Who says men aren't curious.....

This is another story from my fun-filled years in the subdivision of friendly neighbors. Do you like cookie dough....raw? My friends and I do and even though they say its not a good idea to eat it raw, we've never gotten sick on it....but we've always done it with our own scratch recipes. During this memory, I was pregnant, awaiting my first child.

My husband worked midnights at the time; he left the house a little after 11 pm and got home a little after 8 in the morning. The shift premium money was a nice extra and it came in handy for the expenses we were incurring since I had quit work.

Shortly after he left one evening I got a phone call from my next door neighbor....she had noticed my lights on. Well, she couldn't sleep and rather than talking to me on the phone and chance disturbing her husband and kids, she just threw on her robe over her jammies and ran over. I put on a pot of coffee and we settled in for a good gossip session. I remember she had curlers in her hair with a babushka tied around her head. LOL

Anyway.....one of us had the bright idea of making cookies. I checked the cupboards and I had all the ingredients for oatmeal cookies so we mixed up a huge batch. A big batch because we intended on munching on the cookie dough while we baked them. We probably would consume more of it before baking than after. We had just gotten that bowl of dough mixed up.....the LARGE Tupperware sized bowl and you KNOW how big that is....when I saw headlights coming into the driveway and recognized the tail lights of our own car. My husband was home!

Now ordinarily this wouldn't be a big thing but I was supposed to be on a diet and if he knew about the cookies he would never let me live it down. I grabbed the bowl and just about threw it at her and said "hide it". She took off with it, running into the living room, her eyes wildly darting around to find somewhere to put this big bowl. She ended up in the spare room we were in the middle of fixing up for a nursery. She came back out into the living room just as he walked in the back door which was off the kitchen. She was sans bowl so I figured she hid it but I didn't know where.

I guess they had had some sort of break down with the line at work and sent everyone home early and to say he was dismayed to see we had company is an understatement. I was hoping that he'd just go to bed and when he was asleep we could resume with our cookie dough madness. No such luck. He was used to staying up all night. He started flipping channels on TV to see what he could find and asked me to make him a snack. There was no cable back then....no 200 plus channels to chose from....but he found some old war movie and settled in with a beer and his snack. She and I shared glances.

For the next 30 minutes, she would get up every now and then and go down the hallway.....presuming that it would be assumed she was going to the bathroom. However, she was really slipping into the bedroom with the hidden goodies in there and partaking of said goodies. I was having a hard time holding back the laughter. After the third trip he gave me a funny look and I knew she was pushing her luck. A few minutes later she went into the kitchen and got a coffee mug. She hid it up under her robe sleeve and once again went back into the hallway. Then she came out and said, well, I guess I should get on home. I went to the back door with her and she showed me the coffee mug filled with cookie dough that she was taking with her. She also told me that the bowl was hidden in the closet with some boxes stacked on top of it. Oh brother..........

As I came back into the house, he was just coming out of that bedroom, having gone in there to figure out what the deal was. I don't know if he thought we had Tom Selleck hidden in there or what but he didn't find the bowl. It was almost daylight before he finally fell asleep and I could go in there and remove the bowl and put it in the refrigerator. The next day I made the cookies but my taste for the dough was more or less ruined.....at least for a while. He never did find out about the bowl hiding ordeal.....and yes, he did rag on me about being on a diet as he munched on the freshly baked cookies. grrrrrrrr. Have you ever done anything stupid like this?.....omg please say you have. LOL

The dog next door.....

Well, of course....I'm an animal lover. I have a dog and at one time I had both dogs and a cat....plus a bird. So, yes, I am indeed an animal lover and protector.

Now the house next door to me used to be home to my best friend. I was devastated when she had to move....not just a little ways away, but all the way across the nation away. The people who bought the place from her were great neighbors. They had a gorgeous black lab and he was my buddy. They sold out after 10 years and bought acreage. The people who bought from them were.....different. Not as easy going friendly as the previous owners but still nice neighbors. They had a yellow lab who was trained to be a hunting dog. Wow...I loved this dog a lot! When they moved after only about 3 years I really missed the dog more than the humans. Now there are new people in there. They seem friendly enough but both work and there isn't a lot of time for sitting around and chatting. They have cats. They also are new to the area, having come from several counties away.

One day last summer we looked out to see that they had a new addition to the family....a small brown puppy. My son visits with the guy more than I do and he said they got the pup from the animal shelter. Well, weeks turned into months and then winter was upon us. Their dog is let out primarily in their back yard and I don't have a very good view unless I actually leave the back deck and go out into my own yard. I hadn't seen the puppy in a long time. I looked out the other day and did a double-take. This is an 'oh-oh' moment for sure. The guy was outside and his dog, who has grown considerably, was out there with him frolicking around....happy as can be. The dog is a pit-bull. If its not 100%, its more than half. This is an oh-oh because in our community pit-bulls are prohibited. Even if they are only part pit-bull, they are prohibited. I feel really bad about my neighbor's dog. This dog will never be abused and will never be used for fighting. It will be loved as part of a family....the woman is pregnant now. But, they are not allowed to have it here. I'm sure they are totally unaware of this and I just CAN'T be the bearer of this bad news for them.

I really don't know what to do.....its only a matter of time before someone calls about the dog. The school bus stop is in front of his house. The neighbor behind him has two matching Shelties (one is mean, one is friendly) and the one is actually more of a threat than this particular pit-bull could ever be. I have a miniature poodle behind me, and two doors down is a Schnauzer. Across the street are two Bassett hounds and next to them are two yellow Labs. Yep, this is a neighborhood full of dogs, the breeds all diverse.

These people are going to be heart-broken when they are told they can't keep this pet. I blame the animal shelter for not being well-versed on the restrictions of the various townships and/or cities in the area they service. For once I'm really glad that we do not visit often with this neighbor.....I'm sure he's going to wonder why no one told him before he got attached to this puppy. We simply did not know the breed....it was hard to tell when it was so small and from a distance. I really do feel for them.....but I just CAN'T be the one to tell them.

Snow plow manners.....

With all the snow we’ve had, its been a good year for the plowing companies not to mention all the people who love to play with their snow blowers or the plows on their trucks. I guess none of them stop to realize that when you use such an item, a certain amount of etiquette goes along with its use.

Some subdivisions are worse than others. Where I live, I haven’t had a problem with the shoveled or plowed snow. My neighbor does get a bunch in front of his mailbox occasionally from the guy across the street. I figure the first time it interferes with his mail delivery, words will be spoken.

The subdivision in which my daughter lives in just terrible. This year was especially bad. So much so that she even inquired at the police department if any of this was illegal; its not, as long as its not impeding traffic. There are several families in her subdivision that are related to one another. I suspect that they would love to have her move as her house sits in the middle of their ‘circle’. Every Fall, she gets the leaves blown into her yard by these neighbors on both sides of her (the neighbors are related to each other, parents and daughter). My daughter pays to have a yard man come and take them away as burning is forbidden in our town. So she is basically paying to have THEIR leaves removed too as they have been blown into her yard. This has been going on for nearly ten years now. Even though it is frustrating, nothing has really been said because no real damage is being done by the leaves.

Every year they do the same thing with the snow, but this year, because of the increased amount, its been much more noticed. They paid someone to plow their driveways on both sides of my daughter and they pushed the snow right in front of her house, in her front yard. It looks like the Great Wall of China. Its absolutely ridiculous. This is causing inconvenience as far as getting in and out of her driveway, but it is going to also cause flooding when it all decides to melt. I’ve watched Court on TV before and have heard about some of these petty things neighbors argue about that sometimes escalate into a lot of damage being done to both parties. I always thought it was being over-played, but now I can understand the frustration. Talk about the neighbors from Hell!

How can people be so small-minded that they can’t see the problems their inconsiderate acts cause others? I wish I knew a simple solution for her, other than moving. I do suspect that if she weren’t a single mom and if she had a man there, I really don’t think the neighbors would do this to her. Enter stage left…..her brother (my son). He is furious over this and I do expect that he is going to do something….as to what, I will have to let you know. I just ask that he doesn’t embarrass us or do anything illegal. Sigh ~ never a dull moment.