This one will actually be quick

I'm watching 'The Good Shepherd' with Geekster. Great movie. Only smart people would find it interesting, though, which obviously proves my genius.

Today is the 14th anniversary of our first date. Fourteen years ago, I walked into a party, sat down at a table and swept the man off his feet. He couldn't help himself. He was smothered in my hotness.

Obviously my spell would have eventually worn off on him, so I tricked him into knocking me up like all smart nineteen-year-old girlfriends should. It's the way to keep a man.

See what I mean? I can totally watch and grasp The Good Shepherd. Smart = The Maven.

Eight years ago to the day, we also walked into our brand new house. It was so spacious back then. So spacious and so... clean. It's never been that clean since. Well, except for this week, where I could probably lick the floor if there was a reason to. A good reason would be if the floor were made of chocolate. That might be messy, though, and there would be many holes in it stemming from my hormonal shifts and subsequent sugar cravings.

No, chocolate floors would be bad.

Also, I don't know if we would have been able to sell our house in a week and a half if it had chocolate floors.

Oh, did I mention that we sold our house today?

Of course I didn't. It's called a 'lead up' because I was leading up to the big announcement. Smart people like me - people who can blog and still follow what's going on in intelligent movies like The Good Shepherd - know all about how to create suspense in blogs.

We also know when to get back to the movie before we lose track and end up having to ask our husbands what's going on so he can roll his eyes at us because we were blogging instead of watching the movie.

We sold our house!! Congratulations, us! Let the lattes flow and the packing begin.

Oh, and we move in six weeks. This was our buyer's pre-requisite, which we made a reality.

That is not so smart. Not so smart at all.

Things I've learned in my week of real estate

I clean so much right now that I had a dream I could grow feathers out of my fingers and dust the furniture with them.

My home is so spotless that I walk around looking for more things to do. I end up picking crumbs off the carpet by hand because I'm a perfectionist. It's hard not to be when you're me. I mean, look at the goods I have to work with.

I no longer care that my taps have no water spots on them or that the floors around my toilets no longer smell like little boy urine. I should care, but I don't. I cared three days ago when I first scrubbed down the bathrooms. Now that I do it at least once a day I'm praying for the day I find dried pee down the wall again and have the option to leave it there for a while longer.

SOS pads are by far the best inventions ever. They've replaced 'sanitary napkins' as one of the ten items I'd want to bring with me to a deserted island (which would be come a very, very clean deserted island with some strange, blue residue all over the shiny foliage).

Sometimes I just don't feel fresh.

Oops. Wrong list.

The computer is this rectangular, metal thing that sits on a chair in the diningroom most of the time. I sometimes get to use it, but usually I just dust it with my feather fingers.

My realtor and I are having an emotional affair. I currently speak more to her than I do to Geekster. The husband and I are too tired to to talk. We just sort of sigh at each other a lot and mumble things about de-cluttering.

I hate de-cluttering. I like the concept, but closets are meant to have crap in them. E.T. wouldn't have been able to hide if Elliot's mom had thrown out all the dustmite condos we call stuffed animals.

People who make me clean my house twice in two days so they can come over and make an offer $7,000 below the asking price really, really piss me off. We will counter off tomorrow and
hope they aren't bitches about it. I don't like bitches. Except me. I like me.

Six-month-olds will decide to get teeth and hence not want to be put down or left alone for more than two seconds right when your house goes on the market. My biceps look great, though.

Ten-year-olds will decide to start copping a 'tude when you need it the least. Ah, puberty. You finally figured out where we live. I hate you more than de-cluttering.

When you think about it, 'de-cluttering' is a very stupid word. They never had to make a word out of taking away clutter. It could have been a term like 'clutter removal' or 'junking the junk'. Much better. I still don't know why I wasn't consulted when the english language needed improvement.

Four-year-olds will make the biggest messes right before a showing. They also don't know the meaning of 'Gutsy, please get off my bed. This is the third time I've had to make it in five minutes.' That's code for 'I have nothing else to do so please find work for me.'

Dogs will defecate on a baby's bed an hour before a showing.

The Maven will lose her mind while a showing is taking place and hold her cellphone in her hands eagerly waiting for a phone call. The Maven has a bit of a control issue. Just a little.

I am so sick of fast food that I want to cry. And speaking of fast food, check this out.

HDTV is highly addictive and great to veg out to on the off hours. Not that there are many of those, but they are sacred and worthy fo viewing shaky tornado footage in all its crisp, colourful glory.

I get too tired to do much of anything, including writing coherent blog posts, at midnight after over a week of sheer chaos.

A showing tomorrow and one on Monday. Busy has taken on a whole new meaning.

I'm going to crawl into bed. Maybe I'll take out my fingers and clean it off first, though.

This will be brief. I think.

Why hasn't the Maven posted in over a week? I mean, she had a baby and posted a couple of days later. What on earth could she possibly be doing that's busier than that?

Last, last Sunday - as in the one before last Sunday - Geekster and I packed up the gremlins into the EarthDestroyer 2005 and drove around the city to look at homes. We saw many shiny, new developments and many other crazy people and their equally busy kids dashing through the model homes with nary a moment to stop and actually look at things. I'm assuming many deals are made with the ankle-biters rushing their parents through the signing process by doing everything but sitting quietly at the kiddie table, colouring pictures. I know that's how the home we currently live in was purchased. Intrepid was not a colouring book kid.

After examining the size of the yards, the additional costs and snickering at the people who were very loudly announcing what upgrades they could afford, we decided that buying new was not something we were interested in doing again. Pretty homes, yes. Potentially annoying/braggart/snooty/lawn jockey neighbours with homes so close to yours that you can catch a wif of what they ate for dinner last night on their breath, also yes.

We decided we already had a house attached to another house and very, very close to another house and backing right into the windows of another six houses, so there was no point in moving and spending more money for that pleasure. We'd just make our box of chaos a little less chaotic by de-cluttering and making better use of the space.

Besides, moving is stressful.

On the way home we drove by a house we'd checked out online, just for curiosity's sake. And, just for curiosity's sake, we decided to call the realtor and see if we could get in to visit the place.

But no moving. Moving is stressful.

Last, last Monday - if I have to explain what I mean one more time I'm going to get cranky - we saw the house. It was that brutally snowy day where I wanted to stick my head in a snowback and suffocate myself into warm oblivion. But I couldn't do that because we had an appointment. Instead I just made a stupid video and dreamed of a world where I didn't have commitments that would bring me out into the weather wrongness once again.

I walked into the house and instantly loved it. But you can't show these things. You have to act like you don't care or the realtor creatures will open your purse with their salivating mouths and suck your wallet dry.

Well, I don't care about your stupid house, realtor. I'm calm and cool and collected and feeling rather 'meh' about the whole thing. Besides, my wallet has wetnaps in it, which are wholly unappetizing.

"I don't want to pressure you," says Vampealtor, "but an offer has been made on the house already . The seller has until 8pm tomorrow to answer them, so if you want to also place a bid you'd have to let me know fairly soon."

Nice try, lady. The Maven doesn't get sucked into your underworldian bidding wars. She's not that interested in your house, remember? She doesn't care that it has a big yard and four bedrooms and a garage and is within walking distance to her son's school. More houses will come up for sale. Houses requiring less work, with more landscaping and nicer siding. So there.

And besides, moving is stressful.

Tuesday morning at 8:45, Vampealtor gets a message on her cell:

Hi, V. It's The Maven. We saw the house yesterday, remember? We'd like to place an offer on it. Please get back to me as soon as possible. Thanks.


And thus began the hell that has been the last week.

The deal was accepted Tuesday. We signed the papers on Wednesday.

On Thursday we officially put our house up for sale. On Friday, Vampealtor came to take pictures, which she didn't end up using. It's a good thing I love cleaning up and stressing out for absolutely no reason.

On Friday we bought enough floating floor for two bedrooms. Mrs. Wailing and I blitzed through mass amounts of cleaning with enough caffeine in our systems to defecate weight loss pills.

On Saturday Jobthingy came over and washed my windows while admiring the eye candy neighbour across the street. I'm so glad I could offer perks on the job. I still owe him $20 for that. Our bedroom carpet was ripped up and Geekster and my brother, Chux0r, put in the flooring.

On Sunday I still couldn't walk in the house for all the stuff out in the great room. I wanted to cry and very nearly did. Instead, I made myself NOT clean for an hour (shocking in itself) and grabbed a coffee with Fallout Girl at Fourbucks. I then went on not one, but two trips to Home Depot, and decided that the cute little guy in flooring figured I was attempting to cougar his barely legal self by asking lots of questions on both occasions.

I wanted to explain that I really am that clueless, but I figured that would make me seem more like a would-be pedophile. Besides, I don't look old enough to cougar anyone, do I?

Please don't answer that. At least let me touch up my roots first.

Monday involved more cleaning and more trips to the hardware store. I am thoroughly sick of shopping. It feels like a very warm Christmas without the pretty wrapping paper. The good news is that somewhere in the last week, I managed to hit up Ikea and Walmart for many pretty items to 'stage' the house. Staging makes the home more appealing to buyers, they say. It makes them feel at home.

I don't really care about that. To me, it's an excuse to shop for beautiful items I would never buy otherwise and get to take with me to the new house.

Oh, and our sign went up on the front lawn. Made it all real and stuff. Gross.

Today - that would be Tuesday, and not last Tuesday or last, last Tuesday - I ran around with a teething Spawnling in my arms and assaulted various stains on walls with my best friend, Mr. Magic Eraser. It does such a good job that I'm attempted to use it on my cellulite to see if it gets rid of that, too. I swept, mopped, did laundry, cleaned areas of the house nobody will notice but me, and then nearly passed out in the Spawn's newly staged room while reading 'I Know a Rhino'. Thankfully he kept pulling on my lip and Gutsy was making up songs in a really strange key, so I managed to stay awake and make dinner.

Tomorrow, Vampealtor is coming to take pictures of the house and yard. We have a showing at 4:30 and another on Thursday at 6:00pm. Who are these people who don't eat dinner? Did they lick the caffeine sweat off my body on Friday to make them less hungry?

I hope the house sells quickly. I've been going to bed around 2am and waking up sometime around 7am so I can get straight back to work. The gremlins have all but found new parents who actually pay attention and remember to make timely, nutritious meals. I think I should buy stock in Magic Erasers, Nabob and McDonalds.

On top of the showing on Thursday, we have an inspection of the 'new' house with a professional, new carpet being installed on the staircase here and Gutsy's first school friend birthday party.

Have I mentioned that moving is stressful?

All this so we can get a fixer-upper house from 1946 with a half acre yard.

But it will be MY house with MY half-acre. And if we get it I shall do a little jig in the backyard, which you won't be able to see because it's so private back there.

I'm going to bed with visions of jigs in my head. And visions of Fly's new baby, too. A huge congrats to her and Frenchie. They apparently have beautiful genes!

This must be because I kicked a dog as a child

Karma's come to give me a payback and it HURTS.



Mind the lovely splotches on my skin. PMS week, in case you needed to know. I realize some people would consider such a confession taboo, but this is me we're talking about here. If you haven't figured out that I menstruate yet, then you have bigger problems than being offended by the fact that I'm bringing it up. I might have to pull up some diagrams and help you figure out where babies come from.

I also failed to mention in the movie that I just got home from playgroup. I actually went out there, on purpose, and my new shoes are now soaked.

My new shoes!!

How is life worth living if my shoes aren't wearable?! Now they have to dry; and I have a preschool meeting tonight. What will I do?

I need a coffee and a big hug. This just isn't right.

W-E-R-K? What's that?

There is one question that stay-at-home-moms get asked on a regular basis. One that evokes many different emotions. That question is:

So... When are you going back to work?


I get asked that all the time. It might have something to do with having three children wildly spaced out over a decade. It's not my fault my ovaries love their eggs so much that they don't like to let them go. They're like greedy, little easter bunnies who don't like to share the chocolaty goodness. And with many potential offspring with Gutsyesque behaviour, I can see why Mother Nature decided to gently protect my psyche by spacing them far apart.

Thank you, Mother Nature. You have no idea how much I thank you.

Oh, I've dabbled here and there in the working world. I worked part-time at two ISPs a year after Intrepid was born. I started the year-long experiment of horrors known as "daycare" two years after Gutsy's arrival. I had good intentions every time. I had a strong work ethic. I took my job seriously. I greeted every day with fierce determination.

And I hated doing it.

Oh, you couldn't have hated it, Maven. I'm sure you liked some aspects of working.

Sure I did. I liked the money and I liked not having snot on my hour-old shirt and I liked when my workday ended. In all honesty, that's what I liked.

What about social interaction?

Who had time to be social? I was too busy answering phones and dealing with people who should not have owned a computer in the first place, or who screamed at their children within thirty seconds after not seeing them for the whole day, or reminding people that they had to pay me (I'm talking to someone at that point, so that may count as social), or running after children who magically got a hold of pointy scissors, or explaining for the tenth time what a 'land line' is, or trying to keep toddlers quiet while a baby was sleeping in the other room, or training people I didn't like because the boss I didn't like was too busy being social with the other boss I liked until I saw that they were getting along.

So fun. So terribly glamorous. The conversation and frienships were pouring in.

Sounds bleak. But didn't you go out after hours with people?

Sure I did. We went out clubbing so I could watch them get drunk. Then we'd go to an all-night diner and I'd watch them try to eat while drunk. Then I would go home, sleep for five hours and get up with my child while they slept another few hours and then headed off to class before our shifts started again.

Not that I was jealous or anything. Bitches.

So what are you saying here?

Have you not been reading? What's wrong with you?

You can't answer a question with another question.

I answered with two questions. Foiled again.

Fine... But you know what, Maven? You're setting back the feminist movement!

Meh. The feminists can march on without me. I actually like wearing a bra. It makes me look pretty for the boys.

You're infuriating! You're insulting working mothers everywhere!

Please don't hold back. I'd like to hear what you really think.

If anyone is insulted because I, The Maven, don't like the idea of waking up earlier than I already do, getting everyone out of bed earlier than we already have to, getting three tired gremlins dressed and out the door to various places of care and education while also taking the time to wash and *gasp* dry and *eep* style my thick, curly mane, find and wear clothes that aren't stained or could be worn while doing yoga, and drive or bus through traffic, and work all day, and come home and pick up tired kids and make dinner and go to bed earlier while at the same time getting everything ready to do all over again the next day...

If someone is insulted because I don't like the idea of doing that... Well, I'm too tired thinking about the above paragraph to care.

I don't think the woman's place is in the home. I think it's wherever she wants to be (or sometimes where she has to be, despite where she would really like to be, but anyway... let's not try and make me feel guilty because it throws my mojo off). And you know what? I want to be in the home. I want to watch Law and Order at 1pm and find out if the 8th person Roberta and Maury are testing is actually her baby's father. I want to wear track pants and read stories on the floor and take spontaneous trips out with the gremlins, despite their lack of cooperation and my inability to learn from previous outings.

I may be completely off my rocker (because my behind is too big from eating so many bon-bons to fit in it anymore), but I'm rather content here, thanks.

So when am I going back to work? When I can get up, put on the coffee pot, sit at Lapzilla and get paid per word. Working from home is what Mavens do best. The Outerworld is for people who are good with schedules and buying nice clothing and putting on nifty badges to get through security at the front door. It's a big, scary place. I like the equally terrifying but slightly less style-oriented Mavenworld.

*snicker* Do you think you can actually make it as a writer?

Hell no. That would involve having talent beyond typing out pretty words on blog for free. But I can pretend, right? And besides, I'm going to university! That means that, in twenty years, I'll have my undergrad in psychology!

This writing thing had better work out.

Pardon the drool, fool


"Hey, everyone! Spawnling here, filling in for my mommy, the glorious Maven of Mayhem. She's a little busy right now, reorganizing canned goods and finding it strangely soothing to do so.

Did you know she picked that name before I was born? She was pregnant at the time and doing daycare. Remember when she thought that was chaotic? What a silly mommy!

Remember when she used to complain about not sleeping because she was hugely pregnant and unable to turn over without requiring the help of several Greenpeace oceanographers? For the record, she slept much better then than she did, say, last night, when I woke up at midnight and fought tooth and nail to stay awake until about 3am. Then I decided I would demand a breast in my screaming hole, refuse it by - you guessed it - screaming, try to jab a pacifier in there instead, turn my head sharply which would launch said pacifier out, scream some more and then almost pass out... just... just nearly there... mom would start to close her eyes and think happy thoughts for four or five seconds... all would be quiet... and I would start all over again.

Until 7am.

Mommy loves me so much that she didn't have any homicidal thoughts. That, folks, is incredible parenting. I'm happy to have helped her acquire such a high level of tolerance for irrational overtired baby behaviour.


She's tried to blog since we got back from visiting the in-laws on Sunday night. She really gave it her best, I swear. It's just that sometimes I like to remind her that I'm not just a pretty face. I have feelings. Emotions. Likes and dislikes.

I like making mommy's friend Angela take 40 pictures just to get me to smile in two of them.

I don't like long car rides when I'm - you guessed it again - overtired and rudely awakened by a loud Tim Hortons drive-through speaker an hour into the trip. It makes me cry.

A lot.

Like, say, for two hours.

And no matter what mommy does, nothing calms down a screaming Spawn who is displeased at being strapped so barbarically into a plastic object facing backwards in a vehicle going at high speeds. Mommy can sing the entire Moulin Rouge soundtrack, half of a Red Hot Chili Peppers CD and every lullabye she can come up with. She can stop the van, cuddle me, feed me, feed me again, change my now spit-upon clothing and feed me pieces of Timbits out of sheer desperation. I will continue exercising my right to vocalization until I pass out half an hour from our destination.

Anyway, mommy didn't feel much like blogging on Sunday. On Monday I was constipated (read: Timbits. Stupid parental unit with her poor nutritional judgment in high stress situations). I didn't like being put down and I don't like being ignored for a computer screen. I will instead attempt to pull the keys off Lapzilla. Ergo, no blogging.

Today I was rather kind and dozed on the couch while mommy and Mrs. Wailing had a visit. They talked about me; I just know it. They spoke of my strained bowel movements and my insistence on using my outdoor voice in a small, confined space on Sunday. So when it came time to leave I decided it was payback time.

She doesn't call me Spawnling because I'm easy-going.

I tag-teamed her today with my ever-defiant brother, Gutsy. He's teaching me the ropes when it comes to getting what I want. Apparently if I just keep being loud she can't handle it and caves. What are big brothers for if not to teach you what works?

But do you know what really does it?

This smile.

This beautiful, sweet, innocent smile.

I can really pull it off, can't I?

It makes her heart melt.

If you look closely, you can see The Maven wrapped tightly around my finger.

Spawnling: 1

The Maven: 0

Sucker."

Talk about a trade in...

Jobthingy called me this afternoon and asked if I had seen the story about the woman attempting to sell her child for a car. I hadn't, so I Googled it and was instantly enlightened. It appears that this is more common than I had originally thought.

While my instant reaction was unfavourable, my second was one of curiosity. What drives someone to sell their baby for a vehicle? (That pun was completely intended and I will chuckle at it once again when I re-read and edit this post.) So I read the stories with awe and just have to comment on a few things.

Baby Sold To Buy Car (source)

...Nicole Uribe-Lopez, who is 23, is accused of trading her five month old boy to Jose-Juan Lerma, 47, and his wife, Irene, 27, in exchange for the down payment on a used Dodge Intrepid and an unspecified amount of cash, police said...


Ok, well, here's my take on it. Other than the obvious, that selling a baby isn't necessarily the nicest thing a mother could do, there's also another problem with this set-up: If you're going to trade a baby, why - WHY, for the love of all things right and good in the world - would you trade for a Dodge Intrepid?

It's a Dodge.

Intrepid.

Not even a good Dodge. If you can find such a thing.

And it's used, even.

So you grow a baby for nine months, push it out of your hooha or have it sliced out of your abdomen, feed it and clothe it, and then trade it for a down payment on a used domestic car? Me thinks her brain is about as sharp as a butter knife.

If I were doing the woman's psych evaluation, I would most definitely include the aforementioned observations in her file.

And that is probably why I have not been hired to do psych evaluations, come to think of it.

Now, these people are also in the selling-child-for-down-payment game:

OWENSBORO, Ky. — A couple are charged with trying to sell a 15-month-old girl for $3,000 and a sport-utility vehicle.

Charles G. Hope Jr., 32, and Amber M. Revlett, 26, both of Owensboro, planned to use the money to pay off his fines for previous criminal charges, said Daviess County Sheriff's Lt. Bill Thompson. They were arrested Friday.




Ok. At this point I'm left with even more questions. Who in their right mind would pay for a 15-month-old toddler? A toddler! Terror tots! Do they not know how difficult it is to have a a defiant baby and no vehicle with which to drop them off with a relative for much-needed down time? Does this guy really have so many criminal charges that he needs to sell a baby to pay them off? Are there not fines for trying to sell children, too? Are they less than his previous criminal charges? Am I the only one willing to place bets that the trashy step-dad watches and perhaps has even appeared on Jerry Springer?

Nowhere in these articles does it mention whether or not the babies were teething, constipated, pulling things of shelves or biting - all things that might sometimes make parents contemplate putting their baby up on eBay..

I'll tell you one thing, though. No matter how much Spawnling cries, no matter how often he complains because he's teething, or constipated, or both (like today)... He's worth at least a Toyota. At least. Maybe even a Nissan.

Who are the people in your neighbourhood?

They're the people you don't meet
When chasing children down the street
The ones you almost want to beat
Each day!

So the Geekmeister and I are planning to upgrade the Maven abode this fall. It's not that we don't like our little home. It's not that we don't feel all cozy, snuggly warm in it. It's just that the gremlins are pretty much eating away my tolerance for any kind of background noise.

I used to be good at filtering out loudness. I could have a conversation with music blaring or traffic rolling. I could concentrate on a book while the vacuum was going or commercials were screaming product information in my ear.

Then came the gremlins and everything changed. I think the older two were born hearing impaired as a protective measure, as they also grew trumpets for mouths. It's never 'Hi, Intrepid. Welcome home from school!' Instead, it's 'INTREPID'S HOME! INTREPID'S HOME!! LOOK MOMMY THERE'S HIS BUS! HI INTREPID! *BANG BANG ON THE WINDOW* HI!!! *OPEN THE FRONT DOOR* HIIIIII!!! DO YOU SEE ME? INTREPID, YOU'RE HERE! WANT TO PLAY NOW?!'

It's not 'Gutsy, please stop bugging me. I'm trying to practice on the piano.' It's 'AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH! GUTSYSTOPITRIGHTNOWORI'MGOINGTOTELLMOM! MOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!! GUTSY WON'T STOP - STOP IT, GUTSY!!! DON'T HIT DON'T HIT!!!! OWWWWW! OWWWW!!!!! *CRY* THAT'S IT! I'M NEVER PLAYING WITH YOU EVER, EVER, EVER AGAIN!!!'

When we bought this home, we had one child. The place seemed huge. We had an entire floor to hang out on when the boy was asleep on the other one. When he napped, it was quiet. When he was happy, it was peaceful. The idea of an open-concept floor plan was appealing back then.

The idea of an open-concept floor plan now makes my eyelid twitch ever so slightly.

We'll miss this house when we move. It was the first home we ever purchased - nearly eight years ago now - and it's fantastic in so many ways. It's bright and sunny, warm and inviting, and the only home two of our babies have ever known. In fact, Geekster has wanted to upgrade for about three years and I've adamantly refused. We don't need a big home, said I. We don't need to be consumerist pigs with our earth-destroying 2500 square foot house. Why be sheeple, Geekster? Why? Why would we want to have a big mortgage and so little money left over that you have to pimp yourself out for lattes?

Well, after a day of visiting model homes, I finally figured it out. This is why.

That's the tree-suffocating, energy-eating beauty of a house that I want to own in November when they build it for us. It's so perfect. So lovely. So... excessive. And I wants it, precious. I wants it badly, I do.

Nothing is set in stone yet, but it's looking good. We'll have to fix up our nasty-ass house, replace the carpets, do some painting over the demonic claw marks in the playroom, and somehow, magically, keep it clean enough in here that it won't repulse prospective buyers and send them screaming into the street.

I'd like to say I'd miss something other than the house, but I can't say that without giggling to myself. What's there to miss? Oh, there's the Tim Hortons down the road, but our new home will still be within walking distance (more walking to get there, but it also makes for more calorie burning pre-donuts).

Am I going to miss my neighbours? Not really, no. In the last eight years, we've gotten to know maybe five other people by name. There are the gaybours - the middle-aged male couple - next door. They're nice, but don't like our cats and have forced us to keep them indoors to save more shunning and glaring.

There's the nice couple next door who are expecting their first baby. I like them but they're not very talkative. They'll be even less talkative in a couple of weeks when their baby is born. They brought me a gift after Spawnling came earthside, though, so big props to them.

There's the guy across the street whom Geekster calls the Lawn Jockey. I call him Edward Scissorhands. He probably dreams of having shears at the end of his arms so he can manicure his precious lawn after making sweet, sweet love to it. The guy is insane and incredibly unfriendly. His wife, on the other hand, is quite personable. She looks like a middle-aged Barbie. Funny... She goes back to Europe to visit family every summer. And every time she tells me she might not be coming back. Maybe Edward's choice to fertilize the grass instead of more of her eggs is a bit of a turn off.

There's the grow-op house across the road. Ok, I don't know for sure that it's a grow-op, but let's look the facts:

- The couple who live there don't really live there
- The couple who live there - 'there' being a semi-detached starter home - drive up in a BMW SUV every few days and stay an hour or so before leaving again
- All the blinds are closed all the time
- The only other people who show up wear a lot of bling and drive equally nice vehicles

So you do the math. I'll take 'What does a grow-op look like?' for 1000, Alex.

No, I think I'll enjoy our new home in our new neighbourhood with our new insane neighbours. I'm getting bored of these ones anyway. There's only so many times you can make fun of the same people. Haha. He's watering his lawn again. Woop.

The Maven needs new material.