Gloomy and dreary

The above pretty much sums up the weather here in Rhode Island today.  It’s overcast and grey and dreary and gloomy.  Fortunately it’s not also cold; my weather station is telling me it’s 50º.

I was watching the forecast earlier this morning, and it’s supposed to get pretty darn cold next week.  I’m actually looking forward to it; after four years in Washington where anything under 50º is cold, it will be nice to have a real winter, instead of an extended soggy autumn.

There’s been a steady stream of activity in the house across the street.  At least it’s not drug activity.  Our house in Washington backed up to our neighbor’s front yard (they were weird shaped lots), and there was a constant flow of cars in and out of that driveway.  And the folks coming to visit weren’t exactly fine, upstanding citizens.  The entire neighborhood knew this woman was the local source of marijuana, but the cops couldn’t do much about it.  I lived in a tiny, tiny community without much of a police force, and they were more concerned about going after the big fish in the drug world instead of a tiny little pot dealer.  My neighbor and her plethora (I said “plethora” and you didn’t — neener!) of visitors pretty much kept to themselves anyhow, though it was annoying to be awoken by a loud muffler at 3am almost every night.  My only real issue was her teenaged daughter, who would have a couple of parties in the summer which would involve very loud music.

However, she would be blasting classic rock, so at least it was music I enjoy!

The activity in the house across the street means that a new family moving in is imminent.  There have been tons of maintenance people in and out over the last week or so, fixing up the house and making it move-in ready.  It’s somewhat of a shame; it means Kurt will lose his parking spot.

See, we live in duplexes here in military housing, and most of the houses are connected at the garage.  This means we have a common driveway, which fits just two cars.  My neighbors get around it by parking one of their cars partially on their front lawn, and we try to park as far over towards our lawn to give them a little extra room.  This way we fit three cars in our driveway.

We put the minivan in our driveway, and Kurt has been parking in the driveway across the street so he doesn’t have to park on the road.  but if someone moves in to one of the duplexes, that means that that family will have the privilege of parking both their cars in the driveway, and we’ll have to go back to parking in the street.

My neighbor Ms Cheez-It puts her SUV in the street all the time, even when her husband has taken his truck on a business trip.  And she has no neighbor, so she could put both cars in her driveway.  I have no idea why she doesn’t.

It’s sort of an odd neighborhood to live in.  We live on a loop, with five houses on one side of the street and one house on the other.  The lone house on that side of the street is completely empty (that’s the one that is having all the work going on), while my house is the only one with both units full.  We have one completely empty house on this side, and all the other homes have just one unit filled.  It’s kind of sad to see so many empty houses, especially when homes are so expensive here in Newport.  I’m not quite sure why they don’t clump all of us military people into my neighborhood, since it’s the largest, and lease the other neighborhoods to the towns around us for low-income housing.  These houses aren’t mansions, but they’re solid and warm and a good size for a family of four or even five.

I know there’s the concern that the houses would get trashed (because for some reason a lot of renters tend to trash the homes in which they live), but according to the rumor mill, these homes are slated for demolition anyhow.  The Navy (or maybe it’s the housing authority that manages the property) has built a few new neighborhoods for us a little farther away from base, and I know they’ve already started razing some of the other military housing areas.

It just seems like such a waste when there are people out there who can’t afford a home.