Thursday, March 15, 2007

My windows are open

... now, and I'd like to write about dogs. No so much of a rant, than a rave?
My neighbor's dogs bark a barbershop quartet. There's a bass New Foundland, a spaniel, a tenor Corgie-mix and a pug, assaulting every tinctature of my eardrum. Actually, I'm not sure if the pug barks. He just kind of stands around and shakes the hypothetical tambourine.
A neighbor boy, 11 or so, though, sometimes just happens to walk his monsterous Great Dane past the yard. The New Foundland raises his dusty bulk, bounds toward the chain-links and roars masterful rage. That boy is my hero. The commotion is magnificent.
The subdivision I grew up in in New Jersey wasn't an ... airtight, treeless, taupe newcomer-depository (like we have around here, sorry), but I don't think I've ever lived in a real neighborhood until now. I look out my front door and see family-dogs-on-leashes. Terriers and greyhounds. Baby strollers. Greyhounds peering adorably into baby strollers. Tattooed neighbors, carrying babies. All waving, as I read on the porch. Even the dogs. (Which is kind of a dumb ending, but I was going for poignant, with a dab of mystic mystery, and came up empty. Maybe I'll try one more time ... )
I know I'm living in the perfect place, when I look out my open window under a full moon, and see the Corgie, the pug, the New Foundland, the Great Dane, the greyhounds, and the babies all dancing, paw-in hand-in-paw, in a great grand circle.

4 comments:

Cindy said...

I love the picture you paint with words! Your neighborhood sounds great! :)

Tangeline said...

And, probably, a little scary.

Anonymous said...

It sounds much more lively than your prior "neighbourhood." (Which always struck me as a bunch of building dropped on top of once viable farmland...which, I suppose, should not be surprising since that's what it was.)

I love living in a city with established patterns of community, shops, transportation, etc. Cities here in Europe seem so much better planned than most of the States.

Tangeline said...

Well, I guess Europe was designed to be useful-to-walkers, and therefore more efficient and compact, vs. America's layout as only-useful-to-Subarus.