qotd: howdy neighbor!

How well do you know your next door neighbors?

Well, considering where I am, and how long I have been here (a week) I bet you can figure out the answer to this question. I don't.

I know that someone on the other side of us has a dog.  It likes to bark.  I feel bad because when I get up in the middle of the night I can hear it bark.  Thankfully the walls are thick, so it is a tinny bark which initially I thought was the fridge making some weird noise.

The other night when I was waiting for B to come home from work, I saw two of my neighbors a few doors down.  They were telling a girl, who couldn't have been more than 10, that they were going to the store.  She was clearly being left alone.  Sad.

I am surprised actually by how many small children are here.  One woman walked by with three little ones the other day. I know that there are units bigger than this one, but I don't think they are that much bigger.

At my previous apartment, I confess I didn't know my next door neighbors very well either.  To be fair, for over the first year the apartment directly across from us was used as a storage space, so we didn't have a neighbor.

We did meet the woman who moved in on the other side of us.  At least we said hello on occassion when we bumped into each other in the hall.  It was funny but when she heard we were moving, and saw the door open on the day the movers were there, she came in to 'check out the view'.  It was so bizarre.  At first she claimed that we had the same view (which 1) we didn't as our apartment was a corner unit and 2) if we did, then why would you want to stop in).

I know that there have been studies done about the psychology of the effects of living in close proximity to people.  It seems that when you know "too much" about someone (when they get up, when they fight with their spouse, when they flush, etc.), you really don't want to invite them over for a bbq.  This is what is wrong with most of the city of Irvine.  In addition to the homes being too close, they are all the same.  Thus you can't even indulge in that curiousity like my previous neighbor did.

Clearly this is something I need to work on.  Maybe when we get settled I will make a point of trying to interact with our new neighbors.