Have to admit it's getting better

Hey party people! What's happening?

We are just chillin' like villians here in our new Princeton home. (Note: We are not, repeat NOT, gellin' like Magellans.)

Awesome things about Princeton:

-Walkability - KB walks to work every morning now. It takes him 10 minutes, 12 minutes max, which is what it used to take him just to get to the T stop in Boston, after which he still had a thirty minute train ride. Here it's just 10 minutes, door to door. This equals more time at home in the morning which equals more sleep for KB. Yay!

Also, Nolan and I can walk pretty much everywhere in town, which means on the odd days when KB needs to take the car to go to one of the other imaging centers, we are not left high and dry. We can walk to the library (which is incredibly fabulously awesome and great), downtown, the grocery store, a large selection of parks and playgrounds...it's pretty damn nice. Walkability equals no need for a second car which equals big savings for us. Double yay!

-Diversity/Friendliness - Lots of people in Princeton are here for the school, as you might imagine, which means a fairly high population of people who are not permanent permanent residents, but more like short-term permanent residents (kind of like we were in Boston - we knew we had to be there at least four years, but after that we just weren't sure.) This translates into A) lots of different kinds of people, which is awesome, and B) people who are ready to break the ice fairly quickly. (In contrast to my M.O., which would be something like, "Shit, we're only going to be here four years, it's going to take me three years just to get to know someone well, and then we're just going to leave...why bother?" Ludicrous, I know.)

We met a woman in the sandbox at the local playground (she had her 18-month old son with her, she wasn't just sitting in the sandbox) who turned out to be the Chief Resident at the hospital and who, within 20 minutes of meeting us, offered to cat-sit while we were in Berkeley. We took her up on that offer. Nice!

-Proximity to family:

We haven't taken full advantage of this aspect yet, but Nolan's Nana has already been here many a time to get her Noney fix and to help us out by hanging with him whilst we unpack. We've also been invited to my uncle's wedding and my cousin's Eagle Scout award ceremony, both of which we'll be able to attend, because now we live close enough! Huzzah!

Some Weird things about Princeton (lest you think I am all starry-eyed and blinded by the newness of this love affair):

-Trash/recycling: Princeton does not pick up your trash. You have to hire a private contractor to do it for you, and we have had a hell of a time getting one. The two bigger companies we've called have both said they "can't find us" on their maps, which means they don't serve our street. Which is ridiculous, because we've seen their trucks driving down our street picking up other people's garbage, which is how we got their phone numbers in the first fucking place! It's now been two weeks since we started producing garbage here, and lemme tell ya, it's starting to smell not-so-nice sitting out in the 90 degree heat.

Princeton will deign to pick up your recyclables, but they have a VERY specific list of what is acceptable and what will be rejected. Like, a two-page list. Detailing every acceptable item and haranguing you to be very sure to NOT include anything not on the acceptable list, or they will leave your bucket at the curb and all your neighbors will know what a bad Princetonian you are. Yikes.

And, uhhhhh...that's all I can think of for right now. Seriously. I'm sure I will discover some other things I don't like about the place, but lemme tell ya, at the moment, it's lots of checks on the "Pro" side and not too damn many on the "Con" side.

YAAAAYYYYY!!!

Thanks for reading.