It was beautiful outside last weekend, Doug headed up to the roof to clean the gutters, and Geoff and I were using the handsaw to shorten large branches that had fallen off the trees into fire pit sized bits.
Our neighbor was out raking his leaves, and blasting Vivaldi. Which was nice. It's fun to listen to Vivaldi while doing yard work, and not having to listen to endless leaf blower noise. I told him how much I appreciated that, and he said "Fall is the best time to listen to Vivaldi." Too true.
I shall refer to him as Neighbor Dude.
I apologized for the noise the saw makes. "We'll be done soon!" He waved it off and said it's not a bad noise, "It sounds like work getting done."
Part of me wants to remember that when I hear the leaf blowers going for hours in our neighborhood, instead of Vivaldi while using a hand rake.
He noticed the work we were doing and the fire pit, and asked if we wanted some branches that had fallen off his trees for our collection. I told him sure, we'd gladly take them. He dropped them over the fence and we chatted. Some were long and thicker, and needed cut down; others short and dry so Geoff put them in the shed door and stomped the middle of them to break them down. He looked like he enjoyed that level of destruction and breaking things. What 24 yr old person doesn't enjoy that kind of thing (heck, what 54 year old person doesn't, I'll be honest).
Neighbor Dude and I chatted while he raked and Geoff hauled wood over to the pile to get it out of the way for more work. He stopped in his tracks, looking down.
"Oh dear," he said. He used the edge of the rake to flip up a good sized animal carcass. It was a possum, and we both cringed. From the roof, Doug was pondering how a lone possum would be dead in the yard, like did it get stuck in his yard and the gate was closed, and it just couldn't escape? Can't they climb trees? I wondered if it ate poison put out by the other neighbor to our west (she thinks we attract rats by not keeping our yard spotless. I think she doesn't know the difference between rats and squirrels, to be honest).
He pondered what to do. Do I just put it in the trash? It seems undignified. It deserves a decent burial, doesn't it. We agreed. Yes. The poor beast. It was large and healthy looking. Possums are important creatures, and truly I hoped that the other neighbor had not offed it intentionally. He decided to bury it.
He got a hoe from his shed, but I handed him a much mightier shovel to do the job. "Don't let her see you doing this," I told him. He asked why. I explained that she thinks we attract rats. He laughed and said she said that about the prior tenants of this house.
"I have never seen a rat in this neighborhood," he said. "There are so many feral cats, and pet cats that go outdoors, they keep things tidy." He shook his head and set to work digging. Geoff and I cut a little more wood. We stopped to watch him lower the possum into the hole.
"Rest well, dear friend," he said.
"Godspeed," I added.
"So," he handed me back the shovel, "you've lived here for months now and we have not spent time together. We should have coffee."
I said that sounded great. When works for you?
"How is tomorrow?"
Uh. Short notice. Maybe. Tomorrow being Sunday, Doug likes his morning routine and then Football All Day. So it would have to be early. I suggested waiting until Saturday next, and he agreed that would be nice. 10am is perfect. Yes. Okay. Coffee at 10am on Saturday the 13th.
Today.
I texted him at 9am to ask if we were still on and 10 was still good - he agreed. I threw an apple blueberry cobbler into the oven, knowing it might need a little more time to cook so I planned on texting him a few minutes before 10 to let him know we'd be about 15 minutes late to give the cobbler a few more minutes.
Doug was slow to get ready - he is a little grumpy in the mornings, and doesn't relish giving up his goofing up on the phone time to be social, so he was still in his pajamas at 10, as I was putting on my shoes and getting ready to let the dog out and text Neighbor Dude about the slight delay due to baking cobbler.
Doug and I discussed whether or not we should set up the kennel since Phineas is sometimes not well behaved when alone. Geoff has a new job and isn't home today, so the dog would be super solo.
While we were deciding, Neighbor Dude showed up here. He had a shopping bag with him, full of bagels and cream cheese, and berries and lox.
Truth is, we had never decided where coffee would be had. Here or there. Us or Him. I assumed him, he assumed me. Oh the hilarity that ensues!
He was apologetic, and said we could go to his house but Doug ushered him in, this is better so the dog won't be alone, this solves that problem! And, there's a breakfast cobbler in the oven, it needs a few more minutes, so this is perfect. Absolutely perfect. Come on in.
We apologized that our house is a little messy. I quickly cleaned off the coffee table, moving the junk mail that had piled up, Doug's laptop, and arranged the nice coffee table books that were covered up by us neglecting their display, all while noticing that it had more dog hair on it than I initially thought. And I cleaned that up. He was either unoffended or exceptionally gracious. When you live, eat, work, sleep, wash, rinse, repeat all in the same one space you become blind to the mess after a bit, I guess.
He and Doug got to talking about medical stuff and junk. I brewed a pot of fresh coffee (we had finished off what Geoff set up/started before leaving for work), and got the cobbler out of the oven to cool down for a few minutes. I set up a little tray with the berries that he brought, and poured the coffee.
My dog then jumped up on the sofa, next to Neighbor Dude. And then, climbed into his lap. Literally on top of him.
"I think we are now becoming very best friends," he said. Doug wanted to shoo Phin off his lap, but he insisted Phin stay.
He called him "Phil." I did not correct him.
Then, Phineas started doing this weird thing that he does that we tolerate... he likes to lick fabric for some reason. He has one pillow on the couch that we allow him to do this on, and if someone is over, which is incredibly infrequent, we move the pillow away from the couch. It's a dirty little secret here. And now you (and Neighbor Dude) know.
Because the pillow was not on the couch, Phin started to lick Neighbor Dude's pants.
I booped his snoot and told him to stop. Neighbor Dude laughed and said "oh no, this is fine."
No ... it is not. You are being unbelievably gracious and my dog is being a freaking weirdo. And I am so sorry. Phin stopped for a while and just rested his chin on Neighbor Dude's leg looking up at me.
It was time for another round of coffee, so Phin jumped down and followed me to the kitchen (the room with food and he loves food and where's the food can I have some food?). I gave him a treat in his dish to keep him occupied and I brought out the coffee. Neighbor Dude's perfect black jeans had a giant pile of white dog hair all over them. He gently brushed it off and said it was okay, he loves dogs, he'd love to have a dog, but is at work so much that it wouldn't be fair to the dog. So this for him was just fine.
Still, in my heart I'm mortified. You know I'm mortified.
Phin got up on the love seat with Doug and fell asleep, snoring loudly. I was just waiting for him to fart to finish off the full Phineas Experience.
"All of his affection giving wore him out!" declared Neighbor Dude.
We talked about the neighborhood, and how we lived up the street for a couple years. He bought his house in December, right before we moved in, and got the tenant in the spring after having work done on the basement to update it and get it ready. Previously there had been a rather large family living in the house, so he knew he wanted to rent the basement out, and it needed the full monty in order to get it to that point legally.
He is from Cairo, and did his medical residency in pathology at Harvard, so we talked all about Boston. We talked about snow. How Doug does not miss it, but he likes it, once a year.
He had also lived in Omaha, Nebraska (speaking of snow!) and Houston, Texas. He said that a lot of people told him that Boston was not a friendly city, but he found Omaha to be the most unfriendly and actually kind of overtly racist.
Considering that a lot of people think Boston is one of the most racist cities going, he said that wasn't the case. He made great connections and found community there, where he had nothing in Nebraska.
He said living in Boston was great because of the quick access to the ocean, which he misses living here. I couldn't agree more. For a while he was looking for a job in Florida, and had a job interview in Miami. He decided after the interview to take his rental car down and go to the ocean, and check out Miami Beach. He then ended up stuck in traffic trying to get to the airport, and missed his flight by over an hour. He decided Miami was not for him.
He said so far of all the places he's lived in the USA since he moved here in 2013, DC is the most friendly. Perhaps,he thinks, that is because so many people are from far away, and people are looking to make friends, and he's very right.
We talked about Cairo, and Egyptian politics, and how the current president is trying to deal with the huge amount of population and congestion. He told us about New Cairo, which I had not heard of, and how people are being moved over to the East to alleviate the pressure of population.
I didn't realize 20 million people lived in Cairo. He shared a lot to about racism in Cairo and Egypt in general. With people coming in from other countries in Africa, there is a lot of Xenophobia. But on the whole, Egyptians are very loving, and caring, and want to help the Syrians and Sudanese who find themselves coming in.
Just don't try going to Turkey to get the same compassion.
We talked about Canada. How Doug and I had really unique experiences in Quebec. He said he speaks fluent French but the French they speak in French Canada sure isn't the French he speaks! He had a really hard time there trying to talk to people, in either French or English.
It was a really nice and rather lovely experience. I told him next time we have a bonfire, I'll text him to see if he is around and wants to come over.
He left a little before noon, said goodbye to Phil, who seemed very sad to lose his new best friend.
No comments:
Post a Comment