After a couple of years, we moved out of the cute nursing home apartment and bought a house in Wanaque, NJ, an unpleasant little town not too far from the New York state line, a part of New York that is a bit like a scene from Deliverance. This house was never home--it was merely a tool to build equity and move on to something less...let's say...rocky.
I use the word "rocky" because it was built on solid rock, which meant you couldn't plant a tree or a bush or even a petunia, the ground was so hard. The rock face of a small mountain was just across the street, which acted as a sounding board for the neighbors' vicious fights. The sound of screaming and smashing furniture bounced off of the rock face and right into my living room. More than once I had my hand on the phone to call the police just as a patrol car would pull up to diffuse the situation.
It was also "rocky" because we bought the house with a friend who lived in the basement--like a mother-daughter kind of basement. He had a one-bedroom apartment, and we had a three-bedroom ranch, basically. So, when his younger runaway brother needed a place to live, he moved in with us, because of the extra bedroom. Once in a while, their stray sister would spend the night on the couch, and I would know that because in the morning I would find a neatly folded blanket in the living room. Between us all, we had three cats and two dogs. The sheepdog was the nastiest smelling animal to walk on all fours, and the doberman puppy wasn't quite house trained. The neighbor lady had such a phobia of dogs, that any time one of "ours" would get loose, she'd call the police. Oh, and then when the runaway abandoned his broken-down car, the police came. And then there's the time the runaway was held in jail for unpaid speeding tickets, and I had to talk the police into releasing him into our custody. So, yeah, rocky pretty much describes it.
That place wasn't home either, but it did pay out in the end.
I use the word "rocky" because it was built on solid rock, which meant you couldn't plant a tree or a bush or even a petunia, the ground was so hard. The rock face of a small mountain was just across the street, which acted as a sounding board for the neighbors' vicious fights. The sound of screaming and smashing furniture bounced off of the rock face and right into my living room. More than once I had my hand on the phone to call the police just as a patrol car would pull up to diffuse the situation.
It was also "rocky" because we bought the house with a friend who lived in the basement--like a mother-daughter kind of basement. He had a one-bedroom apartment, and we had a three-bedroom ranch, basically. So, when his younger runaway brother needed a place to live, he moved in with us, because of the extra bedroom. Once in a while, their stray sister would spend the night on the couch, and I would know that because in the morning I would find a neatly folded blanket in the living room. Between us all, we had three cats and two dogs. The sheepdog was the nastiest smelling animal to walk on all fours, and the doberman puppy wasn't quite house trained. The neighbor lady had such a phobia of dogs, that any time one of "ours" would get loose, she'd call the police. Oh, and then when the runaway abandoned his broken-down car, the police came. And then there's the time the runaway was held in jail for unpaid speeding tickets, and I had to talk the police into releasing him into our custody. So, yeah, rocky pretty much describes it.
That place wasn't home either, but it did pay out in the end.
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What a rich box of characters you have collected over the years. I'm sure some of them must be aching to escape into he world of Maryann or one of your wonderful stories …