Neighbors

Over the summer, we got new backdoor neighbors. We didn’t really notice until our dogs went postal one morning. It was like gang violence for dogs. We rushed outside, and met the new dogs (who incidentally are doppelgangers of our dogs, but I’ll save that for another post), and their owner, whose name escapes me. He was very nice. He was military from Orlando. His wife was expecting a baby in November. Other than the battling dogs, they seemed like a nice addition to the neighborhood. Over the course of a few months, however, we have grown tired of their shenanigans. You see, the previous neighbors were nice, but they were loud. They had parties almost every weekend, but hey, it was the weekend. Occasionally the mom took phone calls out on the deck and we inadvertently heard the whole conversation. That again, was but a benign annoyance. The new people are killing us. They have flood lights in their back yard that they keep on all night long. I’m not sure if they’re expecting to host a softball game in the middle of the night in their backyard, or if they’re paranoid of intruders. Nonetheless, the light keeps Chris awake at night. They also let their dogs out at the oddest hours, and we are often awakening before our alarm clock by the barking of their dogs. If we have to let the dogs out while theirs are out, we have to stand guard and not let them near each other because it’s a confrontation every time, and it’s exhausting. While we can’t do anything about the dogs short of an actual human confrontation, we found a way to solve the floodlight quandary. We got drapes. I didn’t fancy myself a connoisseur of window treatments, but I think I like them now. The color we chose was called Antique Gold, but to the naked eye, it’s brown. It looks nice against our blue walls. Thank you, JC Penney! I’d really like to send the neighbors the bill.