Next Door Neighbors

At my parent's home, we encounter and live with an odd assortment of neighbors. There's a family with 13 children. When they were all still living together--before anyone got married--the eldest was 28 years old and the youngest was 2 years old. There's a Japanese family on our left, and their youngest boy, Aseki I think, plays with his ball and inevitably tosses it (maybe on purpose) in our backyard. He knocks on our door daily to retrieve it which forces some sort of interaction with my Dad everyday. (Honestly, I think he likes my Dad. My Dad is very good with kids.) His parents never fail to give my Mom a token gift every time they return from a trip to Japan. There's also the other neighbor that never fails to give us a savory dish or two whenever they have a family gathering. Or the nice family a few doors down who always looked in on us kids, whenever our parents were out late.

There are the obnoxious ones too. Those who likes to walk their pure breed dogs to get the entire canine hood that are kept in, positively rabid. Those who are incapable of parking their own cars and expect you to move around your own vehicles in your own property for their convenience; and harass you (let the air out of your tires and scratch fenders) until you give in. There's also this family who stole my favorite shitzu (back then there were six), Sofie (5 out of the 13 children from the big family saw her trying to get out of their house). And the most annoying neighbor we have, is this couple who adopted two children, a boy and a girl, and everyday, we wince at the verbal abuse that they hurtle on them. (I've called Bantay Bata on them, but they said I should ask the baranggay to accost them or to catch them in the act of the abuse.)

I miss that neighborhood.

Where I'm living now, I have an interesting picture of my neighbors. I say this because I rarely see or interact with them. (Not even to borrow a couple of eggs or a cup of sugar.) There are these girls down a few doors, whom we suspect to be Las Vegas Showgirls in training. Or the brothers across the way, who seem to be concocting a secret invisibility formula in their kitchen. There is also this guy who may be a environmental vigilante because he's rarely home, and on the few occasions I see him, he's carrying either climbing gear, or a skim board, looking all prepared for a covert operation of some sort. (Or maybe he's a low profile rich kid who doesn't work and only goes camping or bumming on the beach all the time.) I forgot this little boy, who looks no older than five, who plays near our front door, and consistently tries to us engage in a conversation but changes his mind at the last minute and runs in the opposite direction whenever we pay attention to him. (Hey, he did give us this little paper heart once.)

I wonder what they think we are... (oh, there goes those odd camera-toting-laughing-all-the-time neighbors who are probably planning to take over the world...)