Visible neighbors

Life in a highrise means that we see the people in the neighboring building regularly. We do not know their names and would probably not say hello to them in the street, but we cannot help but know a great deal about their private lives.

One youngish couple (in their 30s, I would guess) have the television on almost constantly. It is a large screen machine (though not quite so large that I can see what it on) and occasionally one or the other will dance in the living room. The movements may be part of an exercise program, but it looks like dance. The man in the apartment above them walks back and forth in his bedroom whenever he has a phone call -- which happens quite often. Three people live in the apartment we looked at in that building. They come only on week-ends. I think it is a couple and their teen-aged daughter. They often cook together, though the kitchen in that apartment is significantly smaller than ours.

Presumably they can see me equally clearly. All that they see, however, is a person sitting at a large dining room table working on a laptop. Occasionally there are dishes on the table if I have just been eating and often there is paper mail on the table that I have not opened but am under orders not to throw out. Why do people send paper in this electronic age?

Winter may now be past -- temperatures in the last week remained consistently above freezing and the last remains of the snow have melted away. Nonetheless the snow was pretty -- at least for a maximum of ten minutes, after which I wanted it to melt away again. The picture above is of the garden outside our building.