Skip to main content

Top 10 reasons why my neighbor might not be speaking to me

I thought I'd started to develop a nice little friendship with my neighbor. She's really a lovely woman -- smart and funny and friendly. But in the last 6 weeks or so, she has become cold and unfriendly to me. Of course I am too chicken to go bang on her door and say, "What's up?!" so instead my little brain has been turning, guessing as to why she may not want to talk to me anymore:

10. She thinks my husband was serious about attending the kegger her kids might throw while she and her husband were out of town.

9. My cat snuck out and ate the goldfish out of her garden pond.

8. She's switched from regular coffee to decaf...or from decaf to Haterade.

7. She's offended by how horribly I've hacked down the shrubs in my front and side gardens.

6. She saw me running through the house naked that morning a couple weeks back, when I realized all my undies were in the dryer, and now she thinks I'm trying to seduce her husband....or worse, her sons! (Worse still -- she saw me running naked through the house and was completely disgusted and nauseated!)

5. I haven't yet invited her to Book Club. (She should be grateful!)

4. My dad has really annoys her every Thursday when he leaves by repeatedly driving back and forth in front of our house, honking and waving to Sweet Boy. (Could she be jealous that he's not waving to her?)

3. I offended her when I offered her son only $20 to mow our yard. (What's the going rate?)

2. She heard me yell and cuss and threaten bodily harm at Sweet Boy when he played with his poop on the train table. (What's worse, the cussing or the face that my kid plays with poop?)

1. She knows I'm voting straight Democrat on November 4.

I'm working up the courage to go over there to find out what's going on, and maybe I'll know before the weekend's through; we're usually outside working in our respective gardens on Saturday mornings. I'm thinking she's just stressed out, with school starting and three sons and a husband to care for and a household to run, and she probably hasn't even noticed that she's ignored me for 6 weeks. Yeah, that's it.

(Of course, Neighbor, if you're reading this, know it's all in good fun. I value your friendship, and I think you and your family are great neighbors. And I really miss you!)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ottomania!

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about ottomans. A ridiculous amount of time, actually, given the number of other things I truly should focus my thoughts on. I find, though, that when the world outside gets scary (and scary is a truly relative term these days) I turn to online shopping for things I don't really need. Actually, it's more like online browsing; I rarely purchase. I spend hours searching for, oh, erasable colored gel pens or standing desks or all-natural curly-hair gel or the perfect black sweater. (Yes, these are things I've fixated on over this winter; I still haven't clicked "buy" nor settled on any of them.) This week, it's ottomans. By the way, my girl  BrenĂ©  Brown would call this behavior numbing . I'm okay with that. Because online browsing is way less detrimental (so far) than chain smoking, which is what I'd really like to do when the world is scary. It's a way to escape, to daydream, to focus on things tha...

Why I Occupy

I marched in the Occupy Philly protest last Saturday, and I've been trying to find the words to describe it all week. People who know me look puzzled when I tell them, and I've been trying to explain why this movement has taken root in my heart. Last Saturday, for a few brief hours, I stood up to the anxiety, anger, frustration, and fear that has gripped me for the last few years. For a few brief hours, I marched with people who want better for me and you and this entire country, people who may be ideologically different but stand together because they believe there’s still hope for this democracy, that there’s still a chance that our government will take action for the people and not for the corporations that fund their campaigns. There’s a perception that the Occupy Wall Street movement is simply a mob of young, disenfranchised 20-somethings who have nothing better to do than sleep on city sidewalks to disrupt the lives of those of us with jobs. Revolutions are ...

Grace happens

Today Honey's roommate in room 364 at Maine Medical Center was discharged. Some other day I'll tell you about why Honey is in the hospital again, but this story is about the roommate because it's way more interesting. Let's call him Elton, because all I really know about him is he plays guitar in an Elton John tribute band and he's originally from the very northern part of England, bordering Scotland. (Or as Honey described it, "that place in England where the Roman Empire decided, nope, those Celts are crazy, and put up a wall.") Elton was in room 364 before Honey arrived, and what struck me immediately, besides his delightful accent and soothing Liam-Neeson-esque voice, was his gentle, good-natured manner. He was going through heck from a botched surgery and compartment syndrome - pain and gore and fear of losing the use of his dominant hand - yet he spoke kindly and softly to every person who came into his room. Every time a nurse walked in, Elton gre...