Dear Voyeurs,

There is still no word from Alene.  She won’t answer her cell phone and her husband is acting suspicious about me calling all the time.  He has reported her as missing!  The police came around, asking all kinds of questions, and I told them that I didn’t have any idea where she might be.

Do you think that the Writing B has been acting so strangely because she’s lost her mind?  And she did something to Alene??  What if I sent her over there to her DEATH?  I gave her prescription pain pills and then I made her go into that psycho’s house.  I can’t even hobble across the street to look around in the backyard.

Mary-Beth will just have to go.  Completely legit.  She’ll have to knock on the door and get invited in and see if she smells decomposing

Well, she’ll just have to.  Alene was — IS her friend, too, and she’ll just have to be brave and go over there.  I’ll try to get the scoop on the investigation from a lady who works at the police station front desk.  We used to be friends, and I’m sure she’s over that whole thing, and she’ll just have to be convinced to tell me what’s happening.

I’ll get to the bottom of this, readers.  Don’t doubt that.

Dear Readers,

Two evenings ago, I watched Alene go into The Writing B’s house.  She walked up to the door, rang the bell, and waited.  Then she got the key down from above the door jamb and went inside.  I was watching with my binoculars, dying to know what she was seeing inside, when Mary-Beth came over, completely uninvited.

She was in a drinking mood, so she mixed us up some drinks.  Hubby had told me he’d be working late (the better to talk to Alene after her mission!)  Well, with ankle throbbing and screaming at me, and wishing that I could be the one in that house, I took one of the forbidden pain pills, just to take the edge off.  Hubby would never even know!

Mary-Beth and I reminisced about old times and laughed and laughed.  We’ve had some great times together!

Well, almost an hour passed and I suddenly thought, “Where is Alene?”  and “Where the HELL is Alene?”

I took a peek at the Writing B’s house, but nothing was happening.   I called Alene, and her phone just rang and rang.  Now, Alene will sometimes turn off her ringer.  She’ll also sometimes ignore my calls.  But this was exceedingly irritating!  She knew that I would be waiting, and she just ran out on me.

Mary-Beth and I talked about how untrustworthy Alene has been since college, and we were recalling a specific incident when she had promised to lend me her car — when we heard tires screeching and ran to the windows.  There were two cars in the road, and one was my own!  It was dark out, but I heard a teenage girl’s squeaky voice screaming, and my son shouting that everything was okay, that it was only a dog.

I yelled for him to get inside right that minute, and he defied me and dragged a limp dog out of the road and close to the bushes in front of The Writing B’s house.  Even with my binoculars, I couldn’t see whose dog it was.   We really need stronger streetlights!

Well then I spent the rest of the evening lecturing my son about safe driving and watching out for other teen drivers, especially silly little girls.  Then Hubby came home and we grounded our son from driving for two weeks (though Lord knows I can’t drive him around!)  He’ll just have to take the bus.

Anyway, it’s two days later and I STILL haven’t gotten ahold of Alene.  I don’t know if I’ve ever been more disappointed in my life!  I spoke to Alene’s husband on their landline, but he wouldn’t tell me anything about where she is.  She must just be avoiding me!

I’m going back to the doctor to see what’s taking my ankle so long to heal.  It hurts all the time, without even putting any weight on it.

Dear Readers,

A deal has been struck between me and Alene.  I got the pain pills from Hubby’s hiding spot and gave Alene a taste yesterday.  She has agreed to get herself inside The Writing B’s house as soon as possible, and will make her first attempt tomorrow.

I saved the flyer with the floorplans from when the house was for sale years ago, and I’ve already plotted out a logical search plan for Alene.  Damn!  I wish my ankle were healed enough to go in myself.  It drives me crazy to leave such important snooping to someone else.

The Writing B hasn’t been grocery shopping in several days, so hopefully tomorrow she’ll go while her nasty kid is at school and her husband is at work.  Then Alene can just go inside with the spare key that the jerk-off son always uses when he forgets his.  It’s above the doorway, inside the screened-in porch.  I’ve seen him reach up there for it at least 20 times this year!  He must be absent-minded as well as rude!  What can all those girls see in him?  He’s not as good-looking as his father!

I’ll keep watch and call Alene on her cell phone at the first sign of trouble.  She can go out the back door and cut through the neighbors’ yard where they’ve been “repairing” the fence for nearly two months now.

I’ve given her a video camera so she can film the whole thing for me!  Readers, it’s my best plot yet.  I only wish I could get a live feed to my house so I could tell her, “look inside that cupboard!” or “go through the pile of mail”!!  That would be like real espionage.

Oh, I can’t wait to find out what’s going on inside that house!

My friends, I have to go.  Mary-Beth is here to keep me company, and I suspect she’s brought more fattening baked goods.  I will get revenge on her for the 15 pounds I’ve gained since I hurt my ankle!

My dearest voyeurs,

I’m so sorry to have abandoned you for so long.  The pain just seemed to get worse no matter how many extra pills I took.  Hubby finally confiscated them, saying that I hadn’t moved in two days!  Well, thanks for noticing, Darling!

Now I’m hurting again and mad as a snake.  I made my son buy a huge bottle of Advil and I’m sneaking those when Hubby’s at work.  They take the edge off, especially when they’re paired with a little booze.  Alene’s been visiting these past few days and she sneaks me enough vodka to keep me sane.

So, I’m back!  I still can only hobble around, and with the snow we’ve gotten lately, there’s no way I could safely step outside.  No one shoveled the driveway (see what happens if I don’t keep tabs on Hubby and my son EVERY SECOND?) or the sidewalk.  The snow has gotten packed down into ice.  I’ve been watching the mailman and neighbors slipping around all up and down the street.  It brings back memories and makes my ankle hurt worse.   I think I’ve got PTSD and will be forced to move to a warmer climate!

Alene has been suspiciously defensive about Mr. and Mrs. Implants’ open marriage.  Why, you’d think it was normal rather than a perverted crime!  I try not to fight with her, or she’ll stop visiting.

Mary-Beth has bringing over baked goods as if she’s trying to fatten me up!  She knows I’m always watching my waistline AND that I normally walk all around the neighborhood to burn some calories.  Now I’m just sitting around, moping, getting tipsy, and wishing for company.  And getting fat.  My elastic-waist pants are tight!  Thanks a lot, Mary-Beth!

I’ve been keeping a close eye on the Writing B across the street.  I shut the blinds most of the way and then peek out with my binoculars.  She’s been peeking out of her own windows several times a day!  What is she looking for?   What the heck could be going on over there to make her stay inside so much, when you used to see her out in her darn yard all day and into the night?  Why is she looking out the window all the time — who does she think is outside?

Readers, I’m going to get Alene inside of that house.  We’ve just GOT to find out what the Writing B is up to!

I promise you that I WILL find out the truth.

Hello, voyeurs!

After I sent Mary-Beth AGAIN to visit the Writing B across the street, she tried to avoid me!  She lives right next to me and I always know if she’s home.  But she wouldn’t answer her phone and I couldn’t walk over there.  I have a key to her house, but I couldn’t barge in on her and demand to know what had happened because of my dang ankle.  I HATE being limited.

Well, finally she came over to chat, but she was acting kind of aloof and strange.  Not her usual space-cadet routine, but like she was intentionally trying to annoy me!

She said that the B did not seem to be drunk at all, and did not suggest that they have a drink.  Mary-Beth claims to have looked all around the first floor, but strangely did not see the B’s laptop anywhere.  If she’s not writing, what the heck is she doing inside that house all day long???  Mary-Beth did not pick up any clues.

–

My son has developed a crush on some girl from his high school, but it seems that she is involved with the B’s son.  If she has the bad taste to be interested in that rude boy, she will have nothing to do with MY son!  Since that rude boy always has different girls coming and going from his house, I don’t know which one it is that my son thinks he likes.  Have you ever tried to get a straight answer out of a teenage boy?  If you succeeded, you must be a magician.

My ankle continues to be excruciatingly sore.  I periodically try to stand on it, to force it to be as strong as my mind is, but it simply won’t cooperate.  I have been taking all the extra-strength pain pills and will need to get more for myself (and Alene).  I will suggest that the Doctor give me something a little stronger this time, since these barely seem to work at all.  I have ways of convincing him!

I hope you are doing better in your surveillance than I, my readers.  Surely interesting things are happening everywhere outside of my boring house!

Hello, voyeurs!

I am just sick, sick, sick of being stuck here.  I watch as much as I can with my binoculars, but that Writing B across the street (my teenage son mentioned that I’ve been cursing a lot lately, so I’ll try to get out of that habit) keeps her blinds closed and hasn’t been on her porch much at all.  She just seems to be holed up in that house.

What could she be doing?

Her insolent son sure seems to come and go as he pleases!  And the girls going in and out of that house — I can’t imagine my son stringing along a bunch of giggling teenagers.  I’m so glad those chippies aren’t trying to get into MY house and make a mess and eat all the food and say every sentence as if it’s a question.

Anyway, I sent Mary-Beth over there to make friends with the B and find out what that darn B is up to, but you can guess how that went.  Mary-Beth did not follow the plan at all!  She didn’t even try!  I watched her walk up to the door, looking around like a dummy, and then finally ring the bell.  The B came to the door and totally blocked her!  Mary-Beth hardly even tried to get inside and was absolutely REBUFFED.

Then she came straight back over here, so the B could know that I sent her!  She does not have a mind for espionage.

I’m trying again today, but this time I made her memorize a little script about how they’ve been neighbors so long, but barely know each other, and Mary-Beth is going to bring some homemade banana bread, and say that she hasn’t tasted it, and then it will only be polite for the B to invite her in so they can eat some together.  This better work!

Don’t you fret, though!  All our eggs are not in Mary-Beth’s basket.  I spoke to the Doctor today, and with some slight encouragement (remember, his wife knows about his affair with the receptionist, but NOT the affair with the nurse!), he agreed to give me more powerful pain pills.

Not only will I be more comfortable, but I can spare a few of them to entice Alene to pay a visit to the B.  Alene is much less easily guided but she has a lot more sense and isn’t a big pushover.

–

Alene has reported to me that Mr. Implants has been out of town on business a lot this week, and that Mrs. Implant’s car has been missing from the garage every night.  If only I could get out and drive around, I’d try to tail her!

Well, folks, I’ll keep doing my best to keep you up to date on my own neighborhood soap opera.  Hopefully it won’t be long before I’m up and around again and able to complete my rounds!

Hello, voyeurs!  I’m still crippled.  I can’t believe how bad this sprain is.  I can barely get around on my crutches.

So, Alene came over to keep me company yesterday, and once I got a few drinks in her, she finally spilled the beans about Mrs. Implants.  I knew I’d get it out of her!  She swore me to secrecy, but I can trust you, right?

Oh, this is so good!  Mrs. Implants and Mr. Implants are having marital problems, so they’re experimenting with an open marriage!  Now, Alene says that Mrs. Implants has not been dating the cable guy, but I can’t rule out that she’s been seeing that young plumber who comes by so often.  It sounds like a porno, or the ’70s!

Also, Mrs. Implants finds Mary-Beth insufferable!  She thinks Mary-Beth is simpering, and of course I agree to some point.  But Mary-Beth is my friend, and I would never admit that to anyone but you.  Mary-Beth never wants to cause any controversy or have anyone get mad at her.  That works out fine for me, usually.  Since we were kids, she’s always been my sidekick who just does what I want most of the time.  We fit together like puzzle pieces.

–

My friends, I’ve been sitting by this window for over a week now, and I am so bored!  Even with my binoculars, this street just doesn’t provide enough entertainment for a full week.  I can’t wait to get out and around town again!  I learn so much while volunteering at the library, and at the school, and at the old folk’s home.  I drop in on my husband at work and find out what I can from the secretary.  I can’t wait to get out of here!

Anyway, I’ve seen very little of my nemesis across the street.  She seems to be doing her little writing inside the house nowadays.  She’s been sitting on that porch for years, every day, at first scribbling away, and later tapping on her laptop.  What would make her change her habits so drastically?  Could she be depressed about her daughter leaving for college?  But she still has her over-protected son.  I won’t rule out alcoholism.  I’ve just got to find a way in.

–

Mr. Johnny finally took down his giant Christmas decorations for the year.  I can rest easy until November.  Alene says that his kids didn’t even visit him this winter.  His wife got them in the divorce and moved them to Alaska.  I wonder what he did to make her move so far away!

–

The new people on the corner stopped by yesterday, but they brought all three kids with them!  I made my son bring us tea and store-bought cookies from the kitchen.  I had to yell step-by-step instructions at him from the living room.  That boy is just as dumb as his father when it comes to the kitchen!  The new people brought some fancy treats from Whole Foods.  I’m saving them for later.

So, Mr. and Mrs. Uppity are both psychologists and they can’t wait until summer when they can uncover their in-ground pool.  They have the only pool on the block, and their property takes up two lots.  I guess maybe if I were them, I’d be uppity too, and make everyone call me “Doctor” all the time, even though I wasn’t a REAL doctor.

Their teenage son did not seem to mesh with my son at all.  I’m afraid Teen Uppity may not have any social skills.  The younger kids seemed like what you’d expect from a rich family with an in-ground pool: self-interested and easily bored.

I didn’t find them very much fun, but at least they broke up my day.

–

Tomorrow Mary-Beth’s coming over and I will try to give her some specific instructions about what I need to know.  On her own, she’ll go wandering around, talking to people and then come back and tell me, in her dreamy voice, “Oh, I don’t know… Nobody’s really up to much.”  Come on, Mary-Beth!

Oh, I can’t wait to get out of this house!

My friends, my ankle has a pretty bad sprain.  I went to the doctor (who we already know is having an affair with his receptionist AND his nurse), and he said I have to get crutches and try to stay off my leg for a few weeks.  Well, it’s too darn icy out for me to get around very well on crutches, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change any time soon.

I’ll have to rely on Mary-Beth and Alene for most of my information for a little while.  I have the phone, of course, and my binoculars.  I’ve already made my husband arrange a chair in front of the window, with a foot stool to prop up my leg and a table to hold my tea and notepad and laptop.  I’ll be able to see who comes and goes on the street, at least.

Honestly, folks, I’m afraid I might go a little stir crazy, all cooped up inside for two or three weeks.  I’m much too social a person to spend all day alone.  I’ll have to see if those new neighbors can come here for tea, though I’m not sure how I’ll be able to carry the teapot to the table, or any snacks.  Oh, I just hate being helpless!

Wish me luck getting through it!

1/11/10

Hello, voyeurs!  I haven’t been able to get much snooping done today, thanks to a sprained ankle.  I’ve made my Monday phone rounds, and Mary-Beth told me that she ran into someone at the grocery store today — the Missing Bitch from across the street!

Apparently she had a cart full of canned goods and seemed quite distracted — more than usual.  She’s always been kind of a flighty one, daydreaming and drifting off in the middle of sentences.  I wonder what’s happening to make it worse.  I’ve just got to get over there and see what she’s up to.  Maybe she’s taken up heavy drinking!

My pain pills are making ME awfully fuzzy headed now, so I’d better sign off.

1/10/10

Hello, fellow snoops!  I”m sorry I didn’t update for a few days, but our cable and internet went down.  I guess now Mrs. Implant can speculate about what the cable man was doing at MY house today!  They sure took their sweet time in getting it fixed.

Anyway, I got the scoop from Alene and Mary-Beth, or what they’ll give up, anyway.  Alene won’t ever tell, for instance, about her addiction to Vicadin and vodka.  And Mary-Beth is too goody-goody to tell much at all, but I have ways of coaxing enough scraps out of her to piece together the real story.

Here’s what I managed to find out from them:

First, the Missing Bitch has been seen less and less for the last couple of weeks.  She was on her regular porch-sitting schedule, and then the cable guy (again!) came on or around New Year’s Eve, and she’s barely been seen since.  She did go out to the grocery store, and to Costco, and carried in even more bags than usual (she, her husband, and her kids are all suspiciously slender, so where does all that food go?).  But she hasn’t even been doing yard work.  Her meager Christmas decorations are still up.

I may have to take over a plate of some sort of conciliatory post-holiday cookies to find out what’s going on.  I’ll pretend I want to patch things up.  It has been over a year since I smacked her son for calling me a twat-face.  Maybe by now she’s taught that kid to respect his elders.

__

Mrs. Implants apparently really did get cable.  She invited Alene over to watch movies one night when both their husbands were working. I just know that Alene found something out, but she’s not ready to tell me yet.  She had that knowing smirk.  She loves to withhold information from me, and I love to get it out of her!

Mrs. Implants also apparently had a plumber over three times while I was gone.  A young, attractive looking plumber.  Mary-Beth stopped over while he was there, and Mrs. Implants practically shoved her back out the door, saying she was too busy to visit.  Mary-Beth is such a pushover (AND doesn’t even remember the name on the van!  I could have called the company and tried to find out if he was really there on official business).  I’ll have to get to the bottom of this one myself.

Mrs. Implants has been WAY too happy lately, and she hasn’t been getting her antidepressant prescription refilled.  It must be a man.  Being at home all day, with the kids at school, and no real hobbies or interests, she can’t be happy for no reason!  There’s got to be something fun going on in her life.

__

I managed to meet the new neighbors.  Mary-Beth had already found out that they’re Jewish, so I felt sure they’d help me push Mr. Johnny to take down – and KEEP down – his giant Christmas decorations.  I mentioned it right away, but they tried to avoid discussing it.  I hate when people beat around the bush with me.  We made an appointment for tea in a couple of days – once they have a chance to get more settled in.

__

Until next time, my friends!  And remember to stay alert – you never know when something interesting is going on right under your nose.