The big turkey up the street

I live in a heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood. However, our part of the neighborhood is a quiet subdivision with a mixture of families, including non-Jews. Most of these neighbors, I have to admit, I don't know at all. I believe that maybe they are afraid of us. I don't blame them. You see, our Saturdays include parading around in our finery and entertaining hoardes of people, including lots of children who run wild in our yard. For the most part, we coexist peacefully, wave hello and continue on our merry way. It's especially quiet on our block as we have double cul-de-sacs and back to the woods (see post "Babes in the Woods").

We have a new neighbor up the hill. I met her recently when she was walking her two ENORMOUS dogs past my house as I was unloading the groceries.

""Hi," she said, "I just moved in up the street."

I looked around to see if she was talking to me. It's not the norm for a random stranger to talk to me like that. People tend to keep to themselves around here if they don't already recognize one another.

"Um, hi," I said. "Those are some big dogs you have there." I forgot to welcome her to the neighborhood.

"Yes," she said, "I like to walk them in the woods."

"Oh, my friends always tell me not to go back there because it's dangerous but I love to run there," I said. "Maybe I could borrow one of your dogs one day."

Why I said this, I have no idea. I do not like dogs, am terrified of them, and would not know what to do with one if I had it in the woods. It is likely more dangerous for me to run with a dog than without.

I waved good-bye and went back to unloading the groceries.

Fast-forward several weeks. I drive down the street one day and see, on the front lawn of her house, a GINORMOUS INFLATABLE PUMPKIN FOR HALLOWEEN. My children, of course, had many queries about this like, "Why is there a ginormous pumpkin for Halloween in their front yard? Maybe they don't know there are a lot of Jewish people around here."

You see, most of the kids around here are Orthodox and, thus, do not trick-or-treat. My kids happen to be endlessly curious about the holiday and can't quite get a grasp on it. There was a whole discussion of it on the field trip I chaperoned for Pes's 5th grade class on Monday. Everyone shared their stories of what they do apropos to trick-or-treaters. Candy or no candy? Answer the door or leave a basket and note on the front porch? Lights on or off?

Now, to me, Halloween is pretty straightforward. And having grown up as a Halloweenophile, I feel a little sorry for my kids that they won't have it. I mean, I don't know what is so baffling about it. I'm like, "Zsa Zsa, try to explain Shemini Atzeres to those kids up the street." Not as easy as Halloween.

Anyway, I was psyched on Tuesday when that pumpkin was deflated and put away. The sad little ghost affixed to the mailbox was still there but overall, the front yard was clear. And though I think there are children who live there, I have seen neither hide nor hair of them. This is contrary to my house, which currently has 27 baseball bats in the front yard and,thus, always screams, "Children live here!" even if just with the stuff they leave in the yard. However, as I drove down the hill yesterday, I was flabbergasted to find that A GINORMOUS INFLATABLE TURKEY has replaced that pumpkin. In my opinion, this is way worse than the baseball bats.

I told my friend, Mrs. C, that I believe the housing values will plummet from such ridiculousness and I am embarrassed to have people over now with such an eyesore up the street. She said, "Invite people over in the summer when there are no holidays." She's Canadian, so I guess she doesn't know about the Fourth of July.