No climb today.  Things have changed.  We got guests.  Garden guests.  Sally mentioned at Yoga her need for more gardening advice and two of the best gardeners in the area are on their way over to cluck, pluck and scratch at the garden. 

But three actual people will arrive because little Ayla, Kelly’s daughter, is also coming.  She’s 3.  And she likes me.  Thinks I am Santa Claus or grandfather, depending on her mood.  Pretty cute.  Unruly rolls of strawberry blond hair topping a cherubic, smile-prone face radiating innocence and beauty like an angel.  Whatta doll.  Did I mention she likes me?

Not everyone does, you know.  I know, I know, “How can that be?  What’s not to like?  Dave, you are as sweet as little Ayla.  Fer sure!”  Not so.  I am not as cute.  Really.  But it is OK.  Not to worry.  It is only natural.  Normal, really.  Animosity is a natural consequence of people getting to know me.  Usually those who have never met me are neutral but not always (I once had a perfect stranger ask if I knew David Cox, the bastard getting rich off the liveaboard community.  She wasn’t even embarrassed to learn she was talking to me and that all her facts were wrong.  I think she was even angrier when we parted). 

Once they get to know me, some go screaming to the left, some go dashing and scrambling to the right but a few are left still walking with me.  Ayla is currently one of them.  We are buds.  She likes me.  She really likes me.  It’s mutual. 

But back to those who don’t.  One of the ways I alienate people is by talking.  I suppose my relentless commitment to breathing for these past 62 years has bugged a few of the more extremely disapproving people, too.  But, for the most part it is by expressing myself that I have gotten into the most trouble.  And, of course, expressing one’s self in public is guaranteed to divide.  And I do that.  I write letters to the editor mostly.  The occasional article.  That can tick off quite a few in one fell swoop.  Sometimes I speak up at a meeting and that is virtually guaranteed to irritate.  Though I am sure it is the delivery style more than the content.  Who listens?   Hell, sometimes I can just stand there and somebody gets all riled up. 

It’s a gift.

Our latest example is over the parking lot and the road attached.  The one we (as a community) re-surfaced last year.  Seems people are using it and some of those people aren’t ‘our’ people.  Strangers.  Outsiders.  Some have even used the road for (gasp) commercial purposes.  That is against the law.  Egads! 

I have to confess to empathizing with the complainers somewhat.  It feels like our road.  The parking spots feel like our parking spots.  And the dock at the end of the road feels like it belongs to us as well.  The problem is: it isn’t ours.  It is some kind of public access and whether we feel it is ours or not, it isn’t.  So, people can use it and they do.  We have to be grown up about this.  That is what I said.  Yikes!  

Of course, someone using our road is not really the problem.  The problem is when we see them using our road and seeing them churn it up or hog the parking spaces.  We all get a bit territorial.  You know that feeling when you can’t find a parking space at the mall or on your own street!?  Well, it’s like that, only much worse because we are so far out, we need to park more desperately than does a mall shopper and because we are the ones who made the spaces and the road in the first place.

But that doesn’t make them ours.  The land is the government’s.  They own it.

So, we are all a bit ‘concerned’ (what a loaded word that one is, eh?) about the topic and the natives get a bit restless in the process.  Lines get drawn.  Voices get a bit shrill.  And, because I was at the centre of the repair process last year, I am sucked in like the Starship Enterprise is to a black hole.  Resistance is futile.  Irritating others is my destiny.

Lucky I am good at it.