Letting the grass grow under the gardener's feet

Dear Building Maintenance Committee,
You are not imagining things. The grass over at the neighbors really is greener.
This may be because their gardener comes more than once a decade.
This may be because their grass does not grow to knee-high before it is mowed.
This may be because their grass does not go to seed before it is mowed.
This may be because their gardener rakes the clippings and carts them away instead of leaving them to rot on top of the grass beneath.
In any case, yes, the grass at the neighbors really is greener, so stop asking me in the elevator if I think the neighbors' grass looks better. It does.
Thank you,
Tenant Apartment 11

Now I feel better.
They won't read this, they won't pay the gardener to mow the lawn regularly and next time he comes back he will trigger more allergy attacks in this house, but I feel better.

Who will mind my Ps (and Qs)?

So the Ps' longtime sitter is going into the army in October. The Ps and their Parents will miss her terribly but a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do.
Sitter interview set for 1 pm.
She texts me at 12:30. Are we still on? I'm on my way.
I text at 12:45. See you soon!
She: "I thought you weren't answering and headed in the other direction. I'll turn around and be at you five min late. Which way on Hero Street? Near President Street?" I text back "Follow Hero St past President to Mayor St"
At 1:15 I call and message her. No answer.
At 1:30 she calls. "Didn't hear phone with street noise. Which direction on Hero Street? Does it end on President?"
"No. You are at Hero and President? You see burger place? Good. Keep walking on Hero Street with burger place on your left until Mayor Street. Cross at Mayor junction, we are 3rd building. See you in 10 minutes."
That would have put her here at 1:40, no? Rather late for a 1pm job interview, but things happen, especially when you're new in town.
There's only one problem. It is now 3:40.
By the way, I am not heartless, leaving the stranded young woman wandering lost in the alleys of Stepford to blog about her misfortune. I called and texted twice to see if she was okay. Then I posted.

No laundry lines, no tan lines

So we use our roof for hanging laundry. With the population of People Who Begin with P growing, the laundry expands exponentially. So the laundry lines outside the window aren't close to enough. Conveniently however, and unconventionally for our part of Stepford, the roof here is still common property and it has four really nice big laundry lines on it.
When we first moved here, there was one other family ... older couple I guess ... who also hung their laundry there, but for four or five years now, we have had the laundry lines and the roof to ourselves.
We now have new next door neighbors. A med student and his girlfriend.
They don't need to hang laundry.
How do I know this about our new neighbors? Because when they aren't planning on being home, they ask their parents to drop their clean laundry off with us.
Her mom drops her laundry off mornings, my guess is once a week. His mom drops his laundry off on Sunday evenings. Sometimes he's here, sometimes he isn't. He doesn't even ask us anymore. He already knows we accept laundry deliveries at all times of day or night.
So anyway, back up to the roof. We've been hanging our laundry there by ourselves for four or five years already. We sorta - but not quite - feel like it's our roof. We go up and down pretty regularly. At least one load a day and three on Fridays for towels and sheets. Just us and our laundry and Puppy who likes to do a lap or two at high speed up there before she takes herself back downstairs and bangs on the door with her tail to get let back inside. We never see anyone else. Us - Parents of P's, Puppy, and sometimes Peach who likes to hand clothespins to the laundry hangers.
Only this week, I met someone on the roof when I went up with the laundry. Remember the Girl Next Door? The one who doesn't need laundry lines because Mom does her laundry? Well she's getting her money's worth out of the roof too. She's sunbathing up there.
Yep. I want to grow up her. No laundry, no laundry lines, no tan lines.

Rubber Ducky, you're the one

We love bathtime.
Pluto loves bathtime.
And Peach and Patoot love watching bathtime.
So they have a special stool to share for the audience.
When only one comes in, they ask to be the "audien". You know, one audien, two audiens.
Almost bilingual

Super Size Pluto

Alert the producers of "Biggest Loser". One of their contestants is "off the reservation". Yep. She's escaped and she's hiding out here in Stepford, disguised as a public health nurse.
How do I know this? Because I spent a substantial chunk of my morning yesterday being lectured on the subject of nutrition in general and specifically baby nutrition and eating habits by a woman who passed the "morbidly obese" mark three dress sizes ago.
Her: Pluto's not eating enough. She's losing ground in the percentiles race. (So speaketh the local expert in eating "enough".)
Me: Pluto weighs in ahead of Peach at this age. "She's ahead on all her milestones," I tell her, but she doesn't hear me: her cellphone is blasting so loud they hear it downtown.
Her (hand over cell phone receiver for a moment): She needs to weigh more.
Me: (This lady couldn't weigh more.) She sits and army crawls.
Her: (signing off with the cell companion.) Breastmilk is insufficient nutrition for an active 6-month old.
Me: (And how do you define "active", channel surfing?) Babies don't absorb nutrition from solids at this age.
Her: That's okay. She needs to eat a proper meal of fruit and a proper meal of vegetables every day. (You could try some vegetables too, Nurse Ratched.)
Her cell phone rings again, but she still has a moment for Pluto's health. "She needs to plump up. At least 1 kilo in the coming month."
Me: Isn't that kind of a lot for this age?
Now she's annoyed. She has a phone call and I'm still doubting the plan to fatten the Christmas goose. "I expect to see serious weight gain in one month."
The road to perdition and poor eating habits starts right now, right here, in Stepford. Public health, as practiced by a super-sized nurse. Nutrition according to Ronald McDonald.
Call "Biggest Loser", this lady is not with the program.

The envelope please

And the Oscar for silly nicknames goes to .... Pluto. Player did make her grand entrance on 9/29/09 at 10:29 AM (evidently an hour late, but not as late as this post) and is now a full-fledged member of the Stepford team. We can't remember the ballgame without her. Yep, Player will henceforth be known as Pluto. Pluto sounds a little like spitting up in Hebrew, which she does often and with a sly little smile that says "you need to do more laundry, mommy". And she's the Queen of the World, or at least of Stepford, so as her loyal subject, I kiss her little plut-ey face and toss another load of laundry in the machine. Early on, she looked a little alien too. Like an alien visitor from the Planet Pluto (yeah yeah yeah, we know, but it will always be a planet to us). So .. Pluto ye shall be. But Pluto hardly seems alien anymore. Patoot and Peach are her biggest fans, competing for her love, attention and silly toothless grins. She adores them. Sometimes I think being the third kinda gyps her: always dragged around to everyone else's swimming lessons and playdates, never doing her own thing according to her own schedule. Sometimes I think being the third is the best deal there is: born into a family with four big people to love her, take care of her and raise her to be a fine young Plut. Some of both, I guess. Either way, we're off, out of the gate, up and running: three kids and a dog. More than a little bit Stepford, trying to hang onto that rock n'roll.