News from Our Neighborhood: SUPER MOUSE!

Well, there's been news aplenty from our neighborhood, but the sheer volume has made it nigh impossible to keep it updated.

One small tidbit from Our Very Own Garage.

Recently, there have been tiny sounds of munchings and crunchings around our house. As well as scurryings and hurryings. Suspecting MICE to be responsible (for I am naturally suspicious of mice), I have been mentally gearing up for figuring out how to put mouse traps about the house without accidentally capturing my two year old.

Today I walked out to the garage to put a box of crackers on the shelf, when I heard one of the aforementioned scurryings. I looked over to the shelf (which comes to about my shoulder) and saw a tiny furred body propel itself from the shelf as from a diving board, leaping a full two feet out from the shelf, landing on the ground and then making a great deal of haste to scurry across the floor and under the freezer. I stood in slack-jawed amazement at this prodigious rodent feat of aerial deviltry.

What could give a mouse such a gigantic store of energy? What could cause it to fly much like a rocket, and speed across the floor like a miniature NASCAR in a fur robe?

Excellent questions that were soon answered when I investigated the pantry shelf to see what the little thief had been eating.

One thing is certain: the mouse prefers strawberry flavor.

It appears that I will need to build a mousetrap that uses a remote control car as the base, so that it can catch up to this speedy mouse. And should I use sugar wafers as the bait? I GUESS WE SHALL SOON SEE, MY FURRY LITTLE NEMESIS!

Updates are sure to follow.

News From My Neighborhood: Social Experiments You Can Do In Your Own Neighborhood!

Dad Gum It!

Someone decided that the roses outside our fence would be a good place to hold gum.  They carefully wrapped a piece of white gum around a branch of the rose.  My kids and I discussed this as we walked past it on our way to school.

Z: Why would someone do that?

Me: Because they are dumb.

A: You should not say that someone is dumb.  Maybe they just didn't know what they were doing.

Me: Oh, they knew what they were doing alright.

A: Then why would they do that.

(Silence)

Me: Because they are dumb?


Alternate theory: Science experiment?  Remember kids, science is not a toy!

The Iced Tea Bandit

Someone who has been discarding giant cans of Arizona brand iced tea in our neighborhood.  I am collecting them.  I've collected about four of them so far, from different blocks on the neighborhood.  I'm not sure why someone is walking to the nearby convenience store (I can tell by the sticker on the can) and then wandering into our neighborhood and leaving the can in a different place every day.  Is it compulsive?  Some magic trick? An advertising gimmick for iced tea?  Evidence that people who are "green" are bigger jerks than people who are not green?

Behavioral Science Is A Fun Toy

The last few weeks I have been using the walk to take the kids to school to experiment on the neighborhood. And here is what I am doing.  In the past I noticed that no one would say hi to me as I walked by.  So, I started saying hello to everyone I pass, whether they look away or even walk on the other side of the street.  Over the last two weeks this has caused almost everyone to say hello to me, except for one junior high boy and one grandfather (who is about 50% on his reciprocal greeting).  The payoff came this week, when I chose a day on which I would not say hi to anyone unless they said it to me first.  And it worked!  Everyone initiated saying hello to me.  Soon my plan for world friendification will be... complete.  PHASE TWO: I am waving to all the cars that pass me in the neighborhood.  Mooo-wha-ha-ha-haaaaaa!

News from My Neighborhood: Special Tribute Edition

This week our neighbors to the West got a dog.  This by itself would not be news, as many people in our neighborhood have dogs.  HOWEVER, when I asked the youngest nieghbor what happened to all her cats she said, "They're gone."

GONE?

I know that the cats next door lived life to the hilt.  They were several generations of chain-smoking, rough and tumble, sex-starved reprobates.  They ate frogs. They stalked children. They brought fear to the neighborhood.  It seemed inconceivable that they could all be gone.

And yet... as I interrogated the child I discovered that several of the cats had "run away" and that one of the boy cats "had babies and then ran away."  And then I remembered that "ran away" is often a parent-euphamism for "fell asleep in the dryer and I didn't notice" or "thought the engine block would be a warm place to hide." 

In any case, Gemma the cat, her daughter Gemma the cat, Gemma the Second's kitten, Toey, and Toey's little of cats that soon followed are all gone now.  Perhaps they ran away or perhaps, as I was told later in a complete contradiction, she was "sold."  Regardless, an entertaining part of our neighborhood has been removed, and thus we must fondly remember Gemma "Tiger Cat" and her progeny.

Here are a few of the previous reports from the neighborhood which included news related to Gemma and her descendants.

News From My Neighborhood: New Year Edition

Ding Dong Ditch the Sweater.  The doorbell rang late the other night, and I walked over to the front door, flung it open (I like to fling things) and discovered... a pile of clothes.  Having been raised on Star Wars, my first thought was that someone had been stabbed with a light saber and then become one with the Force.  But since more recent continuity has made it clear how rare this actually is, I decided to inspect more closely.  I discovered that it was not a pile of clothes, but rather one aqua-colored sweater, with little flecks of other colors spread about in a 1980's style.  All around the sweater were little notes written in a childish hand that said things like, "It's the new year, do what you want" and "here is a sweater, you are welcome."  And I thought about how innovative kids are these days, and so caring, that instead of ringing your doorbell and running away, that they would ring your doorbell, leave you some sort of inexplicable junk and run away.  And I also thought about my Ukranian neighbor, who is very nice, who will reach into his closet later this month and hesitate and wonder, where is my sweater from the 1980's?  And then he will walk outside to get in his car, and look over and see me, and notice how I have a sweater like his missing one, but it looks like it might be too tight, like I have one that is maybe too small for me.  And he will think, I always liked that sweater and the last time I saw it my six-year-old had it, and by then I will be in my car driving away and he will look at my retreating vehicle and think, it is a mystery how clothes just disappear in this country.  A mystery.


The Race Card. When I walk the kids to school it's impossible to say who will join us.  It all depends on how various families are doing at getting the kids ready to leave, and a little thing like eating pop tarts instead of oatmeal can mean that they are walking at a different time than us.  This week a six year old girl and her nine year old brother have been joining us.  The girl told me that she was a much faster runner than her brother.

Boy: I could beat you in a race right now.

Me: Uh-oh, a race.

Boy: C'mon, sis, right now.

 (He sets himself up at a crack in the sidewalk. He is determined.  The girl looks at him and a serious look settles in on her face.  She tightens the straps on her back pack.  And then... BOOOOOM she races past him.  He leaps into action but can't quite catch up.  She completely destroys him by making it to the end of the block a full two seconds ahead of him).

Boy: I was just jogging.  Also my knee hurts.  I twisted my ankle.  You started before me.  I am a faster runner than you.  I could beat you in a race right now.  I'm tired.

News From My Neighborhood: Weekend Edition

Yard Work in the Northwest.  I hear ridiculous things sometimes, about how people in the Northwest don't use umbrellas, that instead they just stay inside.  Which -- although it makes for excellent travelogue talk for Marco Polo when he returns from the far reaches of the northwest -- is ignorant foolishness.  NWers rarely use umbrellas because the precipitation is comparatively mild and a hood on a sweatshirt or jacket is typically sufficient to keep one warm and dry. And more than once I've caught myself standing in the middle of the rain talking to a friend, neither of us wearing a hood until the rain eventually fogs up his glasses and douses our hair.  For those of us with sufficient hair, anyway.  All that to say, when I set out to do yardwork yesterday I wore a baseball cap and a hooded sweatshirt so I could keep working through the rain.  Because we do go out in the rain. Otherwise we would need to build an impressive city of hamster tunnels.

A Traveling Meat Market. Yesterday, what appeared to be an ice cream truck came by, but instead of ice cream they were selling frozen steaks.  The driver slowed down as he passed me and shouted, "Hey! You look like a man who appreciates a good steak, right?"  I'm not sure what such a man looks like, but I guess like me.  I told him that I like steak fine, but we had plenty.  I'm not sure how much steak we have, but enough that I don't need to buy any from traveling meat salesmen.  He told me that they have "stupid prices" because of something or other.  I assured him that I still did not want a meatsicle. 


Man vs Nature or, the Tarps of Clark County. The big task of yesterday's yardwork had to do with winter-proofing our yard... so things like draining out the sprinkler system,  moving the glass birdbath into the garage so it won't freeze while full of water, and covering up the summer furniture with a tarp.  I spent a long time on the tarps, eventually getting everything all battened down and held in place with bricks.  Only to discover that during last night's wind storm my tarps were blown all over creation.  So, Mother Nature wants to fight me?  Fine.  Get ready, Mother Nature! It's go time.



Squirrel!  We had a squirrel in our backyard yesterday!  Which is the first time since they built our house!  Our trees are finally getting big enough to interest the little clowns.  Pretty exciting.

News From My Neighborhood

Return of the Expulsions of Houdini Dog.  No doubt you recall the many times in the past when a clandestine canine visited my yard and made deposits in the hope that my feet, like some sort of podiatric bank tellers, would happen along and then whisk the deposits away to some other, safer location.

I thought that was all over.  But in recent weeks it seems clear that someone has been either helping or attempting to frame our old friend Houdini Dog.  We know this is true because a perfectly straight line of excrement has been appearing in our yard.  What I mean to say is that each pile is in line with the next, as if standing in a queue.  But what is it waiting for?  That is yet to be determined.  The most mysterious part is that, once again, the offending digested materials have been appearing in our back yard... our locked back yard.  Some think that it has been tossed over the fence.  It is a mystery.

Killing Me Softly... With Her Smoke.  There's this lady on the next street over who walks her kids to school every day while smoking a cigarette.  She forces her kids to walk five to ten steps ahead of her so they won't breathe in any smoke.  When we came up on the sidewalk behind her, she freaked out, tried to wave the smoke away and finally decided to walk in the middle of the street, where she wouldn't get her inhalations on anyone.  When I walk home from the school I often see her on the corner, standing there and having a smoke.  When she sees me coming she waves the smoke away and mumbles sorry, sorry.  If I were her I think I would just say, "Please look away... I'm trying to slowly destroy my lungs and it embarrasses me to have people watching."

Mews from My Neighborhood.  Gemma the Cat of Terror has given birth to yet another litter of kittens.  One of the girls who lives at Gemma's house said, "I don't think anyone has ever had The Talk with Gemma."  It's true.  It's hard to deny that they are cute.  I took hold of one for this picture.  Afterward I noted that it looked like I was choking the poor cat, but that could not be farther from the truth.  In fact, here's a second picture showing that the cat is alright.

Kittens In Disguise. And, lastly, in news of the neighborhood weird, Tuesday night at about 9:30 I drove home from seminary to see a man in camouflage carrying something clutched to his chest.  A rifle, I assumed.  Why is a man dressed in military-ish clothing carrying a rifle through our neighborhood, I wondered.  And then, as I drove by, I took a look in the rearview mirror and discovered that his rifle was, in fact, a large black cat.  I don't know what he's planning to do with that cat, but here's my guess: Using his camouflage outfit he sneaks up on his worst enemy.  Then, when his enemy isn't watching, he SPRINGS THE BLACK CAT, who crosses path with the enemy.  Now his enemy has bad luck!  Moowhahahahaaa!

Return of the Mormons

My neighbor across the street, Derek, was standing out on his porch talking to the new Mormon missionaries assigned to our neighborhood. After a while I decided to wander over and say hello. I learned a few things (like when you're excommunicated from the LDS church you can still go to services but you're not allowed to pay tithes... weird). I asked about the second heaven that's so great that if we could see it now we'd kill ourselves to go there... and so long as you've been a good person that's where you get to go. One of the guys said, "Well, that's not really true, that rumor gets around but that's not really true." I told him that the person who told me that was the last missionary assigned to the neighborhood and he said, "Well, it's true but widely misunderstood." Oh.

The most special moment was as everyone was getting ready to leave Derek said, "Matt's an author." And then a minute later he said, "Tell them the name of your book, Matt."

Me: "Imaginary Jesus."

And then there was a long, awkward pause. Then I explained that it wasn't a book against Jesus.

Mormons: You should come to our church for services sometime.

News from My Neighborhood: The Jehovah Witnesses are Here

This morning I went out to my car to get something (okay, okay, my kids left their hairbrush in the car and couldn't find it themselves). As I bent over, rummaging through the detritus of accumulated child life in the back seat, a strange male voice floated over to me and said good morning.

I stood up and saw a man who had apparently just arrived from attending church in the 1950s. Next to him was a lady wearing a lovely floral dress to compliment his suit. He began, as I recall, by asking me if I had my Saturday chores all planned out. I told him we had a new baby and therefore wouldn't be doing chores. We exchanged baby related pleasantries.

I turned back to the car and bid them a good morning, and the man called for my attention once more so that he could show me a copy of the Watchtower, which would guide me through my confusion about the Bible by giving me a reading plan. Then he showed me how you could cut it out along the dotted lines. I liked how he assumed that I both wanted to read the Bible and also that I found it intimidating and difficult.

I told him that I didn't need his magazine, but thanks. He asked, "Are you a Bible reader yourself?" I told him yes. He asked if I had a special Bible verse for being a father. I wasn't sure what he meant. He said a special verse I went to as a father. I scratched my head and told him that so far as I knew they were all equally special and I hadn't really singled any out for special duty to me as a father. He quickly agreed and said good-bye.

I went out a minute later and they had moved on to our Russian neighbors, who never get up that early in the morning. At this time of the morning the father usually answers the door in his shorts. Then they went to the next neighbor down. He's deaf, and they seemed discouraged when no one answered. They got in their car (which, strangely, had two more JWs inside) and left the neighborhood.

I was a little disappointed that I didn't have the energy to engage in a lively conversation with them. Oh well. I'm sure they'll be back.

News from my neighborhood: THE STREETS OF LIZARDO!

Walking the kids home from school today we realized that as people rounded the front edge of our lawn they would give out a high pitched cry of alarm.

This is because the foot-long reptile at left had cozied up into the daisys and would poke his creepy bearded head out as people walked by.

Of course the neighborhood banded together and honorary neighbor Ken The Conquerer documented the capture of the lizard here on video . It's well worth your time to see our neighbor April, who was right in the middle of dieing her hair, show up and catch the lizard single-handedly.

Z said she would name it "Freak."

But when the owner eventually showed up he said the real name was "Dynamite."

About an hour after the owner recovered the lizard he showed up again asking if we had seen it. I'm so glad we returned the lizard to the idiotic owner instead of taking it to animal control as had been the original plan.

And now an ode in song (to the tune of "Streets of Laredo"):

As I walked down on the streets of Lizardo
As I walked out in Lizardo one day
I spied a young dragon
all dressed in his skivvies
all dressed in scaled skin
naked as a jay

We sat down beside him
and took us some pictures
we caught him in a bucket
and taped it right up
we held him for his owner
we blogged all about it
we took us his freedom
and that was enough.

THE END

News From My Neighborhood: It's just not fair

Weeds. Pretty soon we're going on vacation, and when we get home I leave in a matter of days for a work trip. I told Krista I would work for her today doing whatever chores were most important, so I spent a large portion of today weeding our garden. One thought that came up several times was THANKS A LOT, ADAM! We really appreciate you providing weeds for us. Not that I would have done better, I'm sure. But I have my least charitable thoughts about you, Father Adam, when I am weeding. Especially when I am trying to carefully hand-pick those little weeds that have the explosive seeds that when you touch the weed they leap off like monstrous fleas and hit you in the face or burrow into the soil and then send out their tiny little maniacal laughs.

Words Kids Love But Don't Understand. I've been teaching the kids new words I think are useful for them. For instance, A was pleased to learn the word risible, and it's a word that is often useful for her. The one word my kids use multiple times a day but seem not to understand is the word "fair." For instance, A told me today that it was not fair that she has to use a car seat but that her older sister doesn't. I explained that it was, in fact, fair because when she reached Z's age, she, too, would be allowed to do away with her booster seat. I asked her if it was fair that Z was at school and she wasn't. I asked her if it was fair that we were going to the grocery store and she was going to get a cookie. Then she started laughing like crazy.

And then I saw a mom and her kid at the school having this conversation...

Kid: That's not fair!

Mom: Yes, it is!

Kid: It's not!

Mom: It is!

Kid: Not!

Mom: Yes, it is!

I personally think it's not fair of an adult to use their superior intellect and reasoning against a child like that, don't you agree?

I think I have a future in ornithology. I love it when the birds start returning to our neighborhood. We've been getting a lot of new birds at our feeder this year, and a good number of our old friends from last year, including a big bunch of yellow warblers. Today this black bird with red wings came to our back yard to say conk-a-lee! It seemed to have a message just for me. I wondered what sort of bird it was. Maybe a scarlet banded conkalee. Or a Crimson Midnight. Or an ebony feathered garnet winged backyard bird. So I decided to look it up. And, as it turns out, that black bird with the red wings is called... a red winged black bird. I am never looking up a bird's name again. What's that bird? Oh, that's a little brown speckled bird.

News From My Neighborhood: Cats Aflame!

A Cat In Red Square

I've written more than once about Gemma, the miniature tiger who lives next door. She has a new litter of kittens. She's been hiding them around the neighbor's house. She doesn't like anyone to look at them. She moves them if they're found. The little girl next door (D) came over and knocked on the door this week, looking for Z and A. Gemma followed her over, looking like she was ready to pounce on something. I pointed her out and D said, "She's a Russian cat."

Attempted Matricide.

My neighbor to the North, Derek, and I were talking about Gemma yesterday. She has a little bit of a reputation in the neighborhood because of the fact that this is her second litter of kittens and no one knows who the Father is. Also, she walks through everyone's yards with an expectation of impunity. And she smokes the discarded cigarettes around the neighborhood. And she eats our frogs. And I caught her in the plum tree trying to eat our birds. Do they not feed her? Good grief. Anyway, Derek and I were trading Gemma stories and then Derek said that he had seen our neighbor to the West (they of the fake dogs and the hate mail) driving toward home as Gemma was crossing the street. Suddenly, he swerved the car toward her. Derek claims he drove up onto the sidewalk attempting to hit her! Of course she evaded him. Then he got out of his car calmly and looked around to make sure no one had seen him. He better watch his back now. Gemma will be waiting for him, crouched in the bushes of his back yard.

Where there's Smoke there's A Fire Truck.

Krsita called me upstairs last night to tell me that I was missing "something dramatic" in the neighborhood. Someone to the NW needed a fire truck. The first drama was the fire truck trying to squeeze past the corner where our house is... gets pretty narrow with all the cars parked out there. As we watched, the firemen started exploring the neighbor's garage with flashlights. They did this for a long time. They evacuated the house. No cops came, so we don't think it was anything illegal... but soon the firemen were tromping all through the house with flashlights. This went on long enough that we got bored of trying to figure it out and went to bed. THEN THE HOUSE EXPLODED! Just kidding.

Birds of a Feather.

Lots of birds this season. We even had a flicker in the back yard this week! It's a pretty large type of woodpecker. It mostly ate bugs out of the grass. Neat.

News From My Neighborhood

Spring Has Sprung. Z has to write little notes to me as part of her homework and I have to write a note back to her. A recent one asked, "Daddy, what signs do you see that Spring has come?" The tulips and daffodils are blooming. Our plum tree has flowered and now leafed out. Our maple tree is bearing seeds for the first time since we planted it! And the raucous chorus of birds is back... yesterday Krista and I saw six yellow warblers on our bird feeder. We'd like to think that the two brightest ones are the hatchlings from last year's nest in the maple. Aaaand, the neighbor's cat just had a litter of three kittens. Just like every spring. She gets lonely in the winter.

Dream a Little Dream. I had this vivid dream the night before last with my friend Lisa Hansen from college. I was walking on this balcony thing and I could see her going down an escalator and we saw each other and tried to say hello but the escalator was rapidly taking her under the balcony. I shouted for her to tell me her phone number but I couldn't understand what she was saying... seemed like she kept throwing letters in with the numbers. So, Lisa, if you're out there somewhere give me a call! Your Dream Message did not come through with a clear phone number.

Mystery Solved. You may recall a while back that Tyndale mysteriously sent me a copy of "If God Disappears." Well, I wrote the author so I could send a thank you to whomever sent me the book and it turns out that it was the author himself (David Sanford) who sent me the book. Pretty nice. So I met him yesterday for coffee (you may recall that I had orange juice) and we had a good time hanging out. A really nice guy with a ridiculous amount of stories and a lot of great experiences to share. So that's that. You may be thinking, "Matt, are you trying to rub it in that you were hanging out with some published guy who gave you a free book?" To which I would say, stop being so sensitive you big sissy.

Another Mystery. Why is "orange" not spelled "oranje"? I have to say that I am generally a traditionalist when it comes to spelling, but a total liberal when it comes to that word.

New Neighbors. Someone has FINALLY bought this house to the northwest of us. I wonder what they are like? I'm told that it's a young married couple. I hope they are weird enough to make it on the blog. As if in celebration, Krista and I drank some fresh strawberry milkshakes from Burgerville last night.

The Squeaky THING Which Lives In Our Attic (?)

You may recall that I mentioned the strange squeaking thing in our room some time ago. Our friend Hillary asked for an update on this inexplicable phenomenon, so here goes.

Observations about... The Thing:

1) Despite the changing hours of light, it remains ridiculously punctual in its squeaking. It usually squeaks sometime between 10:30 pm and 11 pm.

2) It nearly always squeaks in the precise same pattern: SqueEEEK squeak.

3) I've noticed that anytime I hear the squeak I also can hear the faint sound of an airplane overhead (this might be coincidence, of course... there are planes flying over our house reasonably often during the day and night).

4) The sound of the squeaking sounds uncannily similar to the sound of the cheap phone beside our bed... if it were truncated into a sickly, nano-second version of its three second ring.

Current theories about... The Thing include:

1) A bat. A punctual, friendly bat who likes to say good night to us each evening.

2) A mechanical bat. Who is not friendly, he is just programmed that way.

3) Our phone has some sort of defect that causes it to squeak when planes fly overhead. But only between the hours of 1030 and 11.

4) A mass auditory hallucination that is isolated to only Krista and I.

Please feel free to leave comments with your theories as well. Scientific testing for authentification of... The Thing will begin shortly.

News from My Neighborhood: Airplane Edition!

Our trip home today was essentially uneventful.

In the Air But Need More Air. Except for the woman who collapsed and needed oxygen in the first couple of hours, causing calls for doctors over the intercom. They eventually laid her out in the galley and left her there.

Criminal Economy. Then there was some sort of inexplicable crime committed toward the back of the plane, which caused the police to be waiting for us when we arrived. That crime happened far back in the bowels of the dreaded and frightening "economy" section of the plane so we from "Economy Plus" aren't even sure what happened.

The Day the Earth -- YAWN -- uh, Stood... ZZzzzz. Also I made the mistake of watching the Keanu Reeves version of "The Day the Earth Stood Still." I would like to say that this is the worst movie of all time. The only thing preventing me from saying this is that I have not seen all the movies of the future yet. And let me just share this (***SPOILERS***)... poor Gort. Klatuu barata niktu! The next time genocidal aliens bent on erradicating the human race arrive on earth, please call Will Smith. Also, please don't try to tell me they are the good guys.

Eavesdropping With Matt: Please. Make. It. Stop. Two middle-aged wannabe Lotharios rendezvoused behind our seats to talk ad nauseum and longer about bars around the world and the women they (supposedly) met there. It never ended. I prayed for the seatbelt sign to come on so that an attendant would come shoehorn them back into their seats. But no, these guys had to talk on and on about Vegas, Australia, Thailand. If it went on much longer I was going to turn around and shout GET A GRIP YOU ARE FORTY YEARS OLD AND IT'S TIME TO GET A LIFE! But instead I just used my psychic powers to send them the following message: move along, move along, you are getting your sad lonely life all over the people around you. Then I put on my MP3 player and tried to drown them out. Then the seatbelt light came on! Yay!

D'escalator. As we moved (finally) toward customs in Los Angeles, Krista and I decided to take the stairs instead of the escalator. As we came to the bottom a horrendous crashing and sceams of people falling down the escalator with their luggage. Quick, I told Krista, we need to get away from the people on our flight. Everyone was fine from the Great Escalator Fall as was evidenced by the sound of the Wannabe Lotharios chatting about bars in Los Angeles behind us. RUN AWAY!

Jiggety Jig. It was a sweet moment to arrive home to the cold, wet air of Portland. We love you Australia, but it was great to see our kids again (and Mom and Dad and Janet)! Z and A are requesting blood oaths that if ever we return to Australia they will somehow be with us. We put the little monkeys to bed tonight with the old familiar rituals of story times and songs and it was really wonderful. Glad to be home to the Old Neighborhood.

News From My Neighborhood

Recorders Without Borders. I think the local grade school is gearing up for a big recorder festival, because all these little grade school boys are walking around playing Handel's Messiah together. I am not kidding. So far they've got it through "God of Glory" and then they start over again. And again. And again. They are a little less shaky on "Old MacDonald had a farm."

Fast Walking Man. There's this one guy in our neighborhood who we only see when he is on a walk. White beard, sunglass, sweatsuit. And he always crosses the street when he sees people coming toward him and walks on the other side. Not clear why this is... doesn't want to break his stride I guess. My weirder neighbors have been suspiciously quiet lately.

Spring has Sprung. First daffodils have bloomed in our backyard. Spring is back! Yay! No sign of Houdini Dog yet. Pressure is mounting to get the lawnmower out, but I *just* put away the Christmas lights. Be patient, little lawnmower, your time will come.

Ain't It The Truth. Krista told A she wanted her to clean her room today. And A said, "I don't want to clean my room! IT'S TOO DIRTY!"

News From My Neighborhood

Making Money In The Neighborhood. An industrious duo of gentlemen wended their way about the neighborhood collecting the cans and bottles that could be recycled for cash. It was a good morning for it since everyone had just set their recycling out on the curb. My first thought was that they were really smart. Second thought was that maybe they were sort of jealous. Then I saw the Jesus Fish on their back bumper and I realized they were just thrifty and responsible. They had about 600 bucks worth of recyclables piled up in their back seat. Godspeed, my thrifty brethren.
STOP BREAKING MY TOYS! Meanwhile, walking back from the grade school I came across a woman with a gaggle of children. Three of them had baby dolls in their hands, apparently some sort of class project, as two of the children were boys and one of them thought it was an action of unrestrained hilarity to turn the head of the doll backwards and make growling noises. Finally the mom was pushed beyond her parental limits and she snapped. STOP IT she cried in a shrill voice, I TOLD YOU IF YOU BREAK MY TOYS YOU WILL HAVE TO BUY ME NEW ONES! It made me want to buy those poor little boys some dolls of their own that they could pretend are demon possessed. Poor lads.

The Key To It All. On the way home I found an abandoned key in the middle of the street. The thing about unknown keys is that they are limitless potential. Could this be the key to a car? A mailbox? A lock box full of cash? Or could it be a key that will open the half-sized door I saw behind our refrigerator... the strange little door with the golden edges and the curly, unreadable script. I'm going to try it tonight to see where it goes.

News From My Neighborhood

Kyle the Bad Alley Cat. Walking Z to school this morning I found three crumpled, abandoned packs for cigarettes. I knew immediately who had done it. Those three strange cats who have been hanging out on the corner. Past experience tells me that one of the more innocent neighborhood cats will soon have a litter of kittens.

Brennan, the terror of South Neighborhood. Also walking Z to school this morning, a large dog from the neighboring neighborhood came barreling out of nowhere, sniffing our shrubbery and then barking barking barking at me and Z. It came close and growled, baring its canine teeth (I guess all of its teeth are canine teeth) at us. A woman in a car drove up and started yelling BRENNAN KNOCK IT OFF! BRENNAN GET IN THE CAR! which sent him into a wild flurry of running between the fifteen different people converging on the school to bark threateningly at them. She eventually wrestled that monster into her car. Z was frightened, but I told her the dog had been after me. Because he was trying to take over my kingdom. Well, it's more of a fiefdom, but nevertheless. I'm not the sort to barge into someone else's neighborhood and bark and bark when I am attempting a coup, however. I will say this... Sir Brennan, when next we lift dog bowls together you had best taste the draught within to make sure there is no bitter flavor. Hint, hint.

Good Morning, Neighborhood. The sun lifted carefully over the neighborhood today, as if being cautious not to fall on us. She gently turned the ice to steam, and turned the steam from the fenceposts golden. I had the feeling that the whole earth was stretching and sleepily looking around with an ineffable sadness, the sadness that comes from seeing too much beauty in small pieces of the creation and realizing that this is not enough, that there is a deep well within yourself wanting much, much more of it. It's the sort of realization that makes you see a man on the highway with his car broken, the green hills rolling off behind him and you think, He's going to have a good day. He's going to put down his phone and wait for the tow truck and realize, look! How beautiful the hills are... and if my car hadn't broken down, I would have never stopped to see it. It's the kind of day that makes you stand up from your desk and walk outside and wonder, is the whole world this beautiful? Is all of creation dressing herself in muted splendor, just wondering if we'll notice? Look out your window, friend. It can't only be my neighborhood. It has to be out your window, too, I'm sure of it.

News From My Neighborhood

Trouble Brewing. Yesterday morning I woke to find not one, not two, but three cats on my front porch. Which is mystifying as I own... zero cats. The black and white cat (which has more toes than is natural) was staring with undisguised malice at the fat grey cat. The sentiment was mirrored precisely. The white cat with the brown face lounged indolently nearby with a practiced look of indifference. Since that moment they have been taking turns watching the house. Right now the Many-Toed One is sitting by my back window with Miniature Tiger. One of them is watching the bird feeder, and one watching the house. I'm getting nervous.

Leader of the Pack. VROOOM! The Beautiful Ukranian Girls next door took out their bicycles yesterday, but they had the saddest looks on their faces. I quickly diagnosed the problem. "You're wishing your Mom hadn't sold your tiny motorcycle, aren't you?" They both immediately chimed, "YES!"

Spring Has Sprung. The ridiculously warm weather of the last week or so has been a nice counter-point to the bizarre and unending winter around Christmas. The first spring bulbs are sticking their pointy green heads out, looking around for summer. The confused ducks and geese of the Willamette Valley continue to fly east and occasionally west. There's some sort of exchange program going on, I'm almost certain.

News From My Neighborhood

A Veritable Slip. Walking Z to school this morning I came across humanity's old foe... BLACK ICE! I stepped onto a manhole cover slick with it and immediately swapped the position of my head with that of my feet. Z sweetly asked me if I was okay, I told her I was, and then we paused and reflected on the impressive prat fall I had entertained us with. I told her it was a good thing we hadn't been holding hands, because she might have gone down with me. "No," she said, "I would have recovered and walked on."

HOW TO LOSE THIRTY POUNDS IN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS! Once a week or so I weigh myself (before my weekly shower). Today I was thrown off by the numbers... I had lost thirty pounds! This seemed not only irresponsible but also unlikely. I evaluated the scale to discover that a toy mermaid had slipped her tail under the scale. I removed her scaly backside and found that I had returned to my regular corpulent self. CLOSE ONE!

Your Dreams Really Can Come True. I had this dream last night that I stepped in a prodigious amount of dog poo and that I had to walk through all the neighbor's yards to try to get it off. I mentioned my dream to Krista and she asked if it was because of the entrance to the kids' school. In fact, I think that is precisely the reason. Some monstrous dog did its duty earlier in the week. Then the freezing weather and clouds came and covered it in snow. Then many school children walked over it. Then the rains came. Now there is a nasty mess that will not be easily cleaned that I have to walk past every day. I know what you are thinking, and no, it was not Houdini Dog this time. It appears that it was Elephant Dog or Dinosaur Dog or one of their relatives. I would like them to get out of my dreams*.



* But not into my car.

News from My Neighborhood: Winter Wonderland

The lady at Home Depot asked, "Are you ready for the snow?"

"I think so," I said. I was buying a forty pound bag of water softening salt, because they had run out of regular rock salt. No one around here was ready for so much snow.

"When you're a kid," she said, "Snow is all about magic. You grow up and it's all about work."

Trying to get home was work. The cars spinning on the ice, the semis breaking every traffic rule to try to get onto the right street. Pileups and accidents slowed everything down. After five cycles at a light waiting for a left hand turn, but receiving nothing, I decided to head North and then double back on another road farther from the crowds of incompetent ice drivers.

As I moved up the street, I saw a left hand turn that looked familiar. The snow made it hard to tell if it was the street I thought it was... everything was uniform white, smooth and stretched out to more white smoothness. I took the turn.

A few minutes later everything looked familiar, but not quite right. The snow-covered houses could be any snow-covered houses. A field of sheep was on the right side, and I thought they should be on the left. I picked up a compass between the seats and held it up. I should be going West. But the compass didn't turn.

A dark wood crept up on the road, the snow like the caps of waves. As I went around a curve I heard a muffled thunder from the wood. The car slid on the ice, and I wrangled the car back on track. I stopped, the adrenalin and blood pounding through me, and turned off the car for a minute. I looked up, and emerging from the wood was a centaur, his hooves flinging up the snow. He stopped in front of the car, his chest heaving, his breath rising like clouds, his hair encased in ice and sweat. He looked at me with wide, golden eyes, then back to the woods. He motioned with his hand for me to follow, and trotted across the road and into the dark woods.

I had read enough as a child to know that this was the moment in which I could enter into some great adventure. A howling from the distance told me that something--or someone--was on his trail. I sat for a long time until the air in the car started to cool. Then I reached down and turned the key in the ignition. I had a driveway to shovel, and ice to melt on the walkway.

Around the curve, the street came out into a familiar road, and I made it home without any excitement.