Our neighbors

The older couple living next door to us is, to put it nicely, a little "different."  I believe the man is a retired painter/drunk and his lady friend is a school cook of some kind.  They spend most of their days holed up inside, but when summertime arrives they emerge into the yard to practice one or more of the following activities:

• Drinking beer in the yard
• Painting broken pieces of old furniture while drinking beer
• Turning on a very noisy sanding machine to sand an old boat in the yard at 7am on Sundays while drinking beer
• Standing in the middle of the yard in a nightgown with the back end of said nightgown conveniently tucked into the back end of large droopy panties (lunch lady only)
• Coughing miserably while smoking cigarettes
• Inviting a number of equally "interesting" characters over to drink beer, play some type of bocce ball game, yell, smoke cigarettes, cough, and occasionally pee in the hedges that separate our yards

Our neighbors have taken it upon themselves to "decorate" our adjoining yard with plastic flowers, a tiny plastic fountain, numerous plastic animals and trolls, and many other items that look like they may have been picked out of a trash bin.  At the entrance to our shared driveway stands a sentinel gnome whose face has unfortunately fallen off.  This gnome is terrifying to me.  I was really glad when the snow came and covered him up, but with the recent thaw his sinister non-face has emerged from the drifts:

 

I suppose the only good thing I can say about our neighbors is that they are a constant reminder that not ALL Swedes are prettier, skinnier, smarter, and more stylish than Americans.  Most Swedes are, but not our neighbors.