Oh, the summer was not what we’d all hoped for but it wasn’t all bad. We got one single beautiful beach day in, and then Wyatt got an extra beach day with a friend, the very next day. Last summer we tried to go to the beach and ended up driving back when all the parking lots were filled at Jones Beach and we couldn’t find parking at Long Beach and it was the saddest day of the pandemic 2020 summer. Believe me, that was a very sad summer, full of Maggie and floods and humidity and canned rosé.

So this summer beats last summer immeasurably. Hands down without a doubt this summer was not horrifying. School is almost started and Maggie is back at her house, though so far quiet. But she is back and thus I am back here on the super secret blog I don’t even think about when Maggie is not home.

The legacy of last summer’s 6-day bathtub running/hospital stay is quite intense. The green ServPro van is a regular visitor to her hoouse. Now that I had a flood, I know about ServPro, a company that does water and mold remediation and works well with State Farm. They did our demo and dry out after Maggie stuck her hose in our carport and flooded our basement. I wanted desperately to go into her house and see the damage and the remediation. We had one floor and 5 industrial dehumidifiers and fans and clear plastic with zippers. It was NUTS down there.

Maggie had a whole house full of black mold (according to tweets, which are not that accurate). I did check with Maggie’s ServPro guy, and black mold cannot swim through brick walls, so that is good.

We are taking stock

Calvin and I talk of moving. I have installed the Zillow app on my phone and am combing through articles about what disclosures the seller must make when selling. Do I have to tell them, My neighbor is mentally unwell and she will bite you eventually? Never make eye contact with her.

So far my reading reveals no such disclosures are legally mandated but we will have to disclose. Will they buy?

I have fantasies about selling to a developer and just razing this lovely house down. Maybe a Russian oligarch’s holding company/developer who would pay cash and think nothing of a crazy person sharing the wall. What is one crazy lady when you are trying to stay on Putin’s good side?

We are too community-minded to sell to an oligarch (if we knew they were an oligarch).

Let the Alley Popularity Contest Begin

Maggie’s ally is not a Love Interest, which I think was my name for the gentleman who likes to garden at night while smoking. Alley Ally (formerly known as Love Interest) is truly Maggie’s ally. He jumped poor Calvin when Wyatt and I were in Colorado seeing my mom. Calvin was getting in the car to get to set and Alley Ally gave him a hard time about being mean to poor Maggie. “She’s lost everything, you know,” he said, and Calvin got out of the car and told him to get stuffed.

“I mean, you’re all ‘the people in your neighborhood’ and stuff and you are so mean to Maggie,” Alley Ally said, and Calvin got really mad. “Don’t talk about my job,” he snapped. Good for Calvin. He is so nice to all sorts of crazy sons of bitches, and it is to his credit that he wasn’t nice to this deluded sap. I was proud of him (Calvin then discovered the car’s tire was flat so that was a bummer).

There’s something insidious when another person tries to forcibly enter the narrative of The Bad Neighbor and impose their own interpretation onto it. I had an more benign online run-in with a friend of Maggie’s (ex) husband, who just annoyed me into snapping and then getting off Facebook. This person thought it was a battle between Maggie and her ex, and this guy was on the ex’s side so we should just be friends. Why I’d rather not be friends is harder to explain but let it be said that our conflict with Maggie has nothing to do with their divorce, except that the ex’s absence leaves us the handiest target.

Back to the Popularity Contest

The thing is, we have seen Alley Ally trying to sweet talk other neighbors, specifically the guy Maggie ran her car into, who is the same man she convinced to drill her doorknob out when her ex had an Order of Protection against her. Calvin and I know Ally will make no headway with convincing that guy that Maggie is the victim. But it’s just the prospect of having to be aware of potentially looking a way with neighbors. I like to pretend they don’t exist, not that I have to curry favor with them.

Maggie wants to have a goddamn brawl for the heart of the alley and I have no stomach for it. I don’t want to talk to any neighbor, ever.

My Cave Syndrome is acting up.