Maybe the Leaflets are Embroidered

Now that the boxes are unpacked (for the most part) and the contractor is gone (though, interestingly, not finished with the job) and we have befriended our new neighbors (befriended might be an overstatement. More like welcomed all of their children into our home while seeing pretty close to nothing of the parents), I've determined that it's time to take a look around this new town of ours.

My first impression: it's pretty Townie.

It's strange to be the new person in town. All of my experience with this has been in places where I have spent a fair amount of time there already. But the view of any town is different when you live there. Midway through my sophomore year of high school, for instance, my parents decided it would be just perfect to buy a house in a town twenty-five miles north of the only one in which I had ever lived, thereby ripping me away from everyone and everything I had ever known. Truthfully, in many ways this ended up being one of the best turning points in my life. The original friends who were truly my friends are still my friends today. Plus I made a bunch of new friends. And I was able to stop skidding down the path I was surely on to becoming a reclusive Goth and develop some actual social skills. So thanks for that, Mom and Dad. My point, however, is that the "new" town was actually the place where my parents would take me as a child when they wanted to have a rip-roaring "Family Day." We mostly went to the mall. It seemed pretty cool back then, but that same mall today is kind of old and stale. Going to the mall is fine, but moving is something else entirely. This will be the subject of my eventual blockbuster novel written for the angsty "tween" market. But I guess I'll need to insert some zombies or something.

Returning to present day, I actually worked in Townie town for a few years and sent both of the Tornadoes to preschool here. Let me just say that the preschool was not some super-exclusive place with a forty-year waiting list. It was just a regular preschool, strongly recommended by a friend, that initially was very convenient because I worked in town, but became a major pain in the behind once I found myself working in another town. (Ironically, in the town where I lived as a child. Before all the ripping and turning point stuff took place. It will all be in the novel.) Where was I? Oh, yes, Townie town. So I've done a little looking around now, beyond all the places where I used to order lunch. Here are three observations I have made:

They sure do like diners. It seems odd to me that a town of this size can support such a large number of diners. There are downtown diners, drive in diners, off the highway diners. And they're all pretty busy. Doesn't anyone know how to cook an egg around here? I would have killed for a diner in our last town - the one in the middle of nowhere - just for a chance to go out for breakfast once in a while without involving the whole rest of the day in the commute. But this seems like too much of a good thing. There is one particular diner that I pass every morning that is currently advertising 99 cent ice cream cups on its marquee. Who is this sign for? Is this supposed to lure me away from the competing diners? Or is it some kind of global warming commentary, advertising ice cream in the middle of October? What happened to the Sunday all-you-can-eat buffet?

There's a craft fair at the high school this weekend. I know this because it is being advertised all over town via giant handmade signs that are stuck into people's front lawns. As though the craft fair were running for office. Which come to think of it, I may have to go find out how those craft people feel about a few issues. This could sway my vote. Seriously, why is everyone in town so all about this craft fair? I've been to my fair share of these things. Not one of them has been thrilling enough to evoke this kind of mass euphoria. Maybe it's code. Maybe there's going to be a revolution. It's a good thing I bought that cow.

Are there any parents around here? Hello? Maybe I shouldn't share this observation. On the off chance that I actually become friends with one or more of these parents, and they inadvertently read my blog, this could be considered offensive. But who am I kidding? Nobody is reading my blog. So here is basically what I mean. Within days of moving in, the Tornadoes ensnared the interest of every kid between the ages of 7 and 17 within a one mile radius. They all congregate in a giant blob in front of our house. Except when they're inside our house. Now I kind of like that their new friends are comfortable with me and with Future Husband. We both enjoy that Seventh Grader's friends have come to expect that we will be their ride to school on rainy days. It's nice that we've figured out to buy five times as much tomato juice as usual so that Fifth Grader's friend from two doors down will always have a ready supply. This would all be a great deal more fun, however, if the contractor would come back and finish the basement like he was supposed to. That way the kids could all go downstairs and hang out, instead of taking over my kitchen, until their parents call them to go home. Which, by the way, they don't do. So when I tell Seventh Grader to come in the house once it gets dark outside? I look like a big ball of mean. Because apparently all the other kids are allowed to roam the neighborhood indefinitely.

I guess I can't help wondering where I fall on the parenting spectrum. In our former town, I found the overall parenting standard to be Rampant Overinvolvement - to the point where it became difficult to discern the children from the parents at times. Here? Well, the kids are all wearing shoes and seem to be attending school regularly. Good signs indeed. But where are they getting the shoes? Not entirely clear. And why can't anyone else's mother ever pick up from a school dance or movie?

You know what I think? They're all off getting ready for the "craft fair." Well that's fine. I'll just stay here, cook up some steaks for the kids.

Maybe later we'll all go out for ice cream cups.