Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

Ahhhh, I have to admit, that g-mail or hot-mail or fan-mail or whatever-the-hell-mail servers you guys are talking about sounds like what I should have done. Too bad I wasn’t bright enough to do it BEFORE I lost all my e-mails. Unfortunately, “a day late and a dollar short” seems to be my middle name sometimes. (PS Did I mention that I just found out the reason my cell phone -- the cell phone I have had less than a year -- is on permanent roam and shoots everyone to immediate voice mail is because they don’t have Verizon within a hundred miles of here? So looks like a new cell phone is in my future, as well. Consequently, if anyone couldn’t reach me by e-mail the past two weeks, so then tried to call me and also got no response --- I promise I’m not avoiding you -- I’m just technologically jinxed. And I have a cell-phone sized paper weight I can give you in apology.) But thanks for the heads up --- I’ll certainly handle things more efficiently if we ever move again.

Which, by the way, TOTALLY isn’t happening. Because Blaine caught a stomach bug on Thanksgiving. Then caught a head cold two days later. Then pulled a muscle in his back yesterday morning trying to move a piece of furniture. Which means, in case you haven’t figured it out, that I am unpacking every single solitary box by myself. He is alternately laying on the sofa taking muscle relaxers for his back, shivering cold, covered in blankets, then sweating to death, then getting up to blow his nose, then running for the bathroom to be sick, then complaining after he runs that his back hurts worse. (Shhhhh, don’t tell him, but I’m such a control freak that I actually prefer to open all the boxes myself. However, I want *him* to think he owes me big-time for this, so let’s keep it our little secret, all right? Thanks.)

I did, however, want to share with you something that happened Monday morning that I found quite humorous.

Blaine and I walked the kids to school for their first day, then walked back home** by 8am. The moving van was waiting in front of our house when we returned, and the movers got started right away unloading our stuff.

About 8:30, my front doorbell rang. When I opened it, I saw a lady standing there with a plate of home-made banana nut bread and a card. I have to admit I was a little surprised. While neighborhood hospitality is certainly nice, I definitely didn’t expect someone to ring my bell the first hour we lived here.

I opened the door, and this is the conversation that ensued:

Me: “Hi, can I help you?”

Neighborhood Lady, with a very nice smile: “Good morning, this is for the people who live here” and she handed me the plate.

Me: “Oh, how nice! That’s so sweet of you!” {then I extended my hand to her} “I’m Kristie.”

And she said, “Hi, I’m Pam” and then sort of looked at me, waiting for something.

I stood there, wondering if I should invite her in, despite the fact none of our chairs or furniture or anything to sit on had been unloaded yet.

Then Neighborhood Lady paused, and turned back to look at the 18-wheeler unloading furniture and boxes in front of my house. Then she turned back to look at me.

Neighborhood Lady, obviously realizing something is not quite right here: “Oh ….. are you moving IN? I mean, have the Smiths (named changed to protect the previous owners) already moved out?”

Me, suddenly realizing that the banana nut bread wasn’t for me after all: “Um, yeah, they moved out on Saturday. But if this is for them, I can totally get it to them. It’s no problem.” And I self-consciously gestured to the plate, realizing I was holding a gift intended for someone else, that I had simply ASSUMED was for me. And I LOVE banana nut bread. Mentally, I had already poured myself a glass of milk and was preparing to feast.

I don’t know why *I* felt embarrassed, but I did. Like maybe she thought I was trying to bamboozle her out of a plate of home-made banana nut bread that was NOT meant for me.

But then she did pretty much the nicest thing she could have done, in my opinion. She just looked at me and said, “No, you keep it. Instead of a good-bye gift for them, now it’s a welcome-to-the-neighborhood gift for you.”

So seriously, that was really kind, wasn’t it? Even if I did totally weasel myself some banana nut bread with a card that reads “Best of Luck! We’ll miss you!!”

Then, a few hours later, my best girlfriend from Junior High named Marla, the one I discovered boys with, and spent countless nights at her house sleeping over and scaring ourselves to death watching creepy movies like Halloween and The Brood (seriously -- have you ever seen The Brood?!?) and whose parents even took me on vacation to Missouri with them and didn’t get mad when I got carsick in their station wagon, stopped by on her lunch break to say hi and tell me she was bringing dinner over.

Then about an hour after that my best male friend (male, but not gay, but friends in a completely platonic way, which I feel obliged to mention every time I tell people one of my best friends is a guy and they look at me funny and then inevitably ask, “And Blaine is ok with that?” and I have to say, “Yes, as is his wife” like it’s such a bizarre thing for a man and a woman to be friends --- but I have digressed) Louis stopped by after that on *his* lunch break to say hi.

Then the wife of the elementary school principal came over to introduce herself and brought us a cake she had baked.

Small towns ROCK!

Now, I'm off to unpack a few decillion more boxes.***

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**We are so close to the school that when I stand on my front porch, I can hear the kids playing outside for recess. How cool is that?

***A decillion is a one with 33 zeros after it. I know this because it is the word Kellen will be portraying in Friday's Vocabulary Parade. Although what kind of costume we're supposed to put together, I have no earthly idea.