Very interesting. Now I will shun you.

Am I the only person who ever watched this show? It was on the cartoon network or comedy central recently and I still kind of loved it. The characters are Hill people (rich, beautiful, vapid) and Valley people (going about their day surrounded by toxic waste).

The town I just moved to has a "hill section" and a "valley section". One of them is considered to be better than the other. Guess which one I live in.

I found this out when I went to a new residents meeting a few months ago.

I ended up sitting next to a woman who was only three years older than I am, but had already jumped the shark into "old lady clothes" territory. She was wearing coral lipstick, and a shirt with little bedazzled teapots and cups on it. I was wearing no makeup and a shirt that quite possibly was originally part of a long underwear set. I probably looked a little homeless, which is maybe not the best first impression to make.

She smiled at me.

I smiled back.

"Do you live on the hill, or in the valley?" She said.

"Oh shit", I thought.

I got the hint immediately- there is a good side of town and a bad side. "Please let me live on the right side of the tracks." I prayed silently.

"On the hill?" I croaked out.

"OH." She pulled away from me a little bit, wincing.

It was like I said I live in a giant poop, or in a van down by the river.

"Well, I'm sure it's very nice there too." She smiled condescendingly. I felt like she almost reached out to pat my knee out of pity, but didn't want to risk touching a hill person.

The kindness of strangers

Usually I can't stand people, but every once and a while I am reminded that humanity is pretty great!




















Once, on a college road trip, I dropped my driver's license and university ID outside a Walgreens in Ohio. I didn't even notice until the next Friday night when, obviously, I wanted to go out and found that I had no ID at all. I sulked around the apartment by myself all weekend digging through pants pockets and looking under the bed a million times. In the end, a complete stranger found my IDs and mailed them back to my mom's house (the address on my driver's license). There was no return address, so I wasn't able to thank them, but it really stuck with me. Instead of just walking by, this person took the time to do the right thing. And a grumpy college student was able to go to the bars once again. Sigh. Happy ending!

A few weeks ago a similar faith-renewing event took place. Except it was scarier and involved helicopters.

My son can't get enough of airplanes ("hairpins!") so my mother-in-law and I took him to a local airfield to watch the planes take off and land. Long story short: a helicopter pilot waiting for his student to arrive saw him watching and invited us past the gate and onto the tarmac to take a look at the helicopter up close. He even asked if my son wanted to get inside and sit at the controls. I wanted to say, "my son will rip off ten pieces of your delicate helicopter controls in two seconds." But I just declined that offer politely.

Then the student arrived. This "student" was around seventy years old, immaculately dressed, and driving a Porsche convertible. He was very soft-spoken, and when I said, "Thank you so much for letting us see the helicopter, have a great lesson!" He replied quietly, "would you and your son like to take a ride?"

I am normally such a big wuss, so I don't know what possessed me to yell, "YES WE WOULD!" and start cramming my tiny son into the backseat of a crazy flying machine piloted by a seventy year old helicopter student.

Unfortunately, my son was having none of it. He refused to get in, and stayed behind with my mother-in-law while I set off on my first helicopter flight. The student pays for his training time obviously, and was generously spending his own time and money flying me around on an adventure.

I remember thinking, man, my husband is going to be so jealous! It was so, so beautiful (New Jersey in the fall- I could see the city!) and so, so terrifying (like flying around in a giant toy). Very different from an airplane- I kind of felt like I was floating around above the ground in a giant bubble. The picture above is the actual helicopter I rode in!

If any of my approximately three blog readers ever want to take a helicopter flight (the pilot does flights over New York and Philadelphia) here is the link to his website. He REALLY LOVES helicopters. http://www.helicopter-training.net/school-info.php?school=KeyAir-Helicopters&school_id=416&location_id=734&featured=yes&category_id=3