Peanut, go teetee!

I have noticed something that catches my eye as I secretly watch(stalk) my neighborhood. The mailboxes are like the office water cooler. As soon as the mail man comes, its like a swarm of people go out and wait for their mail, while he's putting it in. It's like what they wait for. I felt like the odd one not being down there. I thought it may be a one time occurrence, but this morning it happened again. Interesting.

So there is a ton of little stuff that I will never have time to write about, but I have a story today!

Dana has a dog. And I really think I should introduce him as a character. And I will use his real name, because it makes me laugh every time she talks to her dog. The dog's name is peanut buttercup. Between the hours of 9-10 am nearly every day, 2 or 3 times within the hour, Dana will take peanut out and begin to yell at him. "PEANUT, GO TEETEE. GO PEE! Go, I'm serious GO PEE, I don't care if you go on a car, just GO!"(I keep my car far from the curb) This interaction between Dana and her dog, really cracks me up. Today when she was doing it, I decided to talk to her the second time out.

I said hello, and within minutes Peanut was inside, and she was standing on my walkway talking to me. I ended up inviting her in and making her some hot chocolate. We talked about a lot of things. Turns out the lady who died in my apartment had drank too much alcohol and died in the bathtub. A little disturbing to say the least...

But there is something about my neighbors that I have known, but you should know too. These people are the ones that middle to upper class individuals don't give a rip about. My neighbors are the ones that no one notices. They aren't homeless so they are not at the forefront of peoples minds, but their lives have clearly been hard. A smile, and a cup of hot chocolate can really make a difference for any of them. For example today, while talking to Dana, she said hello to a person walking their dog, he looked a lot like me, he didn't look like his life was hard, he just looked like, a young man, probably single and working. Dana said hello to him, and he barely acknowledged her. I pray I am never that person, ever again. Because I have been.

So we continued our conversation. She asked me if I liked to read, and I told her I loved it. I asked her if she did, and she told me she couldn't read. I felt horrible. I asked if she knew her alphabet and letters, she said she only knew some. (Seriously, how blessed are you that you are reading this right now) I asked how she made it through high school she didn't give me a very clear answer, but I imagine she spent some time in special education classes. I offered to to teach her the alphabet song, and help her as much as I could.

Then she began to tell me about how much she loved Forrest Gump. She loves movies, she quotes them constantly. She asked if my DVD player was working, I said it was. Then she said something that I will never forget.

She said, "OH! Do you want me to go downstairs and get the Booty Call DVD?"

I chuckled to myself and told her that was not my type of movie.