Getting To Know the Neighbors

There's no better way to get to know your neighbors than to get locked out of your apartment and have them find you sitting in front of the door and invite you in. And until the neighbors found us, I'm realizing that my new little smartphone really is a life-changer and is really going to come in handy in situations that involve waiting.

Thanks to RCP (yes, he readily admits that it was his fault since he didn't think to take his keys and then left mine inside) on Saturday evening, after a long day out and dinner plans at 8:00, we came home to find no way to open our door, so we took a seat on the floor, I proceeded to read my book, now conveniently with me at all times thanks to my phone, and RCP made a call to our real estate agent Elvis. Elvis in turn called our maintenance guy, who said he'd be there in half an hour to let us in, as the third set of keys are in his locked office downstairs.

We waited for about fifteen minutes, in the dark because the hallway lights are motion censored and it got a little tiring continuously waiving our arms in the air to keep the lights on. Then the elevator opened and The Esparch's family piled out of the elevator. Pepe is in Rich's group at Samsung and they moved in next door about a month ago, after looking all over the city for an apartment big enough for two adults, three kids (under the age of 5) and one on the way. Georgina, his wife, is delightful and I usually only see her in the morning or afternoon herding the little ones to and from school.

They had just returned from picking Pepe up at the airport, as he had just flown in from Paris, and despite I'm sure wanting to spend time with each other, not the neighbors, they invited us in.....it proceeded to take three hours for our maintenance guy to come open our door for us (due in part to his being completely intoxicated, which in his defense, it was Saturday night) but we did have a very enjoyable time next door. We had real Spanish goodies including manchego cheese and cured meat -- "contraband" as Pepe called it, since he smuggled it in their cargo shipped from Spain. We drew the line at their offering to make us risotto. And I played with Pepe Jr. and Nicholas, helping them assemble some Lego trucks. I had forgotten how fun Lego's are.

It was a nice, unexpected evening. I highly recommend locking yourself out of your house if you want to get to know your neighbors as it's more informal and less awkward than planning a formal get-together....and we ended up being only an hour late for our friend's birthday dinner, completely made up for by some superb duets at karaoke later that night (we nailed Huey Lewis and Billy Joel). Oh, and we now know that our door has a fingerprint recognition pad that will really come in handy the next time this happens. RCP apparently didn't know about this high-tech feature before hand. Shocking, I know. Then again, we wouldn't have gotten to know the neighbors had our fingerprints let us in.

Meet the neighbors! This is Nicholas, 3 (right) and Pepe, 4 (left).

They have a sister who's 2 and another sibling who will arrive in February!