How To Be A Buttinski

First off, the long-awaited answer from the last post: stay. Well done, Matthew; you are, without question, the Master Debater. But, good sir, try and stop me from moving next spring---just you try!

Anyway, we had a good morning. Rocked the Franz Bakery Outlet (Super Sale Saturday--quality bread for .69.loaf, yes and thank you). We then took Aurelia down to the lake and came to several conclusions:

1. Aurelia LOVES the water. She loves the outdoors in general, but she really enjoyed the lake. We caught a glimpse of this when we had her photos taken; the last ones were done of her having an absolute ball eating rocks and messing up her pretty white dress with sand.

2. If you have other errands to run after visiting the lake, don't sit close to the water. Otherwise, you'll have to continue your day with wet-butt or run out-of-your-way home to change. (An alternative solution would be to wear your swimsuit, plop yourself ten feet from the shore and play with the kids in the water; be sure to have extra, dry clothes to change into.)

3. While you're out having a good morning, your neighbor's grouchy sister is sitting in the front lawn plotting about how she can bother you.

And, now, an extrapolation of bullet point #3:
From earlier posts, you all know we rent our home. More specifically, we rent one half of a duplex--the nicer half, or at least the more expensive half. When we first moved in, both sides were vacant, but next door was soon occupied by a creepy couple. A thin, old-looking young woman, her prepubescent boyfriend and their flea-ridden dog soon moved in. The girl would ask to borrow my phone three times in one evening, standing on my porch talking (probably to her dealer) in code, "you can bring the movie by now; we have the TV set up"...really? Subtle. Her dog shared her parasites with mine, which was a treat to deal with while I was four months pregnant with Aurelia. We're also pretty sure they beat each other up several times a week; they at least yelled and threw stuff around at 1:00am. Needless to say, we were more than relieved when they shockingly could not pay their rent and were evicted. Even more delighted were we when a nice quiet, single, older lady named Helen took their place. Sure, her dog is a yapper. Sure, it's not a pretty sight when she sits out in the sun in her old-lady short shorts. But she is nice and keeps to herself, as do we. It is an amicable relationship. Until today. We came home early in the afternoon with Aurelia more than ready to take a snooze. That was Priority #1. Instead, we were ambushed by Helen's sister, who has been staying with her. "How come you guys don't water your lawn?" "You know, Helen pays the whole bill for the fertilizer." I told her it's Helen's prerogative to pay for a service to fertilize the landlord's lawn and went to put my baby down for a nap. I busied my self and mind with tidying in order to keep myself from going outside and telling the old fart to mind her damn business. Matthew, always the image of composure, went outside simply to take out the recycles, and she started in. "When was the last time you watered your half of the yard?" "We mow a lot more often than you do." "How come our side is green and yours isn't?" It boils down to something stupid: our portion lawn did not fare well this summer, and it bothers our neighbor's sister. Founded, perhaps. We have some stuff going on; honestly, watering the lawn is so low on my priority list, I don't even think it's on there. The person to approach us about it should be either our actual neighbor, not her guest or, even more appropriate, our landlord (who, by the way, was here about two weeks ago and didn't say a thing about the brown, parched grass....he also hasn't taken care of my bee problem, so I could care less about his rented lawn).

Blech. I just didn't need to hear it today. We have to stay here another 6-8 months. I missed out on the exact crib I want that was listed on Craigslist. I'm fat. It's hot. She picked a bad day to mess with me, and that is why I haven't gone outside and dealt with the situation, not only hormonal angry pregnant lady style, but New Jerseyian, hormonal, angry pregnant style.