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Sunday, September 20, 2009

Dealing with mean people

I'm probably not the best example of this right now.

Went out to the garden today to find that the neighbor, who had been working out there when I got up this am, had pulled out a honeysuckle shoot that I had laced our side of the fence. She didn't just clip off the offending part, she ripped it out of the ground, broke it in half and threw it on the other side of the fence.

Backstory: She moved in about a year ago to the guy's house next door. She had walked out on him earlier for another man, 20 years ago and apparently that didn't work, so she went back to her first sot of a hubby, C. Who took her back. Since then she's been very martha stewartish in fixing up the yard, the house and cliff, who now seems to disappear with his golf buddies when he can.

When she built a fence down our yard, without telling us and the crew let our dog out in the process, I confronted them both. Last year. We haven't exchanged words since. Or really interacted until now.

So I come fuming back into the house, ripped out plant in hand and said a few choice words to my daughter. I'm really trying to set a good example here. But it's hard.

"Mom, I'm in high school. There are cheerleaders and bitches everywhere. So you don't have to tell me there are mean people in this world."

OK, but how does one deal with them? How does one set an example? You can't exactly slam them on MySpace.

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