Gina’s middle-aged and has lived with her parents all her life. What I like about her is that she’s different from other people. Developmental problems can be difficult to define, so I have no idea what diagnostic term to apply. While not wildly attractive, outwardly she appears normal. And she’s obviously able to read and reason, and her memory is impressive.
Whatever her issue is, it manifests in her, absolutely and without pause for thought, saying what she thinks. A person who blurts can make others uncomfortable, and I imagine there’ve been times when people avoided her because of this. But I appreciate her honesty. Someone with no artifice, no manipulation, and no vanity is rare.
Her brother, who lives further up the street, warned me that she’s a talker, and it’s true. I suspect she could go nonstop for an hour. I’m pretty sure she’s been told that she talks too much, and I imagine that she often gets shut down mid-sentence—and this has caused her to talk noticeably fast, and to insert “just real quick” between her words, a quirk that I find amusing, but also poignant, as I take her talking as a sign that she’s lonely and needs attention.
She drives up and down the cul-de-sac in her golf cart, moving between her house and her brother’s house, and going outside the gate to the mailboxes. She places great importance on fetching the mail, and she helpfully keeps an eye on my porch and texts me when we have a package. A while back she was appalled to see that our postal person left a package addressed to Lilah beside the mailbox. She thought that leaving it sitting out like that was irresponsible, so she picked it up and drove it to Lilah’s door.
“She was home,” Gina told me, perplexed. “Her car was there and her lights were on, and I could see movement in there. I rang the bell several times. But she didn’t come to the door.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I decided to take it to her the next day. I kept an eye out, and when I saw her turn into her driveway, I went back over there, but her garage was already closed. And she still didn’t answer her door, so I left it on her porch.”
I could tell her feelings were hurt. While I don’t know why Lilah didn’t come to the door, it’s understandable that Gina’s background would lead her to believe that Lilah didn’t want to talk to her. Lilah might have had earbuds in or something. Nevertheless, I’m kind of mad at her.
There’s a curve between Gina’s house and mine, which means that the house being built across the street is directly across from my house, and also directly across from her house. The lot was bought by a retired Austin police sergeant who, during the years between retirement and now, hosted a right-wing radio talk show. He should fit right in around here. I’ve met his wife and she’s very sweet. They’re both in their eighties and frail, and I can’t help but wonder why they’d take on such an intense and draining project. I’ll ask next time I see them.
Gina and I are both unhappy about the house going up. Here’s what we don’t like: large trucks with their loud smelly motors going in and out of the gate; the way the dust rises and sneaks inside our homes; and the nearby raised voices of people we don’t know. Also, it won’t be long before we’re finding nails in the street.
It was a lovely lot, too, large, with interesting rock formations, frolicking deer, and more live oaks and cedar than the other lots. That was my view. When the house is finished, I’m going to be looking at the front door, and Gina and her parents are going to be looking at the driveway and garage.
When construction first started, a homemade sign with the address was posted on the large rock at the corner—102 CEEKSIDE. Gina, who takes things literally, said, “We live on Creekside, but they live on Ceekside.”
There’s an HOA rule that as soon as the heavy machinery moves in, the builder has a year to be finished and gone. The rock-crushing and digging people were over there for a few days in November, and then no work was done until the first few days of January, after which nothing else happened. We’ve been looking at a dumpster, a porta-potty, and a foundation for more than three weeks. It’s our understanding that a mistake was made with the foundation—wrong elevation in the garage is what I heard—so the workers are going to have to redo a major portion of the work. But currently they’re busy with a project elsewhere. Typical.
This is just stuff that’s going on around here and none of it matters much. Gina’s funny and interesting and I make sure that I give her a relaxed conversation at least once a week; and the people who bought the lot have every right to put a house on it.
On a sadder note, further up the street, a couple we’re very fond of lost both their cats within three weeks of one another. When the first cat died unexpectedly, the vet thought she might’ve had blood cancer, but who knows? It’s not like they were going to run expensive tests on a dying cat. With the first cat gone, their other cat, sibling to the one who died, was heartbroken and stopped eating. And then she, too, died. Losing a beloved pet is devastating, but losing two, one after the other, is unimaginably tragic.
Dear friends, I’m sorry for your loss.
RIP, Coco and Chanel.
This is the sloppiest construction site I’ve ever seen.
Lovely cats, broken hearts.
