Welcome to New Orleans! Your new neighbor already doesn't like you...

Sunday night, after quite a long weekend, ALTR hosted a quiet dinner for two friends. While opening the front door to welcome J into my house, I see a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye - someone is running towards my front door. I live in a pretty safe neighborhood, but one can never be too overly concerned with safety these days.

As it turns out, the individual running towards me was not a armed robber, but rather the female half of a couple who had apparently just bought an apartment in my complex. Her companion (not sure if he's a husband, fiance, or boyfriend) was in tow behind her - clearly a little bit embarrassed at the level of her enthusiasm.

"Hi, I'm your new neighbor - we just bought Beau's old apartment! We're moving in tomorrow!" she said, intensely and uncomfortably overcome with excitement.

We talked for awhile about each other's story - they've just moved here from the Northeast to start grad school - one in med school and the other in law school - a high stress relationship recipe I must say.

She seemed nice enough - always good to have some more young people around. Then - the bomb. "What are you up to tomorrow?," she asks. Sadly, the only item on my schedule that I can think of immediately, without looking at my calendar, is the dreaded thing we all have to do on Mondays - work.

"Would you be able to help us move when you get home from work? We'll feed you dinner!"

Yikes! I am at a complete loss for words, so I say the only thing that comes to mind: Yeah, sure! I could see J's jaw drop out of the corner of my eye.

I spent most of dinner thinking about how I was going to avoid being at my apartment on Monday after work. Of course, there was plenty of work to be done at the office - I would work a little bit late. Then, maybe go for an extra long jog. However, the jogging would require me to go home first - what if they happened to knock on my door in the 5 minutes it would take me to get out of my car, run inside, and put on shorts/t-shirt/running shoes? Fortunately, in New Orleans, there are plenty of diversions to keep one occupied!

On Monday afternoon, ALTL and I attended a book signing at the Garden District Book Shop by Vogue author and New Orleans resident Julia Reed - her new book The House on First Street was just released. The event took a little while - at lease an hour of my after work time. Then I made it home, successfully changing into my jogging outfit without interruption from the new neighbors. I'm a little sore this morning from my extended jog. But I would have been a lot more sore if I'd helped move furniture into an upstairs apartment.