Leave It or Take It

So we get back yesterday from the movies. . . .

("Flushed Away." From the Wallace & Gromit folks. Went with E., my 24-year-old son who has a bachelor's in animation arts, and A., my 9-year-old daughter. We all loved it. Witty and fun.)


. . . and after a futile attempt at a nap I notice my neighbor and his son (actually the landlord of the two closely adjoining houses) dumping leaves by the curb. . .

. . . lots of leaves. . . in front of our house. Not theirs.

The landlord's kid asked me whether the leaves go in the street or not. No, I said, scowling, on the edge of a shouting match.

This reminds me of JR's Thumbprints and his dilemma last summer with his neighbor's boat and boat trailer. (Jim, hope you're feeling bettter. Cystoscopies are not fun; I do know that first-hand -- or first-gland.)

I was pissed. But didn't have the energy for it.

Then B. came home. After all, it was her house before I knew her. Plus she's got the Irish temper. She let them know we would prefer that leaves cover the flower beds over the long, hard winter.

Some nerve. (Some lack of nerve, Pawlie -- maybe it was simple prudence. I like Prudence. She's cute. Reminds me: in my growing-up sort-of tough neighborhood one was either classified as a fighter or a lover. Gulp.)

I will say this, though. A couple years ago a huge icicle fell off our house, with a thundering sound, and part of it dented the siding on the same neighbor-landlord's house next to ours (ours, which is now daringly purple with green trim; take that!), and a chunk sailed through the window and blinds of his tenants next door. The perfect weapon, an icicle. Don't look at me; I didn't do it.

By way of closing and apropos of nothing, I was at the supermarket this evening and saw a sign advertising the sale of amarllyis bulbs. I happen to be either blessed or cursed with a steel-tight memory for certain minutiae. Such as a college English professor claiming that the dirtiest line in English literature is from "Lycidas" from John Milton:

"To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?"

Amaryllis and Neaera were conventional names for pretty nymphs, my Norton Antholgy tells me.

Hmmm. He takes that over Molly Bloom's soliloquy? Or Andrew Marvell or John Donne? Or Edmund Spenser? Or some of Shakespeare's lines in "Romeo & Juliet? What about P Diddy or Madonna or Prince? (Oh. Right. English literature.) D.H. Lawrence?

You people should be working, paying bills, or wonking (is there such a verb?).