People Watching

Since this is the last week of summer break, my very kind advisor, who is also my very kind boss, decided to give us the week off. Which has meant that I now have the time to get to know my neighbors. Not by introducing myself to them or anything crazy like that, but by quiet observation. Aka: spying. There's the afraid-of-dogs woman, who has provided me with endless entertainment, first by running away from my dog, then by speaking loudly on her cell phone while walking around outside, and finally by spilling some form of food or drink in her car EVERY. TIME. she gets in. I think that so far, she's by far my favorite neighbor.

Then, there's the couple who owns the Very Sad Mercedes. In fact, I think that between the two of them, the Very Sad Mercedes might be the only car, which is very sad indeed since it has been out of commission for a while now. About a week ago, I was woken up by The Dog, who was barking furiously. So off I went to the window, only to find a tow truck pulling into the parking lot. After an initial period of panicking that it might have come to tow MY car, I realized that it had not been called by apartment management, but rather by the Mercedes couple. And for the past week, I've noticed its absence in the parking lot and then yesterday, it got towed back here. A week in the shop and the thing had to be TOWED back. And right now? I'm really glad I own an easy-to-fix Toyota.

And last but not least. I woke up this morning to a burnt smell. My first thought, of course, was that I had left the oven on last night and the building was now burning down as a result, but once that not altogether unlikely fear was put to rest, I convinced myself that I was making it up in my head. Turns out I wasn't in fact making it up and that something was burning--just not in my apartment. When I took the dog for his morning walk, I walked down the stairs only to be assaulted by the burning smell again. And there, outside the door of the apartment below us sat a still-smoking bag of charred popcorn.

So that's three out of the 15 families that live in my building and I am oh-so-excited to find out about the rest.