…and there shall be great fanfare, with trumpets (and fireworks)

Toward the end of our busy weekend, it occurred to us that one interpretation of happiness is when the light at the end of the tunnel starts to look more like the bottom of a cardboard box. An empty box is a glorious thing, indeed! Make that many cardboard boxes. Things are starting to look pretty well unpacked around here, and soon, there won’t be a box in sight… a state of affairs we haven’t experienced in almost a year. We’ve literally been surrounded by boxes since January, and that’s a long time. We found that our unpacking-fu is more formidable than we’d thought, or, more likely, it’s just been coiled up in expectation for so long that when we were finally ready to unleash it, it sprang. Produce the magic box-cutter and things practically leap out of the boxes themselves! We’ve been here for one week, and we’re down to one box. One. Soon there will be photographic evidence of how civilized we are, haha!

One of the many pluses of living in a downtown Tempe neighborhood is, well, living in downtown Tempe, and practically having Mill Avenue in our backyard. It’s less than a ten-minute stroll from our front door. Late on Friday night, we spontaneously decided to wander down there. We were browsing around the upstairs of Urban Outfitters when a girl who looked to be about 19 came up to me and asked a question about the stock. When I told her that I didn’t work there, her expression flashed to disbelief and dismay, like there’d been an unexpected shift in her worldview, and it was more than she could bear. She looked at me and said, “You don’t?” And I suddenly felt terrible about not being able to answer her question. Should I be amused by this? I mean, do I really have that person-who-works-at-Urban Outfitters look/vibe? Yes, I think “amused” is the appropriate word.

We’re also enjoying being close to Sun Devil Stadium, because when ASU plays at home, we know when they score due to the convenient, informative fireworks. On Saturday night, for instance, the celebratory explosives told us a) when it was half-time, and b) that we (ASU) were handily kicking ass. A quick look online confirmed it: the half-time score was something like ASU-20, OSU-3. (Final score was 30-17.) Kitties were alarmed at first, but they’re already getting accustomed to all the unusual sounds… the fireworks, the howling crowds, the karaoke and Shouting Preacher Man across the street (last night) and the planes overhead (the airport’s a stone’s throw away, too).

Somehow, at the same time, our neighborhood is quite peaceful.