Photo Per Day #18: Oh Crap!

Last night, six sets of neighbors gathered for our annual gag gift swap. The kids did their secret santas. Son #1 got a GameStop giftcard; Son #2 got an iTunes card along with a bucket of faux snow balls that he loves and continues to chuck at us all day today.

My favorite pic, however, is of my girlfriend's chocolate dip with animal cracker poised atop. Yum? Thank heavens it wasn't steaming . . .

I asked if I could snap a photo. She responded, "If you must." (I must.)

Doucheoisie

One of my best friends from college married a wealthy Dutch woman who cannot stand me. As a result, he's no longer allowed to be friends with me. Understood. This past weekend, I learned via a mutual friend that she also refuses to visit his presumably downscale family in Cheektowaga so he has to go alone.

As the Countess Luann de Lesseps would agree, money can't buy you class.

In local news, our crazy neighbors on the corner (post #1, post #2, post #3 and post #4) are at it again.

This time, the husband dragged the wife's entire closet of clothes to the end of the driveway. From what I've been told, it was a giant heap of possibly more clothes than I've ever owned -- from 1964 until today. The cops were called in. The neighborhood gossip levels began peaking once again. But none of that is really of interest to me aside from: a) How/why does he stay married to a lunatic? b) Are there signs before tying the knot that you're marrying a lunatic? If so, what are they? Maybe her juvenile obsession with sex and high heels? Or her preponderance to share her sex life on Facebook (i.e., through a series of brief comments re: how long it took her husband to finish)?

Anyhoo, what's really of interest to me is much more simple than the nonsense above. When I drive past these neighbors, smile and wave, would it be so difficult for them to return the wave? It's a simple, kind gesture that says, "Hi." It also says, "Sure you might be a freak parade but that's okay. We all have our problems. Let's agree to coexist peacefully."

As the Countess Luann de Lesseps would most likely agree, moving into a new town and neighborhood so that your children can have better opportunities (i.e., the wife's words, not mine) but then treating your neighbors like social pariahs is counterproductive. Not that I, personally, will be providing her family with any opportunities; but, hey, I'm a nice person. Perhaps I could provide a small degree of happiness in an otherwise bizarre life if they'd only be willing to glance at me.

Just a thought.

Happy 2010

After pulling my first all nighter in years (for work lest you think otherwise), I stayed up past midnight again last night (crazy, I tell ya!) ringing in the new year at home with my family and our neighbors. We played "Truth or Dare" with challenges that the kids made up and emceed like we were on a game show, and then the adults played a fun little board game called Loaded Questions. Generally benign questions like "what are you grateful not to be doing right now?" elicited written responses ranging from "work" to "shi&#ing my pants" or "paying attention" and whoever's turn it was had to guess which player had written each golden nugget. You learn a lot about people when drinking sangria and playing board games, I've discovered. Or maybe they learned a lot about me. The dad from across the street kept editing my responses when he had to read them. "I didn't write 'concubine,' I wrote, 'ho.' There's a difference."

For someone who hates the typical forced conviviality of New Year's Eve, I haven't laughed so hard in ages. If it's any indicator, 2010 should be a magical (and seriously off-color) year.

As Facebook Turns

A couple of my neighbors are certifiably crazy and it's getting out of control.

Until recently, the young couple who live in the cape on the corner were the poster children for minor oddities. When they first moved in, we had a few families from the hood over for dinner. With the guys in the other room, the wife let all of the women know that she married beneath her. She barely knew us but needed to share how a) wealthy her parents are, b) she was on the beauty pageant circuit as a child (this by way of explanation re: her current weight issues -- making up for her lost childhood), and c) awesome her husband is in bed (which is why she married him -- she claims he's not very bright). Not really what we need to know about her beau hunk of a man. Especially a year later when she was bragging about how they broke their headboard.

Over the past couple of years, she has informed us that they were moving to another house in town, to Long Island, to Pennsylvania, to Ohio, to Florida, etc. Our next door neighbor, Peter, does a fabulous impression of her mind-changing tactics by mimicking the train board updates at Penn Station.

This same woman got liposuction and a boob job while undertaking fertility treatments. Just when she had the fat sucked out of her, she became pregnant. Nice investment.

Most recently, she spent days with an architect redesigning their home and then immediately put an offer on another home one street over. In the course of a few short weeks, after selling their home and renovating their new home, she has been posting pictures of her new home and updated kitchen on Facebook.

In response, two other women on my street have been publicly deriding her by posting nasty comments and obnoxious status updates. What makes grown women -- one in her early 30s and the other in her mid-40s -- think it's okay to bully someone? Can they possibly feel good about themselves after doing so? It's heartwrenching to watch; no one deserves to be treated so poorly especially by "friends."

I don't know the back story on why their friendship ended. Nor do I care. I only know that after she finally de-friended them on Facebook, one allegedly sent her a threatening email. This couple then called the cops from their beach house in Long Beach Island, NJ and placed a follow-up call to my hubby to watch their now vacant house while they were away for the summer. Sure enough, I passed a squad car in front of their house yesterday morning.

What started with a harmless, and otherwise friendly, neighbor who kept us entertained with her peculiar antics has turned downright vicious.

The only thing that could make this drama complete is if Alexis Carrington moves into their home. We need to add some knock-down-drag-out catfights to the mix around here before we get too comfortable. Maybe a murder mystery to top things off.

Suburban intrigue unfolding on the Real Housewives of Podunk.

You're in the Right Neighborhood When . . .

Your girlfriend next door welcomes you home on a Friday evening with a personalized chalk illustration on your front doorstep!

Rockin the Suburbs

I just read, or rather attempted to read, Restless Virgins, a story presumably about a sex scandal that rocked Milton Academy in 2005. The book is, more accurately, a one dimensional chronicle of teen hook-ups (I'm too old to care) and tracks a number of kids through their sexual exploits and/or teen heartaches. And the "scandal" -- which is nested in the center of the book and barely makes a dent in the reading -- seems like just another day in the life of these kids except that they got caught. Rather, the whole scene is scandalous and belongs in Penthouse Forum Junior (if there was such a thing).

I put down the book midway through and thought to myself, "I'm so glad that I never had to compete with my friends sexually." Things really were so much more innocent 25-30 years ago. Yes, I had some promiscuous friends but they were more the exception than the norm. I think.

Then I went out for a quick cocktail with my neighbors last night. Women who live in all of the homes surrounding mine but who, with the exception of a couple, I really don't know. Women who, I just came to find out, dine naked with their husbands IN THEIR BACKYARDS wearing nothing but red pumps. Women who apparently howl so loud with their husbands from their hot tubs that they caused a lot of laughter at the table last night. Women who boast about breaking their headboards.

I can't compete at that level. With the exception of my classically dressed next door neighbor and a couple of slightly more casual friends, I was also the only one not (as her husband later put it), "cougared up." My green t-shirt with bright pink belt on white cotton shorts was no match for all of the black-on-black ensembles I was seated with. Which also begs the question: Was this a casual night out for the girls or were they headed later to the Academy Awards? I somehow missed that portion of the invite.

Anyhoo, I'm thinking I should climb up into the tree house over the weekend to make some crazy noises. As Bonnie Rait once said, "Let's give 'em something to talk about."

Or maybe not.