Stealth Neighbors

Somewhere during the nuclear winter fallout that has been my life since school started and I began spending three hours daily driving Phartacus and Slappy to and from their respective lives and collecting snacks for soccer games and class events and coordinating Cub Scout calendars and chaperoning field trips and volunteering on the school gardening committee and leading an early-morning arts workshop and popping muscle relaxants for a spasmed back and working part time and gulping Chardonnay while folding laundry, the neighbors managed to move in next door without my noticing. Oh I know, last Saturday I wrote that the moving truck had pulled up, as I prepared to settle in for a blow-by-blow of any questionable floral sofas, lamp-side table combos, or particle board trout diorama coffee tables that might emerge from the truck. But all that arrived was a refrigerator (stainless steel, entirely above reproach), which was matter-of-factly carted into the house by delivery men before the truck left and all was quiet. I assumed the main event was forthcoming, but that night, light appeared from between the cracks of suddenly visible from Phartacus' bedroom window if one leans out the sill towards the left with binoculars kitchen curtains. A car was in the driveway; the porch light was on. What the what? How did I miss this? The next day, I shrewdly combined Cub Scout Requirement 3C with good-neighborliness and baked up a batch of homemade -- I'm talking started with flour, sugar, and baking soda type stuff -- chocolate chip cookies to take over for that first impression I'd been pondering in my last post. Plate of cookies at the ready, I kept looking over at the house, but there was no sign of life. Probably churching...

Cut to Wednesday night. I've eaten all but two of the homemade chocolate chip cookies, and I still haven't seen the neighbors, even after dinner tonight while trailing behind Phartacus and Slappy on their bikes, a Cub Scout manual in one hand (never miss an opportunity to check off a requirement) and a lowball of Chard in the other. Only the car and the kitchen light give testimony to their presence. No little kid waiting for the bus. No coming and going from the front door. No wandering around the garden or sitting on the back deck. No sounds emanating whatsoever.

So far, I freaking love them.