Anyone remember that movie Ferngully?

Of course we have neighbors we hate.

No, that's too far. We don't hate them. They just seem like dicks.

My house sits on an acre, just far enough back from a busy road. We have a big yard, and we like to spend time outside, usually tossing a ball for the dogs, and often with a beer (or large glass of wine) in hand. On one side of us, close to our house, is a house that's empty save occasional visits from the grown kids of the dead lady who used to live there.

On the other side, past the vast expanse of our lovely yard, live The Jerkoffs. It's a couple and a kid, and someone who looks like a grandma seems to appear from time to time. Roomie has seen the kid shooting at birds. That's just a really good way to piss off this particular hippie. And, charmingly, while the kid was shooting at birds, Grandma was just chilling on a riding mower, watching.

It's not like we have seagulls or some other kind of asshole birds around (like steller's jays, which are big, fat jerks), but sweet songbirds, cardinals, something called a titmouse,  and amazing, huge pileated woodpeckers -- rare, protected Woody the Woodpecker birds. Roomie also saw the kid chasing the chickens around their chicken coop throwing rocks at them. Cool, right?

(Don't get me wrong, I'm OK with eating chickens. I'm just not really into being an asshole to them while they're still alive. I get the irony, but as I see, it, 90% of the point of raising chickens is eating eggs -- or meat -- without feeling guilty about the horrible treatment the animals experienced while they were still alive.)

While all that makes me think the kid is a turdface, I wasn't really pleased when I heard his dad yelling at him while they burned whatever they were burning (they do it so often I suspect it may be their garbage) in their yard one morning. I'm not sure, but I think I heard him smack the kid, too. Excellent. (Mom's an unknown. Guilt by association, I say.)

Oh, and I haven't even mentioned the dogs. They have dogs, but they don't appear to be pets. They live in a pen outside next to the chicken coop, and they bark incessantly. I don't hold it against the dogs. They look out and see our off-leash pooches running around, frolicking happily with owners who love and snug them and throw balls for them. I mean, I'd bark, too. It's like the dogs are yelling, "Hey!  We want to play! This is bullcrap! Did you guys see this? We live in a cage! Look, see how huge this yard is? Why can't we run in the yard?! That looks like fun! We want to come play! Come get us! Can we hump your dogs?!"

So that's the background on how I felt when, one day, I heard the sound of large machinery coming from the neighbor's yard. It sounded angry, and hungry, and as I looked at the stand of trees and brush that separates our property from theirs, I saw limbs and leaves heaving and shaking as they clawed and cut them out of the ground. Tiny birds fled the destruction.

My vision's not great, but it was totally a scene from FernGully (p.s. Avatar was basically an expensive version of FernGully, but without Tim Curry. Incidentally, I have loved Tim Curry since he was trying to figure out who killed Mr. Boddy. Anyone with me? My early exposure to Rocky Horror only confirmed my adoration).

So now I think of my neighbors as the new embodiment of Hexxus.



Except my neighbor is in no way sexy.

In summary: Tim Curry is rad, my neighbors are dicks, and Hexxus destroyed enough bird habitat that we can now see the dickface yard better and hear said dicks yelling at their kids more clearly. Yay.

On the other hand, I now have a much better view of the daily activities of their chickens.

But that's another post.

Shit

Best part of today's outing? When Margaux rolled in human shit.

Wait, did I say "best"? I meant worst. Yup, that was the worst. I couldn't even bring myself to look when Roomie took her over to the pile to be sure she knew what she was in trouble for. But I'm also a lil pathetic; her terrified yelps when he dunked her in the creek to clean her off still sort of broke my heart.

Another awesome thing about when your dog's wearing human shit? Being paranoid that she's going to brush up against you for the rest of the day. Because she has shit on her. Human shit.

And why do dogs like to roll in shit, anyway? Google tells me it may be to mask her smell so she can hunt more effectively, but, hello Margaux: Humans are the most dangerous animal on earth. Masking your pathetic little 45 pound dog smell with the smell of shit from some redneck who doesn't know not to leave his turds and toilet paper in the woods isn't going to help you catch a squirrel. It's going to make the squirrel think that a) you may be a human, so you may have a gun and b) you've been drinking Budweiser, so you're probably in a foul mood.

Face plant

So I need to start remembering a camera on outings. Took my new cross country skis out yesterday, and I'm really sad I don't have pics of the many and multiple face plants I took. There were a couple where Suze (who would have had the camera, since I made her carry the only pack) had a good view of me flailing in the snow, trying to get at least one of my skis out of my ass and back underneath my legs.

The worst part of the trip was stopping to warm our fingers in the drying hut about two miles in. The warming hut itself was actually quite nice, with a toasty little fire going (we neglected to bring brandy. Bad move.), but the D-bag vacationers showing off for each other ruined it.

D-bag 1: Oh, I don't know, man, my wife loves Seattle, but I've only made it as far as Sea-Tac. (Wipes a crumb off the shoulder of his Pata-Gucci jacket)
D-bag 2: It's pretty great man, in fact we're thinking about offering $450 on a forclosure in Redmond.
D-bag 2's Wife: It'd be a lot of work.
D-bag 2: Oh yeah, at least 100 G's of remodeling cost, plus all the time you'd have to put into it.
Ells: You ready to get the eff out of here?
Suze: Absolutely.

Seriously, D-bags. It's the great recession. Save your buying up $400,000 forceclosure talks for your country club locker room. Don't do it at the free sno-play area. We're on used equipment. We don't want to hear about your money.