Are you cool enough for my neighborhood?

Now that we are going to try to sell our house, I officially take back everything mean and ill-considered that I have said about my neighborhood. You see, all along I have actually been trying to DRIVE people away from our neighborhood because it is my precious, secret gem, and seeing it filled with yupsters and Beamers and the like would just be too grotesque. What would we do, indeed, if the Jif-E-Lube on the corner were to be replaced with a trendy boutique selling handbags? Handbags don't "lube" up one's car, do they?

I actually have never wanted you here. But now that you might like to buy our home, come on in!

I shall now extol the virtues of my neighborhood and shed the light of truth on the whole matter. When my neighbors come to me with acerbic commentary (yeah, thanks for the gentrification, beeatch!), I'll just send them down the street to drown their sorrows in what used to be a down-home working man's pub called "The Tilted Kilt" but is now called "Zero," "ö," "Antarktika," or some other über-trendy name, and has a bocce court in the back and pomegranate martinis.

Here are 10 of my favorite things--for real!
1. We can walk to the New Rochelle train station in 10 minutes. Count them: 10. I make it in closer to 15 now that I am fat.
2. There is a 24-hour CVS within walking distance.
3. All the homes have olde worlde charme buried somewhere beneath their exteriors. Our own home is 103 years old!
4. We have a front porch. We can sit there and shout expletives at speeding cars.
5. Steam Eat: Within walking distance.
6. New NYSC complete with TWO swimming pools: Within walking distance.
7. Five Islands Park: A 15-minute walk. Lovely water views, and birds.
8. Did you hear there may be a new Whole Foods? Yes, that will also be a 5-minute walk from MY house.
9. Big, fat, gorgeous chestnut trees that drop hundreds of chestnuts on the heads of our friendly neighbors every autumn.
10. The coolness that comes with knowing you are a pioneer.