Meet My [Virtual] Neighbors

Today I was bored with my work, so I started clicking the "next blog" button at the top of this blog to see who was on the other side of my site. Thought you'd like to know who the neighbors are on my Blog Block.


First up, Mari from some cold Scandinavian place. (We have an international community here on my street--you ought to see our potlucks!)

Nannette, with some sort of appendage on her name. Nannette-icle, like Chron-icle? She's from LA and imparts counsel like "Everyone needs improvements on themselves." She shares a house with Drama Queen (below), and brought a plastic clamshell container of Five-spice Chicken from the local Chinese takeout to the potluck, althought she did make the sticky rice herself.


Ellen Sofie Hetta is out of town right now, serving as a missionary in Bangkok. If I could lay on the beach and talk on the cell phone with friends like Lise, I'd sign up too. Her cousin's staying there while she's gone, but I don't see her at all.

As it is, I'm a missionary for the English language here in my hometown. A sample from a recent (unedited) email homework: "Your wearing blue and i found the picture in the staff information. I work at redlands Security Company I work 40 hr a week. I taken english class before. My major is busnises manegment. My intrest is my new born son born this year on new years day."

Thanks for writing!


Speaking of writers, on the other side of me is Virgil. Every morning he picks up his paper off the driveway in his blue terrycloth bathrobe, his pipe already firmly clenched between his teeth. When I go on my walks, I hear him banging away at his manual typewriter--no keyboard for him, please. Today's musing details a list of what writers do: "Writers write, for one."

Well, some do. Others blog. I never see Virgil again until the evening, when he goes out to get the mail, dressed in a worn flannel shirt, faded olive cords, and (dare I say it?) penny loafers. He brought Doritos and Safeway brand guacamole to the potluck.

Next to him is the retired doctor, who always forgets to encrypt his wireless, so that Virgil, when he forgets to pay his bills because he's on deadline, can still access the internet from his upstairs study window. (He confessed this when the power went out one summer and we all sat around on the doctor's driveway, shooting the breeze until we could escape back into our re-electrified, re-air-conditioned houses.)

Shortly after posting "How much does your heart cost?" the doctor (never did catch his name), died of complications from his plastic surgery. His wife and son haven't kept up his posts, so I don't really know what's going on with them, or how much my heart does cost. I just know a broken one is way more costly that you think. We still talk about the bacon-wrapped scallops they grilled on their barbeque for the potluck. (Turns out they were from Costco, but who cares?)




Finally there's a young woman who lives in the red one-story stucco across the street. She tends to drive like she's always late and while talking on her cell phone. She has the biggest sunglasses you ever saw and last week ran into her own mailbox. We wait until she's gone for the morning before pulling out. We never see her come in at night, but occasionally in the wee hours, there's a lot of laughing that echoes out from her backyard. I don't know how Nannette stands it, as she looks like a very sensible young woman. I do know Drama's a good cook--she brought a huge chocoloate cake topped with fresh raspberries to last year's 4th of July potluck. Nannette confirmed it was homemade ("You should see the kitchen!"). We didn't pursue the topic.

And that's the neighborhood--at least the only ones I come in contact with.

UPDATE from the future: When my father read this, he thought they were real neighbors, not recognizing that I'd made everything up.  That was in the days when he used to read my blog.