Wednesday, July 4, 2007

fireworks, not

what a lazy, sleepy day today was.... its just so hot. and the wine at lunch didn't liven anything up.
our neighbors who live behind us (family of four) put in a new pool about a month ago. the dust and development of this pool went on FOREVER... they refused to use dynamite which is necessary on our granite hillside and would have sped things along. instead, they had workers rat-tatting daily with jack-hammers. i think my teeth have ground down because of this. the sad news for them is that they ran out of money before the pool was more than 4 1/2 feet deep. (they were paying the rat-tatters by the hour), so they have a shallow pool. and THEN they put in the world's longest waterslide. whao, thats a lawsuiut waiting to happen.

they had to cut down the trees that separate our properties (for the monster slide). the back yard shade trees, ugh. i thought there was a firelane between us and the trees were growing there were safe, but apparently not.

so today they seem to be celebrating their new backyard with a load of cannon-ballers and whoopers. since about 10 a.m. so, every once in awhile i checked out my second story window to see if their party was wilting. it didn't. i have seen grandpa in the same chair all day. another lawsuit brewing. poor gramps started out today as a white man.

as the party went on, so did the sounds of large bodies slamming into their pool from unheard of heights.

the man who lives there is a wreckless drunk. i say this because of a re-ocurring incident that's happened over the years on late saturday and/or sunday summer afternoons. the scenario is this: my husband (and i) will be/would be sitting under our umbrella by our pool enjoying the quiet and calm of our sweet haven.... when, without forewarning "next-door man" puts out my husband's cigar with a garden hose while claiming to be "watering his trees". yeah, those trees that are no longer there - the firelane trees!!!!! that's a real pisser-offer. next we would see his wobbling head atop of our wall..."ssssooorrrry", he would slur, "i was just trying to water our trees."

"your trees!!!! i would yell, "those trees belong to the fire dept."
it is hard to see eye to eye with a wobble-headed drunk. my husband meanwhile would already be inside the house drying down, then soothing himself with the channel changer and a glass of blueberry flavored vodka trying to drown out the sound of slob-drunk and me continuing the argument about land encroachments. neither of us understood what we were saying....nor understood what we meant ourselves. oh well, the argument was heartfelt at least.


turns out later tonight my husband was walking the dog when he ran into a different neighbor who was bragging about this bitchen 4th of july pool party on his block. i'll be darned if it isn't booze-boy's party he was talking about. dang-it-all how come we weren't invited if he was inviting neighbors? that just really burns me.
can't wait for fireworks tonight - i hope a cherry bomb hits their pool-deck.
but first, i will yell - "heads up, gramps!" i have grown fond of gramps.

6 comments:

John Doheny said...

Wow, you really are a Californian, aren't you.

Drinks poolside. Pool parties. Houses with 'yards.' It all sounds like science fiction to me.

This place in New Orleans (and the 550 sq. foot guest house we had before it) are the first 'houses' I've ever lived in (though are current digs probably don't count as a freestanding house, since it's a shotgun duplex with the landlord living in the other half).

Our new place also has this new modern convenience called a 'dishwasher.'

I was sceptical at first (I figured it wouldn't actually clean the dishes, just heat them up) but I'm a believer now, and I don't even mind the soapy taste and the cloudy looking glasses. They're a small price to pay for progress.

Someday, perhaps we'll get one of those microwave thingies I've been hearing so much about.

Lisa Bebi said...

gunshot complex - now that sounds californian. yeah, the old dishwasher thingie and microwave thingy. i only have the microwave thingy, as we took out the dishwasher thingy to make room for ............hmmm, i don't know. i think it was to make room for another cabinet of booze.
was new orleans as hot as san diego yesterday? i was roasting.
plus the hotflashes.

fredg said...

Your neighbor sounds like a real hoot and the shallow pool with the big slide sounds awlful. Maybe you could shoot some color dye in a squirt gun into the pool or maybe toss a dead fish or whatever. The wonder woman outfit would be great in the NY gallery. Oh, talking about microwaves, I saw my first one when we visited southern california in about 1958 at your parents house. I think you were 28 then too, ok, maybe you were a little younger. Your parents were very proud of the microwave and cooked a gigantic ham - - of course I couldn't understand the concept of what it was doing at the time but I hope to learn the concept in the next few years. Keep the paintings coming - - they're all great and I enjoy each new one very much. lol to all.

John Doheny said...

Hah! No disrespect to you folks out in Cali but I'll put our current homicide rate of 72 per 100,000 population up against anything South Central LA has to offer. At this rate we will have completely killed each other off by 2056.

I couldn't tell you how hot it was in NOLA yesterday as I was holding forth deep within the bowels of CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Radio One studios in Vancouver. But the last time I was there (June 26th, to do laundry, play a gig and go straight back out to the airport) it was 94F and stupifyingly humid, which is about par for the course this time of year.

Lisa Bebi said...

what were you doing for CBC?

Unknown said...

John is a famous jazz musician! He gets to go on the radio and talk about hot sax and gratuitous violins all the time.

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