The New Girl

The New Girl: Straight Talk from CH

2009-11-17T08:01:00Z

I was sad to leave nearly all my friends behind when I left the Bay Area, but the good news is that I have relatives coming out of the woodwork here in Citrus Heights, all within a few miles’ radius of my house. They have been leading busy lives here for decades and lifetimes. They are some of the smartest and funniest people I know, too. They probably wouldn’t take too kindly to my grousing about their neck of the woods, but then they’re the ones I stole the best lines from, so they have only themselves to blame!

In contrast to people in the Bay Area, who tend to either be very kind or very opinionated, I have found that folks here tend to be both kind and opinionated. They generally will let you know what they think, and they’ll give you the weather report, too. This hit home just this past week when I gave myself a black eye while visiting my daughter in Monterey. (I had a run-in with a stairwell; don’t ask. The eye is fine, but even the doctor said it was the most impressive shiner she had seen in a long time.) So my daughter and I made up stories to tell people in the restaurants, the shops, at the beach, at the aquarium when they asked about my eye. She got tired of my lip and let me have it. I got into a healthcare debate over at the bingo hall. That kind of thing. But the funny thing is, no one asked. They looked away and were exceedingly polite; I guess somehow a black eye seems like it’s—well, a private matter.

When I got home, it was an entirely different story—I should say stories, because everyone asked, with great concern, and then proceeded to tell me their own black eye stories. One sweet old guy at Kaiser came over to tell me about a battered wife who finally tied down her husband while he was sleeping and started in on him with a frying pan. (I think he wanted to encourage me to stick up for myself, in case my story about the staircase turned out to be fabricated.) The woman at the dentist’s office told me she had had five black eyes in her life—all accidents—but one was accidentally inflicted by her father, so she held it over his head every time she wanted a new toy. My favorite shiner story of all time is from a friend of the family—who finally admitted that it happened the night before when she and her husband were “playing fort.” (They live near Foothill Farms. It’s okay to do stuff like that there.)

Another funny thing about people who live here: you ask them where something is and they tell you what it’s next to. I asked where a certain little sushi place was and was told it’s over by Raley’s. When they see the glazed look in my eye, they think I’m nuts; who in the world doesn’t know where Raley’s is? Everything around here is just over behind something else. Where’s Costco? Well, it’s right there next to Walmart. Do we have a party supply store? Well, that’s Wishing Well. And where is that? Do I know where Smart & Final is? Turn left and it’s right behind that, across from the 99-Cent Store. Duh.

I had to call Uncle Ed to get the above conversation. I wrote it down verbatim. He calls me Sueburger—don’t ask me why—but I like it! No one in the Bay Area would ever even consider calling me Sueburger. In fact I told Ed there’s a Suzie Burger downtown at the P Street exit off 80 and he was astounded. Why would you want to go all that way when you’ve got one right here in Citrus Heights? That’s me; I’m Sueburger, the New Girl.

The New Girl: Where’s the There There?

2009-10-29T21:57:13Z

I think the thing about Citrus Heights is that it’s so—real. We don’t put on airs with fancy restaurants and wine bars. We just go down to the one great local white-table-cloth restaurant and get the before-6:30-half-price wine special. (Oops! Booyah closed last year.) We don’t get those European-style flatbread pizzas because Ciro’s traditional is seriously so dang good. We don’t—um. I’m done with this line of thinking.

What struck me as strange about the area when I first got here was the strip malls. I mean we probably have more strip malls per square mile than anywhere else in the world. Sure, there are lots of neighborhoods, public parks, trees, but they’re all tucked behind the strip malls. They started building them, I guess, back in the fifties, and just kept updating to the newer style throughout the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, and they’re still going—look at what’s going on in Folsom and Granite Bay and Rocklin. What the heck are they thinking? Enough already! Let’s tear down the older ones or fix them up, convert them to affordable housing or dog parks, but no more new strip malls. Are you with me on this? Anyone?

In Citrus Heights, we don't have an actual physical downtown. We have the Mall, folks tell me. Ain't that the same thing? It is not. So we have to borrow our neighboring cities' downtowns.

Actually, I love old downtown areas. There is a lot of potential in Old Fair Oaks (the chicken capital of the greater Sacramento area), in Old Roseville and in Old Folsom. It’s tough for those small retailers to stay alive, though, competing with the Y’allMarts and the superstores, so when you go back, your favorite little shop is gone and there’s a tattoo parlor in its place. (Okay, nothing against tattoo parlors; some of my best friends have tattoos.) What I’m saying is, sometimes we have to go out of our way to support independent businesses so that we can help create our own little neighborhood Mayberry RFD because it’s already there; it’s just struggling to survive.

Little downtowns are good because they’re quirky. Coffee places, yes—something local, something mom-and-pop. They ought to have an ice cream parlor or frozen yogurt place, and affordable places to have lunch—preferably with patios—and bakeries! They definitely need to have art galleries that support local artists and not just the expensive-prints-that-look-like-real-paintings. There ought to be a nice little book store (usually with cats). Of course, there have to be affordable antiques and collectables, gifty shops and some women’s boutiques. But don’t think this is just a girl thing; we see great hardware stores (that aren’t warehouses!) and pubs (where everybody knows your name) in some of these little towns. Is it too much to ask to have my froyo and sushi and eat it, too?

Yeah, yeah—don’t tell me about Midtown. I know it. I love it. But it’s way over there. That’s my soapbox, and I’m sticking to it. (Plus I really like to go shopping. When I have money. Which I don’t.) I’m The New Girl.

The New Girl: A Cry from the Burbs

2009-10-29T21:03:25Z

As a recent escapee from Silicon Valley, I knew it would be different here in the Sacramento area. I got a good house for a good price (just before the market fell off another cliff, landing me in the High Hopes Heap) but I couldn’t quite manage the cute Midtown bungalows I liked. So I landed in Citrus Heights, on a lovely quiet street, backed onto a creek with kid-trails. In my research before buying, the negatives I heard were all about skunks and helicopters, but I knew these were pretty good negatives compared to my former San Jose home on a heavily trafficked street (and I mean that in all senses) that included graffiti and abandoned shopping carts and—well, traffic.

I like it here—don’t get me wrong! It’s just that I find myself alone in a cute, shingled ranch-style house (Randall Parks! Whoever the heck that is) with one bedroom per cat (I refuse to say, on the grounds that I may sound like the proverbial neighborhood cat-lady) surrounded by lovely, happy, active retirees. Yes, there’s a spattering of young families in my new neighborhood, but if you walk into the local Walgreens, or the Safeway or the Home Depot, you will see what I mean. They raised their families here and found it so nice they saw no reason to move away. Who wants cookie-cutter communities filled with golf carts when you can stay home and live like the Waltons? Randy Parks! Duh.

My cousin PK grew up in this neighborhood and my aunt and uncle live right around the corner from me. PK says she likes to think of us as girls from The Heights—and she wiggles her eyebrows and teaches me to snap my fingers low (a la The Jets). We’re the Cool Girls from The Heights. Don’t mess with us. We might have a rumble down at—at—BevMo or someplace. My aunt just rolls her eyes. But she’s a former second-grade teacher; what would she know about rumbles?

One of the first things I wanted to find in my new hometown was the bookstore. I’m an avid reader, as are my aunt and cousin, and I knew they would know where the best one was.

I asked Aunt P but she looked puzzled. “There’s a Barnes and Noble right down Greenback,” she told me, slowly and gently, using the voice she used to use on the second graders, because I’d have to be an idiot if I didn’t know where the mall was.

“No, I mean the nice little non-conglomerate bookstore—where they have cats wandering around and they post reviews by the staff and they invite authors for book-signings.”

PK snorted a little. “We should open one of those! Problem is, we’d have to name it Guns, Jugs & Those Things You Read to get anyone around here to come in.”

Aunt P gave her The Look. “You are not encouraging a wholesome view of our nice community to The New Girl,” she said.

Well, we went on a hunt, and while it is true that the nearby burbs don’t seem to have any independent family-with-cats-owned bookstores that we found, we did discover lots of used bookstores, most notably The Book Lovers on Madison at Manzanita (he has cats in there!) and Kai’s Books on Auburn Folsom in Granite Bay (they post reviews and recommendations). The best bookstores of the ilk I was imagining (new literary in addition to used) are, of course, all the way Downtown and Midtown: Beers on S Street and—guess what?—The Avid Reader at the Tower. A little bit of a drive, but worth it.

Another need I had was a good place to walk—in nature and for more than ten minutes. I have a nice little creek with a 10-15 minute path behind my house, and a few little neighborhood parks, but I didn't know where else to go, away from traffic noise. Everyone kept telling me I needed to go to “the River” but I had no clue where to access the trails, where was safe, etc.

Then I discovered Meetup.com, and on that there are hiking and walking groups! Who knew? (Not my family.) There are meetups for mah jong, for Chihuahua owners, for moms-who-jog, for eating sushi, for UFO-sightings—anything you can dream up, there’s probably a meetup for it. And it’s usually free.

Anyway, I joined one called TrailMix and have worked up to hiking most weeknights, some weekends, and discovered all the ins and outs of the Parkway and a lot of the parks in and around the cities here. We have two rivers! We have nearby mountains! Now I’m not saying there isn’t wild life in Citrus Heights—and not just at the It’ll Do Saloon—because we do have a lot of turkeys and skunks. But on my walks by the river, I've seen great blue heron, egrets, a fox, lots of deer and a coyote. There are bridges and paths and real wildlife—oh, my! Now I say “Bay Area, Schmay Area—we got nature right here, baby!”

You probably know all this. But since I work from home, I don’t have the advantage of hanging out by the water cooler to connect with people who walk really really fast. The cats are nice but not very talkative (unless it's dinnertime), so I have been looking for ways to connect with the rest of the universe. And I found it.
I’m The New Girl.