It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

There are a few regulars I pass on the way to work in the morning, the Latin woman with the wheely suitcase who never fails to compliment me on my choice of skirts, the aging Hepcat who dresses like Johnny Cash and wears a black Fedora over his Elvis Costello glasses and impeccably trimed silver goatee--no matter what the weather might be.

I see these people nearly every day and feel like I ought to introduce myself to them, all friendly small neighborhood style, since we travel on the same trajectory every day, by which I mean we all have specific places we like to part our cars and probably get very irrationally angry when we can't park in our usual favorite spots.

I like to believe these individuals are like me, anyway.

I've always liked the idea of saying hi and being friendly with the neighbors, after all, you never know who's going to have a file to chisel melted plastic off your stove when your teapot . . . or, conversely, who you're going to have to report to the police when you start seeing little red dots all over the complex. (Yep, that's the Colonial for you and the dual personalities of the boys in 41: two were really awesome and helpful and rode motorbikes, the other two were drunken domestic abusers and drug dealers who I hear are now in jail somewhere.)

Why not strike up some sort of kinship bond with people who also walk equally far from their vehicles to the office?

Soon to follow: Why Carpinteria and Summerland are kind of like West Virigina.