Whew, keys handed over

My clean-up is complete and keys handed over and new tenants are happily ensconced in my Mountain View townhouse!  Or at least stressfully ensconced, since they now need to move all their furniture tomorrow.

Last week I got quite stressed over selling furniture.  My online personal trainer Donny told me about his experience in Florida.
   1. He posted his furniture on craigslist and only got flaky responses.
   2. Then he tried to donate it to charity, but was declined because they only want beach-y furniture.
   3. Finally he just put all the furniture out on the curb, and walked away thinking, "It's the city's problem now."

So I was worried.  But it all ended up well!  I sold most of my furniture to college friend C3.  He just moved back to the Bay Area and is now working on improving genetic analysis tools.

View from my doorway of C3 and friend moving furniture.

Today, I saw the UPS truck and gave my Comcast return box to the driver.  He asked if I'm moving out.  He said wistfully that it's been a long time (10 years) and he's delivered quite a number of packages to me, and that it's too bad I'm leaving.

I was stunned.  I had no idea that my UPS delivery person even remembers or cares who lives in my home.  It gave me a really happy warm feeling inside, like I'm really part of a community.  I told him that I'm not selling the place, just renting the place out for a while, and he said, "Ah!" in a cheered-up way.

Now that's one more reason to go live there again one day.  Because the UPS guy is nice.  Ha!

While clearing out my belongings, I found a journal from when I was 21 years old. 

21-year-old me had just gotten a work project cancelled at Microsoft and was unhappy.  I also felt isolated at the time because my coworkers loved baseball and go-karts and hated comedy sitcoms and Chinese food, so I had to work hard to find a common bond.  

The first paragraph of my journal read: "I feel old.  I feel like I used my time unwisely."

Ah, poor 21-year-old me!  I wish I could hug that nut-ball.  

Also found an old photo album, with this photo of me and little brother Tom:

Poor 6-month-old Tom!  I wish I could hug that little nut-ball too.