2/26/2011 - our neighbors' names. . .

All of a sudden, Sam and I have neighbors.

Obviously, we have always had neighbors, but they were only those we would see on occasion, smile and nod furtively as we pass each other in the hallway or by the mailboxes.  Sam and I both tend to keep to ourselves and feel most comfortable within the confines of our unit.  Now, we have neighbors, the kind who stand around with us when we take Grr out, ones who laugh and share stories of pets, our own and others'.

We remember those pets' names the best, often better than their owners'.  Sometimes, we don't even bother to find out what our neighbors' names are, instead, referring to them as 'Deacon's Mom,' or 'Socks' Dad,' even if we know that Deacon's Mom's name is Monica.  It just feels strange, almost indecorous to call them 'Monica' or, well, we don't even know Socks' Dad's name.

But we now all get along famously.  Our dogs make circles around each other in an effort to gain the best access to each others' asses while we ask about them, their ages, their names, their breeds.  Only with one of our neighbors who does not own a dog did it even occur to me to introduce myself and ask him about him; what else would we have talked about otherwise?

Even a homeless guy with obvious crazy in his eyes, who no doubt would have scowled at us or asked us for money had we been by ourselves, went straight to Grr and gave him loving attention, saying hello and telling him how cute he was.  Of course, Grr was terrified, tucked his tail between his legs so tight he could have taught a drag queen a thing or two, and Sam was not about to let the homeless get anywhere near his precious puppy, so we all low-tailed it out of there.  It did get me thinking about my attitudes toward the homeless, though, my jaded and admittedly hardened view of them, but that's a different story altogether.

So this is yet another way that Grr is slowly changing our lives.  Besides a tragically altered sleep schedule and a breakout of acne in a proportion that I had not seen since high school, he also drags us out of our shells, and house, and stretches our boundaries, more than we would otherwise do so willingly.

Sam and I always say how hard it is to make friends as adults, especially in a city that, ironically, seems to provide an endless supply of potential friends in an endless supply of settings.  Who knew it really just took a puppy with a face that has so far been unanimously agreed upon to be the cutest thing that there ever was?