Our Neighbors The Rock Stars

We live in an Edward Scissorhands neighborhood where most of the houses look alike and everyone knows when you cut your grass. We even have sidewalks where you can stroll along with your dog (and pick up the necessary deposits when made, Mr./Mrs. Whomever Neighbor Whose Dog Has Left Stuff In Our Yard.) You can say "hi"to your neighbors and if you are retired and have nothing do to all day, you can even nose around and get into everyone's business.

So.

Our neighbors on one side are not friendly, but in a good way, and we have a polite sort of um, relationship, which means that they mind their business and we mind ours. I don't mean to sound rude, but it really comes to survival. These houses are so close together that they are literally a stone's throw away. Like I could lean out of my window, throw a stone and break their window.

When you live this close to people, I think you have to live in some kind of anonymity or you would go nuts. Since you have no literal space between you, it becomes necessary to create personal space.

I imagine that people in prisons live like this:

"Yeah. I don't know the guy in the cell next door. I think his name is Ed, but I can't really say. All I know is that he gets a lot of mail and he goes to the bathroom in the middle of the night."

That's pretty much it. If you knew much more, well, you would be Mrs. Kravitz. Or stark raving mad.

These particular neighbors are in their mid-forties, I guess. One of them drives a Corvette. (I would notice this.) They keep to themselves and they are no trouble at all. On the surface, you would think they are normal. They keep their yard neat, they don't have any cars on blocks, and, as far as I know, none of them have done any hard time. My only complaint is their choice of music.

Their music.

They have a band. Now, before you picture in your mind the She Might Be A Redneck neighborhood we reside in, let me remind you of the kind of place we live in. It is the average, middle income, let your kids ride their bikes without fear of a drive-by kind of community. I mean, this is the same neighborhood where I let my child collect old blankets for the animal shelter while pulling her little red wagon.

Back to Van Halen.

They practice on Friday nights when the rest of us are blogging or watching game shows, or reading Little House on The Praire to our kids. Even though I don't actually enjoy their attempt at a VH1 Where Are They Now? production, I am thankful that they only play for a little while on Friday evenings and they stop at a decent hour of the night. One could say they are trying to be neighborly, or they are, you know, just old.

Tonight they started to play some unknown heavy metal ballad. Just as one of them broke off into a guitar solo, the neighborhood cats started wailing. And wailing, and wailing.

It was quite comical.

Even Maggie raised her lazy head from the chair to listen. Within a few bars, the band stopped playing and the wailing stopped. The cats were quiet and our little cul de sac returned to its suburban dulldrum.

And I thought I would have nothing to post tonight...