This year, Joe and I participated in our favorite Fourth of July festivities -- moving! Heh. We don't really plan it that way, it just sort of happens. July 2, 1999, was the date I first moved to Los Angeles and moved in with Joe. It's amazing to me that it's already been six years since then! Then last year on July 2 (five years to the day), Joe and I moved down to Los Angeles again from the Bay Area. That day, we were mostly moving him down, actually. We dealt with officially bringing me and my stuff down a bit later, and then eventually, we got the rest of our stuff down, too. That first week at our friend's place was crazy, what with the concrete floors and torn down walls and only the shower curtains to hide ourselves from the gaping maw of the giant front windows. Ah, remodeling. It was even crazy once we got our apartment, because for the first month, we used a cooler as our refrigerator and basically had no furniture!

So once again, this year, we got caught up in the moving frenzy. We figured it might be a good time to start looking at new places, so we did, and very shortly afterwards, we found a great apartment. We turned in the applications, signed the lease a few days later and got our keys on Friday, July 1. Sunday, we rented a van (a super sweet Toyota Sienna) and moved all of the big, important stuff to the new place, including the bed and the cats. That's when we realized our box spring was literally falling apart (one of the springs was just lying on the floor, others threatening to join it soon). It wasn't going to fit in the van anyway, so all we brought along was the crazy wobbly mattress that wasn't in much better shape than the boxspring.

On Monday, the 4th, we moved our DVD cases after Joe got the brilliant idea that we wouldn't have to unpack and repack them if we just duct taped it all in there. Witness his genius in action:

  

After we got those inside, we went to Sit n' Sleep (I hate those commercials, but I have to give them credit - they really are memorable), and bought a bed. It was the first time we'd ever bought a bed together, so that was kind of cool. I think we made a good choice. The bad news is that it won't be here for another week.

More bad news: no internet! As of this actual writing, I'm typing away while Joe attempts to set up a dial-up connection.

Some good news: we do have cable t.v.!

The cable modem just wasn't working when the guy tried to set it up. He said there's an issue with the building. Blah blah. Bottom line - no fast, cable modem internet access until probably next week, at the earliest.

Even so, I must admit, this place really feels like home. I have been having very happy and optimistic feelings about the place since we first looked at it. I love that there's an indoor heated swimming pool right next to the lobby. And I like the nice teal color on the doors and in the hallway. When we first walked into our apartment, it was bright and sunny yet still nice and cool, and I just felt at home. In fact, I'm surprised at how quickly this place has felt like home. We've only been here for two nights, and already, it just feels natural being here. It's so nice.

Our new neighborhood is actually my school neighborhood, which is kind of cool. Now I don't have to associate these streets only with going to school. It's home now, too! Not only are we close to school, we're also really close to Joe's work, which is great. Joe's commute has been cut down from an hour or more (depending on traffic) to a mere ten minutes. As for me, I'm going to attempt riding the local bus to see how that works. And if I'm really brave, I might venture walking to school just to see how easy or not that is (it's 2.5 miles there, which will be tiring round-trip, but will make for some excellent exercise!). Looks like I won't need a parking permit this quarter!

This neighborhood is also much more urban than the suburbs we just moved from. Now instead of looking at the silhouette of ivy as I fall asleep at night, I see a giant office building. And to tell you the truth, I like it. It makes me feel very city-savvy, even though I'm not at all, really. Thanks for letting me pretend, new neighborhood! Heh. Seriously, I think I might freak out if I ever had to live in New York City, or something. There is a thing as too much hustle and bustle, you know. This works for me. What's also great is there aren't a lot of city sounds from inside the apartment. This afternoon, all I heard were birds chirping and the hum of our fan. We haven't lost any of our usual haunts: Borders, Barnes & Noble, Whole Foods, a nice mall, and the beach, are all close to this apartment, too. It's good to know we still have access to our favorite places, albeit different versions of them.

And now, thanks to Joe, there's a dial-up connection! I might attempt to post this with our 14 kbps connection tomorrow after 9pm (we're using our cell phones to connect, since our usual phone connects to the cable modem, which... see above).

Anyway, I'm really happy here.

This year, my favorite Independence Day moment was watching all kinds of colorful fireworks being set off against the dark sky as we drove down the freeway on our way to spend our first night in our new apartment. Awesome.

Happy Fourth of July!