Monday, September 21, 2009

PARTY CENTRAL

Ok, I promised to talk about this some months ago......We have lived in the country house full time and now part time for a total of over nine years. We live on a private road and we are the first house on this one lane gravel road and have five other neighbors that live past us. All the neighbors on our road have to drive past our house and one property behind us has a road easement that runs through the side of our property as well.

For nine years, we have all co-existed in our little rural neighborhood. Some of the kids, FS included, have acted up now and again with a little delinquency (stealing gas cans out of garages, shooting off 10,000 bottlerockets, etc.) but nothing too extreme....until this past spring.

The house behind us that has to drive through our property has been an issue (again this may be addressed in a future blog) now and again (can we say bad roommate, bomb making and meth lab and out of control canines). Anyway, they had resolved these issues and the couple and their two children have lived there quietly ever since...until this past spring.

One April Friday night, there were a substantial amount of cars heading to this house....all driving by our house and we figured they were having a party. Did I mention a substantial amount of cars? 100+ going down a one lane gravel road and not only going. Going and coming and meeting each other on this one lane gravel road with no shoulders with a considerable amount of backing up and down the road and into our driveway since we were the only driveway between the road they were going/coming from and the beginning of the road another 1/8 mile back. We also had our share of people pulling into our driveway looking for the party.

Papa and I figured this was possibly an end of the school year party that the kids behind us were having and we tried our best to be patient, until the wee hours of the morning when everyone had left and we had our quiet country night (early morning) back. Don't get me wrong, we were both pretty rowdy as teenagers and probably attended many parties such as these and we were giving these kids leeway by not complaining about this huge blow-out party. Kids will be kids and these parties were fun when we were young.

Then the next weekend, it happened again.....and the next weekend, AGAIN and the crowds seemed to be getting rowdier and rowdier. We could hear fights and lots of M-F this and that being yelled about. Music that was shaking our windows, etc. We got into the habit on the morning after the weekend party, walking up our main and side roads, collecting beer cans and kegger cups and making a nice pile at the beginning of their drive, trying to get the point across. HA.

We have tried over the years to talk to "MOM" about issues (her dogs running loose, attacking our's on our property and killing some feral cats in our barn). She is quite frankly a loose cannon...she is hostile, immature, and prone to risky behavior....driving as fast as possible up and down the road in front of our house when we are outside to stir up as much dust as she can. Tailgating when we are driving out or in, etc. We've shared stories with the other neighbors and everyone has their own tale of woe where she is concerned.

We heard through the grapevine that "DAD" had moved out because "she's crazy" and was living with another neighbor (single guy) farther up the road. We stopped both "DAD" and his roommate and complained about these parties and begged for them to talk to her about this before someone was forced to call the sheriff on them.

We found out something interesting......the son who was the host of the parties was just a freshman in high school. We were so frustrated hearing that, counting on 3 more years of this party behavior before he went away to college. But we were also told that he was extremely intelligent and is taking college courses along with his high school work. Good, we thought, we aren't dealing with a delinquent that doesn't care about anything, he has alot to lose.

We also found out the daughter is only 13 and this is concerning because of the things we were hearing, seeing, etc. during these parties. The kids seemed older than freshman age, there was alot of alcohol, and their mother seemed to be contributing to this. She drove around for several days after one party with MILF painted on her jeep windows with blue puffy paint until "DAD" insisted she remove that (he told us).

Anyhoo, we felt like our hands were tied. First, realize that we are 8 miles from the nearest town and not in their jurisdiction. We are the responsibily of the county sheriff's office. We have had dealings with them when FS was having some "issues" several years ago and they had problems finding our house. I'm not being dramatic, they would call during their trips out, sometimes more than once, asking for more specific directions on where we were.

When we were having issues with the above "bad roommate of the aforementioned neighbor", the DEA people asked why we didn't call before and our answer: "You all seem to have such a problem finding us, we were just trying to ignore what we were seeing because if we got involved and got into a situation, the calvary wouldn't get to us in time to help. We're on our own out here."

The other reason we felt like our hands were tied was by this time, we are living in the city through the week and only out there on the weekends...which meant we had two empty properties and we didn't want any revenge vandalism, retaliation etc. to happen while we were away through the week.

BUT after six weeks of parties, we were ready to scream or stab ourselves in the eyes with scissors. We worked hard all week and headed to the country on Fridays to rest and relax in the peaceful country but our weekends were far from peaceful. So six weeks of parties and then there was a gap of two weekends and just when we started to relax---here they come again---we had four more weekends of them....10 weekends of parties in all.

Then we heard, when school let out, that the parties started up through the week and the other neighbors called the sheriff finally and the parties stopped. ALL SUMMER LONG it was peaceful and quiet.

Then last Friday night, guess what. Yep, here they came, car after car after car and window rattling music and screaming and MFing. So we now live at Massey Ponds off the main road and could still hear and see all that was happening.

We had just gotten some bad medical news to do with Snoopy (I'll go into later), she was sick to her stomach from some medicine, it was late, we were tired, and we are living uncomfortably in a half-rehabbed house and Papa had reached the end of his patience. He picked up the phone to call the sheriff to finally put a stop to this weekend madness. His theory is now we need to have this house and this kid's parties known as the place where the cops are always called and discourage attendance. We had been patient all Spring but we could not endure every weekend, all Fall long, with these out of control parties going on. Enough was enough.

The first dispatcher he got ahold of accused him of having a feud with the kid's "MOM" and wasn't going to do anything about it. I was composing a letter in my head for the boss of the sheriff's office when Papa's cell phone died and he called back and got a second dispatcher. He finally got the message through that there is no feud, he was trying to relay that we have tried to talk to this kid's mom and got nowhere. Our main concern was the underage drinking and living on windy country roads that these kids were going to kill themselves or someone else driving home and wasn't there enough of these types of accidents in our county?

The second dispatcher was much more empathetic and said he would relay the information on and someone would call him back (see what I mean about we're on our own for an emergency). So about 15 minutes later, the first dispatcher called back and talked to Papa some more and said she would send someone out. Thirty minutes later (it's about 1 a.m. by this time and party is in full force), we see a sheriff's car drive down the road and right past their drive and on up the hill. Great, he doesn't know where he's going. He turned around and came back to our drive and sat there and we were telepathicly telling him to turn off his car and just listen and he could hear where he should be going. Finally he did this and then drove back up the road to Massey Gardens and backed in the driveway and sat there.

Unbelievable. What was he doing? Waiting for us to walk over and point him in the right direction. We couldn't believe he was just sitting there but about 10 minutes later, here come 2 more police cars----AW, waiting for back-up. Yeah, there were entirely too many party-goers for one officer, we agreed with him on that.

But wait, all three of them line up in the road in front of Massey Gardens and get out of the car and proceed to chat among themselves. Then we heard someone at the party yell, "There's cops out there on the road." Great, we thought, now they have plenty of time to hide their beer and get respectable. The element of surprise was completely gone.

Finally, the three cars started moving down the road to the party house and it got real quiet back there. For an hour Papa and I sat on the front porch with the sick Snoopy and heard nothing whatsoever. Except cars did continue coming down the road headed to the party not knowing what was awaiting them down the road. We giggled every time another one would turn in that direction.

Then we hear squealing tires and screeching around curves and someone tearing down the gravel road...It was "MOM". She must have have summoned from wherever she was at 2:30 a.m. to come home and deal with the situation and she was hot. Papa and I were so hoping her temper would get the best of her and she would get arrested for something. (NOTE: We had watched "DAD" leave about 6 p.m. with his fishing boat for an all night fishing trip---something he does quite often.)

We don't really know what happened after that. The police were there for about another 45 minutes and then they left. An hour later (close to 4 a.m.) "MOM" left but none of the kids' cars drove out---we suspected they were threatened not to be driving any more that evening.

"MOM" was pretty hot the rest of the weekend. She tore up the road and down the road going who knows where. Honking her horn as she passed houses (Massey Gardens and the drive to Massey Ponds), we think she's not sure who called the law but suspects it was us or the tenants in MG. Our theory is if that's the most she's gonna do, honk her horn and drive crazy, then we can deal with her and when the cars start driving in again, we'll just get on the phone earlier. Like we said, this house will become known as the place not to go for a big blow-out party from now on---the cops are always called.

Party-Pooper Grammy

Friday, September 18, 2009

Clearing My Head of Short Spurts

Lots of short spurts to clear out of my head so I can get back to writing blogs of substance!!

First there is such a thing as Wine Ice Cream.



Who knew? Earlier this summer Tiny Sun and I had to go try some.




Delicious.

Also delicious.



My upside down tomato plants are producing fast and furiously. I'm getting handfuls of the sweet cherry's every day but so far only a couple of the Big Boy's...I'm having a competition with squirrels now and find myself picking them before they are all the way red and finishing their ripening in the kitchen window. If I wait too long, those long-tailed rats beat me to them. What's even worse, is that they take a bite out of them and leave them to lay and rot in the yard. GRRRRRRRR.

I met a celebrity last month. One of my favorite authors, J.A. Jance, came to town and I attended her "book reading", bought her new book and stood in line for the autograph. A thoroughly entertaining evening for me and I got a picture as a bonus surprise (although my eyes are closed!).



Among my elder group, we talk frequently about dreams, flying in dreams, and, of course, we love to party. With that said, I thought it was so amusing when Aunt Cracker bought the following books for Precious for her 1st birthday (yeah, I know that was way back in April, but I had it on my list to blog about!!).



Rehabbing Update: Things are rolling along. We have finished the kitchen cabinets and have moved along to painting the dining room and kitchen (on my list for this weekend). Last weekend we worked on a bit of landscaping until this Grammy's behind swelled up again (guess I'm not that healed after all). But rain is forecast for the weekend, so I think it will be a perfect time for getting that painting done.

Ok, that gives me a bit more space to fill with other things.

Have a wonderful weekend....Grammy

Friday, September 11, 2009

Do You Remember Where You Were?

I sure do and will never forget. I was at work at the airplane factory. Large manufacuring complex that I work at. Papa works for the same company but at a different, mostly white collar, complex. This made a big difference later in the day.

Darling Daughter was at the restaurant she manages, opening up and watching tv and she made the first call to me, asking some odd questions. Then she explained what she was watching. I was stunned. Then the phones in my department started ringing off the hook. Family and friends calling into my co-workers, asking if we'd heard. Had we seen. We were pretty much in the dark with no television or radios but we were starting to hear plenty.

I stayed on the phone with DD this entire time, trying to explain to her what she was seeing and describing to me. I was trying to explain it to her because she had called me, her mother, wanting me to tell her what was happening. Wanting me to say, it wasn't as horrible as what she was seeing. Wanting some sort of reassurance that our world wasn't about to end. Trying to explain it somehow to ourselves.

Rumours started circulating around the office that we were about to "go dark". Did I mention we were a fighter jet/bomb manufacturing complex and a "target" on "bad people's radar". So I hurriedly explained to DD what may happen in this case and she was supposed to go to the country house and retrieve FS, who stilled lived at home at the time and was attending high school. She needed to get to her brother no matter what and they needed to stay together with SIL and the pets until Papa or I could get to them. Papa was in a different complex and would be free to leave but I would be locked down since I was in the manufacturing area.

A little bit later we were informed that we were locked down. No one was allowed to enter or exit our complex. The gates were locked and the security guards were increased on each gate. The Air Guard would have been ready on the adjoining complex. That was protocol.

And that's the way we remained until about 5 p.m. We still hadn't witnessed anything on television or heard radio reports. We just had the heresay from the calls we had received from our family and friends. We really couldn't imagine what was happening. It didn't seem real to us until we were able to witness it ourselves later that evening.

It was one of the most frightening days I've lived through. And I was sitting in the Midwest. I was not in New York, or Washington, or PA. I can't imagine the horror those people experienced.

Two years ago, Papa and I and DD and SIL all journeyed to New York and I remember while on Liberty Island, we looked toward Manhattan and wondered what people, tourists like ourselves, thought when witnessing what they did that day. I can't begin to entertain what the people who were closer experienced. Unimaginable.

I'll always remember where I was that day.

Grammy

Thursday, September 10, 2009

PERFECT'S BIRTHDAY PART TWO

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You all didn't think the pancake breakfast was the extent of Perfect's birthday celebration did you?!

Well, the following weekend, Perfect and his best buddy, Sesame Street Girl had a joint MONKEY party.



Perfect and Sesame Street Girl are born one week apart and have been friends since the beginning.



Partners in crime all the way.



So it made perfect sense to combine their birthdays since they basically have the same friends that would attend both.



And a good time was had by all.






Later....Grammy

PERFECT's BIG 3!


I'm a little late on this blog. Perfect turned 3 on August 15 and he's well on the way to being potty-trained. Wonderful milestones.


We started the morning off with a birthday pancake breakfast on our own CARS plates (he was insisting on a CARS party).



Then complete fascination over the idea that the servers at IHOP KNEW IT WAS HIS BIRTHDAY and came over to sing.



Then since DD and I had Perfect all pumped up, it was off to the photographer's studio for a professional record of the event.

You all will remember the last trip to the studio.



Well, a complete 180 this trip.



It's amazing what starting the morning with pancake faces does to one's mood.

Happy Birthday you Perfect Boy!

Your Lovin' Grammy