It’s a shih-tzu. It doesn’t seem obnoxious at all. It likes Mouse! We were a bit worried last week when a dog was running around the back yard barking all afternoon but that dog wasn’t a shih-tzu and it turned out to be a visitor. I can deal with visiting dogs.

Yes, I have met the new neighbors! We were driving into the driveway after a Saturday morning errand and they were getting some stuff out of their car. We were a bit apprehensive. I’m always a bit apprehensive about approaching new people. Especially people that have just moved into the house next door, not that that’s happened in quite a while. Or ever. But we were also apprehensive because the evening before, we’d had one of those um, cough cough, Moom/Mouse moments. Spirited people have those sometimes. We had recovered ourselves but we weren’t sure whether they had heard us or not. With our doors and windows wide open of course. I swallowed my social anxiety and galumphed over to introduce myself and have the awkward conversation that you have when you meet the new neighbors. If you are me, that is.

Our new neighbors are a nice young childless couple with a dog. I know their first names. Actually, immediately after they told me their names, I *very* embarrassedly asked them again because I was so nervous that their names went straight through that space between my ears and I already couldn’t remember. I’m not going to tell you their names. For the most part neighbors fall into the category of “things-I-can’t-blahg-about”.

Except that they have a dog and aren’t pregnant (that I know of and, no, I didn’t ask that question, fer kee-reist!), the new neighbors could be *us* moving into the Landfill 25 years ago and meeting the Burkes for the first time. The Burkes were rather eccentric, in a good way. Once in a while a few of the more intolerant neighbors would express opinions about our old neighbors but the Burkes were really good people and anyway, what the heck? They worked very hard all of their lives (teaching careers) and they were all about having a good time during their off-hours and I don’t know what’s wrong with that. We didn’t spend a lot of time with them but we were always friendly with them and I loved having them as neighbors. And truth be told, *we* are a bit eccentric too. I hope our nice new young neighbors will be tolerant of us as the years go on. Because, unless I am wrong, this nice but rather shabby little neighborhood has a way of grabbing onto those of us who might think we are buying a “starter” house. And so, here we still are, broken dishwasher, rodent crap and all. And a mortgage paid off long ago.

Onward.

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