As of this afternoon I've met two new neighbor families, and I'm happy to report they seem very nice and welcoming.
The first was a woman out walking her dog. We struck up a conversation since I was outside unloading shopping bags from my car. She's my age, married with no kids, and she and her husband live two doors down from the jerk behind us. I didn't mention him in our conversation; and neither did she, but she did inform me that the woman who lives right next door to her is "a hippie from waaayyyyy back in the day...and she's a real hippie...if you know what I mean" accompanied by a wink. I suppose the woman she's referring to must like to get high...which is absolutely fine with me. Better an old hippie than an old asshole! This neighbor's name is Jill and her dog is named Ladybug. I liked them both. I told her to please stop by sometime over the holiday for a glass of wine...I think we're going to get along just fine!
The next neighbors I met are a couple who will be renting the house next door to us. Joe (the owner of the house) had texted me to tell me about them and that they would be moving in today. They're a nice couple from Ohio, moved here for the husband's job transfer, and they're probably just a few years older than me (closer to Gregg's age). I stepped over after meeting Jill and said hello. They were unloading a moving van so I just introduced myself and told them quickly to please let us know if they need anything. They seem really nice, and they own a black Lab....the jerk behind us is going to really love that!! Haha.
So now we can rest assured that most of our new neighbors are going to be good ones. There were even two little girls out riding bikes around the neighborhood this afternoon. We thought at first that mostly elderly people lived here, but it appears that the neighborhood is changing. Older folks dying off, younger people moving in. And that's okay with me.
"Older folks dying off, younger people moving in. And that's okay with me." OUCHIE! As a 'woman of a certain age' to quote Colette, all I can say is that your day is coming and, trust me, it'll be here before you know it. Non sum qualis eram.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry. I didn't mean that the way it sounded. It's obvious that the neighborhood is undergoing a transition, and several original homeowners have started to pass away and younger families are moving in to take their places....it's just the natural order of things. It made me smile to see kids out playing this afternoon when I didn't think any lived here. I surely didn't mean to imply that I'm glad about older people passing away, just that it's better to have new families move in when houses are just standing empty. I certainly didn't mean to imply younger means better, either. :(
DeleteAgain, sorry to anyone I inadvertently offended.
marion needs to take a chill pill...or smoke some weed to mellow out.
DeleteThis all reminds me of a neighborhood I once lived in which was mixed in terms of the old and the young with far more older people than younger ones. I noted right away that my presence was a bit of a disturbance. I was, at the time, a young, single mother and didn't quite fit in. In fact, I once got a note in my mailbox informing me that my yard was not up to the standards of the neighborhood. I'll never forget that. But eventually, yes, things changed and fitting in became less of a problem as people actually got to know me and my children. As to Marion's comment- well, I'm much older now and I am quite aware that I had my day and am having another, different sort of day in this part of my life and that eventually, I'll die off too and that is just fine with me. I would only hope that a young family would make this old house their own home because that IS how it should be.
ReplyDeleteI was responding to Marian's comment when you were leaving this one, Mary. Thank you for understanding. I was horrified to think I had been offensive to anyone "of a certain age".
DeleteI knew you would be and I also knew you meant no offense to anyone. I think that Marion misunderstood you and also, that perhaps she is a bit sensitive.
DeleteLovely ..nice people! Potential friends
ReplyDelete"Better an old hippie than an old asshole! "
ReplyDeleteTruer words were never spoken!
I thought the same, Bob!
DeleteI will love to find out who the old goat yells at next but in a good christian way !
ReplyDeletecheers, parsnip and badger
Old hippies are fun! Old asshoes were probably young assholes at one time.
ReplyDeleteTo meld Mary and Arleen, once I was a single young mother whose presence was off putting. It was the seventies; I was told by a neighborhood wife to leave the husbands alone and by a husband my dandelions infested the yards of everyone who paid for lawn service. The good old days. I lived there twenty years.
ReplyDeletePhew, what a relief to know the neighbors are good people.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, Mr. A. Hole will have fun planning his visits to your new neighbour with the black lab!
ReplyDeleteHow kind of Joe to let you know about the new tenants of his house. That is truly considerate of him, and it is not as if you've known each other for a long time.
As for the old folks dying off and young families moving in, well, yes, that is just the natural way of things and how it should be. When my grandmother died in her early 80s, she had been rattling around in her big old house for 12 years entirely on her own - because she wanted it that way, and the old folks before her (her own parents-in-law, her brother-in-law, and last of them her husband) had all died, and her children (my Mum and her brother) had all moved out and started their own families.
That big house with just one single woman living in it always seemed a bit sad, especially as there are so many people looking for affordable living quarters in my town. When she died, my Mum and her brother inherited the house. It was sold to a former class mate of my sister's; she moved in with her husband, transformed the slightly run-down place into a modern, fun-filled family home, had two little boys and we think that is very much what my grandparents would have loved to see in their house if they ever looked down on it from where they are now ;-)
In my street alone, there are not one but THREE perfectly good houses standing empty because the old owners have died and their heirs can not agree on what to do with them, and all this, I repeat, while so many people are desperately looking for a place to live.
For a moment, when you said 'unloading a moving van' I had an image of the entire family trotting alongside the van and grabbing their possessions before the van left the street.
ReplyDeleteOlder people dying off? Mmm...perhaps you could get Gregg to sneak into Grumpy's kitchen in the middle of the night and stick a couple of poisoned apples in the fruit bowl.
ReplyDeleteIt' sounds like things are looking up in the neighborhood. Maybe Bob Crotchety will settle down (maybe not).
ReplyDelete