In the neighborhood

So I live in a town just west of Cleveland called Lakewood. It's a front porch kind of place. As in, during a hot, summer afternoon, people are usually lazing on their front porches, napping, watching the world go by, relaxing, chatting, eating, drinking, playing...it's quite the gathering place after 5pm. Not many of these old rambling houses have air conditioning beyond a window unit or two, so there is lots of fanning and lounging. It's pretty neat.

Neater, though, is the diversity. Normally I ride my bike to and from work but today circumstances had me taking the train home. This requires a mile hike from the train station to my apartment. Well, I could take a bus, but it's nice weather so I opted for the walk. On days like these, walking from the rapid stop, I meander through these neat old neighborhoods, taking side streets and backroads to my place, looking at the architecture, the gardens, the kids, the porchers, as I'll call them. And on today's stroll, I heard several different languages drifting from different porches. Arabic, Slavic (or some kind of Eastern European something-or-other), Hindi, Thai or Vietnamese (not exactly sure which), English, rapid-fire Puerto Rican Spanish, and unidentified something else, maybe Romanian (it sounded Romance-language-like, but not Itallian or Spanish or Portuguese or French). A cute old Eastern European yelled at her grandkids, an Arabic woman called out to another neighbor, the Puerto Ricans were bickering about who was really winning the card game...It was pretty neat. Not something you see everyday. Well, at least not in cities I've lived in recently.

I met a neighbor last night. He lives in #3 with his partner and they are from California. He was rather open about his mother's current bout with cancer, his job downtown and his aversion to cars (yay!), and then he shared that he doesn't usually share this much but he drank a lot of wine. Kinda funny. Sweet neighbor, though, and he helped me carry my groceries up the rickety back stairs to my apt.