I know 35 Thousand People

Today is Thursday and it is my weekly routine to enjoy lunch with my favorite female people. You might remember I've talked about this before because it was at our regular lunch outing that I was vividly reminded of my past life of 9-5 grind.

Today though as I walked into the restaurant I glanced around. A quick headcount lead me to a startling realization.

I KNOW TOO MANY PEOPLE.

I counted. There were 23 people seated and eating and I knew 10 of them. That's almost half.

FYI I looked up the population of my town and as of 2013 it was 34,887.

We've lived here for 4 and half years and apparently I know 17,000 people. At least that is what I'm assuming based on my extensive knowledge of statistics and other analytical math.

That's too many! Too, too many!

So that's it people. No more saying hello to strangers. I'm done. I've maxed out.

Sorry new neighbors, new gym goers and new parents at the schools. I'm full up.




As a side note I also saw a man I'm going to refer to as hipster Sea Captain. I got a really blurry picture but I'm not going to post it based on the above tirade. I'd feel pretty bad if it turns out that he is someone's son. 

Yes of course, I know he is someone's son, I guess what I mean is that he might be someone I KNOW's son.

And if that isn't some serious Freudian self centered insanity I don't know what is. :-)

Neighborhood

When I was a small child I lived in Queens in a small apartment above a store.

It was just like this.

I wasn't there long though because apparently Queens isn't an idyllic place to raise a family.  So we packed up and moved to Queens Village.

Obviously it is very cool to live in the Queen's Village as the name implies. Under the watchful eye of royalty. In the shadow of a castle.

Okay Queens Village isn't like that at all. There are a lot of houses only separated by a driveway and a perfectly manicured lawn of 10'x10'.

That isn't to say it didn't have it's perks.

Two words: BLOCK PARTY!!

The whole street would shut down for a day and everyone would come out and talk to the neighbors. There would be Police barriers at the end of the street so kids could ride their bikes or skate their skates (my preferred mode of transportation in those days.) without concern of being flattened.

There were unsafe carnival rides that would arrive on the back of trucks run by x felons with questionable  people skills. We would eat and eat and eat until it wasn't a matter of if a child was going to vomit on the "round up" but when.

To a small child it was better than Disney World.

Jump to the present. 

Triple S and I moved into a nice neighborhood where people wave to each other every morning. Where kids ride around on bikes and play basketball in driveways.

Then they started a ladies night. One night a month all the women of the community gather in the clubhouse to chit chat about kids, decorating and guns (it is the South after all).

That was awesome but they didn't stop there. Oh no! Because we go big or go home here!

THEY PLANNED A BLOCK PARTY!!

The little Long Island girl inside of me jumped for joy. There weren't any pony rides or dangerously unsafe roller coasters but there was more food than 150 people could eat.

Those are grown men about to hulu hoop. bet you wish you lived here too.

There was a hula hoop contest and a pulled pork cook off. There was an eggs toss and croquet and cornhole. (I know that doesn't sound family friendly but trust me, it is.)

Please note Triple S' perfect form during the egg toss.

It was awesome.

So I can live with ridiculous rules about wheeled carts for garden hoses (yeah we have a rule for that) and garbage cans visible from the street (I'm not storing that smelly thing in my garage).

I'm okay with arguing about the color of my door. I'm good with all of this because my neighbors are making the pro column of living in a planned community out weight the con column but a huge margin.

Old life vs New life

I went to lunch the other day with my "gym rat" (this is what triple S calls them) friends after a great workout. We were sweaty and smelly and smiling.

Word on the street is I'm getting this on a t-shirt.

Part of me feels bad when I do this. I'm not pretty post workout. It might actually ruin some one's lunch.


Who am I kidding. I don't care if their meal is ruined. I'm selfish like that.


After a little while another group of smiling ladies came in. They were wearing suits and heels and although I didn't check I would guess they smelled much nicer than I did.

While my ladies talked about protein shakes and the "insanity challenge" I couldn't help but remember a time when my conversations revolved around process management and synergy.

I sat at a desk all day and counted the minutes till coffee break with my fellow cubicle dwellers. I don't want it to sound all bad. I liked my job. I was good at it. I liked the mental challenge. Sometimes I even liked the problems.

This photo is sucking the life out of me.

There is something very liberating about yelling at a trucker with less than family friendly language.

But that is all done now. I stay home. For the most part. I have a job but it is much less that 45+ hours a week and I don't get to yell at anyone anymore. I do get to put them in time-out though, not sure it that is the same or not?


 Where was I going with this?

Oh yeah. Old vs New.

I'm not going to say which is better and make feminists or home makers angry. I don't need that kind of grief.

It's just different.





F-IT! This life is much better.

Let the feminist rants commence.