My neighborhood.

I live in possibly the best neighborhood in all my city.

Yup I do.  My city is fairly big, good enough population, it should have a "city" feeling, and it does, for the most part, but my neighborhood has a small town type of mentality.

Well not completely because I hate some aspects of small town mentality that my neighborhood doesn't have, for example, they believe in knocking before entering your house...

But it is small town enough that almost everyone knows each other, we know whose kid belongs to whom and if one gets hurt or is being bullied, we all step in. (Or almost)

If someone is going through a hard time, ditto, you know your neighbors will be there to help you through.

On Fridays during the summer, a group of neighbours will often get together in someone's back yard for a drink and "shoot the shit".

It's great, it really is.  Never thought I would find something so wonderful in the city.

However every really cool neighborhood has it's special characters.  Our neighborhood is not any different.

We have this one woman.  She probably has the biggest heart you have ever seen.  She would give the shirt off her back to help someone in need, in turn she expects those around her to do the same.

In so many ways she reminds me of my own mother (sorry mom).  Maybe astrology does have something to do with it as they are both the same signs (Leo and Serpent).  She is not exactly like my mother but there are interesting similitudes.  I can't even say it's because of their upbringing as one is French Canadian from Quebec, raised in a tiny village in the middle of Quebec, 12 years before the other who is English, raised with a British influence in a booming Ontario city.

They both have a big heart, that's for sure, they both like to shine and be the centre of attention.  Both would have been happy in show business.  That's the Leo in them.  Leos are generous and warmhearted, creative and enthusiastic,  broad-minded and expansive, faithful and loving.  Both of them are definitely all these things.  In grandeur of manner, splendor of bearing and magnanimity of personality, they are the monarch's among humans as the lion is king of beasts.

These are the positive traits of the Leo, however, even too much of a positive trait can at times become a little less positive.  The fact that these two women are also serpents tends to increase certain of these traits.

Snake people are born charming and popular. Snakes are spotlight magnets, and they will not be ignored. Peer group attention and public recognition are the least of what he expects. Yet Snakes are never noisy or deliberately outspoken, and they have have excellent manners. A snake would be willing to sacrifice his possessions, something the Snake has a lot of, in order to pay for his family’s food.

As you see, both of these signs are generous and like to shine.  So I can't help but think, observing my mom and my neighbour, that astrology probably has something to do with their being similar in many ways.

Ok now enough of this comparing the two women.  I wanted to talk about other aspects of my neighbour, than her huge heart.

This wonderful lady can also be a little hum... funky.  She has her very own way of seeing things that can be at times quite entertaining, at others maybe a little annoying.

When she makes up her mind on something, it does not matter whether whatever her thought are logical or even possible, there is no way to deviate her from what she decided, even by explaining with logic.

For example, she thinks that if you use a finishing nail to hang up a picture frame on a wall, that it will cause the other side of the wall to have cracks, even though there are foundation bricks between the two sides.  For years we tried explaining to her that it could not have caused the cracks in her wall.

Another time she got angry at us because we had not returned something she had loaned to us.  We explained to her that we could not have borrowed such a thing from her as we had two of them, and we had had them for years.  We even had people who knew we had them try  explain to her that we had these items and could not have borrowed them.  She became convinced we were trying to steal from her and discussed it with other neighbours.  Suddenly, one of the neighbour she discussed it with reminded her that she had loaned it to them... not us, and they were sorry for having forgotten to return it.  She never apologized.

She tends to forget what she discussed with you and tends to repeat herself.  Sometimes she will repeat the same thing several times in a row.  She'll forget because she has to tell everyone all of her adventures, so naturally she forgets who she told.  She also has a tendency to bring everything down to it's minute detail.  She will enumerate every single activity she has done in the day, counting them on her hands to make sure she doesn't miss any, if she skips one she starts over.

So when you are summoned to have a chat with her, makes sure you allow a lot of time, or if you don;t have the patience to listen you better find a darn believable reason to be be able to go.  And don't ever forget the excuse you gave, because she will remember it, for years.

Oh, I have so many more stories!  Maybe I will share more some other time.

Thanks for reading!

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