There is a way we always take right now, when I’m in a hurry, to get down to the beach. Through the park strip with the creek, where the squirrels and cats all lurk in the weeds.
We know all the neighbors, at least all the ones who are out at 7:00 in the morning. There’s the guy who collects old refrigerators, surfboards, and chairs in his driveway, the 2 little old men in cute little hats with the really bad dogs, the people with the free range chickens and free range babies, and if we’re early enough, the colorfully decorated leather jacket guy who sleeps on the bench by the deserted round house on stilts.
We like meeting new neighbors. Why, just today we met the deranged guy with the machete who was hiding something in the trunk of his car when I walked by. I said hi, and his eyeballs googled around in his skull when he looked at me. Welcome to the neighborhood!
Usually we run all the way down the path, and Otterpop pulls hard when we get to where we turn to go down our beach path. Sometimes I stop to let Ruby look for fish in the creek. I don’t think there’s any in there, but she always likes to look. When the guy with the one really big shoe comes limping down the path, binoculars in hand to watch the crows way up in the palm trees, I call her back up so we can go on.
your neighborhood sounds scary. when i used to fly my paraglider in monterey, along the old fort ord coastal ridge, it was sort of like that. dirty little tents in the undergrowth, the occasional act of public copulation below me on the beach, a good reason to stay in the air. still, one gets to see the ocean and dolphins and sea lions along with the strangeness. and you have the Team to protect you.
valpig
It's not scary, though. It's just my neighborhood.
We did wake up yesterday morning to find that there was a shooting on our corner in the night, the shooter raced by our house when he fled. We slept through the gun shots and police car sirens and ambulance and paramedics.
We are good sleepers, all of us.
We still love our neighborhood. Mostly things like this don't happen.
I just lurve that second picture. That's so Shore/Eggleston! And I don't ordinarily like those photogs.
– Anonymous bush dog poster and occasional street photog.
Your neighborhood sounds very much like where I grew up. San Francisco. You see the same colorful characters, mostly harmless, living on the streets, in parked cars, and in the houses/apartments in the neighborhood.
I sorta got used to it and although some individuals were scarey, most were just the people that lived around me and I didn't know any different.
Now, where I live it would be unusual to have a colorful character living in my neighborhood. My neighborhood just doesn't attract them. In some ways, I miss the city atmosphere, in other ways I don't.
BTW, I love, love, love, your house colors. We are painting our house right now and are going with a cranberry/cherry color for the doors.