Every day is a strangely-wrapped present when you live next door to a deranged person. Today brought us much to savor, beginning as usual, with our straggling quartet of runners crawling out the door. The classic rock was already screaming through her wide-open front windows, letting everyone enjoy the best, the most amazing rock n’ roll ever written—the Beatles.

We came back to quiet and then Daisy decided to make pancakes today. Frankly, it was interminable. Yes, it solved the problem of breakfast, but it took for-ev-er. Finally I just grabbed one out of the oven where she had put them to keep warm as she slowly, carefully cooked the next pancake. Wyatt and I scarfed down our pancakes and then I finally got to shower and dress.

I’m being unfair to Daisy–she was done with all her classes, so she decided to treat this day like the first of her vacation. But I got impatient and hungry–I ran three thirteen-minute miles! I was famished. Then I showered, bellied up to the computer and realized I needed a nap.

So I napped on my couch with the cat, who aggressively crowded my legs. I didn’t even turn on the air conditioner. It wasn’t that warm. Maggie woke me at noon with some classic rock blasting as she rolled down the alley in her new silver car.

Then lunch, some actual work. I was sitting at my laptop with the air conditioner on, but I heard water running. I went outside and there was Maggie’s hose pouring water into our carport. I went to get Calvin.

She was sitting on her back porch, watching the water pour into our wall. Calvin was holding his phone and recording, which I thought was a neat touch. Calvin and I don’t want her to know that we have security cameras on all the time. He asked her to turn off the hose.

She said, “How can I water my flowers?”

“You’re watering my carport. The water isn’t going to the flowers,” Calvin said.

“Just tell me how to water my flowers,” Maggie retorted. She is very hard to talk to, much less ask to stop doing stupid stuff. There’s always another thing standing in the way of her not being an asshole.

“You say you’re an environmentalist,” Calvin said. “But you’re wasting water.”

That seemed to bother her. She walked over to me and said, “You’re just upset that you have an autistic daughter.”

The question of Daisy’s alleged spectrum disorder is uppermost in someone’s mind. Perhaps it’s the same person who has called in multiple anonymous complaints about us to Child Protective Services (CPS), triggering multiple visits by social workers. Unless we have more active haters, I’m going to assume it’s Maggie who has made these calls, which coincidentally follow run-ins with her. But whoever it is, they are very worried about how we treat Daisy, and believes that Calvin and I are exploiting and neglecting our autistic daughter Daisy.

So I changed the subject and called her a loser and a Republican, which was the worst insult I could find and seemed to follow nicely Calvin’s accusation of faux environmentalism.

Once inside, I got upset. Why do we have to have these crazy interactions? Who just starts pouring water into a neighbor’s property? Who insults a 15-year-old girl, a girl, I need to emphasize, who does not insult anyone. I didn’t want to call 911. I wanted to finish my work and pet the cat and cook dinner.

Calvin got mad at me. “We are being victimized but we are not victims!” he declared, almost shaking his finger in my face.

We didn’t call the cops. She turned off the water, although she set up a hose in the front yard to drip water slowly onto the brick deck. But that night was the first “drinks on the deck” evening.

Realistically, we would not have made the kids come out on the deck with their Cokes and have a drink and inspect our flowers and wave to neighbors. But we were stuck. Maggie hated us and we were not going to hide from her. She hated us whether she saw us or not, so let’s go outside and be who we are in full sight.

Fuck her.*

*I didn’t get to Twitter, but I will.