Maybe this post will not quite seem blog worthy – other options would be how cute Pippin is when playing with his mouse (and sliding on the new hallway floor), house remodel, Jay’s insane work schedule (can we say average of 4 hrs of sleep per night these days?), my itchy skin, or baby stuff. The story of my neighbor seems like the most ‘unusual’ so we’ll go with that.
Jay and I know the names of the neighbors who live closest to us and we wave at each other if we’re outside at the same time. Rarely to we have a conversation of more than, ‘How are you?’ They all seem like perfectly nice people, but at different stages in life than we are. The neighbor I talk the most to is the woman who lives next door to us and lives alone (important for later in post). This woman had been on vacation recently, but had seemingly returned. Then last Thursday evening, I noticed her garage door was still open, car in driveway, yard waste container not put away (2 of the 3 are unusual – she rarely has her garage door open for longer than a short time span and always puts her garbage/etc containers away promptly – unlike us). Friday, same picture. Saturday, also the same picture – though no sign of our neighbor herself. By this point I was becoming concerned – and hoping she hadn’t slipped in her house somewhere and was lying in pain, unable to get help… I mentioned it to Jay and he too seemed concerned. We decided that if nothing had changed by Sunday, we’d go talk to our neighbor across the street with whom this woman is better friends. Sunday rolls around and no change, so Jay and I went to knock on our neighbor’s doors, Jay checked to see if they were locked and if he could see in any windows – and I was trying not to feel like a snoop. After no results from this search, we went and talked to our neighbor across the street who knew nothing about this woman being gone again and was also concerned when we mentioned the garage door had been open for a few days. First the three of us went to close the garage door. Then she and I went and spoke to the neighbors on the other side of said missing neighbor – again with no new info, but more concern on their part. Luckily, both sets of neighbors had some ways to contact my neighbor and an email message and phone call were sent off. Tuesday my neighbor across the street got a call from the ‘missing’ woman – all was well, she was on vacation with her father in eastern Oregon and hadn’t checked email/messages in days. She’d rented a car and therefore, probably just forgot to close the garage door as her car was in the driveway. Mystery solved, in the best way possible. Exciting times at the Blanton/Otten household