Neighborhood Watch

I'm here. I'm typing financials, preparing sales tax returns, going to neighborhood watch meetings, going to book club, pulling weeds, watering plants, sweating in the heat, following up on company referrals, organizing a mini-convention, going to water aerobics and reading blogs. For some reason I just haven't really had the desire to write about anything. Sometimes it all seems too dull and boring. Other times it's too exciting to put into words.

Yesterday was our neighborhood watch meeting. In the 6 years that I have lived in our mobile home park I have never attended a pot-luck or meeting. There have been a few times I've considered going, but they seemed to conflict with something else on our schedule. This time I could make it. I had to skip water aerobics, but I really wanted to meet the new park manager and I know they've had a hard time getting this whole neighborhood watch thing off the ground...and besides... the rec room is air conditioned!

As soon as I sat down I started to wonder if I would regret this decision. The information the rep from the Sheriff's dept was sharing sounded very familiar. I started having a vague recollection of attending one of these things many many years ago. But she was nice and she had some good tips. Everything was fine until she opened it up for questions or comments. Oh no....now I remember why I would rather be at home. What followed was a painful 45 minutes of the most random conversations I have ever heard. Yes, we had the man who told us all about how homeless people used to take showers in the pool showers....years ago!! Those showers have been closed since I moved in. We had the busy bodies who must keep constant vigil looking out their windows at the rest of the residents. There were the mom's that are hooked up into the gossip hotline and then there was me.... I felt like a foreigner in a foreign land. Suddenly my little section of the park sounded like an oasis in the middle of the most crime ridden area in the town.

I listened intently to each little complaint. Some of the people must truly have some interesting neighbors. Others...well I think they need to get a life, get hooked on reality shows or read a book. Anything to occupy their time so that they can let go of some of their petty complaints and observations. As for me... I'm thinking that I really like my neighbors. Maybe we're the only ones that pull our hoses out at night, water our yards and threaten to hose each other down. If it doesn't start cooling down below 80 degrees, we might stop threatening. At least we can give the watchers something new to talk about. I'm sure there's some kind of rule about water fights.