Summertime....
...and the livin' is easy...... or at least it is supposed to be according to the song. In a sad and strange turn of events, I, who used to LOVE summer, have come to really not enjoy it at all. I think this is due to the event of WORK, which makes me think that should I ever get a real job, it should be teaching so I can have the Summer off.
There is so much that can be done during the summer and I have done almost NONE of it. We have a park right behind our apartment. Have i ever gone outside and tossed a ball around or just walked outside to enjoy the trees and grass ( if you can call what they grow here "grass")? I haven't even been to a barbque!
I did, however, get to go on a summer vacation ( Thank the Lord Almighty). With so many of my co-workers gone on vacation I have had nothing to do, for let's see here....close to 4 MONTHS now.... and I am NOT a HAPPY CAMPER at work... but that's a completely different story.
I went home to good ol' Idaho. It was FABULOUS!!! I remember thinking when we moved out here to "big city-land" that big cities had their advantages.... I even remembered some from Japan, but after returning home to Idaho- for the life of me, I CAN"T REMEMBER WHAT THEY ARE!
Is it the smokestacks that I have to walk next to everyday on my way to work? No.....
Is it the awful customer service that is EVERYwhere? no......
Maybe it's the rude drivers on the road? or the lack of any real geographic beauty in the area? nah......
Idaho was wonderful!! It was clean and quiet. There were mountains and trees!! and COLOR. Purple mountains and fields of green and yellow and purple flowers....In big city land I feel like I live in Black and White. It's kind of like in the movie "Runaway Bride" when Ike (from NY) and Maggie ( from the country) get married. All the people from Ike's side of the family are dressed in black from head to toe and are talking on cell phones. On Maggie's side everyone is wearing colorful clothing and talking to each other.
My family moved into a new house that has quite a bit of land around it. The people down the street own llamas ( no Napolean Dynamite jokes, please :) There's a rooster that crows by it every morning and you can hear the cows mooing not too far away. Dont' get me wrong- my parent's don't live in podunk town- Just on the outskirts of a fairly good sized city. The only stench I had to deal with was the skunk at the end of the road, who my little sister has named "Charlie" and who endearingly lets his presence there be known fairly regularly.
Maybe I'm just weird, but I LOVE that. And as I sit here in my rut at work and try not to get teary from thinking how great it was to be home and how much it sucks to be back in big-city land, if any of you can remind me why big cities have their perks- or what YOU like about them, please feel free!!!!
posted by Cat @ 8/17/2006 10:39:00 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
I could go on and on, but here's a short list:
1. Not having to wait in LINE to eat at mediocre chain restaurant on a Friday night. Instead you can have Thai or Indian or Iranian or Greek or Afghan or Italian or Japanese or Brazilian or New American or Ethiopian.
2. Public transportation. Not only do I not sweat the rising gas prices, but I can read, listen to Meet the Press on my iPod, or sleep the whole way to work.
3. Being able to walk places. This applies more to my life in NY than here. Everything I needed was in a three block radius. Great grocery store, dry cleaners, video rental, brunch place, bookstore etc. Now that I have to drive everywhere, I never get anything done. (I have not dry cleaned stuff in 6 months just because the dry cleaner is a 5 minute drive away--gross, i know. Don't tell my co-workers).
Here's the long and the short of it--I think you're not enjoying your city experience because you don't live in the city. You only get the bad parts -- the work day here. And it's such a hassle to come in, that it's hard to get up the energy to come and and enjoy the fun stuff -- movies on the mall, street fairs, etc.
I'll tell you what i love, Caps, Nats, Skins, Ravens, O's, Wizards, etc. Pro sports all year live. I love Salt Lake too, but the Jazz only play October through June (sometimes). I also like the diversity that has already been mentioned. Maybe this is more an East coast thing than a big city thing, but it is cool that everything is so close, i mean, in SLC or Idaho if you want to get away for a weekend your choices are kind of limited, Las Vegas is still seven hours away, California even more, but here you can go to NY, Baltimore, Philly, and lots of other cool cities, all just a few hours drive.
Here's something else, not too much of a problem in SLC, but i bet in Idaho you don't get the chance to go to as many concerts and stuff. Any weekend there are tons of bands coming through DC. I mean, is the So You Think You Can Dance tour even going to IF?
Touche, Chris. No So you think you can dance tour in Idaho, but if it did come, it wouldn't sell out in one day like here.
Janelle- all valid points, i hadn't thought about it that way. thanks :)
Sheldon dear, yes, we meet different people here, but that's all- you just meet them on the street and never see them again. Is that really that cool?