Ugh

UGH...

Just going to take a moment here.

I really prefer to keep things happy. 

But this past week has been ...trying.

I have a neighbor that I've never met in five years. Never seen her, never seen any movement at her house, never seen any sign of her. I know she lives in Denver, her house is for sale, I've never seen her. 

So I confess Carlos and I have been cavalier about walking through their property. There are trails and we walk them. 

Unfortunately, Carlos and I surprised  them and Carlos barked and I apologized profusely. We were wrong. Normally I am very respectful of boundaries, but after five years of zero perceived activity...I got bold.
And she and her husband were ...odd, distant, not exactly friendly.

We think he is a sweetie, 

but I do realize he can be intimidating.

Big bark, big mouth.

The next morning there was a knock on the door. The neighbor was there and advised me that I was never to set foot on her property again.  Okay.
Then she said "Of course, I have a loaded gun and if I were to see someone on my porch, JUST as you would, I would get my gun." 

Really? Your VERY first thought if someone is in your yard or at your door is to get a loaded gun? 

Is it just me or is there something the matter with that train of thought?  I assured her that would NEVER be my first thought.
She dismissed that with "Well, you have a dog."

I'm praying it will be another five years before I see her. Also praying her house sells SOON.

(And the Hubs had a great response. While she was standing on MY porch telling me she would greet me with a loaded gun if I were on HER porch, he suggested I should have said "You're right. Hang on. Let me go get my gun." Hindsight.)

 .........

Friday night, Bunny left the house in the baby Hummer to go to town. 

A few minutes later I get a call from the car (thank goodness for the Onstar Satellite phone) and all she said was "you need to come down the street". I can hear someone yelling at her and I kept asking if all was okay and all I get is "I'm okay, come here" and more yelling. I hop in my car, head to the main road and pass a gentleman (using the term loosely) with no shirt on (huh?) and he waves me down. "Is that your daughter in the blue jeep?" Ummm, not exactly....but maybe.   

Then he yells at me about how reckless she was driving and how she almost killed both of them and I was RESPONSIBLE for her and somewhere along there I quit listening because truly, my 16 year old was obviously in some sort of trouble that I didn't know anything about.

Onto the main road, I see the hummer sideways on the side of the road,  Bunny in tears and some stranger pulled over talking to her. Her front tire is flat. All over. The back end of the H3 is in the bushes. There are skid marks in the dirt.

Looks to me like those skid marks start on the far right side of the 

road. Which would make it hard for her to have been the one in the middle.

But I wasn't there. 

I wasn't there. I don't know truly what happened. It's a narrow dirt road with gravel edges. She says he was coming up in the middle of the road, he said she was in the middle. She swerved to miss him, hit the gravel and spun. He stopped long enough to yell at her and then left.  She was very very fortunate. She missed a tree, barely. She didn't flip. She didn't roll down the embankment. The kind stranger offered to move the car for her over to the edge. A car that heavy doesn't handle well when it is driving on the rim.

It was only flat on the bottom.

And the sides, and the top.

And maybe a tiny bit twisted.

As much as I love Onstar, it wouldn't work on our county road.

I drove Bunny home and called Onstar. The neighbor across the way came over and suggested I also call Colorado Highway Patrol, just in case. (This was AFTER he made sure everyone was okay. He had passed the injured car leaving the house, turned around and came back to check on us.) Considering how angry the nasty neighbor was, that sounded like a good idea. 

Heading back to meet the highway patrol, that nasty man was also there. He called in the troopers, too. Another bout of yelling at us, even though I was doing my best to not interact with him . More tears from Bunny. 

And then there were rainbows. Seriously.

When we first arrived at the scene, waiting for Highway Patrol,

the rainbow was just forming.

Then it grew...

And grew. 
Notice the second rainbow that arrived on the left. 

We were intrigued by the fact that the second one was a mirror image of the first. 

I thought they should both be Red,Orange,Yellow,Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet,

but the second one on the left was opposite.

And thank you to scuba lessons for teaching me Roy G. Biv.

Rainbows were followed by the nicest highway patrol trooper ever. 

Nasty neighbor yelled at him, too. Yelling at the law is never a good idea.

Bunny got a ticket for failure to control her vehicle on a mountain road. And a nice explanation of what she did wrong and why she needed to slow down and pay more attention.

Nasty neighbor apparently was advised to come apologize to us. He KIND OF did.

And the trooper said something that made me want to hug him. (I didn't). 

That there is a human element here. She's a young driver, inexperienced and this was a learning moment. Thankfully no one was hurt. No cars made contact. He cited her for the tiniest infraction he could. And assured her if he were called out on another incident on this same road, things would be entirely different. But take our blessings, learn from them and carry on. 

We really needed a bit of kindness at that point.

Grace.

And lest you think we live in a backwoods filled with degenerate hillbillies, strains of banjos playing Deliverance every time the door opens, let me set you straight.

There is the neighbor across the way who has changed our water filter under the cabin when the water disappeared, who plows our drive when it snows and told us how proud he was last year that we made it through the winter. (He admitted to being skeptical that we could handle it.) He is also the one who came back and checked on Bunny when he saw her car on the side of the road and then again Monday morning.

Another neighbor came with her gun the day that Bunny came home to an empty cabin, door standing ajar. I was in town and fairly certain that the wind was the culprit. But Bunny wasn't setting foot inside until someone checked the place so she called the neighbor. That sweet woman came, Glock in hand, and she checked under every bed, in every closet, and even in the basement until Bunny was convinced all was safe.

There is a lovely couple up the hill that sends Christmas cards every year. They stop by and give hugs and check on us every time they come up. They have also offered their yard for Carlos to run in...bless them.

We have fabulous new neighbors on the corner that are always up for an adventure, always have a glass of wine for me and even left flowers on the porch to welcome us back last August. They love Carlos like their own, have spared a dead deer vertebrae from their yard for him to chew on and will always let the big dog in or out if he needs it and I am away.

Sweet flowers to welcome us back.

There's the family that came out onto the road to see why the car was pulled over and then asked if we needed help changing the tire.

And there is the kind stranger who stopped and consoled my 16 year old baby while she was stuck on the side of the road with a popped tire. I didn't get his name even though Saturday morning while I was taking pics of the road he passed by again and stopped, again, asking how she was doing.

All kind, helpful people.

Thank goodness.

Grace.