Another day in the neighborhood

So, life in my neighborhood has always consisted of generally long periods of low level neighborly irritation punctuated by the absurd – such as naked neighbor (a story for another day, if you don’t already know).

Winter passed relatively quietly, it usually does with everyone locked in to hide from the cold, but alas, the warmer weather has begun to return and the proverbial shit has seriously hit the fan. The last two weeks have been eventful to say the least.

It began with the apartment building across the street catching on fire. It was only minor, but the street was blocked all night. A few days later I was sitting outside correcting quizzes, trying to enjoy the sunshine. A big silver Armada and a black Impala rolled to a stop in front of the house and about six really big guys piled out. This was the first cause for alarm – no one in my neighborhood has cars like that. They proceed to bang on the all the doors of the house that we share our driveway with. Just then the back apartment opens, my neighbor deciding at the moment to take out the cat litter, only to suddenly find himself in handcuffs. What?!? Now I am lurking behind my shed trying to figure out what the hell is going on. I hear them yelling at him for being an unregistered sex offender! Great…. It even made the papers, along with a lovely expose on the (rather alarming) statistics for unregistered offenders in the state of CT.

As if that wasn’t enough, exactly one week later, most of the neighborhood is sound asleep. Well we were all woken up by a loud “pop, pop” and shouting. Yeah that would be gunfire. Fun. Cops were wandering around for a while looking for anyone who might have gotten perforated. Saturday morning was when Dan discovered the shell casings on our front walk a mere 20 feet from the house. That did little to make me feel better. The police officer actually had the audacity to say that moving wasn’t going to solve the problem, that you couldn’t escape it anymore. Hmmm, I don’t seem to recall ANYONE ever firing a gun from my front walk when I lived in Pomfret, Mystic or Hampton… at least the hicks in Hampton had good aim, and they were usually shooting at cans in the back yard – not at each other. Quite the induction to spring, here’s to getting it out of the system and welcoming a quite summer. Please?