response 80 of 95:

Mar 17 18:27 UTC 2006

 There's no doubt that the view is one of the things I love about
 the house.  I should take some pictures from the empty third-floor
 apartment sometime; the views are even better from up there.
 (The apartment, however, is a real mess, and is in need of total
 renovation..)

 What I've really been appreciating lately, though, is how nice my
 neighborhood is.  It's been snowing all week and one of my nearby
 neighbors, who lives down on the street where my car is parked,
 has been sweeping my car off in the mornings when he comes out to
 clear his steps.  And yesterday someone shovelled a path to my
 stairs -- I think it may have been that the teacher next door,
 who had a snow day and was shovelling in front of her own place,
 just decided to continue on a few more feet and do mine, but it
 might also have been the other next-door neighbors.  They stopped
 at my house during the day, while I was at work, to use my shower
 (at my invitation) because their pipes have frozen and they won't
 have running water until they can get them thawed..  It's all very
 neighborly and congenial..  It's not that I've *never* lived in a
 neighborhood that was as active and friendly as this one but it's
 been a long time -- in Ann Arbor I mostly lived in pretty transient
 student-oriented neighborhoods and when I moved to Washington I 
 found Bellevue to be cold and suburban, with little interaction
 with the neighbors.  I lived there for three years and I'm afraid
 I probably wouldn't recognize the people who lived next door..