Won't You Be My Neighbor

Sorry folks this is going to be long.

Had a bad dog/kid/ neighbor experience this week, but was still too upset to write about it until today. Thanks, Joni for helping me to be able to laugh at it all a little.

So Jazzy is a great dog. We lover her very much. She is great with the kids, low maintenance, very protective of her house, super gentle with people that come over. She is a good dog. But she really, really, really loves to run. And be chased.

When we first moved here we had the kids taking her out on a leash because of our lack of a fence. She is pretty smart though, and realized that if Kylee took her out she could give one good yank and be out of here. This caused numerous problems but the biggest was with my dog HATING neighbor. We quickly put up a fence to avoid anymore problems but that also irritated my neighbor.

After the fence a whole new problem came about. We had to somehow teach the kids that if they were going to go out the front door the dog had to be in the yard. So the fence did cut down the running away, but it has not eliminated it.

(This is where any of you who train dogs, and would like to chime in and help a girl out, should feel free.)

So Jazzy runs away a couple times a year. Also, I have to say here that she doesn't love the cold so living here is to my advantage because as long as there is snow on the ground she pretty much stays home where it is warm.

But it is spring now.

So last week Joshi was outside riding his bike with his brother and sisters. And as the good mother that I am I had no idea that they were riding bikes out front. I did know they were outside. I also didn't know that my neighbor had just had her drive way seal coated. I am in the house Josh opens the door the wind blows the door all the way open and out goes Jaz. I run out right after her, but she is gone! I mean gone. Then I hear the yelling.

I look over and there is my neighbor. Yelling at me. Yes, yelling. She is very angry and shouting something about my son, and how he ran his bike over her newly seal coated driveway. Oh my gosh. Of all the things. Of all the people. I look at Josh, who is standing by his bike and say, "Joshi we told you not to go in OTHER people's drive ways." Okay really, we have just told him not to go in her drive way.

But she is not appeased. Joshi is saying something about how he didn't drive in her driveway and she is screaming that he did and she saw him. And she is very upset because his bike got some tar on her bricks that line her drive way.

I apologized. But she just continued on, then got on her cell phone and began yelling at who ever is on the phone about the damage.

Meanwhile, I am upset and really mad at the dog. That is when she says it. "I really hope your dog doesn't come back and run all over my driveway too!"

Okay I can't remain calm any more. I was nice. I said I was sorry. At this point I was afraid to go over there because I didn't know if I could maintain my Christ-follower attitude. So I walked in the house to get my keys to go and look for the dog.

When I walked in I heard my very angry neighbor speed away in her car. I walked back out and went to look at the damage. Okay folks, here is what happened. Joshi was riding down the sidewalk and being a five year old on two wheels probably lost control right around the corner of my neighbors driveway and swerved a little. There was, literally, a twelve inch tire mark on her driveway. A tiny bit of tar on the brick.

I was pretty mad at this point. This is where I would like to stop and apologize to some of my unfortunate friends who happened to call during this time. Terri, Mike, Paula, I would like to say I am sorry for the things I said.

Okay, I feel better.

So I got in the car and drove around looking for Jaz. After two rounds of the neighborhood, and my friend up the street deciding she was going to go and look too, here comes Jaz up the street on a leash with Seth and some little girls.

Seth had found her three entire neighborhoods over and these girls had helped him get her on a leash and walk her home.

I have to say the hardest part had to be the kids witnessing the whole thing and me maintaining composure and teaching through it. I just kept telling them that we needed to be kind to this lady and understand that she must have a lot of unhappiness in her life to get so upset. We talked about loving our neighbors, even the ones who hate us. This was all very hard especially when I was so upset that day, but I also know that the kids pick up on my anger and would mimic it if I wasn't careful.

Mike came home and saw the "damage" and waited for the husband to come home. He has always been very reasonable.

And he was this time too. We offered to have the "damage" fixed and he assured us that the problem was not our tire mark but the bad job the seal coating company had done.

So, she was mad about the lame job the seal coaters had done and not so much about the Joshi mark. But decided to take out her anger on me and my son.

Oh, and one more thing I am also sorry that I hoped for it to rain that night. Which it did.

Kristen