Musings about Maryland

As I sat in church on Sunday, the song from Cheers ran through my head ...

Sometimes you want to go
where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
your name.

"Yes. Yes, I do. I do want to go where everybody knows my name." I think I'm sick of moving. (Amazing, I know. :) Ugh. Here I go again. I've done this a million times before, and I guess I'll have to do it one more time. Don't get me wrong, this is definitely exciting. I'm just tired. And I think I will be for a very, very long time. When I'm done packing, I'll have a new baby, and when I've got the baby in a good schedule, I've got to potty train Seara, and once that is done we'll be moving again because Samuel should be done with grad school. Are you ever not tired in life? My mom had eight kids and with only two at home (they are nearly 18 and nearly 16), she is just as busy as she ever was. So I'm guessing I'll pretty much be tired until I die. Gosh, I can't wait to die! :)


Okay, okay, for real. Here are the things we have noticed about Maryland:

(1) It is SUPER green. I mean, wow. I love plants and trees and everything outdoors, so I am in absolute heaven here. It is so beautiful. The only downside is that all those trees cover up what you are looking for. Example: we drove up and down one street at least three times to find Home Depot because it was hidden behind all the beautiful foliage.

(2) People look pretty much the same as they do anywhere else. The only difference is that in Spanish Fork we knew that some 90% of the people we saw were LDS, and here about 99.9% of people are not. I feel like I'm constantly doing the Disneyland watch - keeping eyes peeled for garment lines and BYU apparel.

(3) Baltimore is what happens when there is no city planning for 250 years. To come home from church we have to take three lefts at four-way lights to stay on the same road the entire time (because if we go straight at the light we somehow change roads?!) Our 45 minute drive to see Sam's school on Sunday ended up taking 2 1/2 hours because we kept getting lost. Now I know why we were told not to live inside Baltimore. I swear, we almost died. The projects in the US are so much worse than the ghettos of South America. In the US the gangs have access to terrifying weapons and heavy drugs, in most of South America, they have neither. Its amazing how brazen people are when they are high on drugs and surrounded by powerful guns. I now know where I never, ever, ever want to go again. This is what it looked like except with a ton of people hanging out in the streets looking like they wanted to kill you.


(4) I don't really need to say it, but Utah isn't very racially diverse. We all know it. And it is no shock to leave Utah and see different races when you are an adult. But let me tell you what happens when you have a one year-old. So when I took Elijah to the doctor's office to get his teeth fixed we were sitting in the waiting room, right? And this black man enters the waiting room with his about 10 year-old daughter. Well, Elijah had never seen a black person before and he was VERY interested. So he follows this little girl around and keeps trying to touch her skin and her hair. I grabbed him as fast as my pregnant body can, but I had a hard time keeping him from staring and pointing. My way of dealing with it? Saying aloud to Lije, "What a cute girl, huh, Lije? Yup, she does have cute hair, buddy." Lets just say we disappeared as quickly as possible!

Life continues to be really exciting. The kids are adjusting well and have discovered their own favorite thing about Maryland: the elevator at our apartment complex. They get more excited about riding it than I do about going on Splash Mountain!