A Visit to the DMV & the Neighbor Connection

Fellow Citizens:

Good morning! I hope you’ve had your Wheaties, as this one requires some energy to read. Have a great Thanksgiving, and to make things interesting consider inviting a neighbor or someone from the DMV over for dinner.

While waiting for our table this morning at breakfast, I happened to read my horoscope or Today's Birthday: "Get involved with your community this year; it can use your help. Be more directive than usual." In general, I find horoscopes to be a bunch of hooey, but found this very fitting considering the blog from yesterday. It seems that I was already thinking in this direction...

A Visit to the DMV & the Neighbor Connection

Since the "Gynecology and Yard of the Month" story, I've been thinking about neighbors; and thankfully, not much about the other topic. I'm fairly in denial in that area, and as evidenced yesterday at the DMV, I'm not very in touch with my physical self. My driver's license was set to expire this weekend on my 48th birthday, so I marched in to the DMV to renew it. I was so obsessed with covering up the gray hair for the photo that you have to live with forever (or at least 8 years) that I totally forgot about the vision test and the fact that I my eyes may have grayed as well. I was still in denial when I was instructed to look through the view finder. On line 5, I saw three columns with a series of numbers in the second and third column. The first column was blank - or so I thought.
The clerk, a mix of reggae and gangsta (she was wearing a knitted beret over dreadlocks and a huge gold pinky ring): "Read from all three columns."
Me, confused: "But there are no numbers in the first column."
Reggae Clerk: "Do you wear glasses?"
Me, pondering the question: "Oh, come to think of it, I have glasses, but I never wear them."
Reggae Clerk: "Well maybe you should. Where are they?"
Me, babbling: "At home. Do I have to go and get them? Oh, I really like your giant ring! Please let me try again."

This time Reggae Clerk was gracious enough to close the lens on the left eye and allow my strong and dominate right eye to do all the work. I practically willed fuzzy numbers to appear in the first column. I then read off numbers that could have been 6s or 8s. I pulled it off, somehow.

Me: "Gosh, I didn't know my left eye wasn't pulling its weight. Fortunately I haven't had any accidents. Knock on wood."

And then I realized this was a total LIE when suddenly remembering that I backed into a fire hydrant earlier this year. Of course, that was attributed to hysterical blindness, not real blindness. I wanted to confess to Reggae Clerk, but managed to refrain. Under the circumstances, it wouldn't have been helpful and I really hoped when I drove away she wouldn't notice the imprint of the fire hydrant that still exists in my bumper. Anyway, I promised Reggae Clerk that I would be a good and lawful citizen and wear my eyeglasses while driving... if only I could see to find them.

Beyond that, there was a slight confusion over my eye color.

Reggae Clerk: Are they green, grey, blue, hazel? She actually handed me a mirror decorated with fake jewels.
Me: "Green, most of the time.”

I totally knew that, but after not seeing numbers in the first column and then being forced on the spot to blurt out a current weight (okay, I lied a little there too – what’s wrong with me?), I wasn't feeling too sure about anything.

Moving on to the topic of neighbors and the purpose of this blog. I've been thinking that maybe I should make an effort and connect/re-connect with my neighbors... for the sake of community and all that jazz. You know, to honor the themes "Love Thy Neighbor", "Like a Good Neighbor", "It Takes a Village" etc. I’ll throw out the occasional wave and smile, but not much more.

Actually, our neighbors Mr. and Mrs. N connected with me when they knocked on the door a few days ago, and handed over a note (not an invite) about a reunion at their house directly behind ours and the possibility of loud noise from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. It included Mr. N's cell number in case of a problem. Always a good move to be proactive.

Me: "No worries. Have a great time. How's Edward?"

It seems that their son keeps Edward, a large bulldog, on a part-time basis. (I want to find out more about how to keep a dog part-time...maybe I can use this in selling Andy on getting one.) The Ns smiled when I mentioned Edward and the fact that no amount of persuasion (or Cesar Millan) can move that dog when he decides to sit in the middle of a walk. I refrained from mentioning their gray tomcat. You see, as part of my loving thy neighbor, I wanted to focus on the nice and not the bad. I'm not even sure that diabolical gray cat belongs to the Ns. He happens to sit on their deck while keeping an intimidating watch on our backyard. It's obvious that he's carefully plotting ways to seize Marshall's territory. I don't know his name, but I call him "Go away, you horrible, mean, yellow-eyed, bully of a cat" and "Don't you dare pin Marshall and chew on his ears, you horrible, mean, yellow-eyed, trespassing bully of a cat." He's a tough cat to love.

I've made efforts to get to know my neighbors over the years. There was my connection with Mr. and Mrs. American Airlines. They lived next door to the right and I remember their home was fully accessorized from the Sky Mall catalogue, including a 4' high resin sommelier statue welcoming you with a bottle of wine. That actually impressed me at the time, but fortunately I never got around to shopping for home decor on airplanes. When they moved away (or flew off to a better destination) Olaf and Gerda moved in. They were European physicians and their decor was the opposite of Sky Mall. They were minimalists and with the exception of the wooden shoe door-knocker, there was little decoration. They had a small boy, Flor, and then Gerda, ever the minimalist, popped out a girl when I didn't even know she was pregnant. At some point, they decided education for their children in the Netherlands would be better than in Dallas, TX where the kids at day care made fun of Flor's name and his clogs. Of course, that was before crocs were invented and celebrities named their kids "Bronx" and the like.

There was also Leonard and Marie, the elderly couple next door to the left. Their large house was too much for them and really falling apart. Leonard fixed that by burning it down. Not intentionally. He fell asleep and/or passed out while cooking chicken. His pug kicked into Lassie mode and woke him by wildly licking his face because he was too deaf to hear the smoke alarm. I always thought that Marie would have been the one to burn it down (or blow it up). At night, I could see her sneaking a cigarette in the garage - even though she had a bad case of emphysema (as did the pug from second hand smoke) and lugged around a portable oxygen tank. Alas, she was at the beauty shop when the fire occurred and off the hook. After the fire, L & M and the pug moved into a more manageable apartment, but that didn't keep Leonard from meeting me in the driveway everyday after work for months with insurance questions. He was convinced the "Like a Good Neighbor" company was ripping him off. After they moved away and the house was being rebuilt, we clipped a piece of their rose bush and planted it next to our oak tree. We call it the "Marie" rose and it’s very thorny. We really liked them even though they frequently told us that we were too young and really didn't know anything about anything.

We've had a couple of bad experiences, including an ongoing one with the neighbor who insists on doing yard work in the dark and/or specifically during our only window of opportunity for relaxation - usually around 6:00 p.m. on Sundays. Just as we are settling in for a nice evening, his monster lawn equipment belts out at least 200 decibels. Why? I think it's a macho thing. He likes to take out his aggression on tiny, innocent blades of grass. Plus his wife is probably sick of him by then and kicks him out of the house. We all know that Sunday afternoons can be trying. Too much togetherness can make you do crazy things. In addition to noise pollution and the other environmental destruction issues presented, night time weed-whacking and leaf-blowing should be considered an ultra-hazardous activity (like logging). While I worry about injury to our neighbor (for some reason) and others, Andy fumes over the relentless, obsessive compulsive trimming of anything green over 1". He actually tried to solve the problem with a man-to-extreme garden tool talk. Mr. Whacker was highly defensive, as expected. Fortunately, there was no wrestling for the leaf blower.

The other bad experience involved a German shepherd owned by a neighbor across the street. One day, as I was walking our elderly beagle (R.I.P.) and being followed by my black cat (he was under the mistaken impression that he was also a dog), "Killer" appeared out of the fence, and from the edge of the yard began to focus on us, clearly in attack mode. The beagle, Scout, with her nose to the ground, was oblivious, but the cat, Boo, looked at me like "Please don't let him eat me." I froze for a minute, but then decided to walk normally with a firm "come, children, come" and managed to get into the garage before Killer took a step off the curb. I called animal control and Killer was put back behind the fence. A few weeks later, a man knocked on the door and advised he was an investigator for a law firm. One of his clients, a neighbor out on a run, had lost a finger to Killer. The client was reportedly a surgeon and really needed that finger, and the lawyer really, really needed his contingency fee, so they were out canvassing the neighborhood in an effort to show notice of Killer's vicious propensities. On that day I officially renamed Killer "Mr. Finger-Eater".

So I was thinking, why are neighbor relationships always a bit difficult or at least uncomfortable? From my job, I know that neighbor disputes and claims are the absolute worst. John's Great Dane impregnates Mary's AKC-registered poodle. Bob's retaining wall falls into Carol's swimming pool. Ted's tree limb scrapes Alice's parked car with its custom paint job. It's the end of the freaking world! Expect protracted litigation and three or four attempts at mediation. Give me a crane falling on a stagehand's head during a ridiculous underwater music video shoot or a window washer falling nine stories any day.

I did some research and found that when it comes to neighbors, most people have complaints, not compliments. Here's a sample of how people often describe their neighbors: "annoying, creepy, weird, crazy, lazy, awful, rude, crabby, psycho nut case, flasher, two-faced, pervert, grumpy, nosey, inconsiderate, phony, dangerous, smelly, they're jerks!, and I hate them!! Surveys say common complaints are barking and howling dogs, accumulation of junk and trash, high weeds (not in my neighborhood when Mr. Whacker is on the loose!), drunks, driving too fast, constant yelling, illegal parking, loud crap music, out of control children, roosters crowing, illegal fireworks, convicted felons, and intrusion of massage parlors and liquor stores. Gosh, people, where's the love?

We've managed to get along with a variety of neighbors over the years, including the ultra-religious square dancers across the street always feuding with their elderly next door neighbor's 40 year-old alcoholic son washing his car wearing nothing but a Texas-flag Speedo (not a good look for him), and the a tow-truck company owner and his dysfunction offspring, including unemployed/unemployable daughter B and her nogoodnik "husband", S, and children C and Little S or "Bubba". Poor C, the spitting image of her mother, talked non-stop and as a result Bubba never learned to speak. He could only grunt. Except when he got excited he would grunt, point, and jump up and down. I'm sure he learned language skills once he entered kindergarten. At least I hope so. Anyway, the tow truck kids used to drive Aaron crazy. They loved Andy (probably because they thought he was a kid that got to drive a car) and therefore, called/grunted our son Aaron "Andy-Boy". Aaron would cry, "It's Aaron!" and C would reply "I know, Andy-Boy."

There were lots of interesting events with the square dancers (we politely declined their invitation to do-se-do and switch partners... they eventually divorced, and it got ugly with restraining orders, guns drawn and such...in total contradiction to their Christian views) and their poor teenaged daughter with her hideous skin disorder (no doubt an allergy to her parents). Also, having a tow truck driver as a neighbor came in handy when I backed my VW into a ditch during the City's installation of a new sewer line and when my Jeep stalled on the Woodall-Rogers overpass during morning rush hour. (Do you know how rude people are when you break down on one of Dallas's busiest freeway ramps? Excessively rude! And to the point where I was forced to yell at one awful man in a pick up truck; "What the ---- do you expect me to do?" Please know that I never cuss out loud - so that was big deal - and strangely therapeutic.) As far as neighbors, things wouldn't have been too bad with the tow truckers if only B would have divorced S, gone to community college and had an extreme makeover.

Now that I'm thinking about it, my old neighbors were much more "out there" with their personal issues. For the most part, our current neighbors keep things under wraps. I guess because a security patrol comes with the home owner association package and odd behavior is not really tolerated out in the open. We also have an e-mail system where a designated person alerts us of neighborhood goings on like coyote sightings, missing pets, magazine sales/conmen, identity thieves rummaging through the garbage, wayward ducks, and generally suspicious men having no business walking along the green belt. With that warning, I suggested to "Andy-Boy" that he stay off the green belt and always carry his ID to prove that he actually lives in the neighborhood.

I must say this exercise has made me re-think the neighbor connection. I really don't want to get to know them all that well. I'll stick with Robert Frost and his "Good fences make good neighbors." Now, if we could just build a fence.

CitizenB