Can I Blend In?

This past weekend we spent in Boise Idaho – the second time we have been there in a month.

After our first visit , I left with this overwhelming feeling that I could see myself  living there – it’s a college town, has a very artistic edgy subculture, and rush hour traffic does not even exist.

After this weekend, I am rethinking that ever so slightly.   I never really thought it a big deal to up and move but it seems like the older we get, the more ingrained we become with our geographical locations and the stereotypes they provide which become so  embedded in us that gradually over time we don’t realize it.    Am I truly a hard-core mid-westerner and I am just figuring this out?

While in Boise, we attended a dinner party with our daughter and her dancer friends along with their parents who were in town for the ballet.  It ended up being a delightful evening, even though there was a tiny amount of angst thrown in the mix – my husband and I had never met these two couples before in our lives or their children.  Outwardly is seemed like we had a lot in common, having children as ballet dancers as the common thread.   We lived in different parts of the country however; my husband and I Mid-westerners and they being west coasters, but that didn’t really matter.   I have no problems meeting new people, we are all adults and the evening went just fine.   On the menu was elk which was hunted in the Boise foothills and prepared on the outdoor grill.

Before attending the party, my daughters boyfriend mentioned that he should visit his grandmother in Oregon – barely an hour away from Boise.  He quickly dismissed the idea, stating she is a hippie type and her home town is just too hard core for him.   She’s a grandmother and hippie type?  What exactly does that mean?  When pressing him to explain, he could not articulate it other than to say  “Oregon is just too out there for me.” I found myself thinking – really?  Where have I been?

After attending the dinner party though, I had even more food for thought.   After finishing a discussion about the elk we were eating, I proceeded to find out that both couples I had just met raised some type of farm animal in their backyards of all places – one raised turkeys, the other rabbits. Not only did they raise them, they farmed them and described how delicious they tasted.  I looked at my daughters boyfriend with a worried look that stated “really?”  and he proceeded to tell me that his family  raised chickens when he was growing up.   What was this?  Is this something I would feel I had to do should I move to Boise?  Does everyone out there shoot their dinner and have a strong tie to farm animals?

This is not standard practice in suburbia Illinois, or in any of the other various mid-western suburbs I have lived in.   I felt like I had a third eye sticking out of my head, a big “I’m from the mid-west and I don’t farm animals in my backyard” sign tattooed to my back.   Granted I did have a huge vegetable garden when my girls were growing up – but an animal raising, from backyard to table type lifestyle other than the occasional domesticated dog and cat animal raising experience?   Just to be sure about this perception of animal husbandry I had about Boise and the surrounding area,  the next day I asked my daughter’s neighbor across the street  if she raised any type of farm animal in her backyard, and she said no but pointed to her next door neighbors and said  “they raise ducks”.

That sealed the deal for me.  This is not to say that everyone in Boise and the surrounding area partakes in this type of lifestyle, but it is a new twist for me on the “I”ll simply up and move anywhere and blend in” notion that I have.