What would YOU do?

On Sunday, Nate drove our riding lawn mower over to our neighbor’s house to cut her lawn. She’s a very nice older woman who is disabled and on a fixed income, so he does this every week out of the goodness of his heart. Lovely and neighborly, don’t you think?

Nate pulled down her driveway and discovered that LO AND BEHOLD...the neighbor's 25-year-old son had decided to cut down nine mature hardwood trees to sell as firewood to help his mom pay her property taxes. Which would have been fine. If they hadn't been on OUR property!


Nate had a little blow-out with the neighbor, then thought it better to drive the mower home to get his emotions under control. I was out grocery shopping, so he called my cell phone to tell me what had happened and to get my opinion on what he needed to do. I told him to wait until I got there.

Clearly, the neighbor’s son had a) trespassed onto our property, and b) stolen a bunch of trees that we really liked and would not have cut down. And we were (rightfully) ticked off about it.

We walked through the mess in the back of our lot (we live in Maine and have three wooded acres)…then we went next door to talk to the neighbor and her son. Fortunately, the son was VERY contrite, which made things easier. Had he not been so apologetic, Nate might have punched him.

We've decided not to press charges (as he had no intent to harm us and property lines are hard to discern in the woods. HOWEVER, he was at least 20 feet over the line with some of the trees). As punishment, the kid has to cut up all the logs into appropriate firewood size, sell it, and give us half the proceeds. We want his mom to be able to pay her property taxes, and this is quite possibly the first time we’ve ever seen him do anything to be helpful to her (he's been in rehab recently and has had some run-ins with the police in the past). We want to encourage his helpfulness, although it really did hurt us to see those trees chopped down.

I’m not sure that what we did was necessarily the best way to handle it, but Nate and I are OK with our decision. What would you have done?

Leo needs to lay off the coffee!

Leo is CRAZY!!! from Leesavee on Vimeo.

Three stories from the past three days

I was at an event on Tuesday night where a woman, who must have been in her 70s, had to cross the stage to accept an award. *PING!* The elastic on her half-slip pops, and it slides right down her legs, and she proceeds to walk right out of it. Possessing far more grace than I will ever have, she reached down, picked up the slip, swung it around a couple of times, then stuffed it into her jacket pocket…WITHOUT missing a beat. Oh, slip-less lady, I bow down before your quick-thinking ways. You deserve a hearty round of applause.

Also that night, the man at the podium was heralding the work of my friend Patricia, and had just presented her with a bouquet of roses. He meant to say to the crowd that she has traveled many miles between our fair city and the state capitol in order to enact some important legislation, but it came out as: “That Patricia…she has a lot of mileage on her!” He is in his upper 70s and had no idea that he had said anything wrong…until the laughter started.

Last night, I was at a different event for yet another organization, and I got trapped in a corner (literally) by a local politician for what seemed to be a million years. He had me so wedged in that I couldn’t extricate myself from the situation without being exceptionally rude. Finally, he backed off a step or two (through the whole conversation, I could practically feel his breath on my face – ick!), and realized that he had been monopolizing my time. He said, “It’s been so nice speaking to you,” to which I responded (with homage to Freud and his slips), “It was very nice to talk to me, too!” DOH!