I AM THE WORLD'S WORST

Ya know how people always claim to be great judges of character? You almost never hear someone say "I'm always wrong about people", do you? Well, I'm here to tell you, I am! Usually wrong, that is. I suck at first impressions. People who seem so charming at first, end up driving me bonkers later on, and vice versa. In fact, you should hear what I thought about DH before I really got to know him! On second thought, maybe you shouldn't. I've been wrong about people so many times, you'd think I would have learned to remain impartial for at least a year, but no, I just keep right on making those snap judgements.

Take our newest neighbor, for example - the one we used to refer to as "Asshole" each time we drove past his property. We gave him that name when he first bought the property directly across the creek from us, immediately proceeded to surround it with barbed wire fencing, and put "No Trespassing!" signs down near the creek. It just didn't seem like a very neighborly thing to do, especially since he was never there, and didn't have anything on his property worth protecting for the first year or so. We figured he was probably some rich city slicker with no intention of ever actually living here. Since our property meets his right in the middle of the creek, John thought it might be rather humorous to stick a sign of our own up down by the creek, right next to his - one that said "Y'all Come On In!" - but he never got around to it.

AH fell even further in our esteem when we went out of town one time, and came back to find that he had put up a humongous, ugly, metal utility building. Did he tuck it into the tree-line along the creek, to make it less visible? No, he plopped it down right out in the gol dang middle of his property, totally wrecking our idyllic "Larry McMurtry western novel" view. From then on there was an endless stream of welders, electricians, plumbers, etc., coming in and out, installing all kinds of equipment, laying pipe, and who knows what else. I just knew there was going to be some kind of awful business operating from there - one that would be ugly and noisy, with piles of pipe or metal stacked everywhere.

So, I started asking around. Know what I found out? AH wasn't a he. He was a she. In fact, she was a glass artist, and that building was going to be her studio. Hmmm. I guess that could be kind of interesting, huh? Then, sometime last spring, she started building a little stone house, which she did tuck up close to the trees. She just moved in not long ago. Wouldn't you know, the first thing she did was start building raised beds for a vegetable garden, just like I'm fixin' to do. Then she had to go and add a water catchment tank this past week, just like we did recently. Guess we might have a thing or two in common. I spoke to her one day, when she was out walking her grandbaby (at least, I think it's a grandbaby - AH has solid white hair, but her face is very young looking). She was actually kinda cute and bubbly. Hmmm, creative, friendly, eco-conscious, gardener? Well crap, I've done it again. This lady is probably going to end up being one of my best friends some day, and I'm gonna have to admit to referring to her place as "The AH" for all those months. Or wait, maybe I could just say that stood for Artist's House! Ya think?

P.S. Gee, I'd really love to post some pictures of her place for you, but I still can't use my scanner or my Kodak Easyshare program, thanks to those upgrades that magically appeared on my Mac a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully, DH will figure out how to repair the damage when he gets here this weekend. If not, I just might return to my original opinion of him!