Recruiting

It’s no secret that I love my neighborhood, and though occasionally I get bitten by a bit of wanderlust and begin to fantasize about life in New England or the Pacific Northwest, when it comes down to it, it’s hard to imagine another place that could offer what we’ve got here…  (If you don’t believe me, just ask the New York Times.)

I do not have this vanity plate on my car.

Which is why I’m perpetually recruiting.

If I can’t move to other parts of the country, I should just bring my friends from around the globe here, right?

And sometimes, I hit the jackpot.

Take yesterday, for instance.

I have these two friends from college.  He’s from Jersey and she’s from Chicago.  After we graduated, he moved out to the midwest for grad school and she headed to Africa for a Peace Corps stint.  Upon her return to the states and following a short layover in New York for her masters, she moved to the same midwest grad school, and the two reconnected.  This summer, they’re getting married, and they’ve been thinking about a move back to the East Coast.

The East Coast became the Tri-state area, which became Philadelphia, which became northwest Philly.  Yesterday, they asked me to check out a rental for them – around the corner from our house.

A fifteen-minute house tour later, and come August, I’ll have two new neighbors!

Then there was last night.

I turn 30 next week, and last night we went out to dinner with a dozen friends to celebrate.

Sitting next to me was another good friend from college – we became especially close in the weeks before graduation, when we would leave campus at midnight and wander around the area until 5:30 in the morning.  After finishing up, she headed off to peace corps in Macedonia (can peace corps be a verb?).  There, she met a boy, another Peace Corps volunteer.  When their two years were up, they decided against moving to San Fran (her hometown) or Colorado (his), and instead came to Philly.  They’re getting married in two weeks.

At dinner, we were talking honeymoons and world travels and life plans.

“Perfect,” I said, after we’d traded our planned kids names and decided that they should be best friends. “Now you just have to move to Mount Airy.”

“Exactly,” she responded

And then a minute later: “Don’t think we’re not thinking about it.”

See?  It’s working!

So those of you coming to town for the Philly Marathon, beware.  I can be very persuasive…