On the Block

Tea: Mandarin Orange (iced)

Music: Don Henley, "Sunset Grill"

Time: Evening.

I like to think I live in a neighborhood, rather than a subdivision. We know the names of the people who live close to us. We attend neighborhood Christmas parties, shovel snow next door, and -- when we're in town -- take part in the Fourth of July mini-parade around the block.

Still, though, it strikes me that the suburban experience is still largely a back of the house thing. We grill on the deck, rather than sitting on the front porch watching the world go by.

A good chunk of me envies the people for whom the stoop is the neighborhood gathering place, the sidewalk a river bringing a cargo of interactions.

(And no having to mow the grass. There's another plus.)

Don't get me wrong. I don't mind having the green space and the shade. But I think the farther our houses get from each other, the more we lose something intangible -- that sense of really being next door to someone.

Mulch Ado About Nothing; Or, Compost-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Tea: Stomach Soother

Music: The Beatles, "A Hard Day's Night"

Time: Night.

Got a call from a neighbor this afternoon, asking if the family could help move a couple of mulch piles.

One of them, it turned out, had been in the yard for ten days -- and it's been rainy.

I love what microbes can do to milk, to grape juice, to grain mash and to meat -- under the right conditions, that is.

I don't much like what they did to the mulch pile. It was steaming in the middle, and I swear the stuff at the heart of the pile smelled like cheese. Sniff enough of that, and you see why I went for the stomach soother?

(It worked, by the way. I just finished a plate of tacos, for which I have had a craving since this afternoon.)

Still, in two and a half hours we managed to get most of the first pile distributed around the perimeter of the neighbors' yard. Tomorrow, or the day after that, we'll finish that pile and dig into the equally large one that was delivered today.

So far, it hasn't been rained on. My nose hopes the weather holds.