You know how you know when you have a problem?

When the pastor recommends you get a restraining order.

I should probably back up and say I made an appointment with the crazy lady’s pastor (her church is in my back yard) to hopefully get someone else to deal with this stupid problem… and maybe just maybe embarrass Joan so much she will back off.

Things I learned from the pastor:

-At their first meeting, Joan cornered the pastor at a church picnic and talked to her for 20-30 minutes about the Dead Guy.

- Joan refers to the Dead Guy as “her prince.”  Gag.

-Joan was obsessed with the house before we moved in.  (This is a relief, because I felt bad that my initial niceness lead to this crazy. Apparently the crazy was there long ago and I just didn’t see it.)

-Joan has convinced herself that she is entitled to our house, even though after 11 years of dating the Dead Guy did not invite her to move in,  marry her, or give her the house in his will.  As the pastor said, “There was no evidence to support her claim that she should have the house.”

-The guy who lives next door to our house is the church caretaker. He also took care of our house while it was vacant.  Before they sold the house to us, Joan tried to convince the caretaker to get involved in convincing the Dead Guy’s daughter’s that she was supposed to get the house.  For obvious reasons, this is both crazy and made him quite uncomfortable.  That campaign resolved when we bought the house…lucky us.

-The pastor said she has recommended grief counseling to Joan many many times.  She said for the past year she seemed like she was doing a bit better…until this past month.  The pastor said lately she has had “that glassy eyed, vacant expression again.”  This coincides quite strongly with the increase in creeptastic lurking I had noticed.

-The pastor agreed with me that I can not have any more interaction with Joan. We must have rock solid boundaries because she will violate them, given any opportunity.

-I said if this continues, I think our next move is to contact the police.  ”For a restraining order?” the pastor asked. “I guess, I don’t know.” I said.  ”I think that a restraining order would be wise.” she said.  Then she offered to talk the the police for us if it would be helpful (!!!).

The pastor is going to talk to one of Joan’s friends and try to enlist her help in talking to Joan.  She isn’t going to tell her we talked to her (the pastor) just yet.  She said she isn’t very hopeful that anything will change.

I don’t expect much to change either.  I am going to keep a journal of when I notice her doing weird stuff.  I will probably also call our local police department, just to find out if they have any suggestions.

If nothing else, at the very least I have confirmation that it isn’t me blowing things out of proportion.  Joan really is a nutcase.

Yesterday, I had to drive to Detroit for my cousin’s wedding.  I have a stupid Iphone GPS which sucks so badly it caused me to get lost 3 times (it is really a relatively straight shot) and added an additional 1.5 hours to my drive home.  I ended up getting home at 3:00 a.m.

I am tired.

In other news, on Friday, it FINALLY HAPPENED!  I finally confronted the Dead Guy’s Girlfriend.  A quick recap, this is the girlfriend of the former owner of our house who died.  She has been stalking our house for over a year, but in the last few weeks, it has been out of control.   I have seen her standing in my yard with another person (presumably) discussing my house and yard, sitting in her car right in front of my house, looking over my hedge from the church parking lot and driving by no less than THREE additional times.  In ONE WEEK!

Thursday, she drove by and waved and I did not smile or wave back. I just frowned.   Then on Friday, I was outside with a contractor getting an estimate on my front steps when she pulled into the driveway.

“Hi!  It is JOAN!  I just wanted to see what work you are having done! I have seen that you have had workers here!” she said.

Of course she saw the workers because she is stalking our house all the freaking time!  And of course she wanted to see it.  She probably wanted me to invite her in so she can look in our drawers and closets again. (Apparently, I didn’t blog about that, but when she came to pick up her dumb scrapbook last winter, she pushed past Mr.A, went upstairs (!) and opened cupboards and doors before he could extract her from the house.)

When she got out of her car, clearly ready to push past me into the house, I didn’t smile.  I just said “Joan, I have to tell you, the way you are stalking our house is really creeping us out.”

She was shocked and said “What do you mean?”

“I have seen you sitting in your car looking at our house each Wednesday.  I have seen you drive slowly, slowly past it every Sunday at 12:15.  I saw you in our yard last week with someone else discussing our house. You are around our house all the time.”

(And let me assure you, these regularly scheduled stalkings are not the majority. I see her white car driving by with her gawking ALL THE TIME…just ask my twitter feed.)

“What? I don’t do that!” she said, “I was just walking by and talking to someone on the sidewalk.”

“No.” I said, “I saw you from the window.  You were in our yard for at least ten minutes.  You don’t seem to have any boundaries when it comes to our house.   It is creepy.  It is making us very uncomfortable.”

At that point, she started backing into her car.  She looked like she was going to cry.  ”I am sorry if I hurt your feelings,” she said.

I stopped myself from correcting her. My feelings aren’t hurt.  I feel like she is possibly crazy definitely creepy.  That doesn’t hurt my feelings.  It annoys me.

Then she just closed her door and drove away.  We will see if she still parks right next to our side gate this week or if she really did get the message.  Either way, she isn’t getting inside again.  She has burned that bridge with the creepy.