We had a real estate showing tonight at 6:00. It was really quite a feat of cleaning, since I got home from work at 5:00 and The Hub had to leave for The Depot at 5:30, and I had to make him something to eat before he left. But, I'm proud to say that I can stir a pot of meat sauce and sweep the kitchen floor at the same time.

Anyway, The Hub got off to work on time and I had gotten all of the major funk out of the bathroom when the Mrs. Dalet's appeared with their realtor. I took them to be mother and daughter - the daughter close to me in age, the mother maybe 10 years younger than my mom. The realtor produced her card with her photograph on it....

...this being a relatively new protocol in the real estate industry, in these days when you're not sure who the heck is at your door ( or, in my case, in your dining room) I looked anxiously past her to the younger Mrs. Dalet who was looking anxiously at me. The older Mrs. Dalet was looking around with the slightly worried look I've seen African-American people who lived through segregation get when they're worried about what kind of neighborhod they're in. It always breaks my heart to see that. Both of the Mrs. Dalet's are black.

"Come on in, but you'll have to bear with the kitchen because I'm still cleaning up after supper. My husband has just left for his night job."

"Hmm. Smells good!" the younger Mrs. Dalet said, coming in and looking around.

"You got any left overs? We skipped dinner." their realtor joked.

"Oh, this is kinda nice. Hardwood." the older Mrs. Dalet remarked, softly.

"I'll step out back so you can look around in peace. Feel free to ask me any questions."

If the Mrs. Dalet's buy the house, they'll have no problems in this neighborhood - but that's a somewhat recent development in this County Town. The town, here, was always more diverse than anyplace else in the county, and right now this is a neighborhood right out of Martin Luther King's Dream ( and mine! that's another reason I'll be sad to leave it) The loose bounderies of what I consider my neighborhood house about 50% people of a wide age range who might think of themselves as "not minorities" and about 50% who might think of themselves "as minorities" with probably the slighly highest number of them thinking so because they speak Spanish as a first language. We have people living together of every race and mix of races ( so, I have a dream that in a few generations we'll all be "human". That's what I always check off on questionaires when it asks. I check "other" and write in "human." I've been doing it for years, and I encourage others to join me!!)

I also have as a neighbor a very sweet homeless man and his beagle dog, whom he pushes around in a baby carriage ( if the man is homeless, does that mean the dog is homeless too? Because both the dog and the man look like they are "at home" as long as they are together - and I suspect the man could find housing if he was willing to be parted from his dog, which he isn't. And most of my neighbors and I don't blame him, and so routinely try to put out something useful with the trash, including full bags of dog food) And there's a guy up the street whom we are pretty sure suffers from schizophrenia. Yesterday he was wandering around with a "Happy Halloween" shirt on and carrying one of those little plastic pumpkins. For some reason, he seems fairly convinced that The Hub is a senator, though The Hub has assured him that he's a handyman. He doesn't do anybody any harm though, and it's hard to work up getting frightened of him even if he does get a little loud from time to time.

And, even though not all of us speak the same language, have the same customs, and some of us don't exactly have all our faculties we all get along just fine - so put that in your pipe and smoke it - all you "community planning types" (oh, yeah, I guess we have a couple of people putting all kinds of stuff in a pipe and smoking it too, but that's a few streets behind us)

But, I digress.

I couldn't tell, and it would have certainly been wrong to ask, but I had the idea that the Mrs. Dalet's planned to move in together, rather than one of them just being along to advise the other one. They were openly excited about the house, and spent the longest time of anyone we've had yet looking over everything.

"This is much nicer than anything we've seen so far." they said plainly. Of course, I don't know how long they've been looking. There was no polite way for me to explain that it was an "everybody's welcome" kind of neighborhood - so I focused on explaining my neighbors personalities ( "guys behind us - super friendly outgoing types, new young couple on right sometimes have parties but always ask if music is too loud but it never is, folks behind hedges on left, extremely polite but very shy. Took us a long time to get to know them)

"Is the pond part of the property?"

"Oh, yes, it's on a solar filter now, which I would leave. There are no fish, but three frogs."

"Oh really! Frogs are good to have around!"

"You're tellin' me. Haven't seen a mosquito all summer."

"So it's quiet back here. It's kinda private." Older Mrs. Dalet murmured.

"Yes Ma'm. This is a busy time of day for the street and - listen - you still mostly hear the wind in the trees. And in the spring the birds are too loud to hear the traffic! Oh, hey look! If you look right now you can see the big frog!"

"Where? Oh - there he is!" the younger Mrs. Dalet put her arm around my shoulder to keep her balance as she leaned over the porch to point out the frog to her mother. "He just splashed!"

So, of course, you know I want very much to sell to these people, at least one of whom would appreciate the frogs as much as I do! The only trouble would be that The Hub would be unstoppable on improvements if he knew two women were going to buy the house - and Mrs. Dalet could be a master plumber AND electrician and he still wouldn't care - he'd still feel it was his "manly duty" to make sure everything was as improved as it could be and leave behind reams of documents on what to do if the water heater ever goes off. (actually, we bought a home warrenty to cover that for the buyer. sigh)

We do have another showing tomorrow, so hope is still alive!