The Neighbors

I have a problem: I don't know whether to tell Crabtot that Captain Hook lives next door to us or to wait for her to figure it out for herself. I'm scared she will get a fright if I don't warn her. Of the man down the street's hand. Which is actually a hook. And this is relevant right now. Since we have just bought Peter Pan on DVD. And I don't know why I am writing in fragments. Somehow the problem. Necessitates choppy sentences.

Those of you who came to this blog in its infancy will recall my fascination with my then-neighbors, Crabtown's finest, slummiest, and in fact most charming cowboy campers, who did seasonal work at the Crabtown rodeo and spent an awful lot of time asleep in temporary homes comprised of rusted husks of metal propped up on bricks.

I miss them.

And I miss spying on them.

But I have some interesting new folk around me. Like Captain Hook: he has a wild head of woolly hair, two somewhat fractious Bassett hounds and, to repeat, a hook for a hand. I noticed the hook last week when walking Crabtot to preschool. She's at the age where she asks me out loud in front of some poor blighted human why that person is fat or has pimples or uses a wheelchair, so I expected her instantly to spot the hook as neighbor wrangled his Bassett hounds. But she did not. And then I expected again that she might remark upon the hook when we saw this man again raking leaves with his hook. (He didn't rake leaves with the actual hook. He had a rake. He just, you know, has this hook.) She did not remark on the hook. But it is only a matter of time.

Not being accustomed to thinking about hooks for hands, I am a little puzzled by the hook. I don't know; I thought maybe by now the modern era could produce something better than a hook. I imagine a hook must be useful otherwise someone wouldn't sport it in lieu of a hand. That said, a prosthetic robot hand would surely be better? But maybe you need like super-schmantzy health insurance to get your, um, hand on one of those...?

Anyhoo, the dilemma here has nought to do with the actual hook, but with how to approach the hook with Crabtot. This past week, she has become obsessed with Peter Pan and is a tad freaked by Captain Hook and all. I have been pushing the PP DVD because Strawberry Shortcake gets on my last nerve, but now am wondering whether to push the Friendship Cake scene back into the mix so we don't develop the nascent interest in Captain Hook.

To clarify, my real fear here is not that Crabtot will become scared by the real-life Captain Hook down the road. No, I fear that she will embarrass me by asking me in front of him why the dude has a hook for a hand. Should I discuss in advance, I wonder?

Our neighborhood! Chock full of fascination! There is another chap down the block who drives a giant stretch limo and has a giant built-up shoe. He tools around, chain-smoking, outside his house, which is incredibly dilapidated (there is an old cardboard box that ever since I moved here has been propped beneath an attic window to hold it up and, I suppose, let air in [or smells out?]). Said limo driver is very sweet and very proud of his limo company. He gave Crabtot his business card the other day on our way to preschool, and told her that he gives "discounts for good grades"! Then he turned to me and said, "It's never too early to start getting them motivated!"

Did you hear that Crabtot? Study hard and in 13 years you might get 10% off our neighbor's limo service as he drives you to your prom!

Okay, so maybe Crabtot isn't yet properly motivated by the limo discount to study hard for her entire school career, but she is rightly impressed by the limo. "When I'm a grownup I'm going to drive that big car," she told me yesterday. "I'm going to make a bed in it for my babies....My ten babies," she clarified when I asked her how many she would be having. (It's always between five and sixteen).

The limo guy is truly very sweet and we stop and chat often. He's always trying to make Crabtot pick dandelion flowers and weeds from the strip of "garden" in front of his house; he's quite crafty that way. On July 4 he drove the limo round and round the 'hood, gingerly approaching our street where we had fireworks going...but he glided by after a round of rockets, and waved like the queen and we all waved back and I half expected a rain of limo business cards to fall upon us all like confetti.

We also have a sexually ambiguous couple (Crabhub thinks one is transgendered). One of the (wo)men repairs unbelievably ancient bicycles and has about seven hundred of them in her yard. Their house is quite magnificent (if you ignore the very gay giant faux-Tuscan planters in front of it) and they are quite unfriendly but they have two beautiful little daughters who are quite polite.

Love my 'hood. Seriously, people, unless you're on the wrong side of the tracks you're doomed to a dull life (says she who, like, checks real estate listing in tony zones about, oh, every day)!

What should I do? Discuss hook in advance and coach Crabtot on how not to react when she actually sees it thereby sparing Captain Hook's feelings and, more important, saving me from embarrassment? Or let the metal prong announce itself organically (okay, that word doesn't quite work) in its own time...and let the subsequent reaction be whatever it will be?

A tough question for a tough times.