Crazy Neighbors

So it would seem that I live in a very nice neighborhood: a street full of funky shops and a lake, both at close range; never are the houses too run down or too uppity. Clean and yet cozy, like a dining chair, I suppose. But I should have known something like the perfect neighborhood is impossible. In Seattle, I've lived in places where the inhabitants let you know too much about their shallow lives and now a place where the inhabitants don't let on much about the depths of their selves. Which, I might add, are nothing fun to look at. Sort of like the Columbia River actually.
I am speaking of--what else?--my lovely new neighbors. On the right side of our house is a single, early-50's bachelorette with a strange boyfriend and an invisible indoor hound. On our left is an aging couple, retired in document but definitely not in spirit.
The single woman has earned the private nickname "The Witch", a sobriquet started up by my dad and carefully confined within the walls of our house (which, it seems, even our neighbors can seem to see and hear through with their prying ears and eyes). She and him didn't get off to a very good start: on our first night in the new place, my mom, dad and sister go to check out the back alley. The Witch is there, and immediately starts up an animated conversation which centers around the college kids that used to inhabit our house; apparently they had some very VEXING habits. Turns out we are the first to break a long line of college kid groups who would rent the house for one year, shattering the community's peace with raucous parties; then would leave the place a mess for some other clan to rent out. So I suppose the Witch had some reason for being so paranoid--but when my dad mentioned that she refused to give him her last name, well, I think that's a bit weird. Further exploits of the Witch included her inviting my father over to her backyard, which is decorated in the Martha Stewart fashion, and instructing him on how best to replace the offensive fence between our yard and hers. Apparently the criminal fence leans about two inches into her garden. *whew* Also, my little sister--whose window looks into the Witch's kitchen--used to have her furniture positioned so that while she did her homework, the Witch would peer suspiciously through the kitchen window into my sister's room. I don't often feel for my sister, but I have to have empathy this time.
Now on to party number two: the aforementioned retired couple. As they have no epithets as of yet, I am forced to call them Jenny and Rob. They are both about 63. Rob, who spends all day fussing over the already-perfectly-trimmed hedges in his front yard, is very talkative besides and enjoys making small talk. (This small talk more often than not lengthens into "long talk", rather like this posting.) Rob also likes to press the point of our lovely backyard elm tree, whose branches annoy him by drooping onto his property and brushing the scalp of his toolshed. Jenny is quite the character, seeming to be much more aware of possible Seattle disasters than everyone else! She promptly visited us and gave my mom a poster of what to have should disaster strike ("I'd tape it to the back of your washing machine in the basement; that's how I do it") in case of flood, earthquake or alien attack. Jenny also confessed to having bought her own port-o-john for her car. When my mom asked her how it would work if Jenny were trapped on the highway during a crisis, Jenny got all flustered and changed the subject, then went home. She probably had to go to the bathroom.
So it just goes to show: you can't judge any book by its cover--nor, I see, a neighborhood by its houses' front lawns! TFATF!!!
-Ahaneen
p.s. My dad and I have a growing conspiracy to scare the Witch out of her witchy wits. We are pondering: which is better? A) sending her a note that says "we know your last name", or B) somehow hiding in her bed, and, when she comes into her bedroom, flopping around under the sheets yelling "WooWOo! Woooooooo!!!"