Welcome to Our Neighborhood.

I'm a tad burnt out on writing serious posts, so here's an introduction to where we live for those of you who have never visited the Krycho apartment.

Our apartment complex is a strange place - its convenient location a few minutes from OU would suggest that it would be filled with college students, but it is instead filled with a mixture of cute families and seedy groups of dubious relations. Despite the speed bumps, it is also a prime place for cars to speed through, often blaring the sweet strains of rap music. 

I don't understand the speeding, especially given the number of children who play right in front of their doorstep where the cars are parked. Though right now, it seems most of the kids have flocked to one of the two swimming pools located on the premises. The swimming pools are a veritable smorgasbord of people-watching pleasure. That is, if you can tolerate the awkward PDA of late-twenties couples who don't seem to be bothered by the fact that there is a maelstrom of six- to ten-year-olds playing Marco Polo beside them. I often see characters at the pool that I don't see anywhere but the pool, and I make it my business to observe as many different people in the complex as possible. 

However, you can be certain you'll see a few particular people on most days. Our very friendly upstairs neighbor walks by our window at least five times a day and is nearly always shirtless. I often wonder if that's his convenient way of not accumulating laundry. This is the same fellow that very kindly let me shoot off a full-sized firework on the Fourth of July, which was great fun. What was not fun is when he shot off another one at 3 in the morning the next day. My first thought on bolting awake was, "Rockets!", my second, "Hope the apartment doesn't catch on fire." I also hoped the baby didn't wake up. She didn't, and neither did my husband.

Another noise you might hear at dark o' clock is a very profane domestic disturbance. These have not occurred so much, as of late, but maybe that's because neighbors, myself included, have had to call 9-1-1 a few too many times. 

The police recently spent three full days hanging out outside my particular apartment building, going in and out of one of our neighbor's apartments. That was interesting. I really wanted to ask them what was going on, knowing the worst they could tell me was, "I can't tell you," but I didn't think that would be very politic - therefore, I refrained. 

See? I have some control over my curiosity. :)

In all of this, I must remember that the neighbors also have to put up with Chris and me. I can't imagine what they must think on hearing Chris sing about munchkins on fire, or about penguins eating my mom's toenails. I also occasionally do strange things, like look out my window until someone walks by who looks like they can help me with a jar of sun-dried tomatoes that I can't get open for the life of me. In this instance it happened to be my brand-new military neighbor. He was in his camo when I darted outside to ask him if he'd open the jar, which he probably thought was the reason I decided he was an ideal candidate to perform this feat of strength. That might've been a little awkward for him, I guess, since I had never introduced myself before, and didn't then. But I'm telling you - that jar was stuck. Maybe only someone military could've opened it. That's what I like to tell myself.

All in all, we live in a neighborhood of fascinating and weird neighbors, but I suppose you don't have to be a normal neighbor to be a good one.