The signs of imminent change are beginning to sprout forth, in several different ways.  There are emerging blank spots in our apartment, where things used to be but are now all packed up.  THAT will become ever more the case, starting this weekend, now that we have the Massive Pile of Boxes at our disposal.  Our dog is growing ever more suspicious and nervous because he can tell something big is going down but can’t quite parse what.  I keep telling him that yes, he gets to come too and that no, he doesn’t have to travel by box.  He ain’t listening…and it’s manifesting itself in rather messy ways, not to be too vivid about it.

We turned in our final rent and our termination-of-lease letter to the apartment yesterday.

Word, too, is out at work, so the farewell vibe is picking up a little.  And I am packing up and/or throwing away the personal stuff in my office, one drawer at a time.  It’s amazing, how many THINGS can accumulate in an office when you’ve inhabited it for so long.  Training for my protegé begins this afternoon and will hit full force next week.

Trying to map out plans for those last social things that we will be doing with our people.  It’s kind of stressful, trying to arrange those things.  My brain is so scattered right now I can’t keep a solid thought in it for more than a second.  It’ll all pan out though.

MEANWHILE, though, life keeps ticking on.  This means that I’m still roaming around my Denver neighborhood for many nefarious reasons, and eye-spying all the street artsy stuff that I can.  Which is actually why I’m writing today, to share the most recent additions to the “collection.”

Like this dumpster in my alley that I pass by every day whilst to-and-fro-ing between home and work.  Not art, in my book, but it actually made me laugh out loud.

Yeah, the alley dumpsters CAN get pretty Nasty.
Especially in August, when they heat up.

Most exciting to me are the bits and pieces out there that come from the same person.  The repeat “offenders,” if you will.  I love love LOVE spotting things like this.  Perhaps it gives me a sense of continuity.  Not sure.  At any rate, remember the “Grow” flower, and the Worried Jellyfish?   I have delightedly had further sightings of these.

Had I not Looked Up while waiting to cross the street,
I would not have seen this one.

To the right, another Grow flower!!!  To the left, another Jellyfish, although this one looks more Bugged Out than Worried.

That last was seen in the alley right next to my Aveda hair place.  My hair gal Nikki (I AM GOING TO MISSSS HER) and I got into a street art conversation while she stood snipping away behind me, comparing notes on things we’ve spotted and where.  She told me about the Space Invader, this street artist who has been all over the world doing tile “graffiti” art inspired by 80s video games…well, mainly Space Invaders.  She then informed me that there was a bit of his work on the weird grey tower that stands outside the Anthem Blue Cross building at 8th and Lincoln.  I made a note of that, because the 7-11 on the direct opposite corner is the one I walk to from work all.  The.  Time.  Sweet.  Home work assignment!

Then I forgot to check it the last time I made a corner store run.  Figures.

In the meantime, though, I went downtown with a friend of mine the other night, and as we were cruising through that underpassy sort of space at the convention center, we stopped the car to capture these.  This stuff was all over the place down there, really neat work.  This is only what we were able to snag from the car…real camera and daylight needed!

That fairly well catches us up to today, whereupon I found myself in need of a stroll to the corner store at 8th and Lincoln.  I bundled up (it’s hard to believe that I won’t have to Bundle Up for much longer) and wandered down.  At the crosswalk of 8th and Grant, I spotted this:

And now, I’ve advertised their website.  Not due to any allegiance, per se, but it’s just part of the shot.

And finally, at long last, I crossed over to The Weird Tower, and collected my first Space Invader piece.  I wonder if there are any in New Orleans?  I’ll keep an eye out.

Gotcha! And, again, another fair example of why Looking Up Is GOOD.

Lunch time.  Gotta fly.  Hopefully I’ll spot some more Denver stuff while I’m still here.  I’ll also be curious to see what we come across on our trek to New Orleans in a couple of weeks.  Maybe I’ll get lucky and find some neat things in all of the Middle of Nowhere places I’ll be passing through.  You never know!