Crazies

So I haven't posted for a while... I just kinda took a break, it was getting old and I really didn't have too much to say. But now I'm back, with some new material. We'll see how long it lasts.

Heh... my neighbors are crazy. No, really... the only person who could begin to compete is Goose with the crazy Russians, but even that is just one house. We have a number of crazy people, many of you may have met some of them:

• Ella, the crazy lady who raises chickens (chickenlady). She has difficulty remembering which decade she's in, so on the rare occasion where I find myself forced to do more than waving at her from the car, she's a constant source of amusement. Stories of things that happened 40 years ago told with the excitement like they were just yesterday. One time a couple years ago she heard the coyotes in the yard with the chickens. Now she can't see very well, but that apparently didn't stop her from running outside with the shotgun. ("Now I knew I should have had the rifle, but I was trying to just aim with my good eye and there was no way I could have hit them with the rifle.") Scary. I try not to walk by that house any more than I have to.
• Ella's husband, who is just about as crazy as she is, raises crows. Every week he goes out to the stores and gets the past-date bread, and every week the bread slowly disappears from the back of his pickup truck. No crow will eat a full slice of bread, but they do seem to be particularly adept at spreading them all around the neighborhood. One time the people at the golf course threatened to sue about the bread, but I guess they decided it wasn't a good idea to piss off the well armed crazy people.
• Across the street from the chicken people is Johnny. Several of you may know him as the man who stands out in the street in the summer without his shirt on and jumps up and down as you drive by, screaming "SLOW DOWN" despite the fact that you're already going 10 in a 25 zone. He used to sit on his porch with his gun and shoot squirrels off the telephone line, but its been a while since I've seen him do that. I'm pretty sure he has a wife, but I don't think I've seen her. A few times a year they have a large family reunion at their two bedroom house on half a lot... half a dozen trailers and tents, drinking before 10 on a Sunday and people standing in the middle of the road all provide amusement.
• On the corner is Robert, who disproves several of the things I've come to assume about Canadians. He seems a bit... ADD. At one point he decided to buy some goats, so he's had goats for almost a year now. I guess they compliment the chickens next door nicely. He has a mean looking dog, but it seems nice enough most of the time and it's behind a tall fence, so for the most part thats no problem. Actually, other than his spirit of revenge (which I'll get to in a bit) he's pretty Canadian... slightly amusing and mostly harmless.
• By far the most bizarre neighbor lives down at the end of the road. When we first moved in and were doing the landscaping by the road, he called the county and complained that our landscaping rocks were too close to the road. They came out and remarked that his fence was too, and that technically he should move it back as far as we would move our rocks, and that was the last we heard about that. For a few years, we didn't see much of him unless he was walking, with his dog 100 yards ahead, late at night in the neighborhood. Creepy, but nothing too strange. Then he snapped and went crazy. I would come home at midnight and see him hiding in our bushes across the street from Robert's house. Sometimes he would have something with him (for example, an 8 foot length of PVC pipe). This went on for a while, and eventually we heard from Robert that Mr. K (the crazy guy) was trying to sue him for having his fence too close to the corner. (This fence has been there for more than 10 years, long before he bought the place, and nobody but crazy Mr. K seems to have a problem with it.) After a series of small fights, Robert finally got a restraining order against crazy K, but not before they both got misdemeanor charges. Unfortunately for Robert, not being an American citizen, these charges may result in him leaving for quite some time. Meanwhile, crazy K continues to hide in the bushes at night... just the other day he was crouching against the fence with a cell phone and a camera. I'd have more than a dog if he was watching my house, I'd have a barb wire fence and maybe an armed guard. If anyone sees the crazy man with a white beard walking around my neighborhood... nobody will miss him, 100 points.
• After this, there aren't too many more interesting people. There's the old guy at the golf course who married his trophy wife after his first wife died of cancer a few years ago, now he's rarely home. The golf course is the only one I've ever seen that seems to be clothing optional and actually encourages alcohol (beer). His deadbeat son hosts drunken parties, but nothing worth calling the cops... yet.
• There are two other teenagers that I've met. One got busted for drug possession about a year ago, which explains why I haven't seen much of him. It also explains the smell of marijuana coming from that direction. The other one suddenly disappered and nobody seems to know where he went... Better check the chickenlady's basement.
  
• There are a few more weird but mostly harmless old people, the old guy who used to farm rhodedendrons and now dumps wasted into the lake by the rowing crew, a normal couple who we almost never see, a sole liberal who makes some Zen thing, and then the people in the two new houses. The crazies have been giving them trouble, so we rarely see them. Actually, I think one of them may have moved out already, after just a month. Smart move.
  

So, if any of you want a scary place to take a walk at night, come on down. I suggest driving fast, with the windows up, and if you see a man hiding in the bushes, remember... nobody will press charges. Wow, I love Unincorporated Clark County!

Usual weekend post

So I've been busy, especially now with mom gone in Palm Springs until Wednesday, basically leaving me to take care of things around here. Not that there's anything wrong with my brother or my dad, but I got home at 12:30 to find almost every light in the house on and them sound asleep... dog still in the laundry room and everything. Bah. At least I have my ways to relax and escape from this when it gets too much.

Spent a lot of time sitting on bleachers the last couple days, and I've decided that there are very few ways they could make them more uncomfortable. Hard wood or plastic that digs into your bones really doesn't make a good seat. I suppose adding sharp spikes or just replacing it with a small metal pole would be worse, but I have a bruise from watching gymnastics and wrestling districts and the dance competition. Oh well, at least I had fun watching Kara's district meet. My bro placed 5th in district wrestling, so he'll be going to regionals as an alternate. What I saw of the dance competition was good too, and it was some easy NHS hours.

Had one of my worst driving experiences today... going along 63rd just east of 205 a dog ran out in the road chasing its owner's truck, and I hit it pretty hard. I must have been on the brakes and in park before i really realized what happened, got outside and saw the dog running back to its house. The lady standing outside told me he looked really scared but was going to be fine, and the man in the truck thanked me for stopping and not just taking off like he expected... I have no idea how that dog lived, since I must have hit it going 20 mph and it took a while to stop on the wet pavement, he must have balled up and rolled or just bounced off the front. I've never felt ABS quite that well. I'm just glad that the dog is okay and that it was only a dog, it could have just as easily been some little kid.

finals

Well I have a few minutes, so I may as well post.

For all of you who like to laugh at my brother, heres a good opportunity. He got back from wrestling today telling about how the seniors tackled him and drew a moustache on him. Good times. Then apparently he tripped running out before the match, if anyone saw this or caught it on tape I want to hear about it! Oh, and then he found out he was wrestling a girl. No big deal, except he wrestles 171. Ouch. I had no idea there were any girls who wrestled in that weightclass, but apparently there are, they just aren't very good. Too bad she didn't pin him, that would have been pretty funny.

So anyway, finals the next few days. Oh well, for some reason I'm not particularly worried this year. Probably that senioritis starting up...