Spread

Get off my porch unless you’re wearing a UPS uniform.

Two pretty pretty ladies just came to my door, way too dressed up to be from my neighborhood. The first one says, "Because of last weekend, many people are thinking about Jesus."

And I'm like, "Last weekend?" My mind went immediately to the earthquake in Indonesia, but I tried to think of some disaster that was more local.

So she laughed sadly and reminded me: "Easter?"

I said, "Oh." Anyway, I felt insulted, like she thought I was a bad person because I couldn't read her mind.

And she told her partner, "See, that just goes to show how different people are," and she started on this spiel about how people regarded Jesus differently – some as the son of God, some as our Savior, some as the Messiah. What a wide range of opinions we people have!

Anyway, I told them I had to get back to work. Pretty sure Jesus wants me to finish grading these papers. And the first thing he wants me to tell my students is that it's not the reader's fault if they don't understand you when you're being vague.

Can’t pay bills right.

I got a phone call today from my township headquarters. It appears I dated the check I just sent them (my water/trash bill) "October" instead of "March." She wanted my permission to change that and cash the check. I said yes. But I can't figure out how I messed that up. It's not like 3 and 10 are even close. I hoped maybe I wrote the check on the 10^th of March and just transposed the month and the day, but nope. I checked my carbon copies, and I totally postdated the check as "10/21/12." Where was my head? And, crazy, I did the exact same thing on the next check to the electric company, so I'm expecting another call tomorrow.

How do you catch a kitten?

The backstory: about five years ago, Neighbor Kid built my cats a hotel out of old vacuum cleaner boxes (yes, somehow his family had more than one to contribute to the cause), with little doors and windows cut out, the three stories held together with twine. It was too big for my living room, so I put it out in the garage, and it's been there, uninhabited, ever since. Cut to this summer, when my cat Creed ran away and I put up lost-cat signs. Cut again to last weekend, when I got two phone calls asking about my lost cat, my phone number still being up at the EZ Stop. Some woman had found a black and white female, probably with kittens, living under her shed. This couldn't have been my grey boycat. I wished her the best.

Cut to yesterday, an hour before I had to go to class, when I discover (slowly, over a series of visits) that there are cats hiding out in my garage. A black and white mama and two kittens, I think. A cat family, or a clan of little Trowbridge warriors maybe. First, I just saw one wander in, and it didn't give me too much pause, since I see neighborhood cats around sometimes, but this one was little so I went to check on it. And once inside the garage, where did I find them huddled up? Seriously and literally, in Neighbor Kid's cardboard cat hotel. I'm a fiction writer, and I say, you can't make this shit up.

I've given them some food and water, and at Heikks' suggestion, some sleeping bags to keep warm in until I can catch them and take them to the Humane Society. But I can't catch them. They are fast, and not at all into me. And they can hide somewhere I can't see or reach in the garage's attic space. The littlest one kept running into things, a total spaz. I stopped chasing out of worry about damage to his tiny brain. Tips on luring them out appreciated.

But now I'm weirded out by the weekend's phone call. Was the woman saying she'd found a black-and-white cat with kittens telling me what she saw, or was she predicting my future? Was I calling myself from two days later with a heads-up? I wish she'd call again so I could pay attention to her voice, to see if she sounds like me.

Electric fence time?

Yesterday started weird – finding a dead bat on the floor (I thought it was a leaf the first time I walked by it!) – but got lots better. A trek to Blackrocks and dinner with Grandma and Papa and figuring out how to hang a quilt with paper clamps. And company. Heikks finally got to meet Neighbor Kid. That boy is so freaking full of advice – about my yard, my house, my lifestyle. I've decided to just quit listening as soon as he starts a sentence with "You should," which is most of the time.

Today's start was similarly distressing: hearing Neighbor Kid say hello to me through my open living room window. And now that he's 15, he can look straight through it too. No no no. I told him no, that talking to me through my window is an invasion of privacy. He said sorry and skulked away. I feel kind of bad, but still, please. I thought we went through this last summer, when he reached in through the window and petted one of the cats. But I guess I wasn't clear enough about the larger rule: don't be creepy. When is that kid going away to college?

Happy Fourth, everybody. I'm excited about the day; I just wish dusk came earlier, like wintertime early, just for today. By 10:00 I want to have already seen the fireworks and be home watching Torchwood on the couch with my girl.

And maybe later start a puzzle.

Came home from a sweet day with my nieces to find somebody had mowed my front and side lawns. I keep buying packets of cookie dough for when I catch one of my neighborhood angels doing me a good deed, but then I keep eating it.

Today goes like this; this is how I will fool myself into productivity. I have a bunch of work to do – editing and writing and getting stuff together for the new PN website. But I've not been getting it done. So today, I'll do stand-up, walk-around work. I'll clear damp crap out of the basement, clean my house, mow the rest of my lawn, bag things up for Good Will and for garbage day. This will tire me out and make me grateful that most of my actual work requires me only to sit on my ass and type.

Breaking bad, eh.

Woke up this morning to a garage blowing up down the street. Wandered outside to find a cop car blocking off Granite in front of my house and other neighbors in pjs. There's not much in the way of answers in this article, but there is a picture of the fire. (This is the house with the confederate flag, and the ten-foot-tall trucks always just back from mudding.) I can't decide if my neighbors – the ones wandering around this morning with their coffee cups – really think a propane tank exploded, or if they just want to protect from the idea of a meth lab a block away.

You look like Harry Potter.

Neighbor kid got glasses. "It's like seeing the world in HD," he said.

He looks just fine in them, though he fell for the lure of the transition lenses, just like I did at his age (well, I was younger, but I'd been wearing glasses since I was eight). You think they're going to be so versatile and magic: sunglasses when you need them, and regular glasses when you're inside. But really, you just walk around with half-shaded eyes all the time, like you're trying to be Bono.

Regardless, I'm even more impressed about the lego-bus he built for Popcorn last week (I'm still kicking myself for not getting a picture for you guys), given he constructed the whole thing in a blur.

Lamplighter? Service station attendant? Typesetter?

Yesterday, I hosted a rummage sale in my yard. I put out a few things from my garage, but mostly it was guy stuff: tools and power tools and a couple of banjos. There's not a lot of traffic on my street, so really, most of the morning we sat on the porch and played Crack the Case. Eventually, a neighbor kid (different from capital-N Neighbor Kid but about his age) came over, drawn by the electric guitar, the amp, the foot pedals and microphones. He was in heaven, and stayed forever just drooling. Neighbor Kid, the original, came over then with his mouse on his shoulder and he and I chatted. He told me he knew the other kid, but clearly, they didn't run in the same circles. Other kid was confident and chill and wearing a Metallica t-shirt. They weren't friends.

I tried to hide out for a while, but eventually I gave up and went outside, case in hand: a man in black shoots a man in gray on a train. Why? I was pretty happy for a while, Neighbor Kid and other kid making crazy guesses and the four of us having a good time together. But Neighbor Kid couldn't stop himself. Soon it was: Was the killer a killer? Was the killer on a train? Was the killer wearing black? I just wanted to tell him to be cool. He climbed my maple tree instead.

Then other kid read a case for us, and it was a humdinger. We figured out the gossip columnist was killed by acid in the hot tub, but we needed to determine who killed her and why. Other kid told us that this person had an occupation that didn't really exist anymore. So we're going through every job that might have been replaced by computers: typist, VCR repair person, milk man? Eventually, he said the person worked on a roof. Antenna guy? And then, aha, I said: chimney sweep. And he said, yes, a chimnist.

I'd never heard the term chimnist, but I went with it. Was the chimnist having an affair with the movie star, did the chimnist owe somebody money? Was the killer Mary Poppins?

In the end, we gave up and he let us see the card. The killer was a chemist (and had access to acid). Crack the Case is hard with people who can't read.

I have heard that cleaning places will send a camera up your chimney and take digital video these days, so I'll give him credit for the obsolete comment, even if it led us very far astray. But really, all of this is just to say maybe Neighbor Kid doesn't need the cool kid to like him. Neighbor Kid's knowledge is pretty esoteric (a baby mouse is called a "pinky"), but at least I trust him when he tells me something.

The grey one is called Peanut.

Just got home from taking Noni back downstate, but I hardly even had time to be lonely before neighbor kid came over with his pet mouse, Popcorn. Seriously weird: the mouse sat on his shoulders the whole time he was here telling me about his fishing adventures out on Lake Whateverhesaid, near Iron River. And I was ridiculously worried when he held his pet out toward mine, but the cats refused to even acknowledge the mouse's presence. Maybe they're losing their hunting prowess in their mid-age, or maybe they know to respect a pet-mouse as off-limits. I have no idea. But I sincerely wished he would stop trying to cause chaos for everybody. Not tempting fate is my only resolution this year.

My first Facebook event.

The only bad thing about my fortieth birthday camping weekend was that Neighbor Kid showed up at it. Dude was not invited. I know we were camping in the town where I live, and not more than a mile from my house, but still, this was a bizarre turn of events. He tried to slip me three dollars and asked me to go down the store and buy him some bait. I don't want to encourage him asking me to buy anything for him. So I left the campground for a bit.

And what a sweet side trip, to watch the Finnish children folk dancing as reindeers and do a big photo session on the break wall. Otherwise, we all hung around the campground in one circle or another, usually surrounding either a fire, a baby, or a cake.  Pure joy.

I’m so grateful to everybody who made the trip. I expected the weekend to be lovely, surrounded by so many of my people. But I didn’t know I’d feel quite so happy at watching everybody else together. And a multi-hour Loaded Questions sessions means that they all know each other even better now. Next year, they could all even hold the event without me, though I feel pretty confident I’ll be invited anyway.

If the rock is white, it's snowing.

The longer I blog (and Spread’s been around about four and a half years now), the more I realize how cyclical (is it repetitive) my life is. Because I was just about to write my yearly blog about trying to get my lawnmower to start. But I’ll spare you. Long story short, it didn’t, and then it did, and then it didn’t again, for a few hours. But the lawn is mowed and thank goodness because today riding-mower neighbor was on the job in his own yard, and while I appreciate it, I also kind of don’t like when he mows my lawn. I don’t want to have to explain why he needs to maneuver that thing around the circular brick mini-amphitheater that Little Sweet built, and which Neighbor Kid revised to include a corner. None of his beeswax. And I don’t want to have to find a way to thank him. If I make him brownies I’ll just eat half of them.

When I came in from the day in the yard yesterday, I was so dirty and sweaty, and only then did I realize it was 79 degrees out. Silly day for a girl like me to be out in the sun. But today, I was prepared. I put on shorts and sunscreen before my walk because my iPod said it was 75 out. I drove out to Sugarloaf, and on the way realized it wasn’t 75 at all. By the time I got there, my car thermometer said 58. I was wearing shorts for nothing. Next time, I’ll stick my arm out the window before I head to the basement to get dressed.

Okay, I borrowed a weed wacker, so I’m back out to the yard to test it out. The fire pit is so grown over you’d never recognize it from its heyday. 

All set for mail. Write away.

All it took was a guy with a jeep full of tools and another old man with a cane walking by with some know-how. I'm just sad neighbor kid missed the whole opportunity to be helpful.

 

The season of Neighbor Kid has begun.

Yesterday was a blustery one, and my mailbox-in-a-bucket tipped over at least three times. I stood it back up twice. It's not that big a deal, except one of the falls dented the metal mailbox itself so that I couldn't shut the flap, which, gr, because I chose to buy the replacement post rather than the all-in-one-piece plastic job that I considered but was more expensive. I mean, the mailbox itself was fine, until yesterday.

When I saw it on the ground the third time last night, it was late, and I said eff it, since there's no mail on Sundays anyway. But when I woke up this morning, it was propped up all neat, with the flap closed. Some kind neighbor or passerby must have picked it up and rebent the box so it could close. Aw. I know it wasn't neighbor kid because he's already been over this morning, and he would have told me. (He's generous with his help, but he wants credit for it. Don't we all.) Instead, he told me about how he found his mouse and how his garage door broke and how the big gash on his face wasn't the result of some accident but merely a pimple he messed with far too much. Sorry I asked.

I don't know. Sometimes I feel sorry for myself, but then I realize how stupid I am. Somebody I don't even know did me a little favor, so this morning, I finally got packed a box of presents I've been meaning to send to Nora and put "mother's day" on my list for today so I get something in the mail for my mom tomorrow. I guess that's not exactly paying it forward, since these are people I already love, but I hope it's a start. Oh, and I watched an online video about how to use a posthole digger, and it didn't look that complicated. Baby steps.

Handykid.

So the snow has melted, and now nothing is holding up my mailbox anymore. It's lying on the ground, dead. I was about to drive to Lowes, maybe just get an all-plastic one and have them install it, but the ground is probably still too frozen to dig a hole. So I found a bucket, for a temporary fix, and now I'm just waiting for Neighbor Kid to get home from school and come visit. He'll help me fill it with something to hold the post upright. Right?

What walls are for.

Neighbor kid's hand just reached inside my living room window to pet the cat sitting on the sill. I'm on the couch reading student stories for tomorrow, and I already told him, at the front door where all interaction should take place, that I was busy. He reached in the window and it creeped me out, and I yelled, "Don't do that." He's too short for me to see his head through the window, but I could hear him like he was inside. "I'm just petting him." And then he reached inside again. I said, "I said don't do that!"

I can still hear him skulking through the leaves out there. Some days I think I'd give him one of my cats to keep if he'd just stay home with it.

That was a FUN raiser. I think I made that very clear in the fliers.

Neighbor Kid's school is doing some fundraising. He had a catalog full of weird options – lots of magazines, and pizza cutters, and twenty-dollar candles. He tried to talk me into the "Kitty Cling" t-shirt. (You know, a tromp l'oeil number you wear to make people think you've got lots of kittens hanging on your shirt.) I said I didn't like to buy t-shirts out of catalogs because you could never tell how heavy the cotton is, and Neighbor Kid said it appeared to be quite soft, if you asked him. But I'm on the kid's side, so I wanted to order something. I ended up subscribing to Shape magazine, which I've never even heard of, but it was on special, and some pricey Frosty the Snowman wrapping paper. Filling out the form, I saw he'd talked his previous neighbor into the Kitty Cling, so good for him. We weren't quite sure, either of us, who to write the check out to, and he kept just throwing out options: his school name, the catalog's name, Mqt public schools. He also suggested I could leave the date field blank until we figured it out. If this wrapping paper ever arrives, I will consider it a miracle.

Hounded.

Neighbor Kid caught me examining the garage door before my trip to Lowe's yesterday, so he knew I was going to replace that doorknob. No matter, to him, that I was on the phone with my mom at the time, and I kept telling him, "I'm on the phone," and still he kept lingering around and asking me, "Are you cleaning up the garage a little." To me, "I'm on the phone" meant "Go away," but we don't use the same dictionary, I guess. He hovered. But it's not his fault that I'd had kind of a bad day at school and was cranky to begin with. When I hung up, I tried to be kinder, and even explained I wasn't having a great day, and then said goodbye because I was off to the store.

I hadn't been home ten minutes when he stopped by and asked if I'd gotten that new doorknob in yet. I said no, and that I was working tonight, and he offered to take care of it for me. I know this should be my dream offer, but this is something I can handle myself and despite his fervor and creativity, I don't actually trust him to do a neat job with it. I said no thanks and, again, that I was working. Meaning, in my language, don't come back tonight.

Ah, but he did. He was so bored and could he PLEASE put in the doorknob?

Part of my annoyance is that my bad day at school was because of this student who reminds me of Neighbor Kid in Neighbor Kid's bad ways, but without Neighbor Kid's good heart. This student can't seem to leave me alone either, and I just feel pestered by all the wrong boys.

And then another knock at the door later, and this time it was Neighbor Kid's little brother, who comes over only when he's looking for Neighbor Kid, and I felt bad because he hadn't gone home and maybe he was upset I wouldn't let him help me. And now I either have to put in the doorknob today while he's at school or let him be a part of the process, and I wish I could just get to decide when I want to do things without taking some kid around the corner into account.

Not that all the boys in my life are driving me crazy, though. One student turned in a writing assignment with a missing word penciled in and the note: "I'm sorry. I love you." No idea why he wrote that, but as long as he doesn't follow me to my car after class or show up on my porch, I'll take it as a something nice.

Hopeless.

I put a "wet paint" sign on my porch even though it's dry. Neighbor kid may not read people well, but he obeys the rules.

I felt kind of bad for having done it even before he saw me through the window and called my name. I didn't even look at first. Just called back I was busy and there was music on so I couldn't really even hear him. But he was persistent so I poked my head out, and he had a nearly dead chipmunk in his hands. The fat cat had been on his way inside with it. Oh dear.

He said he was going to take it home and try to save it.

I went back outside later, and found him sitting on the upside-down recycle bin looking sad and holding one of the cats. He had tried everything he could. He blew into the chippy's nose, and then he shocked it with a battery(?). But no luck reviving the little thing.

I said the chipmunk was lucky he was there, that nobody else would have given it such an effort. I thought we were having a little moment. But then he said, "A vet would have given it more effort," and I said, "No he wouldn't," and he said, "If it was a pet, he would've," and we argued about that until I sent him home.

I need caution tape.

It's official. Today is the day I finish painting my porch. What's left to do is the floor part, and the three-and-a-half steps. What I *want* to do is prime it, go teach class, come back and paint it. But something tells me bad things will happen if I leave. Between the cats and Neighbor Kid, I feel like I need to be here for the whole process or I'll come back to little kid prints leading to all sorts of surprising places.

Maybe it's not a bad idea. Maybe I'd find out what he gets into when I'm not here.

Allow me.

Neighbor kid is back from vacation. It appears Missouri is awesome. They have cinnamon rolls and hard-boiled eggs and frogs this big. But he told me all the good stuff in his very first breath, so we didn't have much to talk about after that.

I was painting my porch. I've been scraping for a couple days, and still have only finished one section of railing, so I decided to just prime that part – to mix it up. Neighbor kid wants to help paint. Kid can fix things that don't need to look good, but I wouldn't trust him with paint. So I tell him he's welcome to scrape the other parts of the porch. Which he's clearly not into because he does it for all of a minute before suggesting a million other things I should do. Wash the windows, paint the door, sledgehammer a loose railing back into place, replace the porch with steps and a patio. He offers to scrape the door. Scrape what? It's metal and nothing's peeling off it. He can scrape the porch or he can just sit there and talk to me. Those are his options. He didn't stick around long.

People always do this: offer to be helpful but only in the way they want to be helpful. Like they offer to do your laundry and instead sew little patches on all your jeans. Or instead of carrying a dresser upstairs for you, they knock out your closet to make room for built-in shelves. They mean well, I guess, and I'm sure I do it too. But if I do it to you, let me know. Say, no, I asked you to dust, not to reorganize all my books.

I'm crabby. But I'm heading out to meet my dad for a play at the boathouse theater in a few. That should turn things around.

Moxi.

Sparky and I put my new DVR to the test this weekend: Daisy and baby pageants and elephant-print dresses and chat stew, plus twenty questions about Frank McCourt. We didn't stray too far from the couch. Neighbor kid did come visit, though, and said he's going to be out of town for the next nine days. Who will tell me what to do with the cats? Who will ask me how my day is going?

Let me tell you.

A productive day. I finally gave up on the toilet paper holder in my bathroom, which kept falling off the wall even after I resorted to liquid nails, so today I patched and painted the wall where it had been. I chiseled a little pit into the windowsill for the new one, the kind that's supposed to hook over your tank and hold an extra roll. Geez, did somebody ask about where I keep my toilet paper? Probably no.

I bought tickets for me and my dad to see Anatomy of a Murder at the little theater in Lower Harbor, and I spray painted my rusty porch light cover. Oh, and I cleaned my fridge. It was grungy, and I got to throw out a bunch of old condiments that other people left here. Goodbye, cocktail sauce from the Steelers/Seahawks Superbowl. That's February of aught-six, if anybody's counting.

Neighbor kid gave me The Simpsons movie on DVD to watch (so I'll better understand his jokes, I guess), so that was on in the background for some of my day. He actually asks me if I need him to do anything when he comes over now, so sometimes I save things. Like, I couldn't figure out how to remove the glass parts of the porch light, so I had it set aside for him to handle. He's still pretty bossy, though. He insists Fat Cat should be fed on a schedule, which just seems complicated and unkind. And he makes up numbers – "Say, oh, a half a cup in the morning and a half a cup for lunch and a half a cup at night." That kind of pretending to know something drives me batty, but I guess he's hardly the only boy in the world who does it.

Bebe le pew.

Neighbor kid's trap didn't catch the raccoon, but it did capture a baby skunk. Note that it never occurred to me that an actual animal would ever go in there and trip the door. I'm not sure why I thought it was so unlikely, but perhaps it had to do with the bait: carrots and macaroni noodles. Neighbor kid said raccoons like decomposing food, so he put them in the microwave a little before he brought them over. Par-rotting, I think that's called.

So yeah, I took out some garbage today and noticed something little and furry in the trap. I thought it was a bunny. But then I saw his white-striped nose and tail. Oh my. There's no big adventure here; baby skunk was set free in the woods behind the fence, and he didn't spray. But I do wonder when I became a magnet for this kind of thing? Between the cats and the Neighbor Kid, my cup runneth over with gifts of wildlife.

I’ve got to stop saying “boy.”

Neighbor kid is presently outside spiffing up my wheelbarrow. He offered to clean and spray paint it (did I prefer silver or gold, he asked), in exchange for letting him use my spray paint on his model plane. How could I say no? Of course, please pimp my wheelbarrow. Why not.

Earlier, he popped his head in the front door and told me, "I'll be working on my plane if you need me."

It's like the universe hears me, but only kind of. Because "I'll be out in the garage if you need me" is exactly the kind of sentence I want in my life. Just not from a little kid.

Negotiations.

When I came back from Esky, I found a little rectangular trap sitting on top of my garbage can. Yesterday, neighbor kid came over to explain it. It's for the raccoon that keeps getting into my garbage.

"Just put a little piece of banana in there," he said.

"I don't have any bananas," I told him.

"Any fruit will do."

"I have frozen raspberries?"

"You should go to the grocery store," he said.

True that.

"But," I worried, "won't the cats get caught in it?"

He said, "Naw, it's too small for the cats."

"Then how will a raccoon fit in there?"

"It'll scrunch up."

"Won't the cats scrunch up?"

Oh, we went back and forth.

I also asked him what to do with a raccoon if I caught it. He said to drive it over to the woods behind Vandenboom and let it go. Drive it over! I said no way. If I caught a raccoon, I was coming over to his house to get him so he could take care of it.

And then, the weirdest thing. He said he had to leave. Never, ever is he the first one to disengage. I almost felt sad.

Little inventor.

My nights are quiet, since Neighbor Kid goes to bed at 8:30, but oh the mornings. Today, he announced that a raccoon had gotten into my garbage. Indeed it had, and made a mess. Maybe, possibly, it was because there was a dead bird in there? Ugh. So we rebagged everything (no dead bird to be found). I was going to come back in, but he seemed ready for more, so after we washed our hands, I asked him if he could help me fix my other garbage can, the one with a top to keep raccoons out. The wheels had popped out, and I couldn't get them back in. This was fine when there was snow out, since I could just wedge it in a snowbank. But since spring, it just falls over. So he requested some duct tape and did his junior engineering thing. Like last week, when he wanted a tennis ball and some yarn so he could make a cat toy, and I said that wouldn't work, and he came back the next day with the tennis ball, tiny holes drilled in it, attached to a fishing pole. Not that the cats loved it even after all his work.

And so I'm working on a manuscript today, and I told him that after the garbage can adventure, but he just came to the door again anyway. He wanted to know when Cosmo last had his rabies shot. He's all up to date, I told him, and he said good. I thought he was telling me Cos got bit by that raccoon or something, and jumped up to find out. Turns out the cat bit the Neighbor Kid. Oh. And he showed me, although I would actually call the wound a scratch. Yup, you're good, I told him. No rabies for you. But maybe the cats wouldn't be so fussy if he'd stop whacking them with a tennis ball on a string.

My cats’ personal assistant, I guess.

Neighbor kid came to the door this morning before I'd even had my coffee to give me a dead bird. Seriously: "I found this in your yard." I wasn't sure what my role was exactly, since my yard seemed like a fine enough place for a dead bird and didn't know why I needed to be involved in moving it somewhere else. But he wanted a plastic bag, so I gave him one. He put the bird in the bag and handed the whole shebang back to me, so I put the bird in the trash. Which is not where I would have preferred it. Then he asked for hand sanitizer. What a way to wake up.

A wizard abroad.

Neighbor kid seems on especially good behavior lately. He built a cathouse out of boxes from home (two vacuum cleaner boxes and one from a set of dishes), and he tried to help us find the wasp nest that must be nearby. I think it's Little Sweet's presence making him all gentlemanly, which is weird and creepy and cute all in one. But she's just not that into him. (In fact, she just told me to "minus the cute" in that last sentence.) If he would just bring over a book, maybe he could fit in with us better.

Aw.

Neighbor kid just fixed my fence. I wonder if he's any good at electrical work. Or closets.

45 degrees yesterday, 77 today?

I can't get a grip on this weather, and my place is a disaster. I've turned it completely upside down, and now I'm annoyed at myself. I'm going to finish painting the other walls today. Then I'm free to move furniture, but things are heavy. How do I get my giant TV where I want it all by myself? I don't even remember how it got where it was.

I did move the couch all alone. It's along the back wall now, and I kind of like the view from here. Not the view of the mess (aargh), but I can see the driveway, so I'll have a few more seconds to anticipate neighbor kid's arrival. Not that he surprises me often. His bike has no back tire, so it makes quite a racket. Plus, the cats always come running in the door when they see him coming.

I'm just trying to avoid standing up and getting to work. Okay, okay. Here I go.

Employed.

I've got a contract for next year, so I can afford to keep the blog. Celebrate good times.

The news came the night before my previous contract ran out. I almost had to turn in my laptop. And worse, my boss put me through the ringer by calling me at 9:45 p.m. and telling me to come over. (That sounds weird, and it is, in that it's kind of late for an invite from your boss, but it's also not weird in the way you think. He was at my friend/his ladyfriend's house, and they are like my local mom and dad.) But I was positive it was bad news. I thought, if they want to be with me when they tell me what they're going to tell me, they must be worried about how I'll react, or they want to hug me and tell me things will be okay, or make sure I don't crack up. On the ride over, I tried to imagine a whole new life without work. Well, without a paycheck and health insurance.

But they had good news for me. I'm still on the team. I don't know my full schedule for the fall, but I do have two of my favorite classes, so it'll be good regardless. In fact, hm, I have a book order to put in.

So big picture, life's good. But when big cat jumped in the window last night with a celebratory baby rabbit, I had to tell him it was not necessary. Oh dear. The bunny was so little, but luckily, not terribly hurt by the trip inside. Big cat let her go, and he and the little cat tag-teamed her around the living room. I was on the phone with Peter, and he told me, "There's plenty of rabbits." (You'd think with a name like Peter you'd be more sympathetic to rabbits.) I suppose so, I said, but I really really didn't want this one eaten on my watch.

She made her way under the loveseat, and from there, I used my curling skills to broom her into the open and toward and out the door. She jumped off the porch, twenty times her own height, and my hope is she made it back home. She did.

Peter thinks one day the cats will capture neighbor kid through the window, and he'll read it here on Spread: "Oh no, everybody! The cats left me a little boy in my living room!" The prey is getting bigger and bigger, so I wouldn't be surprised.

Stories about dust.

I heard neighbor kid on the porch, talking to my wounded kitty. (Cosmo has a big puncture wound, and I took him in today for antibiotics and shaving and pain meds. He hasn't moved from under the table since but seems content.) Then he stuck his head inside and said, "Would you like to come outside and talk with me for a while?" Such a gentlemanly invitation I have not had in a long while. So I took my coffee outside for a visit. We fretted about the swine flu, and he told me how vaccines are made. We theorized about how Cosmo got hurt, and he told me about he sprained his wrist jumping off his bike. He told me I might be better off vaccinating the cats every six months, just to be safe. (Oh, not for swine flu, this was a separate moment, but you can see how we got form one topic to the next.) We drew pictures in the soft yellow pollen that had fallen on my glass top table. And he told me how his grandfather used to take a paintbrush into his grandmother's garden and swoop it across the tops of the flowers, spreading pollen from flower to flower like paint.

He's a good kid.

Between the apples and the chloroform.

I returned from a walk today to find neighbor kid playing with the cats through the open window. Actually, he scared me out of my shoes. I had my iPod on, and was pretty much in my own head, so when I passed the garage to find what I thought was some man reaching into my house, I yelped out loud. (I know, great strategy.) Ah, it was just him. We haven't spent a lot of quality time together, so I opened the front door so the cats could get out proper and we sat on the porch a bit. Things I learned: cats eat more meat than dogs. (I tried asking what this meant exactly. In the wild? Given a sample of dogs and cats who fend for themselves?) And that doves often freeze to death. He thinks the one in my house was probably already frozen when a cat brought it inside. I don't know. Maybe. He found one in his compost heap. Though part of me wonders if that was my dove, the one I threw outside, and if Cosmo carried it over there as a present for him.

My red-couch person.

If it's 50 degrees, it must be neighbor kid season. He just turned thirteen a few days ago. I need to get him a belated birthday present for next time he's over. A book, I guess. I just thought thirteen looked older than that.

But really, it's just like talking to any guy however old: He says, "Something something something." I say, "No way, and you know what, connected to that?" And he says, "Anyway."

Won’t you be my neighbor.

The house across the street from me is for sale, if anyone's in the market for a change. "Nice area, convenient location," the ad says. Especially if where you're headed is my place. It's almost bonfire time.

Cleared.

Men and their snow removal systems! I told you I hired a plow service, and it's been marvelous. They've come twice – that magic first time when they transformed by driveway from an ice cave back into a place I could park my car, and once more. They're not spazzy about plowing; a couple inches of snow doesn't send them running over here, and thank goodness because they charge money, and as long as I can get my car out, I'm cool.

But I look out my window on Saturday to see a neighbor clearing my driveway with his four-wheeler. (Not my usual four-wheeling neighbors, but a dad who lives diagonal from me. He's usually a snowblower guy.) And I'm all annoyed now. I mean seriously? The second I call in professionals he wants to help out? Not that my driveway has been his responsibility all winter by any means, of course. But I was just starting to love the idea that this snow plowing was simply a business endeavor, and he goes and makes it all about something personal again. Now I have to be grateful.

Not another one.

I've got neighbor kid enlisted in my search for Willa. This is good, because if she's in somebody's living room, he'll find out. But he does seem to need to check in with me all the time about his progress. (He's got a printer that's also a scanner if we want to make more posters.) Today, he needed a flashlight because he thought he saw something in the aluminum culvert in the shallow ditch across the street. So we went and investigated a few up of these hiding places and down the block, but thank goodness, no cats. On the way, we were asked what we were doing by the little boy who lives diagonal from me. We told him, and he kept building his spaceship or whatever. I know this kid because he seems to be fundraising for something quite often. He sells chocolate, with or without almonds. I don't know what eight-year-olds need all this money for, but since it's Sayklly's, I'm a supporter. His mom always waves thank you from the street. But otherwise, this kid doesn't come over.

Until tonight. I hear this shy knock on the door. He says, "You said you were looking for a cat." Both boycats are slinking around the porch doing their usual dusktime rituals, my real-live gargoyles getting ready for bed. The kid waves his hand at them like he's Vanna White.

"Thanks," I told him, "but I wasn't looking for them."

It was a sweet gesture, and maybe he really did pick one up on his side of the street and carry him home, as opposed to just seeing them in my yard and coming over to point them out. I don't know. But it feels good to have some deputies on the watch with me.

Strolling down the avenue.

The universe misheard me and sent over *my* shadow instead of *the* Shadow. So neighbor kid and I talked cats. He suggested making a catnip tea to help steam out Coz's plugged-up little nose. And he found a new way to make him purr. (Honestly, I couldn't bring myself to look when he announced that, so I don't know what the method was, exactly.) And then he suggested we watch Family Guy. I hate that show, but I wasn't busy. Turns out I could only make it through one segment of "Did you see the one where Peter's dad died?" and "Chris always wears that hat" and that sad, effortful laughing of his before I had to send him home. (No worries, he's been back three times since then, and probably would have come again if the last time I hadn't set him to sweeping.) I didn't wear my helmet for any of it.

I'm not sad, though, because my company is flying in tonight. We'll do every little thing we've got planned, which is absolutely nothing. He hasn't even left yet, and I'm already checking the status of his flight online.

What part of “shornt” don’t you understand?

Sometime when I was not here, my invisible neighbor mowed my lawn again. All five parts. I seriously don't even know how he got into the backyard and around the lilac jungle in his riding mower, but lawd do I like this guy. And I wonder if he's got a weed wacker. You think?

I'm surrounded by some pretty sweet old neighbors here – mower guy, snowblower dad, and snowplow grandpa. What could I secretly do for them while they're not home? Sneak old New Yorkers into their mailboxes? Edit their outgoing letters? Type up transcripts of The Office for them? I think I'm pretty good at my job, but in terms of the township, I don't think I really have any talents worth sharing.

Even neighbor kid is more useful than I am. He stopped by yesterday to tell me, "Next time, when your basement floods, and there's water, what you should do is, you should look for cracks in the walls, and in the floors, because that's where the water's coming in." Not that I had asked.

With enormous wings.

My mornings are not generally eventful. I get up, drink coffee, check for letters from you all, make my way to school at my leisure. But today, I looked outside my bathroom window and saw that all the recycling I'd put out last night had been blown helter skelter across the whole neighborhood. Crippity crap. I ignored it through my first cup of coffee, but then I went out to gather it up. Thing is, what blew around was the boxes my bed had come shipped in, these sheets of cardboard like five-by-eight feet. And it was windy. So I'd grab an end of a couple and drag them back, and the wind would catch them, and seriously, I'd be drawn backward up the road. And me in my pjs and my puffy green coat.

Since I was up, I got stuff done. The post office, and the library, and one stop at the gas station for coolant. But at the campus Mobil, they wanted $20 for a bottle of it. Eff that. And I cut my finger gathering the trash and got a splinter picking up my socks off the basement steps so that's two Spongebob bandaids on one hand. Chaos.

But in all, I got here in plenty of time for my appointment with the cute doctor downstairs. I'm fine, I just go in there once in a while so he can put his hands on my neck and feel around.

High torque pendulum drive.

The UP warms up enough to melt and it appears the neighbor's engine-revving season has begun. Joy. Or maybe their activity is related to the time change, to the extended light at night.

You know, I could have totally not even noticed springing forward on Sunday. So many of my clocks are automated. My phone, my computer, my TV – they all changed without any input from me. I just woke up to a new hour. As opposed to when I was little. The night before, my dad would go around and find each clock's little key and turn the hands to tomorrow's new time. There was ritual involved. Your grandfather clock needed you to do things.

Estimation.

When neighbor kid came by yesterday, I said I was painting. And "Oh God, no," was probably a mean answer to, "You want some help," but can you imagine? Today, I gave him the more standard I'm-working response, but he still dragged me outside to see his new scooter. Have so much fun, I told him, and he said, "Hug?"

 

I really don't want to progress into a touching relationship with a 12-year-old boy. He probably doesn't even have is own miter saw.

 

But Spec does. (And a wife, I'm pretty sure, so don't get excited that way.) Thanks, Peter. I stopped down at his shop, and he seems quite nice. He's redoing a whole entire house in my neighborhood, but he's going to stop by and check out the project. I'm looking forward to his visit more than if it really was a date.

Namesake.

I've gotten pretty good at telling neighbor kid to scram. But today, he had a Christmas present in hand. And I didn't get him anything, ever. So he came in, and I went to open it and he pointed out the tag that said, "Do not open until Christmas." Sneaky sneaky, that little boy is, because then he was in and his shoes were off and he was all over the red couch, and we were going to what, talk?

So we did. "I think Christmas isn't about the giving or the getting; it's about the loving," he said. He says things like this. These are our conversations.

Then he noticed the fish was blue. Oh yeah, I told him, the other one died. I didn't think this would be tough news for him – that some fish a block away had kicked the bucket – but I'd forgotten that on one visit Sparky had told him we named the fish after him. So it was more of a moment than I'd planned for, or at least maybe it should have been.

More awkward.

Neighbor kid is getting creepy, or growing up or something. Aspergers kids, they say (and I know because I watch Top Model) have trouble with eye contact. Perhaps in the past he has, though I suspect it was me mostly not looking him in the eye in case that was too inviting and he'd think to wedge his foot in my closing door. But lately, he doesn't even pretend to turn his eyes up toward my face. He honestly talks directly to my chest. It freaks me out.

But after he showed me his stitches, I escaped to the whole other side of town. And the best part is that I rode most of the way on the handlebars of somebody's bicycle. Really.

I’m painting the windows black.

Neighbor kid walked over playing a recorder today. Probably hoped to be some sort of pied cat piper, but they all scattered underneath furniture at his arrival. And besides, it's not called a recorder, he said. It's called a flutophone.

Calculations I’ve never considered.

Company's coming, and you know what that means. Time to buy club soda and soy milk and dispose of any dead animals on the walk to the door. Neighbor kid and I argued about whether today's was a mouse or a mole, but really – it had no head, so I'm not sure I even care.

"How many square feet is your house?" he asked me, and nodding knowingly when I answered. Then he said, "You'd need two bug bombs to get rid of all the ear wigs," as if I'd asked.

The township crier.

Neighbor kid just came by to tell me about "the fire by Vandenboom," the elementary school nearby. A couple of kids he knows started it, he said. I couldn't tell if he was proud of them or critical, or just happy to have bad-boy connections like that. I was interested at first: Did the school burn down? Are the kids okay? Was it a big fire?

 

About two square feet, said.

 

Well, I guess that is news worth running all the way over here to tell me. Pft. Though strangely I had a fire dream last night. Something had caught my oven skirt on fire (thank goodness that invention went out of fashion) and even when I put it out, random little circles of flames would pop up across the floor. I had to step on them. And when I called the fire department, the lady wouldn't help me because I wasn't in the city proper. Bitch.

Guarded.

Remember how I had the whole conversation with neighbor kid about the yarn leash? Apparently, he thought the thing I took issue with was the material of the leash. So last night he brought one over he'd made out of "hemp tape without the sticky stuff," whatever that is. (It felt like ribbon.) He said, "Lots of people leash-train their cats." I still disagree on this point.

 

But I'd already sent him home three other times, so I said if he found a cat outside he could try it. Poor Nuwanda hasn't mastered running away from danger yet, and so he got to be the guinea pig. I watched to make sure there was no torture going on, but really, it only seemed to work when he was willing to follow where the cat wanted to go. So I'm not sure exactly which one of them was being leash-trained there.

 

When I came back from Escanaba, he asked me, "Were you on vacation?" I said yeah and started to brag about my sister's baby, but he wasn't interested. "Did you take the cats with you?" Uh, no."Because I peeked in the windows," he said. "And I didn't see any of them."

 

Gr. I don't even need a catsitter, because I've got an eleven-year-old who'll press his nose up against the glass for nothing.

Interviewing pool boys soon.

As I suspected, I needed someone unafraid to touch dead animals before I needed a card partner. Skinny cat brought home a bird -- a big bird! -- today. Ran right past me on the porch with it fluttering in his mouth. By the time I worked up the courage to go inside and investigate, it was no longer fluttering.

I took care of things, but don't think part of me didn't consider waiting until neighbor kid came by. I'm pretty sure he would've helped me out. How depressing, the thought that he might be my best option for things-I-think-I-need-a-man-around-for.

Today's fight with the neighbor kid.

Him: Can I take Cosmo for a walk?

Me: No. People don't take cats for walks.

Him: I've got a leash.

Me: That's not a leash. That's a piece of yarn.

Him: He likes wearing it.

Me: No he doesn't.

Him: I can tell he likes wearing it.

Me: He does not.

Him: Besides, it's a specialized leash for cats.

Me: It's yarn, with a bell tied on it.

Him: Plus, he likes it.