Let me introduce you to my neighbors.

When we moved into our apartment, the backyard was all fenced in and there was a tree between our back porch and the porch of the older women who live next door. Nice and private, right?

The tree fell down in a storm and one side of the fence was taken down that first fall when a different tree needed to be taken down. The fence has never been put back up. We have been forced to communicate with our neighbors.

After the tree came down in the storm and our landlord had someone come take it away, I was out on our porch. The daughter next door (I'm guessing she is in her 60s and her mom in her 80s) said they had never liked that tree anyway because it grew onto their land and dropped leaves over there. That was only the beginning of her chatting on the back porch while I tried to enjoy my beer and some quiet time at the end of the day. Last summer I got a gorgeous hanging flower of some kind. Here is my friend's cat trying to eat it.I bought some more flowers of the same kind at Home Dee-pot yesterday. This year they are peachy and red. I have not taken a picture of those, but I did take a picture of the pretty pansies that are in a shorter hanging pot next to them. My intent is to build an insulating wall of flowers on that side of the porch. How neighborly, huh?So aside from the Neighborhood Watch ladies next door, there is Mercedes lady. Guess what she drives? But she lives in a condo in a not expensive town so I am not sure why she drives a Mercedes. She also has a truck and a boat in the back driveway, neither of which are registered. Strange huh? You know what else is strange? Every morning there is a manila envelop dropped off at her house. Sometimes there is also one taped to her front door.

A few houses down from Mercedes lady lives the drug people on the street. I am assuming they actually deal, as there was a big drug bust there a couple of months ago. My upstairs neighbor told me all about how unmarked cars were there, marked cars were keeping an eye on the outside, and officers were in the house for hours, only to emerge carrying large quantities of things in bags. The next day the house had a new mattress delivered. That house is now up for sale, with an open house every weekend. I am hoping they sell it soon and move. The boyfriend of Mercedes lady talks to the young guys in the drug house and was apparently very attentive during the whole drug bust thing.

Then there is the old couple across the street. I always shovel the snow out from around the fire hydrant on their property. They barely shovel a walkway to the road.

Then there is their neighbor with a scary looking cat who I tried to pet once while saying in a nice voice, "you look a lot meaner than I bet you are." The not so cultured woman at the house yelled at me out the window to leave her cat alone.

Downstairs are two big time geeks who have not said more than two words to me, my roommate, or the couple who lives upstairs in two years. The first thing they said to the guy upstairs about a week ago? "Can we borrow your grill?" Upstairs is a couple. The woman went to the same college I did, only graduated five years later (which means we marched together because I was there for reunion!). Her boyfriend is finishing up his PhD at that school. They met at the bar on campus. She is also very involved with the graduate student council with me, as was someone who lives next door to Mercedes lady. It is a little grad student-druggie neighborhood.

Good times.