Tuesday, January 18, 2011

The Truman Show

[NOTE TO SELF: When creating a blog that is so incognito burrito, please make note of fictitious email address and password to said blog so you can log in and write more blogs. Also, remembering fictitious blog/email address/password is much more difficult when you create it under the influence of several glasses of wine.]

Okay, so I live in this crazy, hardcore suburban neighborhood. Everyone drives huge SUVs, they proudly post their republican signs in their neatly manicured lawns, all the husbands work and the wives stay home. I swear, there has been many instances when several people back out of their driveways at once. Then there's my house... okay, so our lawn is always nice as well (in the spring and summer, anyhow... you can't really do much during the autumn and winter months), but our cars are a bit more realistic. Instead of driving ginormous SUVs and luxury sedans (BMWs, Lexus... wait, what's the plural of Lexus? Lexuses? Lexi? Eh, it doesn't matter because we don't own one.) I also have to admit that I felt a strange sense of excitement during elections when I proudly posted my democrat signs in our front yard. It was freaking invigorating!

"Why do you live there?" You might ask. Well, let me fill you in on a little secret: when you live in a bubble such as ours, the property values tend to stay high and the public schools are usually amazing. Any guess as to the percentage of how many Caucasians live in our city? Go ahead, guess. [Waiting for you to guess] If you guessed 94% [ding! ding! ding!] you're correct! I live in freaking WASPtopia. Here's a little factoid about Curly Sue and Mr. Jeff: we're crazy about public education. Most public educators (especially at my son's school) are phenomenal. Our son is GT (that's the fancy-pants term for "Gifted/Talented". In layman's terms: he's a nerd) so public education earns him extra time with the teacher, accelerated curriculum to fit his needs and teachers who are trained and have degrees especially for GT children... and we get all of this for the whopping price of $0! Well, not $0... we have some pretty high property taxes and I volunteer TONS at his school. I figure, if there's a teacher spending her free time so she can develop curriculum for my son, the least I can do is volunteer in the classroom to take some of the load off.

Sorry about the whole education rant. Allow me to carry on...

The Truman Show. Remember that Sesame Street song? The one where they talk about all the variety of people who live in your neighborhood? You know, the one that sings, "These are the people in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood, in your neigh-bor-hood, and, these are the people in your neighborhood... the people that you meet each day!" Yeah, that song doesn't really apply to Uppity, CO. I must admit, though, all of my neighbors have kids of their own as well as adopted kids. Our cul-de-sac is like the freaking UN. We have kids from all over the world, so I guess my kids get a little bit of the melting pot experience. ;) I'm sure our street is what accounts for the 6% in the "other" category of our city's racial diversity chart.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not bragging by any means about where we live. We've sacrificed to live here and we've paid our dues. Hell, I don't even fit in here most of the time! I grew up in the ghetto in the projects and low-income apartments. I was raised by a single mom who worked and put herself through school. My husband works his ass off every day so our kids can have better than we had. Ah, the American dream. Here's my goal for my kids: to be raised in Uppity, CO but not act like they were raised in Uppity, CO. And yes, there are much nicer, more expensive places to live in Colorado... this is just the tier we can afford. ;)

"Why are you telling me all of this, Curly Sue?" You may be asking. Well, I'll tell you why: in order to understand my stories, you have to know a little bit of the back story. Think of my blogs as the Star Wars movies or Pulp Fiction... I kind of tell a back story, a future story, bounce around a little, then end it in a way that's coherent. Okay, somewhat coherent.

6 comments:

  1. We are very close to moving to Uppity, TX. Not WAY-UPPITY, TX (that's too far North for our commute) but up and coming Uppity, TX. The schools were our deciding factor as well.

    NOTE: The plural of Lexi is Compensations.

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  2. I'm telling you... uppity peeps have amazing public schools. The parents at the uppity schools, now that's an entirely different blog!

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  3. P to the S: Compensations = Hilarious

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  4. Yes. The uppity neighborhood is not as uppity as other uppity neighborhoods in the city. In fact, I only like the house, but I love the neighborhood. I love it because it is not a perfect neighborhood with sidewalks and HOAs, but it is still very nice. I love it because it has a creek, and a park, and horses. I love it because two schools that my kiddo would attend are directly accross the street.

    I would have to deal with the Country Club women and those in the far more uppity neighborhoods when I volunteered on the PTA. However, this particular school feed can NOT be beat - not at all. All of that makes me willing to take a gamble and offer on a house that I only like before mine has sold.

    Crazy, I know. It's about the kiddos.

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  5. I swore I'd never do half the things I do, but now that I have kids, my views are completely different. My neighbors, even though we usually don't see eye-to-eye on several issues, are fantastic. They know what my views are, I know theirs, and we chalk it up to being different. I love that everything is clean around here. I love all of the open space that has paths, streams and gullies and will never be developed. I also love that my kids can play outside until the street lights come on. That makes me happy.

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