Jul
28
July 28, 2007
Reading through your comments on the subject of neighbors made me realize it’s probably not so bad to be largely unfamiliar with the people who live nearby, because that does seem preferable to knowing their most odious habits (pissing off balconies, displaying The Crazy, downloading porn all day while ignoring the living embodiment of Satan they call children, etc) up close and personal.
Some of your happier stories made me sort of wistful, and not just because I’m jam packed with all kinds of pregnancy brain-bees that make me cry at the drop of a goddamned hat (especially if the hat-dropping scene is accompanied by some heavy-on-the-minor-key music, dun dun dun dunnnnnndundundun *sob, choke*). It seems like it would be nice to live in a neighborhood where people watch out for each other, and there are friendly people down the street to water your tomatoes when you’re gone/trade baby-sitting favors/call the police when the reeking effluvium of your partially decomposed corpse makes its way from the confines of the house.
JB would like to start our Get To Know Our Neighbors Campaign with the elderly lady a few blocks away, who we first observed walking slowly around her yard plucking fallen leaves, one by one. In October, when such an activity must be repeated on an hourly basis (which she seemed to embrace). Eventually she ripped out her entire lawn, and replaced it with—I am not making this up—Astroturf. It’s a perfect expanse of green now, a dark, glistening plastic green, but by god there are no weeds, and any fall refuse can surely be vacuumed with a Dustbuster.
The reason JB would like to befriend her is because of the sleek black 50’s car in her garage, visible only on the rare occasion that the door is open. I forget what model it is but even I have to admit it’s pretty hot—long, low to the ground, gleaming with chrome. JB claims it’s got to be in immaculate condition, based on her lawn and various other OCD tendencies (she once spent several weeks on her roof chipping away the paint covering her chimney, only to immediately re-paint the entire thing once every square inch of brick was revealed), and his hope is that by showing enough friendliness whenever we bucolically mosey by, stroller and Dog in hand, she’ll eventually put him in her will. Her estate gift being, of course, the car.
We should probably try and work on some more selfless reasons to know our neighbors other than vaguely hoping they will die and give us their vehicles, right? Right.
JB is out of town this weekend, backpacking in Oregon with his dad and brother (if you smell testosterone—and kielbasa-farts—wafting out of the Willamette Forest this weekend, you know who to blame), and so Riley and I have been mano y toddler. It’s been kind of nice, actually, having his undivided attention for once. I’ll be honest, spending hours on end with a 2-year-old is not a nonstop funfest by any means, and in fact sometimes I think my jaw is going to detach from my head from all the bone-cracking yawns of boredom (I’m sorry, but it’s a ROCK. Jesus christ almighty, kid, I can only dredge up enthusiasm for the first 94582 times you show it to me, after that the innocent veil of childhood must be lifted and all will be revealed: Mama’s bored shitless, someday KittyCat’s going to die, and Elmo is really a puppet with a hand rammed up its ass), but those moments of sheer joy that break up the tedium . . . well, I’m happy to hog those all for myself.
We explored Riley’s budding artistic genius this afternoon.
Unfortunately, I have now learned that toddlers + paint = DANGER DANGER OH GOD PULL UP PULL UP WHOOP WHOOP *END OF TRANSMISSION*
He was sad when I put the paint away, but I told him to call someone who cared. Here he is trying to reach Jesus via a dead cell phone. THIS IS THE UNITED STATES CALLING, JESUS, ARE WE REACHING?
Later, we enjoyed a robust game of Naked Hula Hooping, Not So Much With the Hula Part.
And a little game I like to call Naked Cowboy Horseshoes. Oh, what do you mean, I’m sure he will treasure these photos when he’s older.
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I’m dying laughing at the pictures and your captions. Who doesn’t love a little naked outdoor fun?
Too cute!! Now, if you & JB did the naked hula-hooping in your backyard, I’m sure you’d have plenty of neighbors peering over the back fence. ;)
Don’t feel too bad about JB and his darstadly (spelling??) plan…. my husband and I thought the same thing of our ederly italian neighbour in our previous home. She owned 6 federation cottages in our street, and seemed to have very few visitors or family. She is literally sitting on a gold mine - Sydney real estate prices being as they are. We figured maybe she’s want to give one to us???!!!
So, we be-friended her,a nd she rewarded us with a never ending stream of herbs and fruit from her own garden, that she had composted with garbage from our bins (we had watched her pick through and collect only the yukkiest bits!!!) YUM!
Anyhoo, her legs got too bad for her to walk down our steps into our courtyard, so about 6 months before we moved she started throwing the fruit,veg and stuff at our front door instead. Nothing like an over-ripe, garbage composted tomato and two rock hard peaches being thrown at your door at 6.00am!
Moral of the story…. be her friend, but check if she grows stuff first!
Also - that is the cutest, most delicious little burger butt. How do you stop yourself from biting it?? He is truly divine.
I just love the picture of him with the cell phone (not that I don’t enjoy the naked baby bum also); those little chubby hands just kill me.
The pictures are awesome. Nothing like a little naked hula on a sunny summer day.
The woman who lives accross the street is 95 years old and has lived in the neighborhood for over 60 years. She currently has some great car from the 60’s sitting in her garage. I don’t think we are the only ones in the neighborhood that go out of our way to help her out, you never know if it will someday pay off!
Is it just me, or would you die to have your own butt look that good?…Just sayin’…
I thought only a great Pinot Noir came form the Willamette Valley?
My husband is going on a rafting/camping trip culminating in a strip club jaunt somewhere in the Poconos (betcha those will be first-rate hotties) in a few weeks for a bachelor party, and I am dreading the time alone with my 15 month old. I can only build so many lego houses and then I just want to ram one into my eye socket just to see if I still have feeling in my face.
Good luck!
Hey, where’d Riley’s little red comfy chair come from? I can’t find one that’s not a giant Elmo head or covered in Spiderman.
and on top of all that I want to hang his little sandals from my rear view mirror….could you just die from the cute?
Also, it seems to me that Riley gets his butt from JB. ;) You just have a thing for pasting naked butts all over the Interwebs, don’t you Linda? (Hee!)
I can’t think of a better reason to befriend a neighbor, except for befriending one with a strapping young teen who will cut my grass and rake my leaves for me.
Actually, I wish all of you would please please please befriend those little old ladies in your neighborhood! It would help us, the sandwich generation, from going crazy being the only one who runs over to our Mom’s all the time to check on her, to talk with her, to screw in a new lightbulb, and everything else that goes with having an elderly parent.
And believe me, the old folks absolutely love seeing other people other than their dutiful daughters/sons once in awhile. Talk about being bored playing with a toddler? I get bored with my mom and she gets bored with me! We have no Legos or toys to play with on my daily visit! (And yes, I love her, too, but geesh, it’s a grind.)
Love the beautiful baby bum….I miss that!
Those pictures have just MADE my morning, if not my day.
Naked butt in a straw hat? I’ve died and gone to Heaven.
Oh my god, the hat ‘n’ buns. I can’t stand it. Also, laughed very hard at the veil of childhood lifting, and at JB wanting to befriend a crazy OC old lady to get her car when she dies.
Aww.. those are great pictures!
I’m all for making nice with the neighbors. Of course, I can barely stand mine and we share a wall for chrissakes.
And the hat and tush? Priceless.
Does it make me awful that I relish baby butt cellulite as it makes me feel better about my ass looking more like cottage cheese than what goes for an ass these days? I mean, hey look, they have cellulite and she or he is teensy! Yep. Makes me crazy.
here i am reading along & get to the 1st pics. i think “the wee one is starting to look a bit more like his dad” and then i got to the naked hula hooping photo. it reminded me of that one you posted of jb’s butt quite a while back. LOL! JUST LIKE HIS DAD!
It’s the hat in that last picture that slays me.
I miss backpacking. :-(
Please remind me to tell you of Adam’s horrid, horrid plan to start a company called “Needs for Deeds” where he befriends old people and does their bidding so that they leave him their presumably huge mansions in their wills. He would gleefully back JB’s plan.
Also, Riley’s butt! His butt! HA HA! I couldn’t love those photos more. And he looks JUST LIKE YOU in the photo where he’s coming at you with paint. I had to be specific, as I’ve never seen your backside. A fact for which you are probably thankful.
“Mama’s bored shitless, someday KittyCat’s going to die, and Elmo is really a puppet with a hand rammed up its ass.” ROFL.
The bare butt photos are PRICELESS. You will show them to his prom date some day, right?
You realize he’s going to hate you when he’s about 13 and finds out about those pictures and you tell him that a few thousand women all over the world wanted to pinch that adorable little bum!
God, I love this site — I just never know WHAT is going to pop up when I visit!
Yes, I agree, he’s really going to love it when you show the pictures to his dates!
If Naked Cowboy Horseshoes is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
*snort* thanks for the pictures!
Naked cowboy horseshoes is priceless. LOVE the hat and bare buns look.
And if Riley doesn’t appreciate the pictures when he is, oh, say about 17, then I am SURE his girlfriend will.
Helpful hint — apparently cellphones that don’t have service but still have a battery can call 911. I’d make sure there is no battery in the phone….
oh yeah…those are graduation/first girlfriend photos for sure!