Just about a year ago, Mike and I moved to our dream location -- for now anyway, Ann Arbor. Getting our home livable didn't take too much work -- at least not on my part, as I left all the heavy lifting to the man of the house, while I made excuses :). The amenities of living in this little "big" city are legion. We moved just in time to spend the warm summer evenings strolling into town to enjoy dinner outside at one of the many eating establishments - often with Max, the Wonder Dog in tow. Tying your dog up to the table leg is an accepted tradition around these parts, and one of the many things we just love about the area. As we'd walk along, many of the retail establishments would display their dog friendly nature by posting a water dish outside for Max's relief.
The local green areas are fabulous, with the true piece de resistance being Nichols Arboretum. We still walk in wonder that this beautiful retreat is smack dab in the middle of the city. We even tried out the new cascades at the Argo Dam.My beloved Jewel Heart Tibetan Buddhist Center is a mere 10 minutes away, and I've been able to take full advantage of seeing Gelek Rimpoche and taking classes there.
All of these amenities are within 10-15 minutes of our life.
The big question is how long would it take before the honeymoon ended, and the warts began to appear? Yes, Ann Arbor is still the choice for us while we continue to reside in Michigan, but the the t-shirt for sale in the local shop says it all: Ann Arbor-4 Square Miles Surrounded By Reality.
I've puzzled over why this tiny little city seems sheltered from the harsh realities of what's affecting the rest of Michigan and the world for that matter. Is it the university atmosphere - the tilt of professors and researchers that live here, holed up in academia, never coming in contact with the grim day-to-day harshness that most of us see? Is it the upper income residents, more doctors and dentists per capita than anywhere else in Michigan, and probably a good smattering of lawyers, too, who enjoy a standard of living that supports not one, but two Whole Paycheck Food stores and Plum Market? Luckily, of course, there's a Trader Joe's for those of us on a budget.
How, you may ask, do I draw that conclusion? Well, it's the minutiae with which I find residents obsess and bicker about. One neighborhood worried about the student rental population encroaching into the family neighborhood--and perhaps rightly so, what with the frat houses, and raucous parties abounding, perhaps leading to declining home values. Mike and I were newcomers so hadn't yet formed an opinion, but also pondered, isn't it the student population that makes Ann Arbor endearing? The most recent 'icing on the cake' for me was reading an www.annarbor.com article about an informal dog gathering, and the ensuing comments. One commenter: "Picking up a slab of poop with a plastic bag-covered hand does not clean up all the poop, and children walk and play on the same grass." I was left shaking my head in dismay, wondering if this person outfitted their child in some plastic Bubble Boy suit before allowing them to leave the house.
Similar idiotic comments followed about scofflaw dog owners who pretty much should be drawn and quartered, or at the very least, quarantined to some corner of the world. There were some 250+ comments, mostly negative. That that many people chose to obsess and comment about such a silly topic truly demonstrated to me how out of touch this sheltered city is. It does seem to be quite the dichotomy from how welcoming the local retail establishments are of our four legged friends.
Then to continue on in the SMH category, I find out that the millage increase for our parks is going to be spent employing part-time rangers, whose main duty will be to ticket off leash dog walkers. Seriously? This is the most pressing need of our society at this time? More to come in another blog post about why I choose to devote my time volunteering at the local domestic violence shelter, SafeHouse Center, and not wasting valuable hours worried about whether someone is waking their dog offleash in a 160 acre park.
