The Suburban Dad

When you buy a house you hope for good neighbors. The problem is there's no way to assess that before making your 30-year investment. You want them to be friendly but not overbearing. You want them to care about their property but not so much your mediocre yard maintenance sticks out. We ended up hitting the jack pot. There's a block party, holiday party and, best of all, a handful of families with kids all the same age. And in a statistically impossible turn of luck, the parents also like each other. When I couldn't meet up with the dad's for a drink one night (Brooke was away, and I was with Ellis), they wired up a TV in my garage to watch the game while we grilled steak. With no sides. Just meat on a plate. Real dad stuff.