verbminx

OK, so I hate my neighbors.
In my four-unit building, we are #1, they are #2, #3 is unoccupied, and #4 is occupied by people who are really no trouble at all except for a minor parking thing.

I suppose, as neighbors go, the denizens of Unit2 could be worse. They are mostly average American young people, somewhat entitled and with a profusion of vehicles. They seem to like country music, hard rock radio, and alcohol. They are not usually truly excessively noisy (except that one episode when they were standing in the back courtyard conversing in their outside voices at 5AM; my bedroom window overlooks said courtyard).

However, there are two problems with them.( tiresome details. )

Now, insult to injury: THEY HAVE STARTED PARKING IN MY DESIGNATED, NUMBERED SPOT WHENEVER IT IS EMPTY. I am way past the polite-hate-mail stage and right into "I'm calling the landlord, and furthermore, if this happens again, I'm fucking HAVING THEM TOWED." (By the way, if there are no open spaces, it is very difficult to turn around once you are in the lot, particularly because the Unit4 kids park behind their back fence, which is their only annoying trait. They have some kickass tattoos in U4, too.) They know that Unit1 is not an empty unit. They're just entitled-acting, lazy, and disrespectful. They bring out the angry old man in me. That they would do this really, really pisses me off. I mean, there are 18-inch numbers indicating each unit at the open end of each space. There is no way that you could mistake it for an open lot, especially if you've lived there since like April. Which they have.

Anyway, just a few more months in this place. It's painfully overpriced anyway, though there is a good deal of space and most of the rooms are large (bathrooms and kitchen are very poky). And no, I wouldn't be a Parking Fascist if the Unit2ers didn't continue to cause serious inconvenience to we denizens of Unit1.

Oh, speaking of the dog... I remember some time ago I posted that I'd bathed her and was very upset at the length of her claws, which she's not so keen on letting anyone clip. She had one claw on a back leg that we have been clipping away at bit by bit, because we didn't want to get into the quick and because she could only endure brief grooming sessions.

What we have found that she prefers - which I don't like to allow - is to groom her nails herself, with her teeth. She's been worrying at that back claw for weeks, and I've clipped at it a little each week myself. Finally, tonight, she tore it off of herself! I don't know whether to be impressed or appalled. A little of both, I think.

I hope that we can now get back to a more regular regimen. One thing we found in trying to get rid of that long claw bit-by-bit was that although she fights tooth and nail when the restraint begins, her reaction to having her nails clipped is really different from her reaction to being brushed. When it's brushing time, she begins patiently and eventually becomes irritated. When it's nail-clippin' time, she begins seriously-bugged-out, but as she establishes that we aren't going to kill or hurt her, just clip her nails, and that the clipping doesn't hurt, she calms down enough that we can get a bit done.