On Our Way To Crazy

I love our neighborhood. I love our house, I love our street, I love our big trees and downtown proximity. But there are some weird things going down in this place.

The couple across the street from us has lived in that house for 45 years. They are super nice and have a grandson who stays with them who is always, always, ALWAYS wearing a cowboy hat, boots, and a cape. He’s awesome. But here’s the weird part – she mows the lawn every day. EVERY DAY. I’ve been paying attention, and I think I’ve got it figured out. As best as I can tell, she’s got the yard divided into seven chunks. (I was going to say seven quadrants, but I’m pretty sure that’s impossible. I don’t know my geometry, or even if that would be qualified as geometry, but I do know my prefixes!) Each day she mows a different chunk, and by the end of the week she’s mowed the whole thing. Then she just starts over.

There’s a guy who lives kind of caddy-cornered to us who is a gardener. Usually, it’s really nice when your neighbor is a gardener. They always have pretty, well-kept grass and flowers. BUT. It’s a little different when they are growing corn. In the front yard. It’s pretty awesome, really… there was grass, then there was black tarp everywhere, and now there are cornstalks that are taller than I am.

But my personal favorite is the lady a few houses down. She runs a daycare out of her house, and she keeps a few kids from all over the neighborhood. At the end of the day, when it’s time for the kids to go home, their parents don’t pick them up. Instead, the daycare lady takes them home. On her riding lawnmower. So several times a day I see her driving down the street, racing past my house at two miles an hour, with a couple of kids and a dog in her lap. Sometimes she’s alone and talking on the phone. Because we all need a little downtime.

I wonder if those people think we’re the weird ones? They sit and blog about their new neighbors who pay a guy to mow their lawn, just grow bushes and flowers, and use their cars to get around town. Or maybe it’s about how they have a bunch of teenagers over all the time, sleep late and wear their pajamas outside every morning to let the dog out. Crazy people.