ohhhh, hey man! And how things change...

I spent a bit of time digging doday about the woman below... because I was fairly certain that she was originally from Austria. I've known a Dorle and a Dorli in my life, so it seemed to be a logical conclusion that that diminutive form of Dorothea or Doris is from my part of the woods.

Dorle is dead, and Dorli is very much alive. So we talked....

Those diminutives are only specific to Austria... yay for us.

Trying the Google... well... I was AMAZED at the hate.

Of COURSE it was all a set-up, and of COURSE they smeared something on her so that it LOOKED like she got pepper-sprayed, and she's a well known agitator, and an otherwise disgusting person who is not credible.

Really... Really?

There are some people who wouldn't recognise a turd on their doorstep if they step in itö.

Since when are octegenarians fair game to smear?

I would think they know more than the ASS.hats who have nothing better to do than tear them down.

Sounds like someone's getting 'skeered', oh yes.

I really haven't talked in weeks... to anyone...

Except tonite I had this urge to communicate, so ) called Peter.

Yup, he still knows who I am. Praise whomever. And I said, 'Hey, I found the PERFECT counterpart for your Aunt Hildegard.'

SHE was your proverbial piece of work, Nazi to the core, a shame to the family, and she NEVER gave up. In her mid-Seventies travelling to New Yawk to mix it up with radical Black groups, and later in Florida... she was a terror. Hearing about her escapades left me spitless, but had to laugh... she was amazingly 'bad'.

And I said... this woman HAS to have come from here. The zingers are really telling, she grew up here. 'What am I supposed to do, sit in front of the tee-vee and eat bon-bons?' (Boom!) There were so many, I thought... 'oh, I KNOW this kinda tone....'

Peter laughed so hard... even he had seen stuff about the Occupy movement, but was sketchy on the whys and wherefores. I tried to explain it to him.

We ended on a good note, so it wasn't a sad phone call.

I will get there soon.

And then I called the living Dorli... as an excuse to ask her if it were really only an Austrian diminutive name... but she had been in my head for a few weeks now, she worries me. It was a good excuse, in other words....

I only got voice mail, so left it at that, but she called back... she's your basic 'handy' addict. She more or less confirmed what I thought. Her news left me somewhat discoursaged... yet again.

I keep hoping and hoping that things will get better... but as in my own case... well I don't suppose they will.

They finally gave up their rented house in the suburbs and moved into the lot they bought from Peter more than a decade ago, and she said she hoped I would visit.
'
Riiigghhht... like I would ever darken that door again.

'Don't ask me to do that, ok? Because even today, I think I would become violent if I had to see 'MAGENTA AND RIFF-RAFF'...' That is what the OTHER neighbors call them.. from 'The Rocky Horror Show'. My terminoligy would be more on the lines of Gollum, 'The theives, the thieves! The dirty little theives! Tricksy! Naswty! False!'

(yeah, I'm just a bourne of good will if it comes to that... not.)

Well, Magenta was sorta freaked that they were moving in to what was their property. And went all slimy, and her first question? Would I be visiting? Really... She has reason to be afraid,

(And I'm deleting expletives so fast in my head it makes me diszzy, because I have NEVER met anyone like that paragon of disingenuousness. I will NEVER forget the day Peter had his stroke, and I rushed him to get to the telephone, and that bitch played down the weakness in his arm in the hoüpe that he would DIE that night, if they didn't take him away to hospital. And will never forgive her for it. And I'n supposed to go over there and make nice? She is 'evil bitch' personified, basta. I don't use that word often, but if anyone has deserved it... she does.. and a thief. And everything horrible you want to think of.)

Whatever, I got her up to speed on her new neighbors. If you came out of the door from the inside, on the right were the Fishers. Nowadays, there is only Mrs. Fischer. Mr. Fischer died of an untimely heart attack.

When we first moved in, there was much to do on the house. The chimbleys had to be restored, but no one thoght about the roof.

We had a severe winter, lots of snow. And Peter and I had only been there a few months. And the snow collected... and we had a roof avalanche. That sounds so harmless. Our housed have steeply sloped roofs, you see, and when a bit of plus degrees come, well, the snow sorta melts and turns the bottom layer to ice sheets, and then it slides off them to the ground. People have been struck dead in my lifetime being hit by one.

So one fine day, thaw weather... the doorbell rang... and it was Mrs. Fischer. We'd had an avalancche slide off of our roof in such a disastrous way.... it crashed through their roof landed in their living room.

I was SPEECHLESS, Peter was ill, so I went over to view the damage. It's a small two-story house, a 'two-generational' one. His nmother had the ground floor, thy had the top floor. Mr. Fischer's mother was near ninety at the time.

The avalanche fairly wrecked their living room and I was glad that no one got physically hurt. So I told them he had insurance, and it would be taken care of asap. Which it was.

(This is NOT a good way to meet new neighbors, btw....)

Shortly thereafter, Mr. Fisher died. His mother followed not long after. As far as I know... their son and his wife and children occupy the ground floor, and she is still on what we call the first floor. This is still a common thing here... multi-generational housing....

On the right, as you came out, was 'watch it!' The L. fambly. I have no idea how Mr. L is doing. Last I heard, he had an inoperable brain tumour. But he was the bane of my existence. He hated trees, and leaves especially. And was fond of litigation. He had an orchard in his back yard, and his only joy was pruning them into stumps... because he didn't like leaves.

Let's face it, leaves shed in the autumn, and land on the ground. It's nature. Mr. L was the most bizarre Tartar against Nature I have ever encountered. He brutalised his magnificent cherry tree to the point where it didn't bear fruit any more for five years. (I counted.)

He hated, HATED our Plantain tree next to the house and sicced the authorities on us saying it was sick. But it wasn't. Nothing pleased him more than the sound of a chain saw cutting down his enemies... trees. Maybe his brain tumour was developing then, and no one knew what was wrong with the man.

One of our other neighbors got to be big-headed, and told us to rake... because, literally, 'he suffers under the leaves'. Which brought out so much hilarity, we still talk about it today... I had this perverse image of him in a pile of leaves, whining and moaning... It loses in the translation, but believe me, it was stellar.

Their son and doaugher shared the upper floor. Son got married, had a daughter, the daughter is single still... and the only nice one in the house.

Her window looked out onto our garden, and I have heard how she misses what I did there, and the sound of our laughter when we sat out summer evenings.

Well, I miss it too... very very much. I laid down a patio myself. And got some garden furniture, and we'd be out evenings. And have to smile... on one of them an Igel ran through to hide in my mulch pile. It's a sort of hedgehog. My cousins were there, and there was no stopping the panic, because they thought it was a rat.

I wish they could have seen the weasels mating in the yard behind ours. Creepy creatures, and such a racket. I thought cats were loud...

Whatever, that's the thumbnail profile on what used to be our surroundings.

I miss it and I do not. The ones not in the house bemused me totally.

So it is all 'aprpos nothing'.

And Dorli Rainey is still awesome.