The red recliner row

I have always loved those foreign streets I see on House Hunters International, or travel shows. The ones with the multi colored painted doors, or layered verandas on twisty streets in old movies. I like the idea that these neighborhoods might be filled with nosy people who lean out windows and talk to each other.

Those streets. Those people.

They seem exotic and interesting in a sort of anthropological way.

This morning I saw our building through those eyes for the first time.

We have three levels of decks here and I think of the the top southern one as the red recliner row, because  three of the four apartments have red reclining canvas lawn chairs on them. I don't know why. It may be that one of them found a good deal and shared it with the others, or it could even be they all know each other and have some other connection. It could be pure coincidence. It's just one of those things.

I only know that one apartment, has a man who is usually out on his deck smoking a cigarette and being noticeably loud. One of those types. When he isn't talking on the phone or visiting, he sits there staring out like a neighborhood guardian.

Now you would think that might offer security of a sort, but it does not because several people across the lot feel as if he is stalking them. He elicits those feelings.

He is tall, thin, dark haired and has a big mustache that makes him stand out from a distance and it is impossible not to hear him when we come around the corner of our parking lot. He often has two or three loud women up there with him. He's one of those men.

Other people come and go, but the guy in the red recliner row stays on and on. He's one of those people.