Neighbours...inspired by Mama's losin it blog

3.) Neighbors.

I could go on all day with this prompt as I have found some friendly and some decidedly not. Where do I start? Excuse the misspelling, but I’m Canadian – neighbours….

I remarried nearly 5 years ago and dared to ‘cross the river’ in Calgary, which is apparently not something done by the native Calgarians, but only by us upstart (15 years ago) newcomers. So, I sold my house in the SW quadrant of the city and moved in with said new hubby in the NW.

On my crescent all houses have a front garage, one of those ugly but functional additions that shield the true beauty of the house from passersby in favour of offering drive-in convenience and anonymity. I could go for months without truly interacting with a neighbour. Sometimes this is a good thing.

I hadn’t been living in my new neighbourhood long when I parked across the street from my house because our sons (5 all together) needed the driveway to play basketball. It was summer and I was tired and hot after a day at work and a commute on a packed train from downtown. I cruised to a stop at the curb a little around the corner from my direct across the street neighbour, so that I ensured I didn’t block her driveway and left room for her and her husband and kids numerous cars (at last count they had 5 for a 4 person household and that doesn’t count the motorhome and the Harley).

Anyway, as I was coasting to a stop a polite distance from my neighbour’s overflowing driveway and watching my sons happily gambol about an angry rap on my window startled me. My neighbour, the wife of the couple, chastised me for parking there as someone would surely come around the corner and smash into my car and hadn’t she told me on numerous occasions NOT to park there. I’d never 'officially been introduced' to her before and as I rolled down my window I could tell she thought I was someone else. She apologized too late as her unfriendly tirade left a bitter taste in my mouth that I carry to this day. This taste makes it impossible to say hello.

She doesn’t own the road or the sidewalk and certainly not the one around the corner from her house, but she does own the space around her which I avoid like a no-fly zone. We don’t wave to each other when I pull into my driveway. I ignore her and she ignores me. The perfect un-symbiotic relationship I guess you'd say.

Worked well enough until one of my stepsons dared to take chalk to the sidewalk in front of her house. Another hot summer day and the boys were out spreading graffiti (what they consider to be art) in heinous pastels across public spaces. They dared to deface concrete with butterflies and aliens, rockets and words. My lovely neighbour’s 17-year-old son told the graffiti gang to clear the ‘F’ off his property.

Funny how angry, unhappy people spawn others and how they think they own the world. I wish I cared enough to give her and her family a piece of my mind, as now that I think about it the first time I met her she stood on my lawn at the side of my house with another nosy Parker looking into my backyard-neigbour's yard at their dog. Apparently the dog's barking bothered her across the street, but not me right next to it. Funnily enough I've had complaints about my dog barking too, anonymous ones from the city. Ah, civic harmony....

I do have lovely neighbours to my left who gave us their basketball backboard because their kids are grown and gone. Plus our neighbours to the right prop our fence up when it leans a little too far into their yard and let our boys into their home to call us on our cells if the garage keypad is frozen precluding entrance to our humble abode. Then there’s the neighbour down the street who just invited me over for a jewelry party and barbecue this Sunday.

They make the place seem a whole lot friendlier, and sometimes I’ll even slow down as I enter my garage to wave at them.