Oh, my ridiculous neighbor. She never ceases to amaze me.

I will call her Jane. (Why Jane, you might ask? Because all I can think of when I talk with her is, “Jane, you ignorant slut!!” – courtesy SNL). I have little patience for people who have great resources to do good things and don’t. My neighbor is one of those people.

I have talked with Jane a few times this week. The conversations I have had with her have infuriated me, to which HDH responds, “You’re just NOW catching on to her behavior?” I've noticed. It just seems more ... glaring ... lately.

Here are some gems from recent conversations with her:

While watching all of the Hurricane Katrina coverage, I hear that Fats Domino is missing. I know Jane’s husband is big into jazz, blues, the New Orleans sound. I tell her this. Her response to me is, “Oh well. He’s OLD, you know?” SAY WHAT?? Okay, if people are old, then they don’t matter as much. What the hell??

She asked what HDH and I had done about donating. I told her we had given to an organization, as well as purchased a bunch of store brand tampons, maxi pads (I mean, really, how horrible would that be? Stuck someplace without any means to take care of your cycle? Good lord), diapers, wipes, and through in whatever else was in my baby closet that I just didn’t need. I mailed it off early last week and it will be in Houston today. She told me they were “waiting for the right time”, she guessed. The right time?? Like there IS one? There will always be a need there – for many months to come – but I can almost bet you my bottom dollar that she never will. They’ll sit, shake their heads at the TV, and never do a damn thing about it at all.

I should mention, too, that she then added how she splurged and spent “a lot of money” on all the Christmas DVD’s she’d ever wanted, plus CD’s she’d always wanted, too.

And then yesterday, I hear there are refugees coming to our area – within city blocks of our homes. I tell her that it would be smart to do some sort of neighborhood drive and take a lot of diapers, food, medicine, blankets and such to them.. She tells me she considered volunteering, but she doesn’t want to “catch cholera”. SAY WHAT?? She’s now worried our neighborhood will be ‘infected’. You have got to be kidding me.

I’m waiting now for the perfect moment to tell her then about my experience last night in the local Albertson’s. I stood in line with families displaced by the hurricane. I watched one woman put things back to get more, try and figure out what she could spend and save for later. I saw a line at the ATM that went out the front door. I heard one very old woman trying to figure out how to get back to the place where they are being housed. I told HDH I wanted to scoop them all up and make it okay again. I wasn’t worried about cholera (Jesus!!) or any other unknown things. These are PEOPLE. They aren’t germs.

(I'd like to think Jane just has her priorities mixed up. But then again, she doesn't sound like she has ANY.)

And then HDH summed it all up for me. I had been trying hard to understand why I wasn’t fitting in with these people, why they weren’t including me in lunch dates and family trips. For a while, I admit, I was feeling like I had done something wrong, looked the wrong way, too young, you name it. And then HDH said, “No. You have done nothing wrong. You are not superficial and they are."

So, I thank HDH for the reminder to be true. And I guess I’d just say that as soon as my baby is better (nice 101-103 temp last two days), I’ll be shipping him off to day care and finding out what I can do to help our new neighbors.