With neighbors like these

Stu is the construction worker who has built most of our kitchen.  He is an older fella from Poland who speaks English pretty clearly, smiles constantly, and tries to shuffle out of my way whenever he thinks he might be in my space.  He is a hard worker and very conscientious.

I opened the sliding door to the deck on Monday when I saw that he was setting up his saw.  'I am so happy to see you, Stu!  I could kiss you.'  Tank was making his breakfast - or more accurately standing around waiting for me to prepare his fruit smoothie.  'He doesn't want to kiss you.  You are like 60 years old or something,' he sneered at me.  I admit that I did look frightening.  I had on my pajamas and a hoodie.  My hair was standing straight up and I was wearing my glasses.   Tank was lucky that he didn't end up wearing his smoothie.  I am not even remotely close to 60.  Just saying.

The tile for the back splash apparently was out of stock when I ordered it and we were waiting for the next shipment to arrive from Italy.  Waiting for 3 months.  A.  I was not aware I had ordered tile that was made in Italy, or that was not in stock.  B.  I had no idea that the tile was the holdup.   A little communication might have been nice.  Or,  just too much to ask.

Most of the back splash is done now.  It looks awesome!  I'm told that the hood (cabinetry surround thing - because the mechanical parts have been sitting here for months) is on its way.  I think the electrician might come in the next few days -translation:  my new chandelier that was back ordered might be hung - weird because I was convinced that it would go up weeks after the kitchen was complete.  Little did I know that the kitchen would not be done by mid April.  Funny stuff.

A man rang my doorbell Monday afternoon.  He was from the city.  He was at my house to let me know that a neighbor had called to complain because there was debris in my backyard.  Yes, I do have the world's worst neighbors.  Trust me.

To give you a visual:  we are on the corner and people drive into the neighborhood and have a good view of the back of our house from the road.  I celebrated when I came home from Scotland because the dumpster that I feared had become a permanent fixture on my driveway was finally gone.  Why, oh why, did the workers not dispose of the tangle of gutters while they had a dumpster?  I swear nothing was thrown into the dumpster in the last four months.  The gutters were removed MANY months ago and tossed in a heap next to our deck.  Apparently one of my delightful neighbors did not enjoy this.

This is a depiction of the rear of our house.  When you all come over for a barbecue someday soon, you will see that my deck doesn't actually look like a picket fence.  And I drew this too close to the edge of the paper.  The old gutters -seen here at the bottom left of the page - were actually around the corner of the deck away from the street - so they would technically be further to the left and then around the side.  Still visible from the street, but they weren't smack right at the back of my deck.  

I have a pretty good idea of who it was.  If it was a normal neighbor, they would have had a conversation with me, like:  'Oh, the dumpster is gone.  They must be almost done.  Any idea what they plan to do with the gutters left out back?'  The crazy neighbors- that look for anything to get their undies in a twist about- must have called he city.

I wanted to spray paint a giant white sheet and hang it from my garage door.  'WE HAVE THE WORST NEIGHBORS.  EVER.' 

Stu promised to haul away all of the junk the next morning when he came back to caulk the tile.  He is not responsible for the mess.  It was the roofing guys.  I turned into the neighborhood after dragging 4 tots to Tanks' ortho appointment this morning, because Coach had a patient (this is usually his late start day.  Grrr).  I thought, 'Oh, I should take a picture of the debris for my blog.'  Stu was too fast.  He had already taken it away.  Thus my beautiful rendering above.

Stu is the best.  I still might kiss him.  I dare you to describe a worse neighbor than mine.

(I planned to share a link to one particular nightmare neighbor story that reminded me of this.  I have been paging thru the many posts I have written about the incurably, self-involved, holier-than-though, pompous Mary Ann-worst-neighbor-extraordinaire, (yes, I have posted 5 different actual incidents involving Mary Ann - if you are unfamiliar, I urge you to read all about her.  As usual, I couldn't make this stuff up) and I am shocked that I never blogged about this very funny neighborhood incident that I don't believe was Mary Ann related.  I live near more than one crazy.  Really.  So, I will just have to share that one next.  Brace yourself.  It is a guaranteed good chuckle).