Neighborhood Drama

I miss the good old days in my apartment, no neighbors, no drama. One of my neighbors is a crazy lady and her daughter is even crazier. Both are extremely nosy and backstabbing. They say one thing to your face and a completely different thing to the other neighbor, or my kids and it gets back to me. I just wanna punch someone. One of the other neighbors is too good for anyone. Because she doesn't want her little boy playing with guns she wants the whole neighborhood to embrace that idea. My son is 9 and he loves to play cops and robbers, army games, and hunting games. I won't do that. So my son isn't supposed to play with guns around that child. It seems to work okay but her son will just come over whenever. I don't think Jarod should have to stop what he's doing to follow that rule. So I just stopped enforcing it. If she wants her child to run lose around the neighborhood that's for her to deal with, not me.

The other neighbors seem to be okay. My son's best friend that lives across the street is allowed to play with the guns but he can't watch Football because it's too violent. Yeah, you heard me. I haven't figured out the reasoning behind that one yet. Not sure that I will. I love Football too much to ever agree to that point of view.

I'm just fed up with the bullshit. This one can't play with that one and if my kids play with the one that one can't play with then they can't play with the other one. It really is as stupid as it sounds. It makes no sense.

On the brighter side of the issue, my kids are learning a lot from this experience. They are learning how to negotiate and the importance of being responsible for your actions. They know that their actions can and probably will bring some form of drama from the neighbors. They have been behaving a little better since all this has started. Also it gives me a chance to talk to the kids about what's going on and get their opinion. My daughter surprised me with her adult-like attitude when she said, "We should all sign a contract." It blew me away. She didn't know what the punishments would be for breaking the contract but she was sure it was a good idea. I am considering it. I would like to set up a meeting between all of the parents in our area and come to an agreement of some sort as far as time and behaviors go. The only problem I have is that I don't trust the other parents at all - I can see them blaming everything on my children and because I know my children don't always do the right things, I would have a hard time discerning who's telling the truth in any given situation. Once I figure that part out I'll probably go forward with the meeting idea.

Beside the neighborhood crap, work has been crap too. It seems as if all of my mistakes come back to bite me in the ass within the same few days. On top of that because I'm a nice person at work, well, the newer person, and one of two out of the whole group who do anything for our safety committee, I get stuck with being co-chair. Okay so I'm thinking it shouldn't be so bad. Then I find out that the co-chair is automatically the chairperson when the prior chair steps down. I don't have time for that crap!!!! I know it's a good experience, something to put on the resume. That's the only reason I agreed.

I'm wondering if the craziness of late is the lovely thing we call karma - what did I do or not do to bring on the chaos within the past week or so? I'm just not able to focus lately. My mind is wandering on my money issues, neighborhood issues, hanger upper/men issues. I need a vacation.

I'm hoping things will settle down after school starts. I may be hoping for too much. Only time can tell.

Enough bitching. Thanks for reading.

Hasta la vista