(#159/365) Offerings

"This is how we love, Buddha-style:

impartial to all, free from excessive attachment or false hope and expectation; accepting, tolerant, and forgiving.

Buddhist nonattachment doesn't imply complacence or indifference, or not having committed relationships or being passionately engaged with society, but rather has to do with our effort to defy change and resist the fact of impermanence and our mortality. By holding on to that which in any case is forever slipping through our fingers, we just get rope burn."

- Lama Surya Das


Title: Fibre of a Rope
Flickr User Ian Kicks Ass (gotta love this guy's Flickr handle!)

the crazy anti-dog lady in #906.

So - David has always talked about "the crazy anti-dog" lady in the apartment complex next to us. He told me how she will come out on her balcony and tell dogowners that they shouldn't even let their dogs sniff on the grass on the side of her apartment complex. I've been walking Miss Kate for two years and have never encountered her until this past weekend.

I was walking Miss Kate - and Miss Kate "did her business" which I (as a responsible dog owner) thoroughly picked up. and this voice comes out of nowhere - "This is private property - your dog should not be pooping there" - literally I could not see where the sound was coming from. So I finished cleaning up and she says "Did you hear me? Don't let your dog poop here ever again." - and now I could see her from her apartment window.

I told her I did pick up after my dog (waving bag of poop) and told her to have a nice day. Well - that pissed her off - she came out of her apartment onto her deck to challenge me, repeating her assertion that it was private property and that I was trespassing - and she was sick and tired of dogs using her lawn as a the "toilet of the neighborhood". At this point I was tiring of her, so I told her I thought that was a ridiculous assertion that we all target her lawn - and that any lawn in the city had been pooped on - if not by our dogs - then by raccoon and skunk. She then goes into her apartment and comes back out with her probably six month old baby and says "so you are okay with my baby playing in dog poop?" - her histrionics and waving her baby around like a Michael Jackson inspired prop aside... I told her that expecting any grass anywhere to be free of germs and dog or animal poop was awfully naive of her; and I walked away.

anyway - this exchange has grinded on me for several days - so this morning I looked the property up on the internet and called the property manager - I get into my speel and complaint - and she stops me and says "I live in #906, you are talking about me."

Miss #906 is the property manager for the apartment complex! (Doh!)

We talked for several minutes about how she feels that dog owners are using her property as the 'toilet of the neighborhood' - and that she was standing up for the public health of her residents. I told her she was being completely unreasonable - and she pointed out that the apartment complex doesn't rent to people who own dogs or cats - and that as a property manager she was allowed to enforce that ban to people walking by.

I told her that she could put up a sign - or surround the property with a germ free bubble if she wanted - but that dogs and other animals would continue to poop and pee on the grass since it's right next to a public sidewalk. She told me I'd never let my dog poop in someone's yard; and I said that it does occasionally happen and that I do clean things up. I told her that a sign asking dog owners not to let their dogs poop on her yard would be a lot more pleasant that dealing with her emotional theatrics. (okay I was a little nicer than that, but...)

Anyhow - I then called the property management company she works for - and left a message. Who knows if I'll hear back.

Miss #906 - an Update

Well I spoke to her again - MaryAnn, the neighbor in #906 and told her I think the best solution are some kind worded signs asking people not to let their dogs "go" on her grass since children play there. I actually said to her I spent a good portion of my day wondering why I'd gotten as riled up about our exchange as I did. And I took the advice of a few friends and once I removed the 'emotional theater' from the situation tried to see it from her position. So we talked about some language - and where she might post the signs, and to put them in a happy colour like blue or green vs. red and take care to communicate nicely. and well - I made one up for her and emailed it to her.

DOG SIGN!

She apologized for our encounter over the weekend and said she didn't know what to do - and that it was frustrating her a great deal - but that her husband had also called her on her verbal confrontations. She thanked me for calling back - and said the signs would be laminated and up in a couple of days.

gravity (acappella chorus version)