From Wildlife to Human

First, I'd like to point out that the title is "wildlife" -- not "wild". I'd like to think I'm a wild child, but as any one who has ever met me even once can attest, that's laughable.

Am a drinker? Am I loud and obnoxious? Am I a stalker (to make friends -- and yes, it appears to actually work, but don't try this at home kids...)? Am I a party girl? A pontificator? A know-it-all? Sure. All of the above at one time or another. Not all the time, mind you, but certainly at times I am one or all of those things.

But wild? No, never. And I do not use "never" lightly, as I have mentioned before. But the simple truth is that I have control issues. Huge, blinking lights on a marquee, control issues. The kind where I am a pretty much permanently tightly wound up, and do not like doing things -- going places mentally or physically -- where I am not in control.

As a further aside: It may be hard to believe that I would let myself drink if this is the case -- but if you think about it, it actually makes perfect sense. After all, what is drinking but a controlled loss of control? A strictly regimented bit of freedom?

Now, after that (ridiculous) digression, back to the point at hand (yeah, yeah, as usual, my love of tangents -- sometimes irrelevant, sometimes not): moving into town to have neighbors that are not wildlife solely, but human. At least mostly.

I discussed some of this in my initial "back to blogging" post, but ever since I've been on a bit of a philosophical and pontificating bender. Shocking, I know! And it seemed like I should get back a bit more to the personal. So. Here I go....

Wheeeeeeee!

Or not.

Let's face it, it's actually pretty hard to "start over" some place. True, I wasn't starting completely over. I had been living in the same county, just in a more isolated place. I did have a book club, and did have a few friends. But it is entirely different to go from being "one of two" to "one of one" -- and to go from being out in the middle of nowhere to the middle of somewhere.

It's pretty hard to piss off wildlife neighbors, especially when you go out of your way to do things for them: I ensured the salt block for the deer was accessible, no matter how deep the snow. I ensured the bird feeders were kept full of seed, and, during the spring and summer, the hummingbird feeder was full of nectar. I minimized my footprint as best I could, respected them when I saw them (well, except for the pictures; I, of course, always had to take photos!), and lived peaceably, even happily, with them.

Well, except for the "incident" with the mountain lion. That was not happy, nor even peaceful, at least to me.

Unfortunately, it is much easier to piss off human neighbors. Shocking that, eh? Apparently, doing such simple things as having friends park awkwardly in the parking lot can piss people off. And there is no simple way to do things like putting out a salt block or keeping a bird feeder full when it comes to humans.

Although I am starting to think this town runs on alcohol, so perhaps I should have tried putting out bottles of beer or wine....? 

Seriously, I live in a small town, in a small townhouse development (6 units total), and it felt like Word War III was started over parking!

All I did was host book club, and tell people they could park in the lot directly in front of my unit. I'm the end unit, so all of the parking spaces in front of my unit belong to my unit. Of course, I usually don't need all the spaces, so regularly allow every one else in the development to park there. Unfortunately, the night of book club, other units were using a couple of the spaces that belonged to me -- so a couple of my friends parked in the lot, just not directly in front of my unit.

Apparently, this (somewhat) blocked the car of another neighbor -- and apparently this called for war.

Because war is the appropriate response to parking. Right? Right. Especially in a small town, in a small development, over book club guests. Ahhh... Good times.

The long and the short of it is that said neighbor got very very upset. Left nasty notes on windshields, called her landlord, who proceeded to call every one else in the development (mind you, said landlord lives in another state), and after much confusion and back and forth, I finally figured out that, yes, two of my guests were parked "inappropriately".

Of course, by this time, now my guests had declared war. Because war is the appropriate response to parking. Right? Right. Especially in a small town, in a small development, over book club guests. Ahhh.... Good times.

Needless to say, it all got straightened out finally -- and book club ended, and all guests left. I never did see nor meet the "inconvenienced neighbor" (and have not to this day!), but I did get to spend lots of time with other neighbors who were inconvenienced by war being declared (the ones who were nice enough to go door to door to figure out who the cars belonged to, etc). But.....

Let's just say it was a lesson.....

Maybe I didn't move "from wildlife to human" -- or maybe I did, and this is the way the world works now.

Who knows! What I do know, is....

My wildlife neighbors were a lot less wild!

Sheez.....