Finding Joy in Snarkville

Why yes, I’ve started blogging regularly — what are you trying to say.  I think I just unpacked my muse again.

So, as some of you are aware we are no longer living in Frankenhouse or in Snark State. I’m thinking we shall where I am now mid-Snark.  And I’m so amazed at how the locals here are different than other places I’ve lived.

For the record, I’ve lived in 7 states thus far.  I’ve lived in 5 homes since I got married (10 years ago).  So, I think I’m going to get some life experience credits for observing locals in their habitats.

I bring you a list of my first impressions:

• People here appear to be moved by baked goods.  Apparently, warm brownies are of particular interest.  My next door neighbor moved in recently and going to my Southern roots, I baked and brought over food.  It seems that the wife (whom I like and have informed her that we will be friends) ran back to her old neighborhood and told her old neighbor about how awesome her new neighbor is who brought her WARM brownies.  Then she told old neighbor, “You might want to step up your game — I didn’t get baked goods when *I* moved into that house.”  Go me for showing up the old neighbors.
• People here don’t seem to be moved by the giant truck unloading furniture.  For the first time in all my moves, no one came out to say hello while we were unloading.  At first we thought, “How unfriendly of this crowd.”  Then about a month later, more neighbors keep stopping by to say hello and all of them say, “We saw you move in, but wanted to give you a chance to settle in before coming over.”  I think they might want us to remember their names.
• Twice since I’ve been here, I’ve heard locals refer to themselves as “Yankees.”  Since I’m from the South, I always thought that only Southerns called them ‘Yankees’ — I guess I thought that word had gone the way of ‘Ye Olde Times’ And in all my years of knowing the very Yankee Prince, I’ve never heard him call himself a Yankee.  Maybe it is because he is a New Yorker and somehow that trumps Yankee, but I have no idea.  It does seem slightly odd to be living amongst the Yankees.  I sort of feel I either should be MORE Southern (as if that is possible) or I should report my findings to someone — I just don’t know who.  (Well, I guess you — cause you are reading this.)
• Following that point, I’ve not been reminded that the North won the War of Northern Aggession.  Oh, what, you don’t call it that here?  Shocking. I’m teasing actually.  For the first time in all my moves, people seem unmoved by my answer to “Where are you from?”  I get no raised eyebrows that I’m from the Deep South nor snark-tastic comments about my accent or lack thereof.
• Also, it has been my experience thus far that I’ve offended no one by correcting them if they chose to give me the wrong nickname.  This shocks me to no end – it is like they totally get it and want to get my name right, not insist that I must be called something else.  Can we all say wow?
• There is an obsession with snow here.  I’ve started to believe that the locals only think in terms of snow or not snow.  I’ve joked that the funniest thing the locals like to do is remind us that it snows here.  They say this like they know some secret that I don’t know.  When I say, “I thought it might, I looked at the map before moving here.”  They say, “Well, you’ll see.”  Do you think they really do know something I don’t?

Thinking of this snow thing — can it really be *THAT* bad?  I mean — this isn’t Buffalo, right?

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 8th, 2009 at 11:21 am and is filed under A House to a Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.