“Remoted” – Day 533 (Tuesday)

The past five years have both flown and dragged. A lot has happened and not much has happened. Today is the anniversary of buying the Bungalowell. Immediately, work was done to the floors, and it took a couple weeks to get to unpacking a storage unit that sat in the driveway containing remnants of my life from Tennessee. The fantasy guest room has still not become reality. It continues to look like I’m plotting a quick getaway with the unpacked boxes which are the reason there is no guest room.

There were fanciful imaginings about living in a neighborhood where I had friends and we sat on each other’s porches and sipped wine or lemonade depending upon the time of day, and occasionally had backyard cookouts. I would learn to play card games with these neighbors and we might play Scrabble, my favorite game. I’ve heard stories of neighborhoods like this and even know real, live people who live in them in real, actual life. Just not me. That wasn’t my neighborhood in Tennessee, nor in Lowell. I'm the common denominator, so it must be me.

The deck is ready for guests.

Every time I see a Facebook post about friends' neighbor get-togethers, I admit to feeling a little pang of jealousy. Three times so far in Lowell, when neighbors and I were starting to become friendly, they moved away. It's enough to instill some deep paranoia. And there was the missed opportunity that time a couple years ago when someone left the anonymous note in my mailbox inviting me to share some “sweet love” and all I had to do was circle yes and leave it under the flower pot. In retrospect, I should probably have jumped on that friendly overture.

For the five-year anniversary, just like the four year celebration, there were gifts for The BungaLowell. It started early in the summer with a deck refresh via a coat of paint on the table and and the fabric spray paint on the umbrella. The guest room may not be ready for guests, but the deck is. In July, there was the small gift of a modestly priced new garbage disposal, but this was apparently not enough. A week later, the house got a bit bossy and demanded the much pricier hot water heater. I hope the house spirit is appeased. For a while anyway. Maybe I should start thinking now about the house's anniversary gift for year six.