It's not just Utah. I started blogging when we moved to New Hampshire some 6 or so years ago. I began many of my posts with the phrase, "oh you silly yankees" and I spent alot of time documenting their "silly yankee" antics. Things like spectacular white trash landscaping involving old sattelite television dishses reutilized as planters for flowers, weeds, and errant egg shells. Beauty. Other landscaping wonders, plastic flowers inserted in and around the yards of people as either singles or bunches. Sure, there was a foot of snow on the grownd, and my initial spotting was amazement at the dedication of these hearty new england bulbs ... until closer magnification revealed the dollar store tag hanging off the "bunch o tulips".
Yankee dialect left me plenty of room for learing in public. The first time I heard someone utter the phrase, "wicked" I stood back, stared, and thought, "well then, I guess this word is just like smurf. Things can be wicked cool, or insert smurfy cool, things can be wicked, things can be smurfy." If I was to acclimate into my new locale and appear hidden amongst the wooded camo I would learn to utter the phrase "wicked" ... often.
The letter "r". There is no real use for it in New England. You can most certainly, "pahk the caw in the yad" with no problem. In Colorado, the phrase, "no worries" (indicative of their no worries the mj will or will not give you a contact or direct high later in the day) mentality. The mentality that really didn't have worries. Loved it, miss it, I digress. In my years of marriage 17 to be exact, yes, I''m that old, I've learned local dialects rather well. Hell, I've mastered completel other languages to at least a casual conversation level. But still, american dialect has it in spades.
But now I am back to the land of my youth ... back to the land of frig and fetch, ward and stake, frozen yogurt date nights, heck not hell, darn not damn, shoot not shit, wards (not psych wards) and stakes (not the kind you eat), state owned liquor stores opened between the hours of 1:00-1:05 p.m. every other third tuesday when the moon is full. No worries, walmart sells watered down beer and wine coolers for the underaged teenager looking for a cheap high and moment of naughty disregard away from the stringent daily rigors. After all, BYU applications can be stressfull.
I have met a couple of neighbors. We, like every other person on the planet, live in "trak" housing (see, every 5th house the same floorplan wiht some having better upgrades than others). It keeps the keeping up with the jone's mentality limited to "add on's" like fixtures, granite, and stainless steel. I digress, the neighbors seem nice. The day we moved in we had aquired about 4 people to help us move in ... before I could blink this possey of men start showing up. First one, then two, then up to 4, it was like ants coming out of an anthill. I am NOT complaining. They didn't know us from Adam and there they were, lifting, straining, and breaking things like every other middle ager there. It was incredibly nice ... but ... now you know there was a but in there.
As I stood outside or around the house telling people where to take boxes, etc. a few of the local females had apparently gotten onto my smell and they came over to check out the new one. It wasn't ... well ... okay, I have this theory that has come with age and perhaps to much cynicism, but the theory holds strong. I know I'll like you the first time I meet you. It's this wierd thing with me. I just know. It's not that, "you don't get a second chance with me" sort of mentality, it's not even a mean or elitist mentality, I just know. In that knowing, and with years, I have cut out the middle man. If I know I'm not going to have a love connection with you, I don't force the issue. According to my sister, who was standing next to me, I was "aloof". I guess that's a good word for how I acted. I probab;y was. Life is to short to waste time. I have 5000 kids for heaven's sake, my friendships need to be bottom line get to the punch line sort of relationships without all the nonsense in between. Should we really dig back into our pack of tricks from high school to see if we can be friends when there is no obvious connection? No.
I tell my sisters and mom the only way I can explain it is that I need "mean girls" for friends. Mean girls are not mean, we don't dress the same, and we certainly don't have clicks. Anyone can be a mean girl, and hang with mean girls, you just have to have a let's get to the point sort of mentality. Mean girls just aren't fake girls. If your acting like an ass a mean girl friend will tell you. She won't tell 14 of your friends so everyone else can watch you act like an ass, she'll nip it in the bud at the source. Mean girl friends know who they are, what they want, and don't apologize unless they are really in the wrong. There isn't any cow towing down to apologies jsut to calm the waters. They will traumatize the neighborhood children if they act like idiots, they will tell mother's who think their kids aren't mean little shisters that indeed their kids are shisters and not worry that said mom will tell another mom and so on. Her mean girl possy will back her up if needed. They are a little wierd about their houses and want them clean. Clutter is okay with mean girls, but crapola nastiness, out of the club. Mean girls are smart, sassy, and really, not mean at all, it's just the only way I could make my mom and sisters understand. BUT, the best part about mean girls ... because they are so fantastic and honest ... they are the best. They will give you their left arm if you asked, they are at your door step with chocolate whether you asked for it or not, and you both know that their kids are yours and vice versa and you love and lay the whoop down equally. Mean girls are the best friends to have.
The girls I've met here ... uh ... not mean girls. Shy, quiet, one named Camille, the other Cammy. Two choices. Recruit them into mean girl philosophies and show them the light, or look further down the block. There are a TON of kids in this neighborhood. I've been scoping for a friend for Caden. I almost dragged him out the front doorthe other day when I saw some chick walk by with a kid in tow that looked his age. I pulled it together and looked carefully through the window to check her out ... crap, for sure, not a mean girl. Next time. I think she has mean girl potential. Just have to get her to drop the "oh my gosh" from her vocabulary.
So much more to write, so little time (as in Bennett needs his chow, Bradyn and Drew need to start the bidding as to when they are going to sleep, and Caden is throwing all of his toys everywhere to stall on the whole going to bed thing). So, for now, adieu. And please, despite my cynicism, I don't hate Utah and I don't want to offend every person in the state (maybe I already have, but that's because you obviously aren't mean). I just need time to get my feet wet again back into the culture that is Utah ... trust me.... leave the state line. Utah, you are wierd. A spade has to be called a spade.
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