“It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor. Would you be mine? Could you be mine?” because the one I’ve got has turned out to be a first class bitch!

Late Tuesday night as sat in the kitchen enjoying the first balmy evening breezes through the open window and listening to the spring leaves shaking away the last drops of that afternoon’s deluge, I was startled by an unnerving sound. Something remotely resembling an indescribable snap, crackle, crash came wielding from the darkness of our yard, followed by a frightening pop and pitch blackness. “It figures” wasn’t exactly all I could think as the tremendous amount of work that I had been accomplishing quickly left my mind and I remain frozen in my seat just waiting for one of the tallest of our trees to come crashing into the kitchen. None of them did, thank goodness, but now here I was, alone, in the dark, freaked out and wanting to know precisely what the hell was going on. So brave little preggo me, summoned the Hubby from his slumber and sent him to have a look see.

The coincidence of the timing was just too obvious for it not to have been something here to knock out power on the entire block. Yes, the entire block.  Hubby reluctantly hoisted himself from bed while simultaneously chiding me for being such chicken shit, located his flashlight, and headed for the front door. Sure enough, a huge branch from our neighbor’s half rotted tree had crashed over the property line, into one of our trees and landed safely on the power lines in front of our house. Oh. Joy!  Throwing all caution to the wind, Hubby headed out into the yard for a closer look.  I of course, remained safely inside, questioning him as to whether or not his hometown had funded safety education programs for schoolchildren. His response is non-publishable. To make a long story short, we called the power company which came, took the tree off the power line, plopped it into our tree, restored power and left. Oh. Joy!

The brightness of Wednesday’s morning sun wasn’t very appealing to me: dead tree, hanging on our lovely live tree and the question looming about who the hell is going to clean this mess? The lady next door spends her winters and springs in Florida. I don’t know her, her name or how to contact her, but I know that fact about her. We’ve been here over a year and we’ve never even seen her, let alone met her: until this afternoon that is. Yes, the woman just arrived this afternoon from her winter retreat. As I was fussing with the girls over tidying up their room, I happen to spy through the open window a neighbor from further down the street assessing the damages. I hauled ass outside, as fast as my preggo body could move to see if I could get any information about our neighbor and how to handle this situation.

Low and behold, I got to meet my neighbor in person! What perfect timing! Kind of like the proverbial “speak of the devil.” Within two minutes of being introduced by a kinder neighbor whom I’ve “known” for a year now (since she had the decency to introduce herself within days of our arrival) our winter migratory creature proceeded to inform me that the fallen branch (which is still freakin’ attached to her f*%king tree) is entirely our problem and financial responsibility. She continued by questioning me rather nastily about the various home improvement project messes that Hubby has lined up on OUR SIDE of the property line and made it very clear that she was not going to give us peace until they were cleaned up. Hmmmmm.  I have but one thing to say: she is very fortunate that despite an all-day killer headache themommynicekelly was around, because otherwise there would have been a smack down right then and there.

All this crap of life leads me to tomorrow’s Flaunt It Friday preview.  Tell us a little about the worst neighbor you have ever encountered. I’m already done with my assignment! See you tomorrow.