Who are the People in Your Neighborhood?

While renovating and moving into a house no longer qualifies as an adventure (been there, done that about 8 times!) people ringing your doorbell (2 tones for the front, 1 for the side) and dropping off welcome-to-the-neighborhood cards, soup, and cupcakes certainly is. As is having the mailman introduce himself as the neighbor who lives in that house "over there, the one with the red garage door." All this is very new, at least for me as an adult. I do believe Noank, the town where I grew up, was much like this but being a kid, I was oblivious to all the adult-doings. Since then I've lived in a number of places and can recall only one time a neighbor offered a welcome gift. Sure, we'd eventually meet and talk, during a snow storm, or on the stairs, while doing yard work, or after our kids starting running together but generally neighbors pretty much stayed inside their physical and social boundaries

This neighborhood is proving very different. I had only just recovered from a real live paper boy sighting (complete with white canvas sack and orange shoulder strap) when a posse of 10-12 year olds rode by on scooters and the neighbor across the street walked up the driveway and introduced himself.

Now the Sesame Street song that is now on continual loop. This is indeed an adventure into a strange, perhaps wonderful, perhaps a bit-too-friendly-for-a-Nutmegger, world. But as SD always says, we'll see. As the years go by in this latest adventure I suspect I'll be able to resist the urge to put on a dress and apron while cooking,and leaning over the fenced to gossip with a neighbor, on the other hand I could ace the lawn and garden competition.