Category Archives: musing

January 22, 2013 · 4:23 pm

Loco for local

It isn’t that I HATE big chains. Starbucks got where they are by being REALLY good at what they do and ya can’t cuss that too loud.
But when it is time to get our grub on, Chili’s just isn’t where we gravatate.  The thing is, our old urban hood was loaded with local when it was time to eat. LOADED.
It was the chains that were scarce and we weren’t seeking them out, for sure.

Local in the burbs? That takes work.
None of the “falling out the door and ending up at your fave wine bar or sushi place depending on which end of your block you want to head for” thing.

It takes a bit of faith, frankly, too. Because in a land where the Red Robin seems to always have swarms of people holding vibrating wait list notifiers falling out the front doors while the local (and awesome) joint across the way sweeps cobwebs off their chairs, you may just face the untimely closing of a place you grow to love.
(Then again, rising rents had the same affect on a few places I loved in the city, so maybe that’s a wash, eh?)

It’s harder here, finding the places you will love and feel “at home,” you don’t stumble on them, you have to seek them out – a funky droplet in a sea of Applebee’s.
(And by “you ” I ALWAYS mean “me,” but ,duh, so anyway…..)
It means spending time stalking strip malls, ( ick. Icky. Ickiest.) doing recon to find places that MIGHT become your fam’s satellite living room.

A quick aside, mom-and-pop places: you have to have a liquor license to have “Brunch.” Otherwise that jazz is just Breakfast or Lunch, and not worth this fam parking their patoots for the party. Mmm’kay?

I have discovered, however, that all of this rigamarole yields actual results.

For instance, I am writing this from the bestest little coffee and wine bar (Yes. Both. Amen.)
If there is a place like that out here, it was worth the epic tour of parking lots it took me to find the damn place.
(But that is after the second glass… and I’m NOT having coffee.)

Screw you, Peaberry.

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January 15, 2013 · 12:30 pm

Before we get TOO far here…

So if I want to be all, you know, “honest” and stuff, I know why we chose to live here and not smack in the middle of the city that single me swore she would never, ever abandon.

It  has NOTHING to do with all the typical “when you have kids you will feel differently” drivel that people spew as they shop for minivans to load their growing brood into on the way out of Urban forever.  Hell no.  People do a great job raising great kids in cities (WAY bigger than the one we left behind,) all over the world – that line is for chumps imo.

It is this – we are blessed to live in a beautiful state where city, prairie, and mountains all meet together, and growing up right here in this very town on the edge of all 3 of those things meant something to me.

It is the same reason why, though I LOATHE driving or riding in the mountains at this point in my spoiled Colorado native life, I will be refilling my Ativan script, dusting off and strapping on my Girl Scout Camper Smile, and riding off into them thar hills in the back seat of The Mr.’s Jeep next to Junior to share the joy of the purple mountains majesty with our son.  (Incidentally, if you have  ever ridden with a Texan in the Rockies, then you will understand why I might need TWO Ativan. And wine.  And prayer, lots of prayer. )

The city is where I am comfortable, it is my oldest, dearest sweater and I would be perfectly content to wrap it around me each day for the rest of my life.

The thing is – you can’t let yourself wear your comfy sweater every day – sometimes you need the Va-Va- Voom red dress, or the uber-trendy top that will only get one season of play.  You need adventure, even if you have to force it a bit.

I want Junior to know and to love it all – the city that is like a second-skin to mommy at this point in her life, but also the mountains that brought his daddy up from the Lone Star State to Vail, and eventually to me, and also the wide open prairies and small friendly towns that so influenced me when I was growing up.

It would be easy to just be a city family and stay cocooned in that environment, and if we lived in it I think that is what would happen.  So here we are at the crossroads of all of it – ready to let him eagerly explore wide open spaces and rocky trails and city streets alike.     If he is anything like his mother growing up here, he will love and loathe each one at different times, and, I hope, grow into a deep appreciation of each one.  Just maybe living here again will remind me that there were things I loved in each of them too.

(Or there could be if the damn Texan would let me drive when we go into the mountains.)

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January 12, 2013 · 8:56 am

A hairy situation

I can’t say I was in love with my stylist in the city.  If I had been, then I would have stayed on with her and commuted – I have always wanted to be one of those women who is all, Sandy-from-Grease “totally devoted to you” about her hair person.

But I was firmly in the “meh” camp about the whole thing:  the cut was always fine, the color was always fine, the price was not horrifying (and that is important if the results are just “fine.”)   So I kept going back.

It was just like every other urban relationship I had – I could put up with some hassle and some mediocrity if the location was walking distance, (or at least had good parking prospects.)  God knows how many minor-ish annoyances I blew past in the early dating days with The Mr. using the internal argument “But he lives just a few blocks away!”

And that’s the thing.  The hair stylist was good, but she was only “walking distance good.”  Probably not even “out of the neighborhood trip” good, and DAMN sure not “commute worthy.”  So I planned to just find someone out here through recommendations as we got settled.

It turns out that Stylist Ambivalence runs rampant in the ‘burbs.

Well, poo.

I do have one friend who LOVES hers – but the stylist splits her time between Texas and here, and I am a last-minute appointment maker, so that “I’ll be in the salon during the 2nd week of next month” kind of sitch is a non-starter.  It can only lead to sneaking around with other stylists on the DL while she is out-of-town, and an eventual slow, fade-away kind of break up sure to leave me sniffing around mall salons thinking “just this once can’t hurt, right?” WRONG!

What’s a girl to do?

I can’t lie, there’ve been some bang-trimming incidents in the master bathroom, (I’m not too bad with that, actually,) and some mildly demeaning Groupon/Living Social whoring around too.  But I swore off the internet blind dating version of stylist hunting after a snafu involving a set of Taylor Swift bangs that were nothing any 36 year old er, over mid-twenty-something woman should ever attempt.  Ever, Ever, Ever. Like, Ever.

I’m so desperate I have taken to random stalker attacks in public places, but they don’t end well either.   (Sorry, supermarket cheese counter lady, I thought it would be complementary to say I liked your cut – NOT an opening for a rant about how “cheap your boyfriend is about stuff like that.”  Also, I just don’t need any cheese for a while.  I swear that is totally the only reason I run past you now.  Swear.)

So my hair gets funkier every day.

Come to think of it – maybe that is what is up with all the moms in baseball caps with pony tails up here. Hmm.

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January 7, 2013 · 8:45 am

There’s no good place to start all this.

6 months ago I sold my soul to the devil for a walk in closet.

Ok – that MIGHT be the tiniest bit of a less-than-totally-true version of the way it all went down.

The memory is clouded by months of jockeying for position in the toddler school parking lot, against mothers of 4 in mini vans with their “mom uniforms” of yoga pants and performance fleece and pony-tails sticking out of baseball caps; with perfectly lined eyes and bumper stickers proclaiming allegiance to their sons’ and daughters’ insanely competitive youth sports teams in their windows.

:::shudder:::

So I think maybe I kind of can’t remember now the entire series of events that led me to this point in time.

Maybe it isn’t really important – the how-in-the-hell-did-I-get-HERE of it all.

Doesn’t matter.

6 months ago, in an uncharatericistly cold June rain, I wedged the last thing (a half bottle of Vhino Verde that kept me company the night before,) into the last itty bit of space in the last SUV load of our lives and pulled out of the parking garage underneath the perfect treetop level city condo where we had spent the past 7 years, and pointed it toward a future in the suburbs.

Pausing please. Deep breath. Gulp of wine.

Heee Hee Hooooooo…… Hee Hee Hooooo.

(We took the one day “express” version of prepared childbirth before we had our son, because my birth plan was “whatever is in that syringe, please give me two, and a smack on the head with a frying pan,” so I didn’t really see the need for the breathing and concentrating and crap – but when I talk about how we ended up here, I find myself doing the “I’m in labor” breathing without really even thinking about it.)

However it happened, it happened.  We left the city.

Maybe it was inevitable, destined to be, but I prefer that theory least of all.

Because it isn’t just ANY ‘burb.  Oh no.

The awful truth is – I grew up here.

Quelle horreur.

(I  don’t speak French, by the way.  But sometimes English just leaves me needing more, so I long ago stole that little beauty from an Audrey Hepburn movie.)

The Mr. was oh-so-over the urban living,  and I prefer to think that I was under duress from months of barely saving my kid from smacking his giant Charlie Brown head against our beautiful, but VERY hard, stone floors.

However it happened, there was no looking back and 1,2,3, baby don’t think twice, just like that we had a brand new life.  (One, evidently, where I quote Keith Urban songs, incidentally.)

It has its perks.  There is that walk-in closet, to begin with.  My closet and I have a relationship that leaves people looking away so as not to blush as I caress it’s contents.  I do love that closet.

Oh, and the ample (and FREE) parking out here.  This place is just LOUSY with parking spots, everywhere you turn – right up next to places you actually want to go!  Seriously, we have been here months and I still feel like the Hamburgler having just rolled Grimace every time I come out of a place and there is no ticket on my car.  I just assume if a spot is that good, it can’t really be open.

Then there is the space.  LOADS of it.  Huge open areas where Junior and Binky-the-wonder-dog can run and run and run with no fear of cars or harried bicyclists or all the other crazy things that seem to come at you when you try to stake your claim on a little patch of green alongside the street in the city.

AndPlusAlso – my parents.  The parents whose wings I was (pretending) that I was SO ready to be out from under all those years ago when I packed up my old Cherokee and tore out of this little town?  Yeah, they are by far THE big positive about our temporary insanity decision to be out here.  Soaking up all of that glorious family time for my kiddo and for myself is huge.

HUGE.

But I feel I must explain something right now – to the minivan driving, fleece wearing, supahstar soccer mom giving my kid’s Ramones T-Shirt the side-eye, and the whole army of Stepford scaries coming at me everyday.

Know this now:

I will not be assimilated.

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