Jon and I decided it was time to get serious about making some friends in our new neighborhood. The new neighborhood is in Saratoga Springs, Utah County, Utah. For those of you that know me, the word Utah uttered twice along with my name in the same sentence might now have you in hysterical fits of laughter. Please get up off the ground and pull yourself together long enough to read about my time here in Utah. I need friends in cyberspace and the 6 people that read my blog to commisserate with my situation (even though some of you live in Utah, you KNOW you aren't offended, and you KNOW you have seen all that I speak of ... there just wasn't blogspot available at the time).
I digress, new friends, new neighborhood. We got some tattered piece of paper shoved in the door last week about a "neighborhood party". It was handwritten, and I ASSUMED a thank you letter in response to the 6 batches of cookies I had the kids deliver all over the nighborhood last week with MY handwritten cards introducing myself, the kids, and pretty much humiliating myself to have said cookie eaters to please call me and be my friend. Yes, that desperate. Back to the note. It was NOT a thank you note, rather scrawling bits of arranged times and events occuring this Saturday (okay, your last Saturday) including pie eating and hot dogs. The next day we started seeing cardboard signs going up all over the development about this neighborhood party. Jon and I decided this would be a golden opportunity to find at least one friend since the cookies apparently bombed.
We inadvertantly discovered that the neighborhood party was really a ward party in disguise. Okay. No biggie, we're hunting for friends. I made sure the kids were shined like new pennies, and I changed clothes 4 times I was so nervous. Jon threw on a pair of flip flops and considered himself more dressed up than he thought need be. The ward/disguised as a neighborhood party was in the neighborhood developments park. Side note: We've been fortunate, even in Colorado, to live in these planned communities with parks inside of them. Awesome for the kids to make friends, Bradyn always comes home with a possy within a day.
We walked over to the park and I couldn't help but notice the 14 or so covers (like tents wihtout the sides, I can't think of what they are called) spotted in and around the park. The first one I noticed was blue emblazoned with BYU and a giant cougar. I should have taken a picture for my proud alumni mother ... but I realized she might want one of her own and then we would have to sit under the thing in public events. We turned the corner and saw at least 100 people (including their tribes of children, but we have four, so I can't say a word about large families). There were men gufawing at their manliness as they grilled hot dogs/burgers on the giant BBQ's under said BYU tent, a bouncy house, and tables set up on the other side of the park with "local vendors". I looked at Jon and all I could muster to say was, "I'm going to have to set up another blog page ... because there is no way one blog can hold all of this raw material."
Local vendors was written on the hand scrawled letter I received days earlier, but I didn't realize local vendors meant every pampered chef, scentsy candle, amway carpet cleaning, etc. home business vendors. Every one of them was selling something ... including you having to fill out a card with all your information so they could hound you the next 3 years about having a party at your home. Under another tent there was a "family band". I have only ever seen one family band that was worth watching. We'll call them the H family. H family fiddled and banjoed and sang well. They were talented. And they knew when to stop playing.
This family band, the P family (honestly, if I told you their name you would fall back on the floor laughing) had ALOT of band equipment and TOO many microphones. P family was belting out some tunes and my ears started to bleed. They were really bad. I mean really bad like someone should have told them in High School to stop it before they took their show on the road bad. In between songs they would say things like, "you have to forgive us, we're pretty selfish and we like to trade instruments and play everything for each song." Huh? It was all I could handle when they started to perform "orginal material". I immediately took my cell phone out and recorded a piece to IM to my sister for proof this band existed, and to get her take. She told me to stop being a bitch and go make some friends ... and that the family band was awful.
Okay, stop being a bitch, make some friends. I took a deep breath and went to the "food table". Now, some of you that know me are aware that with time I have developed a bit of a germ phobia making anything "buffet" give me panic attacks and sometimes hives. Old Country Buffet is like my hell, ward parties disguised as neighborhood parties with an assortment of foods from different homes across the nieghborhood, homes that might be nasty filthy, homes where the kids could have possibly put their hands in their mouths, up their butts, who knows, but then into the home baked goods and salads, is the stuff of nightmares. But I was NOT going to be a bitch, I put my hand into the communal (gross, everyone else touching them) hot dog bun bag and fished out buns for the kids and me. Next, a dollop of some macaroni looking salad. I was trying desperately not to puke or fall into anxiety ridden hysterics as the noodle looking macaroni openly seemed to mock my anxiety.
Over to the testosterone tent for a hot dog, then off to the grassy hill to sit with the family and eat said communal delights. I could't touch the macaroni dollop, not enough courage. I managed to get a hot dog down convinced the sheer heat of the grill had to of killed any gross germs that may be lurking. Bradyn and Caden immediately hit the line for the bounce house. Jon looked at me and said, "uh, those kids just cut in front of Bradyn and Caden, PLEASE don't let Caden call them a bitch." Yes, you heard correctly, it was not a typo, bitch.
Caden, the rather bossy opinionated sometimes mean as hell three year-old, has decided he will casually let "bitch" fall from his lips. He honestly has little to no idea what he is saying, he never says it in anger, and it is sometimes followed up with a damn. As in when he was at my 80-something very proper southern lady who got mad at us when we said the word "stupid" or "shut up" growing up grandmothers house, and he shoved her beloved teacup poodle off the couch while saying, "move, you damn dog." I wasn't there, my sister told me about it, apparently she laughed and Grandma sat in stupified horror. Yes, we have done the soap thing, but he's starting to like it and prefers particular flavors of the pump soap. Guess he has to grow out of this one.
Anyhow, Jon and I were a tad concerned, but we didn't see the kids turn around and notice Bradyn or Caden so we assumed Caden had kept his cool. Drew, Bennett (the baby), Jon and I sat on the grassy hill, ears bleeding listening to the "family band", and waited for friends. Yes, we were literally trolling for friends hoping that by sitting on the hill, and obviously strangers to the neighborhood, we would somehow incite someone, anyone, to say hello at which point we would drag them down to the ground and beg them to be our friends. Not a bite. I mean not a single bite.
I confirmed one thing. Our neighborhood is full of 20-somethings, a smattering of 30-somethings, little to no 40-somethings, I think one 60-something (and according to the guy up the street, who works at the prison, 60-something is a sex offendor, awesome) and all with rightous indignation about the how and why's of life.
I don't like 20-somethings for the most part. It's the same reason I don't like 80-somethings. One end of the spectrum doesn't have enough life experience to settle down and relax, and the other end of the spectrum has to much life experience to settle down and relax. By settle down and relax, I mean to open your eyes to possibilities. Life isn't lived in a vaccum, it isn't always predicable. It can be messy, frustrating, and wonderful all at the same time. If you don't open your eyes, settle down with what you think you know, and imagine who/what you could know, then you might possibly miss out on some really great people and experiences.
Jon noted that most of the guys looked rather "dorky", and their wives seemed kind of pretty and mismatched to their husbands. I noticed the same thing ... but it wasn't unfamiliar to me. "Welcome to my high school hell," I responded. The high school hell where the "dorky" looking guys were chased around like a dog chases filet mignon by some really rather pretty girls. I didn't date much in high school because I could never figure out the talent of twirling my hair and laughing at idiocy. My sisters had the same issue. Guess we were raised a bit more progressive. If you leave the state lines of Utah, you fast discover that the filet mignon of high school was really just a bunch of hot dogs. No worries, we all managed to find husbands after high school.
So here I sat, surrounded by hot dogs with their cute wives, feeling rather old at 37-years of age, but still hopeful. No hot dogs and no cute wives even said "hi". After over an hour of being worried my 3 year-old might call somebody "bitch", and my husband incessantly commenting on how couples seemed mismatched, it was time to go. Fortunately, Bradyn HAS managed to make friends and with friends come parents. God in his infinite wisdom took pity on our souls and one set of parents finally came over to meet "Bradyn's mom and Dad" that afternoon. They are settled down 30-somethings, had been to the "family band" fiasco (apparently an annual event) last year, felt our pain, and best of all ... they, like us, were friendless. They confirmed our worst fears ... we have apparently moved into a grown up version of my high school. We tried desperately not to sound to eager when we told them we would be their friends.
Good luck with the friend thing. Remember you always have a friend in NH.
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