I'd Like to Thank the Academy...

Ohmygosh! I've been nominated!

The lovely Katherine at Pillows A-La-Mode invited her readers to nominate a blogger they would like to have for a neighbor, and a lovely someone who I'm sure is awfully smart and wearing gorgeous (but sensible) shoes nominated ME!

I did not win the contest, but that's beside the point. The point is that someone on the internet would like to be my neighbor, to live next door to the House on the Corner. I am going to have to do my very best to keep that someone from ever crossing paths with the neighbors who actually do live next door to the House on the Corner.

You see, we're not very good neighbors. We're earnest and well-meaning, but we're kind of...well, loud. And we're open-window types. The house next door is close enough that if our arms were just slightly longer we could reach out and touch it from our dining room, and have I ever mentioned that the piano is in the dining room? All that fresh air that flows in has been accompanied by the flowing out of a lot of piano and trombone practicing, not all of it the kind that would make you want to put your head on the pillow as much as put your head under a pillow and ask someone to press down hard.

I was also kind of a yell-y mom, a fact I'm sure has been much appreciated by our neighbor, who has worked nights for most of his career and whose bedroom is thiiiiiiis close to that dining room window. I should have sent him a case of earplugs when we moved in beside them 26 years ago, but I was busy gestating and didn't get around to it. Four Boys later it seems a little beside the point.

Still, we had way more in common than just a shared property line and our neighbors are lovely human beings and even better friends who have loaned us sugar and brought in our mail more times than I can count, even putting up with the shenanigans of Our Dog Pepper in her younger, yappier days. In spite of our (my) yelliness and all that piano playing and trombone practicing, we've been friends for lo these many years.

Thank you, anonymous nominator who doesn't even know me but has nominated me (ME!) for Katherine's Good Neighbor Award. You've warmed the cockles of my heart. Let's cut a hole in the fence so we can talk while the kids play, just like my actual neighbor and I used to do.

Just don't ask her if I'm a good neighbor--she might tell the truth.