"Remember tall is small at Starbucks" and other parting thoughts...
Well, Labor Day is fast upon us... and in Boston that doesn't simply mean cookouts and softball games, but also UHauls and backaches. Yes, it's that time again, when all who must move attempt to pack up and carry around everything they own, while those who are staying put congratulate themselves on escaping their fate. Getting the do-it-yourself moving van and struggling with your buddies to squeeze some crappy sofa through a doorway is a true rite of passage in Boston. You can't really count yourself a Bostonian (and certainly not a student in Boston) until you've experienced the September 1st move. This weekend every truck rental company will have stockpiled hundreds of trucks and acquired dozens of sad would-be movers desperate for someone to return a vehicle, any vehicle, early. Along the sideroads of Brighton, the Fenway, and Cambridge the trucks will be parked up on sidewalks, over the crosswalks and handicapped cut-outs, and blocking one-way streets in order to make 15-point turns into driveways. In order to get the most enjoyment out of this moving day, I would recommend the following: first, stay where you are or hire movers; second, go to a densely populated student area (anywhere in Cleveland Circle will do) and get into a top floor apartment with a view of the street; third, critique moving style, direct traffic and mediate over small fights from this vantage point.
If there was a way to really fix our eye on the buildings of Boston and glimpse the overall pattern, like in one of those slow shutter pictures of traffic, it would look like some extremely cosmopolitan nature film with all of these busy, little creatures dragging things back and forth, preparing themselves for some strange sort of year-long away-from-home hibernation. We'd see the perfect circle of furniture coming out and furniture going in, an apartment emptied at 9:00am re-filled with someone else's belongings by 3:00pm, boxes taken up the stairs and trash bags brought down, the freshmen arriving with their parents at their assigned dorm rooms, as the graduate students beyond their allotted years depart for greener ($$) pastures. Speaking of grad students departing, I am shortly on my way to Germany, with one suitcase, one hiking backpack, two carry-on bags and two boxes in Fracht. This is a-whole-nother sort of moving!
Anyway, whether you are coming, going, or staying, in Boston, elsewhere in America, or Germany, here are some important rules, suggestions, and words of wisdom to always keep in mind:
No spitting or radio playing.
"Don't go chasing waterfalls."
A noseplug on a string is better than one at the bottom of the pool.
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Well, Labor Day is fast upon us... and in Boston that doesn't simply mean cookouts and softball games, but also UHauls and backaches. Yes, it's that time again, when all who must move attempt to pack up and carry around everything they own, while those who are staying put congratulate themselves on escaping their fate. Getting the do-it-yourself moving van and struggling with your buddies to squeeze some crappy sofa through a doorway is a true rite of passage in Boston. You can't really count yourself a Bostonian (and certainly not a student in Boston) until you've experienced the September 1st move. This weekend every truck rental company will have stockpiled hundreds of trucks and acquired dozens of sad would-be movers desperate for someone to return a vehicle, any vehicle, early. Along the sideroads of Brighton, the Fenway, and Cambridge the trucks will be parked up on sidewalks, over the crosswalks and handicapped cut-outs, and blocking one-way streets in order to make 15-point turns into driveways. In order to get the most enjoyment out of this moving day, I would recommend the following: first, stay where you are or hire movers; second, go to a densely populated student area (anywhere in Cleveland Circle will do) and get into a top floor apartment with a view of the street; third, critique moving style, direct traffic and mediate over small fights from this vantage point.