  Give me a thousand ocean sunsets and I will still hold out for one perfect sunrise in the mountains.  The air is crisp and clean and the sky is big and blue.  In the woods next to our new house in Jasper, the whole Circle of Life takes place.  Out of our kitchen window, we watch Mama elk give birth to precious spotted brown calves with wobbly legs.  Mama grizzly bears come along to kill and eat the calves to feed to their cubs.  Coyotes tag along to pick up the scraps.  All the while, the loons on the lake behind our house croon a soundtrack to our new life.  It’s terrible, it’s heartbreaking, it’s beautiful, and it’s now all ours.  Most importantly, wherever we go and whatever we do, we do as a family, and that makes this Home.  Welcome to Jasper.

Next Newer Entries