Friday, May 15, 2009

Would You (Not) Be My Neighbor?

Once upon a time in Mr. Roger's neighborhood there was a sense of community in the neighborhood. People knew each other and acknowledged one another from front porch across to front porch where they sat sipping lemonade. Ah, what a nice place to live, huh?

I don't live in such a neighborhood. Today we rarely know our neighbor's names, let alone their stories. However, I do know the names of a few of my neighbors. A few of them have been good to my daughter. As I can't get out much she knows them better than I do.

Today I was greeted by one neighbor. Ok, I'm being polite. It wasn't exactly a greeting. It was more of a scolding zone. It seems the neighbor is a bit displeased with the current state of our front lawn. He was in no way interested in the fact that we had to borrow a lawnmower, and that our car has been out of commission so we couldn't pick it up yet. Nor fact that we are both disabled, which I thought he already knew, much less that we've both recently been laid low by some virus. He also seemed to be under the impression that two folks who are unable to work should still be rich enough to dash out and hire help if they are unable to push a lawnmower. Oh, and most significantly, Mr. Neighbor said, "Everyone's got their story." Sigh. Obviously Mr. Perfect never had one of this own.

You know I'll bettcha that out there in Lake Wobegon and Mr. Roger's neighborhood if a neighbor saw danderlions springing forth in your a-smidgeon-too-deep grass some kind, compassionate neighbor would have come over and chatted about making "dandylion wine" and another one's son would have showed up with a lawnmower and made that yard look like a park. Yup, they probably would have had the Lady's Fellowship cook up a nice basket of their best recipes and sent them over with the lawnmowing son.

As I said, unfortunately I don't live in that neighborhood. The only thing neighbors seem to want to help with these days is helping to pile the stress load higher.

---off for long weekend. (It's going to be a very loooong weekend in this neighborhood)

Zona

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