What ARE the neighbours up to?

Some many years ago, soon after I moved to Vancouver, I was hot on the dating scene. (ha ha, that's a slight exaggeration) One of the gentlemen I conversed with regularly once emailed me at work complaining of extreme tiredness. Upon further conversation it came out that the house behind him had blown up in the middle of the night and the ensuing chaos had been bad for sleep. He lived in ... shall we say a less desirable area of Vancouver ... and the house behind had been a meth lab, he figured, and there had been a small explosion and a fire and a whole lotta cops. 

I was pretty pleased and relieved to realize that I lived in a nicer area and there was little chance of the house behind me exploding in a drug-fuelled haze.

I have since figured out that the only real difference between his area of town and mine is that people in this area are more careful with their drug habits. I live in what is a pretty nice area -- not a rich area, I admit, but a nice area, and I have lost track of the number of times I have walked down the street and smelled pot from someone's apartment or backyard. It happened just today. A few months ago our street was temporarily blocked off as the police emptied out an unexploded drug lab over the next block. It's still a nice area of town; people don't sell drugs openly on the street like they do in some areas. But I'm not naive enough to figure that we couldn't find them if we wanted them. Which we don't, I hasten to add. 

Earlier today, sitting on the sofa with The Man, we heard a loud engine. And a loud speaker. And there were sirens in the distance. And it was awfully close, and we were a little concerned that someone in OUR block had let their drug problem get out of hand. It's ok if it's the next block over, of course, but not OUR block. So we poked our noses out of our window to find ...

the recycling truck has a loudspeaker. 

Guess the houses are saved for another day.