CITY MOUSE, COUNTRY MOUSE

By Laura Toffenetti

I wasn't always a country bumpkin. I spent my first 21 years in Chicago, my next ten in Los Angeles, three near Minneapolis, ten more in LA and then moved to Middle of Nowhere, CT. The land where God put trees instead of sidewalks.

When I was first exploring the idea of relocating my family to Connecticut I would stay with a friend of mine who lives in North Stonington. As I drove to job interviews I would marvel at how little traffic there was on the major arteries.

Our move across the country took two weeks. Since the kids and Steve had never been to New England the ride was punctuated with the following commentary: "This doesn't look like Connecticut. This doesn't look like Connecticut. This doesn't look like Connecticut," which I admit was annoying but once they saw they understood. My son described it this way..."There's nothing to look at!  See, treeeeees, treeeeeees, treeeeeees, house, treeeeeeees treeeeeees, treeeeeeeees, house...,". It misses the beauty of the place but is pretty darn accurate.

My change from city to country mouse took a total of one week. We settled in Snores, I mean Storrs and then drove down to Stonington to see my friend.  I was startled by "all the traffic on 95!" How quickly we forget, or acclimate, or revert to our inner bumpkin.

Having lived among the treeeeeeees now for 12 years, I have lost my city savvy but I don't often get forced to admit it.  After all, I live in a college town (population doubles every fall to 50,000), I fly to Chicago regularly to visit my mom, hell, I even took her to Las Vegas last winter! But yesterday I went to Neeeeew Yawk Citeee! Golly and hot dang!

My friend, Denise, loves to watch the show WHAT NOT TO WEAR.  She especially loves the guy Nick who cuts and styles the hair. She has been known to wistfully sigh, "I wish I could get Nick to cut my hair." Denise is blessed with a daughter that like all good fairies, knows that wishes should come true and who got on-line. Before you knew it Denise was on her way to Nick's and I got to tag along!

Man! She was excited!  We studied our wardrobe. It's a bit tricky trying to figure out the perfect outfit for getting your hair cut. You don't want to be glamorous (Thank God! Cause we'd never be able to pull that off!) You don't want to wear shorts and a T shirt (because as the age we are at it's not our best look). Short sleeve shirts? Being the friend of the haircut-ee I had a little more freedom to dress down. I opted for jeans, she chose capris. Decisions made, lipstick applied, she picked me up at 6:45.