Monday, January 19, 2015

Suburbs in Fiji?

In an idle moment this evening, I was scrolling through Facebook. Occasionally I fall for those online quizzes, and this time I took two. The first was what country I should live in. It seems there's an epidemic of people who should live in Fiji because I noticed several acquaintances also got that answer. I don't know much about Fiji--my daughter and son-in-law were there once but were both too sick to enjoy it and just missed that nightclub bombing by a week or two. Other than the South Pacific-like visions I conjure up in my head, that's all I know about Fiji. I'm not particularly fond of semi-tropics and probably wouldn't like tropics. I've been to the Caribbean three times and while I loved the turquoise water and sunny skies, I was not particularly intrigued by the culture or the people (with due respect to the son and his wife who lived there). Maybe it was because I said I liked weather that was slightly warm and sunny--well, we had that today in Fort Worth. No Fiji is not for me. I wanted it to tell me I should live in Scotland, which is not at all warm and sunny.
The next quiz I took was illustrated with a beautiful, Victorian mansion--painted an unusual soft rose or pink. I wanted that house. I think in that quiz I hit one button by mistake--it doesn't allow you to go back. For celebrities, since I'm not knowledgeable about them, I chose Kate Middleton, perhaps with visions of an old English manor dancing in my head. The answer I got was a spacious, two-story rather spare house in the suburbs. Suburban living has always been an anathema to me. I've never lived in any suburbs, ever. I'm an inner-city girl, comfortable in older houses--I grew up in Chicago in one built in 1892 and I live in one built in 1922. To me, suburbs are all about conformity, while I like to think of myself as slightly individualistic--nothing in my house "matches" and I have some odd pieces of art, all important to me in one way or another. The quiz said I should have a white picket fence (daughter had one, son-in-law hated it and got rid of it), two kids (I have four), and a dog (got that right).
The moral of this tale, which I should have learned long ago, is don't put stock in computerized match programs--they don't work. Me? Date online? Not on your life. Match.com is not for me.

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