Meeting the neighbors

We have been helping Emily, Cayo and Sofia move. Their new house is an updated '70s ranch in a beautiful neighborhood of huge shady trees and beautiful lawns and gardens. For a couple of weeks we've been painting and moving and working on the decent hardwood floors that lurked under dull, beige carpeting. We met Del, the nice old guy that lives next door. Ray has a mental block and keeps referring to him as "Ned". It's only a matter of time until he calls him that, but Del may not mind or notice. He's a little foggy, but friendly. He spends most of his day watering his lawn and flowers and tells us how nice the folks who moved out were, how much work the woman did in the yard, how much they had helped him out when he needed it. No pressure there.

The other day Emily and Ray met another nice old guy living next door on the other side. He was just introducing himself as Jess Tanner, when Emily's childhood friend, Jessica Tanner drove up to the house. Whoa! Ray said they introduced Jessica to Jess and pointed out the name thing. Emily, Ray and Jessica were fairly blown away by the coincidence. Ray said Jess just looked a little confused.

Yesterday I finished painting a bedroom and was out in the backyard washing out the roller and brush. Yet another nice old guy, Del/Ned's brother, introduced himself across the back fence. I walked over to say hello and he said, quite seriously "So, you folks Amish?" I was at a loss for words and must have looked quite confused. He gestured toward my chest. I was wearing my old painting clothes—paint-splattered shorts, paint-splattered fake Crocs and an old paint-splattered T shirt, not what I'd deem Amish attire, but---------oh, yeah, duh, my ancient "Amish, the art of the quilt" T shirt. I explained it was from a quilt show I'd seen once, and no we weren't Amish at all.

Once inside the house we all cracked up over being Amish. After a long day of hard work we went to a nearby pub for burgers and beer and amused ourselves with the snappy comebacks I should have come up with. "Oh, you must have seen the horse and buggy in the driveway..." Brilliant stuff like that.