1. I will forever say "pop" when referring to the carbonated beverage. Southerners say "coke" which drives me insane. And some servers will even feign ignorance when you ask what kind of pop they have. (rolling my eyes)
2. I still have to stop and think when someone says "let's have a cookout". Here, that means grilling some hamburgers or sausages or hot dogs, etc. If you're here and say "we're having a BBQ"....you BETTER have some actual BBQ. Back "home", a BBQ = a cookout. It still confuses me.
3. I cannot, for the life of me, say "y'all" without sounding pretentious and out of my element.
4. I do NOT get the obsession with sweet tea. Just do not understand in the slightest.
5. I would take 118 degree and up to 10% humidity in Phoenix over 95 degree and 60% humidity here. It's the humidity that kills me.
6. I still laugh at people (not very charitably) when they complain about the cold and snow here. They look at me like I'm from Mars and remind me that I'm from AZ so I have no clue what I'm talking about. Please people. I lived, in Arizona no less, at 7,000 ft elevation for 5 years where a snow storm dropped feet....not mere inches...and where the high sometimes didn't get over the 0 mark on the thermometer. It is no wonder that the South lost the War of Northern Aggression :), what with their views on cold and snow.
7. Hush puppies are one of God's culinary gifts to us!
8. I have to chuckle when I go home to the West and see a "river"....even the "mighty" Colorado. They may be fierce and violent and full of rapids and dangers but Rivers in the West are Creeks here. There is no equivalent in the West for the James or the York or the Elizabeth.
9. People who call the land elevations out here "mountains" have never been past the Mississippi. Really. These mounds here will always just be hills in my opinion.
10. Richmond fashion befuddles me and makes me laugh. The pastel pants on guys, the bow ties, the seersucker suits, the prim skirts and dresses, the pearl necklaces on even people younger than me...it's all out of Southern Living magazine for this western girl. I'm not saying I miss the cowboy boots and the such but it can be a little surreal sometimes.
11. My comfort food will never be southern comfort food. It will always be mexican food and margaritas. ALWAYS! I don't have one drop of Latino blood in me but that is my comfort food!
12. I never knew how violent a storm could be until I lived here. I'm not even talking Tropical Storms, Hurricanes, Nor'Easter, and or Tornadic Weather (which we get them all). I'm talking just your run-of-the-mill storm. In comparison, weather out west is terribly boring!
13. I miss the grid-system of Phoenix streets. I miss the Mormon engineered wide streets so they could do a U-Turn with their horses and wagons. Streets out here are narrow. Streets out here are windy. Streets out here end....and then start randomly back up about a mile away. It is confounding.
14. Your car better have great "get up and go" if you're going to survive because off-ramps and on-ramps for the interstate are a joke! If you're lucky, you're given 5 yards to merge with speeding oncoming traffic. And don't even get me started on the road signs out here. Most, on interstate or regular street, are obscured by some dark foliage or are in a font and font color that is hard for the eyes to see. And if you're expecting those signs to be well lit at night....keep dreaming!
15. I still get claustrophobic sometimes with all the trees and the inability to see for more than 500 yards. Don't get me wrong. I go home to AZ and everything about the Valley just hurts my eyes. It's so......brown. And all the trees seem so....short. But I loved seeing sunsets out there....or hiking to the wind caves and being able to see downtown Phoenix...40 miles away.
I guess it's true that you can take the Girl out of the West but you can't take the West out of the Girl. :)
1 comment:
I'm dying to see an Arizona sunset in person one day.
And oh my gosh, same here to the windy and small streets, the off/on ramps, and the road signs. I miss the length LI streets had, the time I had to change lanes, the road signs, the simpleness of the place, in comparison to how confused I get and how fast everything is here in VA.
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