For the privacy of all, I intend to not use real names for my neighbors. I think it is rude of me to do so, I will assign them nicknames over time. Dead Mama is obvious. And Daddy for the elderly man. My husband, Ed, and I refer to the daughter as Crazy Woman. I know that sounds harsh, but for years we've watched her outside talking to thin air or being hauled away by the cops for another Baker Act (Involuntary Mental Health Commitment Act), so I can't think of any other name for her. For the son who drinks, I must tell you a story to explain.
5 years ago, we did a total house remodel. We replaced nearly every surface inside and out. This constant stream of activity was enormously interesting for our neighbors, who came over to watch the work on a daily basis. I'd hear from my sub-contractors about who came over and why. So when we had finally completed the inside, The oldest son and Dead Mama came over to look around. I obliged, after all I was sort of proud of the work we'd done, Right in view of our front windows, we had a large built in made to house sports memorabilia, a giant fish tank and our bar. We added a wine fridge on one side and shelves full of liquor and bar ware.
About 6 months after we completed work, I looked out the front window and see the Eldest trotting over, shirtless, dirty jeans, etc. After a vigorous game of "rock, paper, scissors", Ed lost and went to the door. I did not want to be pulled into it, so I went to the other side of the house. I could hear the conversation muffled on the front porch, generally we don't invite them in for fear having them stay for hours. Then Ed came inside, got something and went back outside for a moment.
After the Son left, I asked Ed "What did he want?"
"Rum."
"Rum?" I asked again, confused. I mean who comes over and asks to borrow a cup of rum? Pirates? I looked out the window and could see him walking back to his house with a bottle of Rum. "You gave him a whole bottle??" I asked.
"No, it was a nearly empty bottle with about a cup left in it. I mean he had no cup or container, what was I going to do?"
Valid point, how else to give him rum. So we watched him walk to the side of the house and place the bottle on a bedroom window sill. Then he walked 10 feet over to the garage and went in the back door.
Ed and I just looked at each other confused. I mean who borrows rum, then places it on a window sill before they walk into the house?
While we were still pondering this, the shades and window opened and the Son pulled the bottle off the window sill and put it inside the bedroom. At that point we realized he was TRULY an alcoholic, I mean we suspected this for years, but hiding booze from your family is a telltale act. He asked for booze a couple more times and we politely declined. I didn't want to get into being a liquor store for the guy.
Rum Son, seems like an appropriate nick name.
Monday, January 14, 2013
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Foreword...how it began
I'm taking this first post, like the foreword of a book. Let you know why I am writing this blog and why I am not a psychopath for the blog title.
The Dead Mama in question is in fact, to my knowledge, not dead. She is my next door neighbor. In fact all of this will be true stories of my next door neighbors. For the past 20 years I have witnessed the daily activities out my front window of a family that is a cross between The Clampetts and the Hatfield and McCoys...that's if the Hatfield and McCoys were one family and all the in fighting was amongst themselves.
The occupants of the house change regularly, but there have been 4 consistent members of the Dead Mama house. The Parents, Mama and Daddy, as they are called by the children of the house. The 2 regular children are a 50-something Son, who is an alcoholic and a 40-something Daughter, who is schizophrenic. Clinically schizophrenic. Yes, I am just that lucky. The remainder of the occupants is an ever changing array of extended family and/or friends. Sometimes I only know what their relationship is to the Alcoholic son and I sort of extrapolate the relationship.
Daddy is actually gone from us now, but Mama is to my knowledge still alive. She got the name Dead Mama over this past holiday season. It's a long story to get here, so understand when I say we (my husband and I) had not seen Mama in a couple of weeks, which is highly unusual, we started thinking that she had died and the children/friends etc in the house either didn't notice or were hiding it. She is the breadwinner in the family bringing in Social Security, her husband's pension and a reverse mortgage on the house, so all of them would be homeless and penniless if she died. Since fact is stranger than fiction with this family, we figured she had been "Norman Bates'd" and was in a rocking chair in the garage.
We started daily discussing Dead Mama. One day, rather warm day, they had the fireplace burning something extremely smoky and smelly. Likely it was green wood or pine logs, but it was so odd to be burning a fire on a 70 degree day, that we thought, "Oh Dead Mama in the fireplace". After weeks of this, I finally had a Dead Mama sighting. She is quite senile right now and was outside pulling the shrubs and jasmine vines off the mailbox. The vines and shrubs she had planted there years ago.
Over the years, I have told these stories at gatherings and parties, to the shock and amusement of friends. I never give names and never tell anything that I haven't been told directly by them or witnessed unfolding in my front yard. And I will say this much about them, they are very tight as a family. Even after kicking a niece, her boyfriend and baby out of the house, using the police and an eviction notice, that woman still comes to the house on a weekly basis.
I really am not mean spirited, I am just amazed by the behavior of this lot, it's so alien to me. And I suspect I look just as alien to them. The Aliens at the end of the street.
The Dead Mama in question is in fact, to my knowledge, not dead. She is my next door neighbor. In fact all of this will be true stories of my next door neighbors. For the past 20 years I have witnessed the daily activities out my front window of a family that is a cross between The Clampetts and the Hatfield and McCoys...that's if the Hatfield and McCoys were one family and all the in fighting was amongst themselves.
The occupants of the house change regularly, but there have been 4 consistent members of the Dead Mama house. The Parents, Mama and Daddy, as they are called by the children of the house. The 2 regular children are a 50-something Son, who is an alcoholic and a 40-something Daughter, who is schizophrenic. Clinically schizophrenic. Yes, I am just that lucky. The remainder of the occupants is an ever changing array of extended family and/or friends. Sometimes I only know what their relationship is to the Alcoholic son and I sort of extrapolate the relationship.
Daddy is actually gone from us now, but Mama is to my knowledge still alive. She got the name Dead Mama over this past holiday season. It's a long story to get here, so understand when I say we (my husband and I) had not seen Mama in a couple of weeks, which is highly unusual, we started thinking that she had died and the children/friends etc in the house either didn't notice or were hiding it. She is the breadwinner in the family bringing in Social Security, her husband's pension and a reverse mortgage on the house, so all of them would be homeless and penniless if she died. Since fact is stranger than fiction with this family, we figured she had been "Norman Bates'd" and was in a rocking chair in the garage.
We started daily discussing Dead Mama. One day, rather warm day, they had the fireplace burning something extremely smoky and smelly. Likely it was green wood or pine logs, but it was so odd to be burning a fire on a 70 degree day, that we thought, "Oh Dead Mama in the fireplace". After weeks of this, I finally had a Dead Mama sighting. She is quite senile right now and was outside pulling the shrubs and jasmine vines off the mailbox. The vines and shrubs she had planted there years ago.
Over the years, I have told these stories at gatherings and parties, to the shock and amusement of friends. I never give names and never tell anything that I haven't been told directly by them or witnessed unfolding in my front yard. And I will say this much about them, they are very tight as a family. Even after kicking a niece, her boyfriend and baby out of the house, using the police and an eviction notice, that woman still comes to the house on a weekly basis.
I really am not mean spirited, I am just amazed by the behavior of this lot, it's so alien to me. And I suspect I look just as alien to them. The Aliens at the end of the street.
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