Brandon and I just returned from our first home-owners association meeting. It wasn't the real association meeting but a new monthly security meeting, kind of a neighborhood watch in uetero. They were recruiting for Block Captains. It was a real mixed bag.

On the one hand we met a few of our neighbors. The guy running the meeting was really cool and lives just one street over. It would be nice to know a few people here. I think Brandon and I will probably go to the real home owners association meeting next month just to meet more of our neighbors.

On the other hand there was a situation that had just happened over the weekend in which a man's adult son had gotten into a confrontation with one of the neighbors. Apparently this boy's behavior had been an ongoing escalating problem. Several of their immediate neighbors had shown up to discuss the situation, as did the boy's father. Although the situation seemed very important to the residents of that street, it was kind of like accidentally walking in on someone's family intervention. Very, very uncomfortable.

There was also a lot of talk about the problems (the very few of them that have occurred in this very safe, quite neighborhood) mostly coming in from the outside, and wanting to keep that kind of element from coming in and messing with our quality of life. After living in Cooper-Young if felt very control-freakish. I wonder how they would have dealt with our neighbors on Cox.

For the most part, the control freaks were all very nice and friendly, but they mostly wanted to cluster together and compare notes on how the menace of this emotionally disturbed boy should be handled. Uncomfortable.

Other than that, we are starting to get to more nit-picky projects. I don't mean to imply that we have all of the boxes unpacked or any of the rooms completely set up, but the projects are starting to get less all encompassing. I find myself doing a little bit here, a little bit there. Then again, that may have just been my mood today.