how i spent my evening

i always find life much more interesting than-say fiction. i know, i know that is a grand statement when there is so much fine fiction out there these days. i stand by it. many of us in the blogosphere take time off from the blogs to recharge and rejuvenate- with real people. not saying that the folks in the sphere aren't real- but none of us really know each other in person. anyhoo- a little background is in order:

today was not as hot as the last few days- for which i am grateful. i dislike summer because my theory is you can layer almost indefinitely- you can only get so naked. so- the plan was i would go to my sister's house and help her catch up on some things around the house so she wouldn't have to work all day on her day off-- and i get to hang with the moms. mission accomplished. of course, since the flooding, we haven't been able to get a contractor to take a look or even get started on the water damage from before the flood for my one tenant. and now i have to find someone to replace a window upstairs at some point because the morons put an air conditioner in the window and the storm window fell out of the 3rd floor. well, that got the attention of my neighbor because she is 83 years old and sits on her porch. she initially thought someone was breaking in somewhere but realized it was the window as it came tumbling down.

now, my neighborhood is interesting and i used to say i lived in the '227' house- tom g. at life is crap knows what i am talking about. my husband and i have lived on this block officially for 10 years now and have seen much in that time- i feel at times like jimmy stewart in rear window- but no one has gotten murdered to date fortunately(?). anyhoo- my one neighbor is THE neighborhood watch and he is the gossip of the century but he likes me and my husband to no end and has constantly wanted us to become part of the neighborhood. so- we have started to be more social over the last couple of years as we bought the building we live in. we live on the second floor of a three story apartment building and i know my apartment's every inch. all six rooms. i will tell the story of the actual building in another post- it has been an interesting ride. i will get to all of the neighbors eventually because as i have said- truth is better than fiction- or perhaps all fiction is really based on life.

so, usually i try to avoid the neighbors- because i am inherently anti social but mainly because unless i have 3 hours to spare- i am really screwed. they like to talk. i got nabbed today by my little lady neighbor and my neighborhood watch because- yes, you guessed it- they were on her porch and i couldn't park in my driveway because of the glass. so, 4 hours and 2 beers later- there i was. :) my husband meandered over after work- and stopping to get more beer- hey it's hot outside. she is an interesting person because she is 83 and lived alot but she also lived her life. i could tell a million interesting things about her- like how she went back to school in her mid-70's to become a certified nurse's assistant(even though she really wanted to be an rn) or how she lived through tornados and met her husband of 62 years(if he had lived) after world war 2. neat woman. no- those stories have to wait because my husband ferreted out the truth- we live across the street with a pseudo-celebrity.

apparently, her mom was a nurse in tupelo, mississippi in the 1930's and delivered elvis and his twin brother- who was born stillborn. his family was too poor to bury poor jesse so my neighbor's dad built the kid a coffin and her mom lined it with satin and then they were able to bury him. her younger brother played with elvis- whose family was so poor that they were on welfare at one point and her family gave him hand-me-downs from her brother. now, she felt his family was one of 'dogs' as they were into wild living and drama and wasn't overly impressed by his singing. her mom called her to watch him on the ed sullivan show and she apparently didn't think much of his performance. her husband told her to look at it as he had come from nothing and had made good- and she did agree. now- the kicker? her middle brother's wife worked as a nurse in memphis and guess who was working in the er in memphis in 1977? yep, my neighbor's sister-in-law was on duty and assisted when they brought elvis in. he is dead folks. sorry.

so, she is busy looking for a picture of elvis and his family to show my husband. apparently, elvis used to send a limo for my neighbor's mom so that she could spend time with his grandma- miss minnie. who would have thought? fyi- the boyhood home in tupelo? not a truelife recreation. my neighbor almost got ejected when she visited a few years ago because she called the narrator person on the inconsistencies. life is definitely stranger than fiction.