Like every May for the past four years, Maggie erupted big time, but her big-time moves are significantly smaller and that is fantastic.

She now spends every day almost all day on her stoop or sitting in her increasingly cluttered front yard. She plays her music, chats with her helpers, and yells soundbites at people walking up and down the street.

Oh, she’s loud.

Last Saturday was a beautiful day and we were lolling through it (lolling like loll, not like LOL). Every time we came in or out she did harass us but with some good humor. For example, on the way to ramen for lunch, she sang Happy Family by the Ramones to us.

I had never listened to that song so didn’t get it at the time but I checked the lyrics and it references Queens, re-fried beans, and thorazine, which felt quite on the nose. But we are somewhat of a happy family so I thought she was cooking with gas. Was I insulted? I don’t know. A couple with a dog was walking toward as us this happened and I felt self conscious as she sang Happy Family to us, clearly a family with these 2 gangling teenagers in tow. I mouthed, “She’s crazy” to the guy and he said, “I know,” back, so I felt pretty good overall.

The Ramones on the way to lunch was the beginning

At this point it began to simmer, or she began to simmer, but we didn’t know that. We just knew we were going to eat some ramen and chill.

That evening we had Drinks on the Deck, a tradition borne of the pandemic and of Maggie. On the deck have a cocktail (the kids have cokes) and talk and laugh. It’s not that big of a stand anymore because she’s on the front stoop rather than lurking around the alley, so the alley neighbors are no longer on high alert and I no longer feel guilty for being on my deck. During Drinks on the Deck we landed on going to the New Mexican restaurant on DitMarston Avenue.

Inflection point: major tantrum ensues

I leave first and sit on the stoop. I’m tired of waiting for Wyatt to get his damn shoes on. It’s time for these kids to grow up and get ready to go at normal speeds. Let me consult my notes for the timeline (notes meaning my phone for photo times). I will admit that at this moment, I’m a little determined to not allow Maggie to dictate any of my actions. Yet had she not been on her stoop being creepy I would have gone outside and waited in a New York minute, because I love to avoid annoying family members as they are doing their annoying moves (putting on shoes slowly, for example) and I like to be outside to inspect the block.

So I go outside and just sit there. All this determination and all I did was sit. But she noticed me. We had dinner (pretty good! and that is good news because the restaurant is in one of those doomed spots, where the places always fail and you always feel bad for the staff when you go for the one time you go. But this one was good!) and when we passed Maggie, Calvin started laughing because she was playing her wind chimes, hitting them with her hands so they swooped out and then were even louder. But she stopped when we got there.

So I filmed her with my phone, which is such a gross thing to do to a person. I feel so grubby doing it to her, but I wanted to see her play the chimes. I mean, that is the fucking soundtrack to my life. I’d like to capture the maestro at work!

Maggie pulled up her top, a lycra camisole, and very floppy breasts just spilled out. I’d love to post it but it would be punching down.

Then the emails and texts began

She had a lot to say me after that. I received five emails covering a range of topics, including:

Then she texted Calvin for a while. His texts were so strange—at the end it seemed like she was trying to seduce him from me. He was unnerved. Texts are more personal than emails.

This morning Calvin noticed that Maggie’s hose had been running all night, flooding our lawn. Keep in mind that last night there was a torrential rainstorm. TORRENTIAL.

She’s trying to flood us again, on some level

I wonder what happened to her that led her to weaponize water? Or maybe it’s just the most passive way to cause trouble. The first time she went crazy (May-June 2020) she got weird about water. She ran her hose into our lawn, she sprayed us, I shot our hose into her sunroof (SCORE), and then she flooded our basement by planting her hose into our carport when we were out of town.

So that’s that. Her lies are getting wilder, by the way. She claimed her daughter got into high school two years early. Any NYC public school parent knows what bullshit that statement is. The DOE does not act like that.