Nosey Neighbor

As I write, I sit at my desk in my office. To my right is a window that looks over my backyard and onto Bentley Street. I can see all the west-facing houses along Bentley down to the intersection of Bentley and Wagonwheel Trail.

I know some of our neighbors on Bentley street. Not all. I know things about all because you learn a lot when you walk your dogs by some one's house everyday.

On the corner of Bentley and Wagonwheel is a newly-painted blue house whose residents raise their grandchildren. They have a few small dogs who sometimes play in the backyard and are reprimanded when they bark as we walk by. I know their grandchildren live with them because one day the man from the blue house apologized that his dogs were barking. He had let them out before "taking my grandchildren to school" and let them stay out until he returned.

The next house on Bentley is the home of a loud foul-mouthed man who apparently doesn't like to work in the yard. That's all I know about that house.

The next house is owned by an older couple who take care of their grandson during the day. Each day at about 7:45, their son drops the grandchild off and leaves for work. During the summer, I see the child outside with his grandparents. The welcome sign on the door changes to represent each month. It's lovely.

We know the couple in the next house. Jim and Debbie. Jim is an accountant who has a vast collection of tie-dyed t-shirts. Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen him wear anything else. Debbie works in the yard alot and was very gracious last year when I had to come to her door and confess that Luke had trampled down one of the beautiful flowers by her mailbox before I could gain control of him.

On the corner of Bentley and Prescott is the "house-of-the-revolving-door". Since we've been here, there have been four renters live there. The present tenants and I have a sordid past. They moved from a condo I walk by every day. Twice in a two week period, I almost had a heart attack when I saw their unleashed pit bull dog walking toward my very protective, new-to-me dogs as I walked by their condo. The second time, I said in the nicest voice I could muster, "Please keep your dog in the house or on a leash." I really do think their dog is a very nice, well-mannered dog. Unfortunately mine weren't nice or well-mannered. It could have been nasty. So I always felt a little uneasy and awkward when I would see them outside after that. Now they live right across the street.

This post is so not relevant at all to anything, really. Maybe it's a lesson to me that even though I don't know a lot of people in my neighborhood, they probably have an impression of me. I'm probably known as the crazy, dog lady. The one who still hasn't trained her dogs to walk beside her on a leash. Half the time she is dragging them from one "smell-good" place to the next and the other half she is being pulled along at break-neck speed. And you know what? Their assumptions are true.