Good Fences Make Good Neighbors!

And beautiful wrought-iron ones, built by father and son in the garage, make outstanding neighbors. Dawn's dad and older brother brought out the gates for the front and the side entrances to the fence today. Julian told me he helped make the main fence, too. "I put all the swirls in. Twenty-six of them," he announced proudly. "All in one day. At the end, my arms were hurting."

Julian and I had a very nice conversation this afternoon while his dad was welding the frame for the side gate. He was telling me they have been studying global warming in school and so at home the whole family has switched to longer-lasting, energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs. Julian swears that when he's in the basement watching TV he's turning off all the other lights. (I don't know if that's good for his eyes, but I didn't say anything.)

He was also telling me how his little brother is making a lot of progress toward walking and talking. He likes to be held upright and to kick his legs as if he's walking. And he's making those "ma,ma" noises that prep for the real "Mama" to come. Julian says he talks to his brother in English and so does Aurora at least some of the time. I brought back some baby books in Spanish from Cuernavaca--I need to go out and get a couple of English ones, too.

Then Dad called for Julian to come and put the gate in the frame. I took some shots of them working together. Later, they borrowed my flashlight so he could weld a couple more specific points. I'll have to get a shot of them together in front of their finished product tomorrow or later in the week, when they get the side fence up between my house and theirs.

I just locked the gate a few minutes ago. Tony came by in search of a few bucks but I had to tell him I'd been cleaned out already (by the less desirable element, I thought to myself). When he left, I locked the gate behind him. Somebody rang my bell at 8 o'clock this morning. Now that the new, much taller fence is up next door, people won't be able to jump the fence and bother me. Hurray.

Also, it appears someone is pouring a foundation on the corner lot across the street to build another house there. "Maybe it's somebody rich from another part of town," Julian guessed. It's certainly cheaper to build here than in other parts of the city, I'd imagine. I hope whoever is building it already has a buyer in mind (or is building it for themselves), and that they plan to live here, but we'll see...