I feel pretty at home at Utah. We have a lovely home, my kids, husband, and husband's extended family is mostly here, and I've learned the roads and freeways (sorta) enough to get by and am slowly learning the areas (North Salt Lake = Davis County, Lehi, American Fork, Draper, South Jordan are all out towards Provo but not quite yet.... Brickyard, Midvale, Cottonwood Heights, Holladay, etc.). But I still find it absolutely fascinating when very what I'd like to call "Utah-esque" things happen. I've compiled a few that come to mind.
1. When I'm asked... "to stay or go? - in California, NOBODY says that. I believe the correct phrase is "for here or to go?" but everybody in Utah loves the word "STAY" and I can't help but smirk everytime I hear it.
2. Fry Sauce - dude, I hate to break it to you Utah but it's basically mayo and ketchup, add some relish and it's called THOUSAND ISLAND and you seem to want to put it on everything. Hahahaha. I personally prefer ketchup over fry sauce, but I am simply fascinated by how ubiquitous it is around here. They even have it pre-packaged with bold "FRY SAUCE" letters all over. The state is pretty dang proud of it.
3. No hard alcohol is sold in any grocery stores. When Andy told me the alcohol laws had changed recently, I assumed he meant hard A and beer. I've seen beer everywhere in grocery stores so I didn't think much of the missing Grey Goose bottles with the stringent black protective locks on 'em. And then I started wondering what people did in this "liquor stores" that are not like your average California small ghetto liquor stores - no, these are LARGE and in CHARGE and usually have an entire parking lot to accompany it. And then I realized... no hard alcohol is sold in grocery stores. I think the same for wine, but I'm not sure cuz I haven't needed it yet (you know, for cooking cuz I've been sober since 2009 baby!) but now that I think about it, I haven't seen two buck chucks the few times I've been to the Trader Joe's so maybe not...?
4. Momo mommy bloggers - did you know they sorta all started in Utah? And a lot of them show up on local KSL morning show All Things Utah or something like that - I've only seen it a couple of times but Asians in Arcadia is to Momo Mommy bloggers in Salt Lake (and greater Salt Lake which I've learned is NOT Salt Lake). They're everywhere! It has become fun to start following some of them on Instagram and realize they go to the same places I go to - but without traffic, everything seems much closer and the chances of actually running into them are much greater than any bloggers in LA. They are a range of bloggers too - food bloggers, how to save money, crafty ones, how to raise kids (cuz Momos have a lot of 'em so advice is much appreciated) and then a bunch of fashion and lifestyle bloggers. Okay, side rant - bloggers just crack me up period cuz they post photos of what they eat (okay, I do that too but it's still funny to me cuz they're not Asian and it's more hip than a way of life their parents taught em from childbirth - yes my dad still takes photos of all our food before we eat it just cuz...), where they go, what they wear, hahahaha. My question is, who takes these photos for them when they're not obvious selfies? Do they have remote controls for their phones? Hehehe. I laugh but I still follow. The commentary is mostly silent.
5. Everyone has family from here - no, seriously - everyone. Or at least everyone we seem to meet, mostly because we meet a lot of Momos and since Salt Lake is the Momo capital - everyone we meet seems to have family here - somewhere somehow. I've met quite a bit of non-Momos from the neighborhood, most of them don't have family from here but if they're Momo, they usually have some family connection here. We're part of that statistic but it's still just fascinating to me!
As you can see, little things fascinate me.
