Our landlord and Dieter were tight, friends from when she lived in our house. The fence contains two remnants of their relationship: a double-doored gate connecting the yards and a 2x2-foot window. The thick, beveled glass offers a view of birch and bamboo, visual access to the back corner of Dieter’s world. It's a sideways glance, no eye contact necessary, thank goodness. The gate came with a shiny new padlock. We’ve never bothered to remove the key, so there it dangles, a symbol of hope gone sour, of potentials never realized.

I was thinking about our poor neighborly relations -- where did we go wrong? -- when the dog nosed me in the thigh. Oh yeah. Time for a walk. I put my son in the back carrier, leashed Nora, and walked out into frenetic Birdland preparations. The Neighbornator family was bringing in more foodstuffs. I put on my friendly face.

“You’re coming tomorrow?” Dieter asked, his tone light. As we passed his dog, Nora growled and lunged, putting on her vicious cur act. She’s insecure and totally harmless, though you’d never know from her bark. I pulled on the leash. "Nora! No!" My son buried his face in my back. Dieter observed our little drama with a poker face.

With Nora subdued, I got back to the conversation. “Coming?” I asked blankly.

He seemed surprised. “I gave you an invitation! Are you sure? Didn’t we talk about this? It must have been your husband. Ja, that’s it! I talked to your husband about it a few weeks ago.”

I shook my head. Nein.

“I am sure I talked to him about it. Ja, I remember ... Oh," he interrupted himself, realizing the futility of this line of thought. "Ja. There will be music of all kinds! It starts at 1:00 and goes on all day. Invite all your friends!” Dieter was a little flustered.

I tried to be nice about it, to muster up a smile or some polite enthusiasm. We had just gotten back from a trip to the East Coast. Everyone was jet-lagged and sleep-deprived. My husband and I were in the middle of a marital mess. Given I could hear this man’s dinner conversation, what would an all-day jazz party sound like? An all-day jazz party that started at my son's nap time?

Saturday, September 29th 2007 was a beautiful day. The sky was cloudless and the air dry and warm. A light breeze ruffled the leaves in the trees, a pleasant sound, easy on the ears. At 10:30 a.m., in a yard hemmed in on all sides by houses, in a yard of perhaps 500 square feet, in a yard next door, it started. “Testing, testing, 1-2-3.” Someone was testing a microphone. Attached to an amplifier. Attached to speakers.

We were doomed.

At 1:00 p.m. sharp the warm-up act started. Gospel. This was followed by a traditional jazz quartet. At some point a pianist pounded out some classical music (was that Dieter's son? The one who kept on butchering "Ain't No Mountain High Enough"? If so, he had improved.) Then an R&B band took the stage, followed by a nod to Thelonius Monk.

During the intermissions, my husband and I would look at each other: was this it? But it kept on keeping on. The pauses were just long enough for equipment changes. We watched as vans pulled up and spilled out musicians and instrument cases, the next group on the marquee getting in line. We listened for the appreciative applause at the end of each solo. We looked up the Berkeley city code on amplified music. Dieter was well over his four hour limit.

From our backyard, the music was loud. Very, very loud. No wonder Dieter didn’t understand most of what I said: he was probably half-deaf from years of noise exposure, Pete Townshend without the guitar. The animals were agitated. Nora paced back and forth until she found refuge in the bathroom, while the cats would scratch at the back door to be let out, only to rush back into the house with flattened ears and disgusted expressions. My son skipped his nap. And the bands kept on coming.

Our last escape from the wall of sound was at 8:30 p.m.. Hoping to gain back sanity lost, hoping that our son would finally fall asleep, we went for a drive up in the hills. No one said a word as the car wound up steep inclines, pushed through eucalyptus-scented air to a quiet, dark place with a view. It was a surprisingly clear night and we could see San Francisco. We watched lines of cars snake across the Bay Bridge, felt wonderfully insulated from the sounds of engines and car horns, saxophones and vocalists. Our son was asleep. Time to go home. Surely the whole mess was over by now.

But it wasn't.

It seems funny now, funny that we came home to a Mexican band singing La Bamba, complete with horn section and what sounded like clog dancing. It was the most raucous gig of the day. It was almost 11 p.m. When would the madness end?

And then it just ended. As the song wound down, the crowd whistled and stomped, screamed for an encore. Ten hours of incredible music, well-performed, well-appreciated, and very loud, and they wanted more. It was not to be. Jazz Fest 2007 was over.

The hordes slowly dispersed. We brushed our teeth and went to bed.

For several months, we barely looked at Dieter, whom we christened The Neighbornator. We didn't confront and he didn't apologize. There were no arguments about the event or the noise level, just bitten tongues and imagined amusing scenarios, all with the self-centered surgeon as an object of ridicule, his accent exaggerated and his mannerisms cartoonish. We've gotten some good laughs out of it.

For Jazz Fest 2008, we'll be out of town.

Tags: Neighbornator, jazz