*originally posted WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2008*
Last night Flip told me (and I NEVER thought he would EVER say this) that he misses Salt Lake City. Aaaahhh!
1. Flip is NOT from there! He is from Dallas. As in Texas. Where people nod to you.
2. My family moved there because of my dad's job. I am NOT from there! I am from Oregon.
I miss Oregon. So pretty. I love the smell of the fresh air, especially after it rains. If they could bottle it, I'd have to buy stock in it! Texas is great but it smells like dirt when it rains.
SLC, Utah
Flip clarified that he misses the weather there. He says it was nice. There actually seemed to be seasons in SLC and the summers, altho hot, were not scorching like they are here. If you don't believe there is a Hell, come to Texas in mid-summer....you will start to rethink things! Texas would be where the Devil would go for vacation, if that were remotely possible.
One of my favorite things about living back in TX is the people. There is a general hospitality and simple courtesy here that is so nice. People actually talk to you here, even tho they don't know you! It's amazing! I'm sure they do in a lot of other southern towns but I haven't been to those yet.
I remember one time with my brother, we were on a road trip and there was a guy in front of us on the highway (2-laner) going slower than we wanted to. He kept driving but veered off to the side of the road so we could pass. Freaked my brother out. He had never seen that before and hasn't seen it anywhere else. He thought that was pretty cool.
SLC IS NOT like that! If you are not Mormon (a blind-deaf-mute Mormon can tell you're not Mormon) you don't fit in. They will not talk to you. Believe it or not, they won't hire you. Flip had gone on a job interview and they actually asked him (out loud) if he was or not. He didn't even get a phone call to say he wasn't hired.
SLC is surrounded by mountains. I do mean surrounded! Even the mountain passes are so narrow you'd think you were walking trails in the Grand Canyon. The feeling there is dreary, like it's impossible to get out. Like a fly floating in a soup bowl...try, try, try, drown. They suck at their grid-map street system and their driving and their hospitality. You can forget about eye contact. One thing they are good at is pretending (and believing) you don't exist. I dreaded just going to the corner store for milk. My sister (29) and my brother (28) both hate it there for the same reasons I do, but they won't leave because my parents are there.
Friends in SL? Two...and they were the neighbors next to us and across the street. They also weren't practicing Mormons. One was raised as such and couldn't stand the people herself. Go figure. Flip had two friends at work. One Mormon but also understanding that not everyone is the same and one wasn't.
SLC doesn't make you feel warm-n-fuzzy & come to find out, that's another thing Flip liked and misses about it! I find that very funny. The one thing he complained about on a daily basis is one of the things he misses. Doesn't it just figure.
Phillip doesn't really care for people. No certain type, just people in general. Too many useless ones and they take up his oxygen. He liked the fact that SLC people are rude and point blank. Most people don't like that. Flip does because he is one of those people. Brutally honest. His thought is if you don't want the truth you shouldn't ask him the question. I once asked him if he thought a certain pair of pants made my butt look big and without hesitation he said Yes. I was mortified! He was honest and I was dumb enough to ask. I've never asked him that since.
Texans are different. They are so-so-so nice to you to your face but some of them will stab you if you turn your back. Flip can't deal with those people. He is finding it difficult to deal with those types and still be professional. He has his business (http://www.northtexaspainters.com/) and altho he does AWESOME work, he needs the honesty with the work he does. He yearns for it I guess you could say. Frankly, he doesn't see why more people can't be brutally honest.
I try to tell him not everyone can be like him. Not everyone has an On-Off switch. Not everyone sees things only in black and white. For him there is no gray margin for excuses or otherwise. He is a 'Yes' or 'No' kinda guy. Most other people are 'Maybe' kinda people. You would think after this long of us being together that he would know this to be true. He married a 'Maybe' kinda person. But in business, there is no room for 'maybe.'
He doesn't regret moving back here to the Dallas area. I guess he would've just liked to have brought some of the SLC people here. Wouldn't that blow! I need happy. I need smiles and sunshine and strangers to talk to. I don't like stand-offish people and that is my feeling of Utans (quite fitting: my brother calls them U-tards).
No comments:
Post a Comment