Hanging On by my Fingernails
I did not want to come to work today. I still don’t feel entirely well, my neighbour has disturbed my wa, and I am fatigued beyond belief. Also, I have a blood-blister on my thumb that makes typing rather unpleasant.
But duty trumps desire—I must be at church tonight, as I have the movies and prizes for the kids who are celebrating the end of the kids’ choir season. And we have a rehearsal for adult choir to go over the anthem for Sunday and to start work on The Messiah. Yeah, Christmas in May. What of it? I love Handel, and the music is both challenging and engaging. So I’m excited. I also have to take my son to his guitar lesson today. And if I have to do all that, well, it would hardly be right to skip work.
So here I am. I might leave early, if I can finish the urgent projects on my desk. The Shabbat bulletin, the handouts for Shabbat, and the letters for the week. These must all be done before 3 p.m. on Friday. So I am here. Wishing I were home.
As for the neighbour. She was out this morning, patrolling her property with her hands on her hips and shaking her head. Just looking at her house makes me shake with rage, at the moment. Which is wrong — I shouldn’t let her get to me. Dad is going to try to get a printout of my property from the plat books downtown today. (It’s quite useful to have an architect father. He knows how it all works.) I’m trying to decide what to do. I really don’t want to be on bad terms with these people, but this woman is a shrew. She could give Shakespeare’s Kate a run for her money.
Once Dad establishes where the line is, I’m going to go buy some fence and put it up from the front sidewalk to the back fence. (My backyard neighbour has a six foot fence lining his property—it is actually 18 inches into the property line in my favour, since he had to inset the fence to accomodate some large trees growing on the property line. So when he installed the fence, he told my husband and me that he guessed that land would just be ours now.)
If it turns out that I am wrong and the hedges are on her side, then I will buy replacement bushes for the four dead ones that I cut down on Sunday. Dad says I shouldn’t (after all, they were dead), but if it will establish a truce, fine. It will salve my conscience, since I did try to kill them a few years ago out of frustration with the branches constantly coming into my yard and scratching my car. But it didn’t work–in fact, they came out lusher and greener than ever. And now the hedge is dying and she blames me. And I feel guilty. So if it turns out that the bushes are on her side, I’ll replace the dead ones I removed. At least then my conscience will be clear—I will have done what I can to make it right.