Angel

This is the second batch of cookies produced in my apartment's mini oven. The first batch in early June was meant to be posted and shipped across state lines for two kids whose combined birthday party I missed. Unable to locate my roll of packing tape, I put off sealing the box. In a moment of weakness the next day, I opened the package and stress-ate five cookies. And since you can't send a container of cookies with five missing, that box and its remaining contents never left New York.

A month sped by and I began to assemble what has turned into an annual box of food stuffs for a friend's birthday. I still didn't have my act together, and so that box also didn't get sealed. And in yet another moment of weakness, when some people came over last minute that evening and I had nothing to offer, my eyes fell on my friend's package. The peanut butter cups were eagerly received by my visitors, but as you can probably guess, that box, too, never made its way out of my apartment.

Lame.

I set aside time in my calendar to make things right today. When my body awoke this morning, it was humid and too July, if that makes any sense, to even think about venturing outside. And so here it is at 11 o'clock at night and those two boxes are still just sitting there, staring at me in the face, like, What are YOU looking at, CHUMP???

Self-improvement is just not my thing.

But! What I did manage today was using up the last of my vanilla for a half batch of cookies that are now hanging on my neighbor's door with a note of thanks. While we've only exchanged a few hellos in the hallway and on the street, he has the kindest of faces, and seems to be a gentle soul. That, or he's stoned all the time. Either way, I like him. He's older, maybe one of those lucky New Yorkers who've been living in their rent-controlled apartments for so long that I'd have a stroke if I knew what his rent was. He's a quiet and considerate neighbor. UPS and FedEx leave deliveries on the ground floor by the mailboxes. It's actually my neighbor who carries my packages up the stairs, leaving them neatly stacked by my door on the fifth floor. I don't know many people who would do that for strangers who just moved in, and one who received nearly a dozen packages in one week alone. Who does that these days? Do nice things for your neighbors? Yeah, right. But then, with his front door just two feet from mine, he came home one night and like a creepy voyeur - only I'm not! - I overheard the sweetest thing. His cat meowed at the click of his lock turning and the minute he opened the door, the two of them exchanged a full-blown feline-human conversation that was all rainbows and hugs. She meowed and meowed and meowed in response to everything he said. Hey, girl! Meow! How was your day? Meow! Are you hungry? Meow!

My neighbor's name is Angel. He has long hair that he wears down when he goes out. He probably ties it in a ponytail in the summer, but I haven't seen him since we were shaking off winter, so I can't say for sure. He often wears jeans and a worn black leather biker's jacket. He speaks softly and does things like deliver packages to his neighbor's door and chats up his cat at the end of his day. I can't help but think that he's one of those guys whose name suits him.