Honest neighbors.

This morning I woke up wanting to go to the gym. I worked out with a trainer on Thursday (love the freebies when joining a new gym) and he shredded my ab muscles. My masochistic side wanted more.

But this entry is about what happened on the way out of the house. Mr. TPG and I opened the door leading into our garage and stopped in our tracks. The garage door was wide open. Whoops, I guess I forgot to close it after we got home last night, Mr. TPG admitted sheepishly. We've been having conversations all week about my "obsession" to make sure doors are locked at night and windows are shut, versus Mr. TPG's claims about how we live in such a safe neighborhood.

Growing up in the city -- a relatively urban city with significant crime -- I just don't take chances. I had the radio stolen from my car multiple times growing up. I knew people who got mugged, and knew people who committed muggings (another different story). You can ask me sometime about all the little safety habits I've developed. Some of them sound pretty crazy, but when you read about the crime from my home city/region, it makes sense!

But back to our open garage. I instinctively felt exposed and started examining our stuff. The garage was left open pretty much since yesterday around 5:00pm. Not only is our car in there, but so is all of our (expensive) backpacking gear that hasn't yet been dusted off and stored, Mr. TPG's tools, our brand-new lawn mower, and even some of our furniture that we haven't moved in yet.

And not a single thing was taken or disturbed.

It boggles my mind.

Add that to another mind-blowing "this place is safe" feature I noticed this week: at my gym, most people hang their car keys on a peg board on the back wall of the gym while they work out. I'm not kidding. There's a couple boards with like 25 sets of car keys hanging on it. Obviously there hasn't been a problem with theft since people still do it. It seriously boggles my mind after growing up in a place where you would be careful about setting something valuable down while you sit/stand beside it lest some hoodlum run by and grab it, let alone leave it unattended while you wander off.

Mind. Boggled.

Sometime I feel like Dorothy (Wizard of Oz) when she said "we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto"...and then I realize, I'm probably more in Kansas than in the 'hood back home.