It has been an exciting weekend around here. It seems that spring has finally arrived. The only thing I want to do is be outside enjoying the weather. Our neighbors seem to feel the same way. Spring has not only brought flowers, it has also brought new friends.
We have lived at this house for just over a year. We have met the neighbors on either side of us and a few people in the senior housing community behind us. Some of them we met when we had a tree branch fall on our neighbor’s fence. It became a community event to watch us cut the branch off that tree. At one point, I baked some cookies and brownies and took them over to the spectators.
We met another of the neighbors when my daughter wandered behind the hedge and became lost. They were kind enough to return her to us. We rewarded them with much praise and some home canned goods. At Christmas, we exchanged cookies.
This weekend, however, brought over a new group.
First, we met a neighbor from 2 houses down. They purchased the house last fall, but we had been crazy busy at the time and then winter hit. This spring we were pleased to see that they kept the hyacinth garden in the front. We were out back constructing the garden, when this vibrant woman walks down our driveway with her hands full of bags of hot and spicy cheese bread. She introduced herself and asked if we would like hot and spicy cheese bread. The answer was yes. For that question, the answer is never no. We spend Saturday mornings at the farmer’s market just for hot and spicy cheese bread that we eat with arugula. After chatting for a bit about her recent wedding and the other polite conversation you make with strangers, she excused herself to get back to work. We continued with our work. 
It wasn’t too much longer before I noticed a man behind me wearing a Vietnam Veteran hat. He started talking to me as if we’d previously met. I knew we hadn’t because I am generally pretty good about remembering faces. I stopped him and introduced myself and then said, “I don’t believe we’ve met before. Do you live over there?” pointing to the senior housing complex. He introduced himself to me and told me which apartment he lived in.
We chatted for a while about this and that. I asked if he had known the Ropers, the former owners of the house. He said he hadn’t, but he had lived next door for 8 or 9 years now. The he told me that he thought I was making a Three’s Company reference.
I explained to him that the area we were gardening had previously been used as a dog kennel. He seemed confused by the arches we had made out of hog panels. “It’ll take them a while to chew through those,” he said. After a while I realized that he thought I was saying that we were making a kennel. It made no sense that he would think that when it was so obviously a garden.
I finished spreading the mulch and stepped out of the garden to continue a very odd conversation with this stranger. I mentioned that if he had caught me on a different day, I would’ve been able to sit with him and offer him a cookie. He didn’t seem to care that much. He just wanted to me to listen to him.
Some of the things he wanted to tell me were about his dog that almost caught a rabbit. He also told me that he had been in Vietnam when he was 19. After he spent a year over there, he came back and got as much help as he could, but it wasn’t enough. He said he had PTSD from the dust and that “they” just didn’t care or maybe he had just run out of benefits. Then he told me that he had Alzheimer’s. He was doing ok right now, but sometimes he just forgot things. His cell phone rang. “eh, it’s the boss,” he said. He answered the call, talked for a few minutes and turned back to me. “She always calls if I’ve been gone too long. She’s afraid I’m going to wander off. I just told her I was at the neighbor’s house.”
I assured him that he was welcome any time and that I would make sure to keep an eye out for him. Maybe next time we have neighbors come over, I’ll be better prepared and my cookie jar will be full.
I like to have cookies on hand for occasions such as meeting the neighbors. These Jelly Strips are great because they can be dressed up or down. If you want to get fancy, some seedless raspberry jam with a sliver of almond makes a lovely cookie. For everyday, straight up strawberry is a good choice. I used what I had, so some of mine got Nutella and others got Apple Marmalade. I’m not going to lie to you, the Nutella ones were much better. Not that the others weren’t great, but when you have to compete with Nutella the contest is over before it begins. 
PS. Happy Birthday, Braden! I mean, Happy Easter. Wait, it’s not even Easter.