Friday, October 3, 2014

Day Three: Like a Good Neighbor

Well, there are good ways to meet the neighbors and then there are…somewhat more exciting ways to meet the neighbors. One option, of course, is to have your carbon monoxide detectors go off right as you're bathing the twins before bedtime so that you have to call the fire department and evacuate the whole family to the front porch. This is effective. But maybe not quite the first impression you want to make.

The other option is to bake a batch of your aunt's spice cake, write your name on the mini-loaf tin, and take it to them in person. Apologies for disrupting the entire neighborhood as the fire truck drove around and around (siren blaring) trying to find your home are optional.


I like knowing my neighbors. The first Saturday we were here, one of our back door neighbors threw a huge party. With lots of loud music and raucous laughter. That lasted until 4 in the morning. If I had known them, I would've taken the twins over and left them to party on down together while I got some sleep. Needless to say, we did not make it to church the next morning.

At one point during the night, I realized that shutting the window might (possibly) help keep out some of the revelry, so I went to close it, but the Man thought I was going to the window to yell at them. The fact that he thought that was a remote possibility makes me laugh even now (can we say, "hello, doormat!"), but I did consider taking spice cake to them today to heap coals of fire on their head. I didn't. Mostly because I selfishly wanted to save some of said spice cake for our family.

But really, party city aside, I think we have some awesome neighbors (one of them brought welcome flowers and another one gave us fish which I now need to figure out how to cook). And next time our back door neighbors decide to get their party on, I think I'm just going to grab the twins and go down and join them. It's not like we're not up anyway!

And meeting the neighbors means friends, and friends mean a support group, and a support group means sanity. I mean, as much as that's possible for me.

Also (PS), as the kids and I were walking to the playground after making the rounds on our street, someone waved at me while driving by, and lo and behold, it was a woman from the Bible study I dragged myself to on Tuesday. So disrupting the twins' morning nap and enduring an entire day of over-tired, screaming babies may have been worth it after all because I'm making friends and doggone it, people like me.

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2 comments:

Moi said...

Wow! I am inspired by your tenacity to meet people. I have lived in a new place for about 4 years now and we are just getting settled into a new small group that we like and finally feeling like we might just fit. Great neighbors is a great way to start though! I would love a neighbor who brought spice cake to my door!

Dangdut said...

Loud neighbors=not OK. Fire them.