In the hot and humid night, my neighbor takes her five year old child and a little girl she is babysitting outside in the back yard to pick up toys.  There weren’t any weather records set yesterday, it was only 91 degrees.  Without air conditioning, though, it can be very difficult to sleep at night.  But really, picking up toys in the dark and carrying on a conversation is more than a little weird.  When my children were that young I’m sure I wouldn’t have felt comfortable leaving them with an adult with complete lack of routine and also consideration for others.

One morning I’m getting ready to go to work and I keep hearing this beeping sound and it just doesn’t stop.  It wasn’t loud but it was steady.  I thought somebody next door was sleeping through their alarm—no big deal.  It happens to me occasionally.  Later in the morning it is nearly time for me to leave but the beeping is still going on and that seems unusual to me.  I look out the window and there laying in my backyard is a smoke alarm just softly beeping away in the grass. 

Well it wasn’t there when I got home that evening but when it was late at night and quiet in the neighborhood, I hear this beeping coming from the backyard.  The next morning I can still hear it beeping but it is a little slower now.  When I went to feed the birds I started walking by the garbage cans and sure enough the smoke alarm was in the can with the lid down and it was still beeping. 

My neighbor set off the smoke alarm one evening when she was making dinner and she couldn’t get it to stop so she threw it out the back door.  I wonder.

There are nights that are perfect for hanging out on the front porch having a drink or snack in the evening after the sun goes down—maybe watching a storm pass over.  Last week when the temperatures were in the 80’s and it was hot and muggy even at night my neighbor had a piece of watermelon and a drink on the front porch.  She set it down on the table and left it there.  Now, a whole week later, the watermelon rind, drink and cigarette butt are right where she left them. They look like what was left in a post-apocalyptic world. 

And just so you know, dissing my neighbor is not all that I do.  I went to breakfast one Saturday morning in May and had the most delicious blueberry pancakes with sausage.  There was probably a whole cup of fresh blueberries in each pancake.  They were very large, hot and with lots of butter to put on them—no syrup necessary.  If you’re in the Cleveland area check out Big Al’s Diner on Larchmere Avenue—you won’t be disappointed.  And count on spending some time on the street too.  There are a lot of interesting shops to go through including an independent book store!

My downstairs neighbor mows the lawn and gets $10 off the rent for doing it.  She doesn’t like doing it and sometimes it shows.  She mowed the lawn Saturday and instead of moving the garbage cans, she mowed around them.  It was very funny looking especially now that she has moved the cans back along the fence where they belong.

I live in Lakewood, Ohio in a house that is just like all the others in the neighborhood.  It is a large three-family house with a small yard and a big tree in the front and a big tree in the back yard.  The garage is separate from the house.

Lakewood is one of the most densely populated cities in the country.  It is an inner-ring suburb of Cleveland.  That means basically that it is a suburb because it borders the city and then there are suburbs beyond the Lakewood borders.  It is sometimes difficult to tell the difference from the city and the inner-ring suburb.  It is a little bit like purgatory.

Like most houses in Lakewood, it is a this one was built 80 years ago.  It is updated a little bit.  But it has two small bedrooms, tiny closets and squeaky floors.  I am a single mom living on the second floor of a Lakewood house.  My downstairs neighbor is a single mom with two sons.  And my upstairs neighbor is a single mom too with one daughter.

All of the houses in this city are set close together.  Your bedroom windows are right next to your neighbors driveway.  You will hear them when they come home even when they are trying to be quiet.  You’ll feel it in the shower when someone in the house flushes the toilet or turns the washing machine on.  And sometimes in the summer it will take a few minutes to determine whether the noise you hear at 3am is thunder or a neighbor snoring. 

Living in a large house here is like living with an extended family.  Your neighbors will know when you go shopping (and where you shop), what you eat and go to the bathroom.  They will hear your conversations and if your family argues loudly your neighbors will feel like they are a part of it. 

Families, just like individuals, seem to take on their own personalities.  That’s a good thing.  We really wouldn’t want gingerbread men and sugar cookie cutouts for children and pets.  But sometimes

An ordinary Lakewood house.