Does anyone remember when getting the mail was the highlight of the day? I remember long summer days when the hour of the mailman’s delivery would rule the day, and multiple runs up our long driveway were made in anticipation. Am I making it up when I remember using binoculars or a telescope every once in awhile to see if the flag had been put down, letting us know the mailman had been there to pick up out outgoing mail? Maybe it was a particularly boring day. Or a particularly strange childhood.

And what was it that we were waiting for? Usually it had something to do with stamps, on approval from places like the Jamestown Stamp Company or the Herrick Stamp Company, located in the faraway East Coast. Their letters would bear packets of stamps we would then sift through and choose which to buy, before we really decided what we were collecting.

Coming home from work today, I pulled my mail out of the named slot on the radiator in the entry way, and experienced a nostalgic pang of mail-related excitement. What a day! Two, count ’em, packages from Amazon: a surprise gift from Aimee, the Office Second Season dvd set, and a long-misdelivered birthday present from Brent, the indispensible Pink Panther dvd box set. What a treat – I’m going to have to take a personal day or two to watch them all.

And as if those weren’t enough, my Pixies Live in Minneapolis cd from DiscLive came in today, just when I was starting to wonder where it was. Can’t wait to hear how they sounded, in their first gig after twelve years spent being the one band I never got to see before they broke up.

And even though that is enough, the USPS acted as though it weren’t, and included my tickets to Reykjavik, so I can see and hear for myself just what the Pixies sound like, in three weeks. I’ll take a few days off work plus Memorial Day Weekend, and enjoy not only the Pixies live at Kaplakriki in Hafnarfjordur, but also a trip up Hvannaldshnúkur. It’s going to be an amazing trip.