Tension convention

I never had another problem with her. She's passed away now.

I probably missed the boat on optimal time to talk to her, but it doesn't feel right to just not talk to her about it at all. The overall tack I'm taking is that while I avoided speaking to her one day after the incident, when I was WAY mad, after that I have been open to talking and she's been the one avoiding me. Without her avoidance, we would have talked about long ago. So if it's a by the way and not the point of the conversation, I think I can work it in just in terms of we haven't spoken since I noticed it. (We haven't -- one avoidance by me, about 10 avoidances by her.)

We'll see.

Noddy, I'm tempted. E.G. suggested as much. It just doesn't quite feel right, feels like it wouldn't solve things in a satisfactory way. Not that talking to her necessarily will, either, but I'm going to try that and see.

Since I'm going to try to be all reasonable and stuff, will get a little rant in here that I would much, much, MUCH rather not be the recipient of favors at all than be beholden to someone who is expecting more thanks than I am willing to give. If I ask someone to do something and they do it, I am going to thank them up the wazoo, and sincerely. If someone just goes and does something that I might want and might not want, I get really annoyed if they hold it against me for not being sufficiently grateful.

Bodhisattvawannabe, your post and Noddy's make an interesting pair. ;-) Glad you didn't have any further problems, though.

"I'll be judge, I'll be jury,"
Said the cunning, old Fury.
I'll try all the cases
And condemn you to....

....perpetual gratitude?

Sozobe, I agree that Real Grown Ups should not need great dollops of Positive Reinforcement from casual acquaintances. For that matter, anyone who needed all that petting and cosseting would not become a close friend of mine.

As for giving or not giving E.G. the Special Envoy title, complete with full treaty-making powers......

Are you sure that he isn't better equipped than you are for dealing with an old fashioned (men are superior, dear) busybody? He could handle turning the households into good neighbors--as opposed to best friends and bosom buddies.

Bake a peace offering, if you like, but let him do the man-to-man approach.--or not.

So here's how it went:

I noticed that wifeNeighbor (WN) had some clothes out to dry, so I camped out on my deck (next to their driveway/ back porch) knowing that she'd come out at some point to get the clothes. I busied myself with yard work (what else), sweeping up fallen trumpet vine flowers, etc. I was inspecting the lilac and noticed that one whole branch from base to end is dead, and that gave me an idea. Went over to their house and knocked -- nobody home. Phooey.

Went back to my tidying.

About 10 minutes later, they drove up. They had to pass close by to get from car to house. I said "Hi there!" brightly and waved. HN (husband) waved back in a friendly way, WN waved a bit and set her sights on the door. I called out, "Hey guys, I have a question... This branch is dead but a lot of it is on your side, do you have any problem with me cutting it down?"

(See what I did there?)

I didn't direct it at either of them but was looking mostly at WN, they both came over and took a look, sure no problem. As WN started to move to go back in, I gestured to the mulch (that's where it was), and said, "Gosh, thanks so much." She laughed a little uncomfortably. With a little smile and light tone I said, "So, what else did you do in the front yard?" She said "Nothing," in a kind of clipped way. I said, "Oh, really?" pleasantly. She said, "Well, I did some weeding." I said, "Thanks, it looks like you did a lot of work, I appreciate it. It looked like you cut back some of the vinca, too?" She started to say no, then said, "Well, a little by the elm." I was nodding/ appreciative throughout this part. I furrowed my brow a bit and said "Oh, so you didn't cut back around the snapdragons?" She said "no" quickly and then "Oh, well, the vinca was choking them off." I said with a smile, "Well, they are annuals..." She said, "I won't do it again," made a half-goodbye/ half-talk-to-the-hand gesture, and went inside.

Hmmm.

I still hadn't finished tidying and so continued to do so. About five minutes later she came out with a very emotional expression (tight, twitchy, not so far from tears) and said, "[sozobe], you have to do something about your back yard. You have to get the poison ivy away from my fence." I said, "I know, I feel terrible about the back yard, it looks awful..." She said "Yes, it does," and looked towards it with a stricken expression. (There was more of that that I don't remember -- me being apologetic, her reiterating that it was simply horrendous, but I don't remember how it went exactly.) Then I said, "I was so gung-ho at the beginning of the year but that poison ivy really threw me for a loop..." [no reaction] "...anyway I agree something must be done, we plan to do something tomorrow, so we'll be sure to get the poison ivy by the fence then." (More reiteration of "awful" from her amidst high emotional expressions.) Me again: "I do feel badly about it, it's hard to know where to start but I have to just attack it. Frankly, I find that poison ivy terrifying!" At that point she just kind of nodded and then turned her back and left again.

(While I used quotes, none of this is exact [though I tried to make it as exact as I could] -- happened about 3 hours ago and some exactness has faded.)

Second part of the story is that E.G. was also doing some yard tidying, had brought a fallen branch to the curb just as HN came up with the dog, at the end of his walk. THEY had a talk, too. We'd had the sprinkler on and just then it started to rain; E.G. said, "Good thing we've been watering." (As in, irony.) HN chuckled. E.G. said, "So, we're gonna get to that backyard tomorrow -- guess that'll be good, huh?" HN said "yep," kind of non-commitally. E.G. started to apologize and HN stopped him with stuff about how he understands that we've been busy, that the poison ivy is intimidating and makes it a huge job, that it's not that bad anyway (really isn't!!! despite my make-nice apologizing to WN), to not worry about it, no big deal. Nice neighborly stuff.

I'm feeling pretty good about it. I think I handled myself very well, and I think things have been set up for a cordial but not bosom-buddy relationship, especially after we get to the back yard tomorrow. It allows me to do something in good faith that is concrete, not the guess work about "how can I make her like me??" -- if she still has a problem with me after I do that, that's her problem and ever-further into irrationality. Because that was the other thing that was satisfying about it -- it took all of these suspicions I had and made them concrete. Her emotion and anger were just WAY out of proportion to the reality.

By the way, here's my back yard a couple of months ago. The grassy patch is weedier and browner, but otherwise it gives you a pretty good idea of what is going on.



And more to the point (I think) it is really not that different now from what it looked like when we moved in a year ago. At that point it had a lot less grass, a lot less green grass (the shade-tolerant grass seed I put down seems to be doing better than the stuff that was here) more bare dirt, less weeds (though still a lot of weeds), and a lot more dog poop. And the mother of all poison ivy vines is many, many decades old, so it's not like that's our fault.

Anyway, I'm feeling good about it overall.

Thanks again for all of your insight, advice, and support, has helped enormously.

(One thing that's not right in the account above is that I didn't know there was poison ivy by her fence -- that was where I went after it really aggressively earlier, with Round-up and all. Not sure where I got that in, couldn't make it work in the first sentence because what I was sure of was ending the sentence with something about how awful it looks and her just agreeing. Yes, awful.)

This will probably work out well.
What can I say, you and I have different boundaries.
You will probably live a saner life.

Well, that's encouraging. At least she got out what she wanted to say and confirmed to you that she knows she was out of line when she butchered your yard.

And the back yard looks perfectly fine to me.

Oh, my boundaries are similar to yours, Osso. In fact, I might have less tolerance for hydrangea-stealing. ;-)

Just, this is the way I settled on handling the situation, trying to be unimpeachably nice and in control while also getting the important points across.

At least, I hope I got the important points across. I think so.

Oh and while I think WN's angst is way out of proportion, I genuinely do feel badly about my back yard, and genuinely do want to do something about it -- that was all true, if I was hoping for a reaction closer to HN's when I said so.

Set an example? Smart move!


It's a commitment on her part. Pretty good.


Ah, so that's what bugged her. As you say, the poison ivy had been there for a long time, so this sounds to me like "this could be such a pretty garden, if only I was in charge of it", rephrased in a form that makes your garden her business. I'm sure this is not the last intervention along those lines that you'll see from her, but it's now about something specific, and you have found a way to show goodwill. Not bad.


Was kinda hoping to read about a duel somewhere in this post, but looks like it ain't gonna happen. <stuffs away popcorn>


I agree. Nice job, both you and E.G.!

Pity that she didn't take advantage of your absence to tackle the poison ivy.

I'm glad that the balance of the neighborhood has been restored.

E.G. teaches in a college, correct?

Would you be able to come up with the money to hire a couple ivy-proof college kids for the afternoon? Young, virile, search-and-destroy types?
Brawny brutes, not necessarily horticultural experts?

I was thinking the same thing. But ah well, all's well that ends well. It sounds like she needs to feel like she's right, even when she knows she was wrong. What you did, soz, was let her feel right (by apologizing about the back yard) while getting your point across and acknowledging that she was wrong. She'll be friendlier now, even if she'll never be someone you particularly like, and that's ok.

Did I ever mention I really like your way of getting directly to the heart of things? Consider it mentioned.

Thanks, Thomas. That means a lot coming from you.

I agree completely. (Both with FreeDuck's initial observation, and Thomas' observation thereof.)

Oh and good idea about college kids, Noddy. It's an outside possibility, though money is still way tight. I'll feel more righteous if I do the work myself, I think, a way to direct my emotional energy for this whole thing. (I was calmer than I'd been since the whole thing started right after I had the talk with her and for a while after, but since I woke up I have been itching to go out and DO stuff.)

By the way, when I related to E.G. what happened with WN, HE finally got mad. (At first he just absorbed it, then went off to do some stuff, and then several minutes later came back steaming and said, "I just have one thing to say -- how dare they??", and went off again. This was before he talked to HN [we're both good at the take a deep breath and be reasonable if we gotta thing], so it's more "she" than "they" now, I think.) So he has a similar thing going on. (Being agitato, wanting to put that to good use.)

Thanks for the kind words, Thomas, and yep, you got what I was doing there with the branch. Might have been a bit hokey/ obvious, but gave me the opening I needed while itself conveying info.

Not quite sure what to expect from here on. Could still go a few ways. Plan to just do the backyard and go from there.

I'm glad things are working out Sozobe.

It's very stressful to be on bad terms with neighbors.

Well, I'm really glad you're coming to a resolution.

But frankly, that last encounter would have really blown my lid off.

She's telling You what you HAVE to do with YOUR yard?!!!!

I personally think your apoligizing played into her hands, and just reinforced her feeling that she is the Garden Police.

Yes you do need to get rid of of poisen ivy, that goes without saying......

however, her charging up all emotional, making that statement about what you HAVE to do?

My response, without thinking, would have been, "yeah well, when you start paying my mortgage, I'll do the yard however you want. Until then, it's MY decesion what I do with MY property.

Sorry, I just felt she was more out of line saying that than the original act.

But, if your happy Soz, I'm happy.

Oh, I think she was way out of line.

The thing is still, what outcome do I want?

I don't want a permanent feud. I'm going to get to the poison ivy anyway. It is no particular skin off my nose to apologize, and I think it was the only way to make a dent and get the other information in there -- and I think the other information is in there. This probably wasn't the ONLY way, but it was one of a limited number of ways to get an outcome where she both does not interfere in that manner again AND we don't become mortal enemies. I just don't want to be mortal enemies with someone so close by.

And (this is tricky, hmmm) there is some kind of meta-message given by her charging and being emotional while I remained calm and friendly. If I'd reacted in kind, that would've squashed the meta-message, which I think was important.

Not sure if that part is clear.

Mostly, if I feel that I genuinely am doing everything I can to be nice and she still has a problem with me, I feel much, much better than if I leave openings for being part of the problem, of deserving the contempt she is directing my way. If I patently don't deserve it, it doesn't bother me.

Yeah, you right, it's a good thing you were able to control your emotions.

I just had one of those "eeeereffggh" moments.


Maybe instead of vinca and clover I'll just cement over my front lawn and paint flowers all over it, and erect ovesized lawn gnomes.

There we go!!

And flamingoes, lots of flamingoes.

Plus a few of those "bending over" cut-outs.