Neighborhood Watch
It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
I had the afternoon off from toddler wrangling, while the family traveled to NYC for a back tie family wedding. I came home to the melodic sounds of Mark taking apart the house. Now that the new extended fence is in place, and the leaves, debris, and other foolishness is off to the dump, the house is starting to look just a little less white trashy (just ignore the blatant lack of front door, please? Sorry, Ar, you missed the house in full ghetto mode....). I like that. So, like a good nosy neighbor, I took the dogs out for an hour long march around our 'hood to check out what everyone else is doing to their houses this spring.
In general, friends, things are looking up, especially in the hideous home exterior category. Around the corner from the far end of our street was a garrison colonial painted a color best described as electric lilac. It had indigo shutters and a magenta door. I absolutely shit you not. Well, as Maurice, Amelie and I passed this house today, imagine my surprise when it had been almost entirely repainted since Tuesday evening! It's now a charming, buttery cream with oyster off-white trim. The magenta door is still there, but that can stay as a testament to what was...
Our new next door neighbors still haven't moved in. (Must be nice to be able to afford a mortgage and rent...) They are slowly repainting and meeting with contractors (and *why* haven't they called Mark? They know he's a contractor and they know he's done work on the house....), and leaving me to speculate on the important things; such as, which of the cars that come and go belong to the two of them? The Jetta? The Beamer? The Mazda MVP? (One of these things is not like the other... LaLaLa...)
On the other side, the Changs have finally moved the debris from last year's grisly apple tree massacre in order to erect a plastic shed, which looks, if possible, worse than our rotting wooden one.
And, as regards the modular colonial sitting on a tiny, steeply graded corner lot up the street from us, which is on the market for upwards of $600,000, should you be interested (ugh!), we watched a highly amusing event. Several men gathered to watch a single guy dig holes for, plant, back fill, and water 15 Arbor Vitaes along the ridge of the property, ostensibly for privacy and noise screening. But it seriously took five or six seemingly able bodied men to watch one guy do all this work. On a house that's overpriced by at least 100K and has been on the market since last fall sometime, as far as I can tell.
The house directly behind us appears to be vacant again, for the second time this calendar year. Maybe we're driving them away?
Won't you be my neighbor?
I had the afternoon off from toddler wrangling, while the family traveled to NYC for a back tie family wedding. I came home to the melodic sounds of Mark taking apart the house. Now that the new extended fence is in place, and the leaves, debris, and other foolishness is off to the dump, the house is starting to look just a little less white trashy (just ignore the blatant lack of front door, please? Sorry, Ar, you missed the house in full ghetto mode....). I like that. So, like a good nosy neighbor, I took the dogs out for an hour long march around our 'hood to check out what everyone else is doing to their houses this spring.
In general, friends, things are looking up, especially in the hideous home exterior category. Around the corner from the far end of our street was a garrison colonial painted a color best described as electric lilac. It had indigo shutters and a magenta door. I absolutely shit you not. Well, as Maurice, Amelie and I passed this house today, imagine my surprise when it had been almost entirely repainted since Tuesday evening! It's now a charming, buttery cream with oyster off-white trim. The magenta door is still there, but that can stay as a testament to what was...
Our new next door neighbors still haven't moved in. (Must be nice to be able to afford a mortgage and rent...) They are slowly repainting and meeting with contractors (and *why* haven't they called Mark? They know he's a contractor and they know he's done work on the house....), and leaving me to speculate on the important things; such as, which of the cars that come and go belong to the two of them? The Jetta? The Beamer? The Mazda MVP? (One of these things is not like the other... LaLaLa...)
On the other side, the Changs have finally moved the debris from last year's grisly apple tree massacre in order to erect a plastic shed, which looks, if possible, worse than our rotting wooden one.
And, as regards the modular colonial sitting on a tiny, steeply graded corner lot up the street from us, which is on the market for upwards of $600,000, should you be interested (ugh!), we watched a highly amusing event. Several men gathered to watch a single guy dig holes for, plant, back fill, and water 15 Arbor Vitaes along the ridge of the property, ostensibly for privacy and noise screening. But it seriously took five or six seemingly able bodied men to watch one guy do all this work. On a house that's overpriced by at least 100K and has been on the market since last fall sometime, as far as I can tell.
The house directly behind us appears to be vacant again, for the second time this calendar year. Maybe we're driving them away?
Won't you be my neighbor?
posted by Cameron | 5:43 PM
1 Comments:
I can totally attest to the lavender house, as I marvel at it everytime we come to visit. WHAT were those people thinking?! And this is coming from someone who lives in a pink house! Anyway, I am glad and, yet, somewhat disappointed, that they repainted.
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