Hippies, Yuppies, and Preps: The Naming of a Town

So, I'm going to attempt to write an actual post even though I kind of don't feel like it but I kind of don't like this whole not documenting my life thing so. It is needed.

I don't like cooking sole. It is too thin and breaks into little pieces and I can never tell when it's done.

I don't like cooking at all actually but since I seem to have become completely intolerant of chicken (or at least cold chicken breasts cooked several days earlier, but most chicken in general) it means I actually have to a) cook and b) find things to cook, both which are very time consuming and energy consuming processes that should not be done at the same time one is trying to settle into a new and very bizarre place.

The salmon I did was okay. Potatoes were not. I did some chicken thigh pieces with Briggs sauce rhat were okay but again were chicken. I might try a take out place one night.
The sole was much better the first time.

Anyway. Enough about cooking.

Went to downtown Bend tonight. First of all the air is totally bothering me. I can't figure out if it's humidity, elevation, something else or neither but I feel like I can't breathe in it. That doesn't exactly make for relaxing walks and I need walks to relax, right, so, Well, huh. Not good.

Bend has two main streets for its downtown, Bond and Wall, I think they were. Bend is a very yuppified place. Now, usually I like yuppie towns, but this one just irritated the hell out of me. I like SMALL, CHARMING, somewhat hippieish yuppie towns I think it is.... Maybe this was too big and too ... Presumptious is the word I used to describe it earlier for me. Or maybe not being able to breathe was just getting on my nerves, lol, I don't know which.

It has everything a good yuppie could want.... I saw a fancy wine tasting shop, a very fancy looking gourmet chocolate shop, at least three or four independent coffee shops plus a Starbucks,
outdoor shops, a couple candy and ice cream shops, a crepe place, several bars, a couple disco like places that scared me to even walk past, several resteraunts, most of looked rather seedy, actually.... a few chains like Subway.... a few chains I'd only seen in the west like Pita Pit andI can't remember what else... My memory is failing me, what else? I can't remember. But you get the picture. It had stores to fit most every need I am sure. I walked down the first street, tried not to get blinded by the sun as I crossed on to the second street....feeling kind of faint and dizzy even without the sun suggesting that it might be the air in combination with the sun that gave me problems the other day.... then got to this huge, huge candy shop that advertised gelato...
A woman was outside taking out the trash so I asked her their flavors and asked if she could bring some outside, which she obliged to.

I will give them credit for one thing: It was the fanciest and best presentation of gelato or any ice cream I have ever seen. I asked for half expresso and half cookies and cream, and they did it side by side instead of one on top of the other which I hate because you can't access the bottom one....Blended perfectly, with a wafer cookie stick stuck in the middle, in a fancy dish! It was perfect synergy with the two flavors and cookie in middle. Cookie tasted great. Gelato was just okay in flavor, the expresso ice cream in Newport and Eugene was much better. Cookies and cream was better.

Tried to get dinner from 2 different places that had outdoor seating or to go capabilities, and in both cases, well, first one, guy comes out to take my order, STRONGEST COLOGNE I have experienced in a very long time, couldn't stand next to him for a minute. Decided to go elsewhere. Walked to other resteraunt I was interested in. Finally got their phone number to call them to order. Woman walked out to take my order, STRONGEST PERFUME I have experienced in a long time, I gave up on the idea of dinner and beat a hasty retreat out of there.

Everyone walking around downtown was highly, highly scented. I am used to people being mildly scented, but never in recent memory have I experienced people so offensive in odor as the people at those two resteraunts; and usually walking around downtown is not so offensive as this was.

Between the air and scented people I needed a break so I went to Drake Park. That proved a much more enjoyable experience. I was too overwhelmed to enjoy it at first but I sat down for 10 min and felt better and decided t o walk around. It was beautiful. Huge river with great walking path all around it. Ducks float by in huge numbers. People float by on rafts and canoes.
It is really quite pleasant to walk around, as loing as you avoud the large groups of pot smoking teenagers gathered at strategic places around the river.
I managed to feel more relaxed after walking around the river and sat for a while contemplating life in the company of a homeless man sleeping nearby. I didn't actually realize he was homeless till he lied down and put a blanket around him, but he seemed harmless enough.

Needless to say , if this is a big enough city to have pot smoking teenagers and homeless people out in the open, it's a lot bigger than anything I'm used to, but , something to get used to, I suppose.

For some reason the homeless guy didn't bother me nearly as much as the pot smoking teenagers, but he was a very docile and calm looking guy. He actually reminded me of half the people in Missoula. He just looked like a hippie with the long unwashed hair look; like I said, I didn't know he was homeless till the blanket.

Preppy - that's the other word I was looking for. All the teenagers and young people walking around looked very preppy , and there is nothing that I hate more than preppy, pretentious people, especially such people under the age of 30, especially, well, any people under the age of 30.

lol. I jest but I am serious. I hate cities with high percentags of young people walking around. Wehther or not this is one of them remains yet to be seen but I far far prefer the tie dyed hippies walkin around Newport. THOSE people I could be comfortable with.

I felt a certain kinship with the homeless guy actually.... a sense of differentness and out of placeness. I wouldn't have engaged him in conversation but I didnt mind sitting next near him.

The teenagers, on the other hand.... Man, there are too many little, hidden ,out of the way places where teens can go to smoke, drink and party.... I saw the evidence in many places and stumbled upon one such get together on one part of the river which I beat a hasty retreat from. Isn't a shame when people have to ruin perfectly good nature with drunken debauchery? That's how forest fires get started and it isn't pretty.

I suppose I should stick to places more off the beaten path. Or at least places to walk rather than downtown. I liked the dog park we went to last night; it had some good walking trails and beautiful scenery with lots of sagebrush and small desert trees populating the landscape everywhere....kind of fascinating to see and the air felt much better last night so better to walk around.

I need something to look forward to. As I haven't found anything I actually really enjoy yet I need to be patient and hopeful and look forward to finding good places to walk and perhaps cookies from Trader Joe's if we ever get there.

I got lost on an extinct volcano a few nights ago, that was an adventure. Tried to go up the trail we had driven up , up the walking path, too many paths jutting off the one I was on, nothing was marked, got horribly lost and didn't enjoy it so much. But I think I know what I did wrong and now I want to try it again later in the week because if you do it right I think it could be fun and you get an amazing view. Only I want to start from the top, not the bottom.

Downtown Bend reminded me a little of Burlington VT. Burlington was full of yuppie shops and WAY TOO MANY COLLEGE STUDENTS. I hated it with a passion. Seriously. Whoever knew you could get road rage when you're not driving? That was me. I wanted those people out of my way. Five minutes ago. Man, I felt I was drowning in college students. I hated that city.

They did however have amazing apple cinamon crepes and maple cream puffs, which was Burlington's saving grace.

Anyway, this city doesn't have a quarter the college students but it still seems to have the same yuppie air and too many stuck up young people floating around. (Predjucied? Me? Noooo lol)

But this where I run into trouble with definitions. I always thought I *LIKED* yuppie towns. I do.

I am looking up the definition of yuppie. I realized I use it a lot without really knowing what it means. Here are some definitions I am googling:

Acronym for Young Urban Professional. Group whose culture blends the hippie/counterculture values of the 60s and the materialistic monetary-based values of the 80s. Usually congregate in Starbuck's, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and a wide variety of vintage clothing boutiques. Includes both moderate Liberals (Majority of yuppies), and moderate Conservatives (smaller group of yuppies), although both the far left and the far right enjoy dissing them.

That makes sense I guess. It's kind of like a hippie blended with the more materialistic values of the current times.

I don't like to consider myself matieralistic, but I do like "yuppie" things like boutiquey shops, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, ice cream shops, so on.....

But there is a HUGE difference between yuppie towns like Portland (Maine), Portsmouth, Missoula, Newport (okay, Newport is more hippie than yuppie) and then towns like Burlington and what I think so far Bend is. I can't quite put my finger on it.

But one is more materialistic, more trendy, more "hip" than the others.

The "yuppie" towns I like are more on the quirky and hippie side, I suppose. They have cute little shops of all kinds and sorts but both the shops and people seem unpretentious and down to earth. The people walking around are not dressed up and do not reek of money. There is tie dye thrown in occasionally.

All the definitions I am googling about yuppies seem to have do with materialism, arrogance, and most of all, money. I would argue that's "preppy," not 'yuppie', but what do I know, lol

If a yuppie is someone who spends a lot of money on materialistic things.....well, I do on food, but that's the only thing. A person can spend more money on one class of items and still have good values and be a good person etc

YUPPIE: Young Urban Professional

http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-quer...Acronym=YUPPIE

HIPPIE: Helper In Promoting Peaceful Individual Existence

http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-quer...Acronym=HIPPIE

I think I'd much rather be a hippie than a yuppie.

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/09/09/us/in-arizona-mining-town-it-s-yuppies-vs-hippies.html

Maybe being a yuppie is or can be a bit like being culturally Jewish .... you like some aspects of the definition but disregard most.

So called yuppie stores and products are part of my upbringing, a part of my heritage, a part of me. They are the places I feel most comfortable around because I grew up around yuppie stores, resteraunts, and consumer products.

So therefore I feel most comfortable in towns that have these things in them.

But just because I have a familiarity and appreciation for these things doesn't mean I'm materialistic or "upwardly mobile" , hell, I'm on Social Security, lol.

But it does mean I'll spend $4 on a smoothie, buy organic food, shop at Whole Foods, frequent coffee shops (at least when I used to be able to go in them).... because I just like these things.

Maybe I should just stop analyzing myself... We are what we are and we shouldn't question the things we like because there are too few joys to be found in this world.

"First there came the hippies, politically and culturally rebellious participants in the counterculture of the Sixties. And then there were the preppies, materialistic and upscale, obsessed with status, who believed the privileges they took for granted were due them thanks to an accident of birth. Yuppies melded what they deemed the best of both worlds -- the materialism of the preppies absent the snobbery and the self-absorbed perfectionism of the hippie without the anti-establishment mindset. The term "Yuppie" was first used in print by Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene in a March 1983 piece on Jerry Rubin, a hippie-turned-yuppie, and was bandied about extensively in the 1984 presidential campaign in which Colorado senator Gary Hart, a contender for the Democratic nomination, seemed tailor-made to appeal to the fiscally conservative but socially liberal yuppie voter."

According to that paragraph, a yuppie is a mix between a hippie and a preppy.

That works, I guess.

Hippies seem more peaceful and grounded, back to the earth values, value emotional well being, people, the environment, etc more, whereas yuppies value money and materialistic things more.

To call a town yuppie, then, is maybe referring to the fact that it has upscale shopping, culture, theater, cutesy little shops, coffee shops, smoothie shops, stores and experiences that cater to needs other than the essential - more than just grocery stores, hardware stores, car dealerships, dollar stores, drugstores, etc.

Liberty was definitely not a yuppie town.

But every other town I have lived in - Portland, Portsmouth, Burlington, Missoula, Newport - as far as I can tell, using that definition, is.

And I do like towns like that.

But I think one can define the difference between more of a "hippie yuppie" and a "preppy yuppie."

Burlington fell into the latter, and like I said, I think Bend does too.

Newport was definitely all hippie :)

Okay now that my brain is about to explode I think I'm going to end this post....

Any opinions?

When you live in this many cities you need some way to judge them against each other, lol

Kate