October 15, 2021: Neighborhood Watch, Garbage Day Check-In –

The youngest son at Casa Irresponsible left for freshman year at Drexel, and his mom decided to move back to California. It has been quiet. A guy with a huge pickup is cleaning the place out. Jeff across the alley thinks Pickup Guy is an uncle. No news on whether uncle is staying or putting the house up for sale. It is a cool old house. I’ll keep you posted.

The wonderful family next to Jeff all got COVID, the first-grader from a friend, and the moms from the first-grader. Both moms are nurses and well-vaccinated, but breakthroughs happen. One felt really crummy, but is feeling much better.

On Jeff’s other side, there’s someone new in the little ochre house, and then the enormous grey house is empty. The younger brother, who spent years so flagrantly mentally ill that dogs used to whine at his approach, and who was then transformed – we assumed it was medication – into a friendly guy who liked to chat about bicycles, died a while back. Jeff doesn’t know what got him. Now his older brother has gone into memory care. Big, big house. Who will buy it?

Next to the big grey house, the ancient hipsters spruced up their yard with new flagstones and such, and they sit out back and wave, and smoke, and haven’t changed one bit. Next to the hipsters, an athletic young couple has moved in with their friendly dog, Petey, and begun vigorous remodeling. We are invited, at some future date, to see the kitchen.  I want to see the kitchen.

On my side of the alley, Susan’s heart trouble is better, her son in England is fine, and her garden is about over for the year. The sweet kids next door fed us backyard wine and cheese. I worried about them once this summer, when I overheard raised voices, but then I realized that he was shouting, “I’M AGREEING WITH YOU!” I’ve taken to shouting “I’M AGREEING WITH YOU!” Not when they might hear, but just from time to time. It’s cathartic.

The House of a Thousand Renters maintained the same renters throughout the pandemic. Their twin white standard poodles are hilarious. When they get wound, barking and trying to bounce higher than the fence, their fluffball heads look like popcorn. The owner no longer calls them individually, but just hollers, “PUPPIES!” They’d make a great gif. Bark, BARK, bark, bounce, B-Bounce, PUPPIES!

The fifteen year old in the brick house has a girlfriend. His parents love her. Her parents love him.

As for Jeff, he’s sad because his friend group has been hit hard. They were five couples, but two of those couples decided to divorce, this month.  

I know of one quite-new marriage that fell apart the first winter, and I asked if Jeff was assuming these divorces were pandemic-related, too many months cooped up with each other’s quirks. He said that seemed like the logical explanation. I asked how old his friends are. They’re in their forties. I said Well, maybe, but for what it’s worth, when my friends were in their forties, there was a big rash of divorces, so….

For no good reason, this made us both feel slightly better. It’s not ALL the pandemic.