As long as we’ve lived here, we’ve never really been the sort to chat much with the neighbors. We do our thing, they do theirs, and in some cases, the neighbors change out fairly frequently, like in the case of the apartment house across the street. There, when we moved in, was a fellow that my wife was familiar with, only because he was a client in the agency she worked for, downtown. Not directly with her department, but she knew Arnie. Arnie had some issues, which was the reason why he was a client of said agency. He kept to himself, but his apartment was rent controlled, so he was staying put for the long haul.
Arnie lived downstairs, but the upstairs occupants, as well as the ones in the back, in the cubbyhole apartment switched out often. The house to our left was owned by the people that owned a shade tree mechanic business, as well as a daycare, so there were children there at all hours. Holiday weekends the owners hosted tattoo parties, where they’d hire one of their friends to come and do tatts for free, as part of the festivities. They were nice people, if a bit rowdy sometimes. Only once did I have to go over there to ask them to keep the noise down, as at the time I was working 3rd shift, and needed to sleep during the day. Which is hard when someone is revving engines at all hours, while fixing someone’s car.
Behind us was an older married couple. They had a daughter, and a pool in the backyard. The daughter was married, and had moved out of the house years ago, so I’m fairly certain the pool was a means to get the daughter to come back, bring the grandkids, and do what families do. About 15 years in, the couple moved out, and the daughter and her brood moved in. I don’t think there was an inheritance to speak of, Mom & Dad didn’t pass away, they just moved somewhere else. And visited every now and again. After they moved in, the pool moved out soon after. And then major landscaping began to happen. First was the landscaping. Large swaths of the property were dug up, rearranged and trees and lots of bushes were planted. Then a pond was installed. The husband, bless him did all the work himself. A cigarette firmly planted in the corner of his mouth as he worked, of course. The kids would help every now and again, but for the most part he did all the work on his own. Then the lumber arrived. He re-sided the garage and I’m fairly convinced installed a woodworking shop, because the lights are on almost every night, and what appear to be clamps are visible in the window that faces our property.
Peggy and her husband live across the street. They weren’t the original owners of the house when we moved in, but entered the neighborhood about 3-4 years after we did. They had a son who was severely disabled, to the point that he required a motorized wheelchair to get around. They did some renovation on the house and garage to accommodate his needs; to the point of knocking down the old garage and replacing it with a large one, to house the van the son needed for his wheelchair. The son passed away about 8 or 9 years later and the husband died several years ago leaving Peggy on her own. She’s tried to sell the house a couple of times, but never got the right offer, so she lives there still. A recent addition is Debbie, who for a time was helping out around the house; but seems to have moved in to assist Peggy as she gets older.
This morning as I was putting out the trash, Debbie just happened to come out of the house and walk to her Jeep, which she parks on the street. She called out to me, but I had to cross the road to talk to her, as my hearing isn’t as good as it used to be. Distance, and ambient background noise cause me to miss things, so proximity usually fixes that issue. She complimented me on the new landscaping we had done, along with the addition of the new side and front walk a couple of weeks ago. She said that it really spruced up the property and liked the choices of plants that we picked to replace the hideous box hedges that have been adorning ruining the front of the house for the past 25 years.
I’m not certain I would have picked hydrangeas and spirea to replace the box hedges, but both my wife and landscaper seemed to think they were the perfect fit for what was there. He planted them around the roots of the old hedges (he said trying to dig them out would be problematic, and would likely ruin the planter as well as digging into the foundation of the house, which I agree would be a bad idea). Since they’re now buried under the mulch, they should decompose fairly rapidly on their own, since they don’t have living entities above requiring nutrients from the surrounding ground.
Life in the neighborhood rumbles on. We’re swiftly closing out summer and autumn will be here in (checks calendar) 19 days. Lots of things to do before the first snowflake shows and at least I expect to have the garage rearranged and storing the Murano this year. Last year was the first in 25 that I didn’t get the car in. Not letting that happen again. We’ll revisit the issue in a couple of months.