You know you’ve finally hit Spring in the Valley of the Sun when you actually start hearing voices outside as the day starts turning to dusk and people start coming home from work. I’ve always found it amazing (and, compared with other people in our subdivision, a blessing) that we can be surrounded by so many houses and can enjoy quiet sunsets under happy pineapple lights and a glass of pinot grigio and only hear the sound of teh mourning doves queueing up for drinks at our swimming pool fountains and hummingbirds buzzing their way around the flora and fauna. I can count eight houses from my patio, yet, seldom do you hear the sound of human beings anywhere. I’ve always wondered why that is.

Anyways, tonight I hear sounds from the backyards of the three houses we share walls with: Rex, the motorcycle burnout to our right – he’s a little odd but they’re all pretty harmless, Keith and his wife to our left, a young couple who also have cool patio lights and like to barbecue practically every night, and Paul, an IT executive whose house is directly across the wall from us. Seems like a nice guy but I can’t help but think he looks like the kind of guy who would call me into his office to lay me off. “Thanks for all the years, Doug, but we don’t need old bucks like you around here anymore.” Anyways, tonight he complimented me on keeping my mesquite tree away from his property. I feel honored.

We all live so close to each other that everyone seems to know how lucky we all have it: all it would take is one of us to move out and be replaced by 20-something renters with twenty dogs who blast rap and hip-hop at all hours of the day. But that’s just life in a subdivision and why the HOAs (homeowner associations) are just one step above the Gestapo. And ours doesn’t mess around – every day around 10 AM you see the little red car drive pass by. If they see anything (I was once cited because my American flag was getting kinda shabby; I told the lady I was making a statement about Barack Obama’s America, she didn’t buy it). I remember an X-Files show about life under HOAs, it was pretty funny and not that far from the truth. But in this day and age where people seem to think they can do whatever they want as their own form of making a “personal statement” the HOAs come in pretty damned handy.