Questions from the Audience #1

Before I start--Let's have a warm welcome for this week's renter,Mama Come Here! She's another one that I always vote for over at blog explosion. I LOVE her template! Plus, us Minnesota girls have got to stick together! So make sure you pop over there and leave her a comment. And don't forget to tell her that I sent ya!

Wrigley asked:

so, i'm interested to see/read about what certain things (culture, customs) were new to you when you started living in Minnesota that you have never been accustomed to in CA.

Which is a really good question. And it was a HUGE problem for me when I moved here. But I was only 15, so the things that were HUGE problems, I now find beneficial as a mom.

For instance, everybody knows everybody here. When I lived in California, we made contact with two of our neighbors on a regular basis, and knew there were other people living in the house next door, but never met them. Here, everyone knew where our new house was before I had even said that we had moved. But I'm OK with this now, because I don't have to worry about my kids going to play at a friend's house, because I know their parents. We don't have to go through the awkward "You can't go until I meet their parents" BS that I had to go through EVERY. DAMN. TIME. I had a new friend invite me over.

The biggest thing that still bothers me (and kind of goes hand in hand with the first one) is the fact that everybody knows everybody's business. Prime example: My dad has recently started dating again. Last weekend he had a date over at his house for a while. It was quite late when she left. I had someone ask me about my dad's "girlfriend" and if she had stayed overnight at his house. I'm sorry, but that's not any of your business! Unless he was doing the wild monkey dance on the front porch for all to see, there is really nothing that you need to be concerned with.

Another thing that bothers me is that you are associated with your family for life. When someone introduces you to someone else, it's never, "Hi, Snootypants, this is Carrie." But it's "Hi, Snootypants, this is Carrie, you know Karen's granddaughter." Luckily my grandma was a FANTASTIC lady, so I don't mind being associated with her. My hubs, however, isn't so lucky back where he was born. He's got two cuh-razy aunts that live in his grandparents' house. So when he's associated to his family, people give him that "oh, poor you" look.

A few other strange customs around here that I still am not used to:
-People refer to soda as pop. I cringe everytime I hear this. There were many discussions with my friends as well. OK, they were debates. But this is the only area where they call it "pop". If you go to Minneapolis, they call it "soda". Drives me bonkers!

-Lunch is not the meal in between breakfast and dinner. Lunch is a snack.

-Dinner is not dinner. It is supper.

-Which means that the farmers' meal schedule is as follows: Breakfast (between 6:30 and 7:00 am), Morning lunch (9:00), Dinner (noon), Afternoon lunch (2:00-3:00), Supper (5:30-6:00), Bedtime lunch (8:00). This is all very confusing for the outsider, but it makes perfect sense to everyone around here. They all look at me cross-eyed when I say I'm having dinner at 6:00.

So there you have it. The short list of oddities in Podunk. Got more questions for me? Post them in the "Life is Dull" post below.

This is actually a busy week for us. Today Diva has a birthday party, tomorrow I'm off to see Wicked, Thursday is Bible study (which in itself is only an hour, but the social time afterwards takes up the rest of the night), Friday Diva has another birthday party, then (I think) the weekend is free! So stay tuned, I may actually have interesting posts this week!