Plethora of packages

reference, for those unfamiliar (NB: That movie may not have....aged very well.)

 I picked up my accumulated mail this morning. There were, as I expected, a couple of bills needing urgently to be paid, and lots and lots of junk mail and some magazines I will need to make time to read. And a number of boxes. You might say, a plethora of boxes:




Some of that is stuff I paid for myself (two Gacha Gacha crates - December's didn't come before I left town, and January's Doki Doki crate, and the quarterly Sanrio loot crate) but a couple of the things are gifts (One I know: a friend from Ravelry was going to a Louise Penny reading-and-book-signing and offered to get a copy of her newest book signed for me).

But now I have a dilemma....do I open them all up at once, and have a brief but glorious moment of Second Christmas, or do I save them and open them slowly over the next week, and try to spread it out? (I admit, I'm leaning towards doing "Second Christmas" after dinner tonight....)

Also, two other things: Seems I have new neighbors in the rental house to the south. I am hopeful as they have a birdbath out and two fancy urn-like planters, and rocking chairs on the porch. But I also just heard a VERY loud boom car and dear God, I hope that's not them, or if it is, that they always come home like that early in the day.

And another - last night, I woke up to the sound of something that sounded....weirdly like gulping. And I froze, my head up a few inches off the pillow....was the furnace going to explode? Was a pipe somewhere getting ready to burst?

Then I heard an earsplittingly-loud VROOOOOOM and I realized it was some dude revving a very, very loud motorcycle* at 2 am. Honestly, people, can we not: can we agree to not be excessively loud in residential areas between, say 10 pm and 8 am? That's the one thing I really loathe about in-town living; all the late-night random noise. It's worse when it's warmer out like it is now; it seems unseasonably-warm winter weather brings out something in people where they want to make whatever motors or audio equipment they have AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE and then drive around with it blaring.

(*Yes, I know, motorcycles have to have a certain level of loudness because motorists tend not to pay attention to them, but this was obnoxiously loud, even given that it was late at night and quiet otherwise.)