Boyz (and girlz) in the hood
You may have noticed that I've been uncharacteristically silent for the past, oh, two weeks or so. That's because on Thursday, March 11, my life got a little more awesome than usual, and since then I've been planning to tell you all about my awesome day — no, make that weekend... or week... orrr two weeks.
See, the awesome, exciting and otherwise notable things really haven't let up since Thursday from two weeks ago, so now instead of trying to start from the beginning, I'm going to tell you about the delightful evening I had tonight and fill you in on past awesomeness as we go along.
Tonight, I took a walk to the post office to get a smidgen more postage for a letter that was one cent shy of the 44 it needed to take flight, and I brought my Census form along as well since I have this innate, though slightly irrational, distrust of sending things from cluster and/or apartment mailboxes. I prefer to put things in a more official-looking big blue box or the slot in the wall that leads directly into the back room of the post office itself.
Wanting to make a decent workout out of my walk, I decided to take the long way home. I walked by the SRC and all around the Convention Center scoping out the @notbooks attending whatever sort of GIS conference is going on there. Then I decided to swerve to the south and swing by Shakey's so I could look in the window and see how many people are there on a typical night since I'm more often there during the day for the lunch buffet.
As I looked in from the sidewalk and noted that it was busier than I'd figured it would be, I saw a girl sitting in a booth by the window and thought, "That girl kinda looks like Stacy." Then I noticed that this woman was sitting with a guy who looked just like Jayel, and it occurred to me that I wasn't looking at lookalikes but rather at the real Stacy and the real Jayel really about to have dinner.
Wanting to be friendly, I walked up to the window and waved, and since you can't really say much through a plate glass window without knowing sign language (which I don't) I then walked in to say hi. Once at their table, Stacy and Jayel invited me to stay awhile and have pizza and chicken and potatoes with them, which I did. Then, as 8:30 drew near, we walked over to Stacy's place and watched the comedies on ABC that Stacy and I watch and that Jayel's always meaning to watch — some of The Middle and then Modern Family and Cougar Town.
And let me tell you, all that happenstance really made my night. Having lived a fair amount of my life in the inwardly focused suburbs, I had begun to suspect that running into friends while out and about (or just being out and about on foot in the first place) was one of those things that only happened in movies and TV shows — or maybe just in really small towns (where it's inevitable) and really big cities (where people carve out their own little niches in the midst of a mass of humanity in one area).
But tonight, Palm Springs proved to be a place where I can head out on foot to get some errands done and then run into friends and not just say hello but stop and talk, eat and share the evening. It's just one of the many reasons I love this place.
I'll be sharing more of those reasons (and also some Arizona experiences) soon...