“Wait! Waiiiit!!!”  “Stop. Please!. Hey! Hey! Hey!”  

The past week, I have woken up to sounds that have left me wondering for a split second, as to where I am at.

 
My new neigborhood, away from downtown Los Angeles has a whole new set of sounds that have left me amused. When I lived in downtown Los Angeles, what I often heard was the sounds of cars crashing into the corner coffee shop and the local homeless man who would yell at night. 

I was never too sure about what he was yelling. I do believe it often entailed a thorough discussion of the latest goverment conspiracy against us all. He usually yelled starting at 11pm through about 3am. Sadly, I got used to the yells and diatribes.  As for the car crashes, for some reason, my corner had at least one crash a month. I am not joking about that. I wish I was.
 

Then, someone painted that goddess mural that is going up everywhere and we had to then get around the countless tourists sticking out into traffic. Many, sadly, do not bother to look as to whether there is oncoming traffic. They just really want that goddess photo of themselves.  Even if that means, they end up getting hit by a car at a random Los Angeles street corner. I never took one of me.   And I am ok with that.

Now, in my new neighborhood. I hear the chimes of the ice cream truck at least twice a day, if not more. I am left wondering if there really can be that many people that want ice cream from a truck or that there are that many people that repeatedly like to get ice cream from a truck. But, sure enough there is at least one very eager lady in my neighborhood that wants ice cream.  As I was busy unpacking at the back of my house, I could hear her as clearly as is she were right next to me.  As the chimes of the ice cream truck indicated they were passing by, I heard her screaming “Wait! Waiiiit!!!”  “Stop. Please!. Hey! Hey! Hey!”  She really wanted that ice cream.

Then the next morning, I woke up at 6:14am to the sounds of a cat desperately meowing. It sounded as if it were crying. I was worried. I went down, but couldn’t see any cat in distress. Then I heard dogs howling like crazy. Now, when I lived in the highrise of my downtown LA neighborhood, the dogs there hardly barked indoors, And when they did it was because their family had come home. Here, in my new neighborhood, there are odd barks that I have not heard in a rather long time. The barks remind me of the movie The Secret life of Pets or Zootopia.  It is as if they are all communicating with each other. Their barks and howling also remind me of my mother’s longstanding Puerto Rican superstitions about how dogs can sense the dead. Shivers down my spine.

One cute animal sound in my new neighborhood is that of a baby bird in my front tree. He chirps and chirps a sweet melodic baby sound. Makes me happy to hear such baby chirping, especially as my own baby just turned nine. I know, I shouldn’t equate the two, but I think you get my sentiment.

 
The new sounds are part of the thrill of living in a new neighborhood. As I get settled in, I look forward to being surprised by random sounds, chirps and meows. Just as long as the cats stay a few feet away as I tend to sneeze 1001 times around cats.  Here’s to an earful of surprises.