First World Problems

A while back I posted on “yuppie problems,” which is a bit narrowly defined to a specific socio-economic and age range since a “yuppie” is a young, urban professional.  I recently discovered that a certain website has a feed devoted to “first world problems.”  This is far more encompassing of the kinds of issues that come up in the lives of a variety of Americans.  The website on which you can find this feed is Reddit.  More on Reddit in a future post.  There is a subsection of the site called "First World Problems".  Some selections from this section include:

• I can't find a Gmail theme I like
• I live in the New York City and I cannot find a Chik-fil-A anywhere
• The touch screen on my phone makes it hard for me to text while I drive
• reflection of palm trees on my laptop interferes with my work

I am finding that I have so many first world problems…that is to say, any type of complaint or observation that exits my mouth seems to be one of these.  For example, yesterday I made the following comments in the span of one 15-minute conversation.

• I’m so sleepy; I left my chai latte at the allergist’s office
• I was annoyed on Sunday because my gym class ran 45 minutes over
• I had the hardest time getting into a bottle of moscato wine on Saturday night

In this conversation we went on to talk about how I should document these regularly on my blog, which led to a first world problem about first world problems: how to effectively add the first world problems to my blog – just a tag or a sidebar or what?? I think I’m going with a tag, so I can just post my yuppie/first world problems at random. 

yuppie problems

From web site referenced below:

“Line at wine store taking forever [because] some guy tried to pay with Discover card. Really?”

Some years back (maybe December 2006?) the first and only New Years Eve party this condo has seen was held.  One couple stayed late and we ended up talking about computer issues or something that was causing somewhat serious disruption to one of our lives.

At the time I was reading What is the What by Dave Eggers, which is basically the story of a Sudanese refugee and his amazingly tragic life. With this in mind, I started to chastise all of us for our focus on these little things in our lives that we complain about when in distant (and not too distant) lands there are entire villages being wiped off the planet due to civil unrest, dictatorships, etc. 

I called these little things “yuppie problems.”

The phrase “yuppie problems” is now referenced humorously.  For example, I have a friend who got very worked up because the company from which he orders the bulbs for his garden messed up his order.  As in they sent him Russian garlic instead of some other kind.  I pointed out to him that this was definitely a yuppie problem.

Of course, I asked the Googles about yuppie problems and it seems there are others out there posting on the interwebs about this.

There is an entire web site devoted to this topic (see initial quote at beginning of this post)!  Then there are web sites with individual yuppie problem posts:

• “Yuppie problems: What the hell are we going to do with all this Fennel?”
• “The next time I have a meltdown over something as trivial as reformatting PowerPoint presentation slides, I should remind myself that I don’t save lives for a living.”
• “I am having serious yuppie problems this weekend, including burning a small chunk of hair with a straightening iron and winding up with too many leftovers from my couples’ board game party.”

That’s the story of yuppie problems.

Such a hard life…

In the past I may have mentioned how difficult my life is with, you know, living in Colorado and having great friends and all.  Well, this weekend is another woeful tale. Saturday we climbed Torrey’s Peak via the Kelso Ridge, which was both challenging and a lot of fun.

Today I had an utterly urban morning with Wendy W.  We took B-cycle bikes from 13th/Pearl in Capitol Hill to Rootdown in the Highlands for brunch.  This is my Hazel Dell mushroom omelet with Wendy in the background.  We reserved a table and had a great one right at the edge of the patio – not 100% in the sun but lots of light and a breeze from the outside.
Rootdown has a good atmosphere and wonderfully organic food offerings but they don’t offer non-fat milk, only whole and soy milk.  Is that some anti-processed food movement I haven’t heard of? 
Also, as I’ve mentioned in the past, I have allergies.  They have cloth napkins, which is great.  I use cloth napkins at home.  I usually carry a handkerchief but forgot one.  After I placed my order, I held up my cloth napkin, merely to identify it as cloth, and asked if I could get a paper napkin.  The server tried to take my napkin but then I clarified that I just had to blow my nose and didn’t want to replace my cloth napkin.  I guess I can kind of see the confusion.  See the kind of problems I have…

Next we walked to REI to get new sunglasses for Wendy.  We found new ones that look great!  Seriously.
We rented another B-cycle and made our way back to Capitol Hill.  Our route took us across the Millennium Bridge, which is great because it has a stair ramp for bikes.  This means you don’t have to use the elevator or carry your bike up the stairs.  You can get a short but awesome work out by pushing your bike up the stairs!  This is Wendy making it happen:

 

Someone affixed knitted flowers to the fence around the Denver Union Station construction site.  This is just one panel but there were many more.

After dropping our B-cycle bikes at the kiosk, our last stop was WaxTrax:

 

It was fun way to spend a Sunday morning.  I recommend y’all get a friend on a B-cycle and get out to brunch soon!

black tie

So, I’ve got a serious yuppie problem.  I’m attending my first (and maybe last) black tie event next week.  I’m fretting about two things: what to wear and what the heck to say to people.

I am getting into the event for free as a result of being in the Downtown Denver Partnership Leadership Program.  It’s meant to be a benefit and an opportunity to connect with people to whom you wouldn’t normally have access. That’s great if you have any networking skills.  I’m an amateur networker.  One of my dear co-workers has assured me that I do interesting things both professionally and personally and people will want to hear about them.  But, whatever, I’ll figure that talking part out.  The real obstacle is what to wear!

I’ve been informed that this isn’t an event so formal as to have long gowns  worn but that a cocktail dress will do the trick.  I don’t have any dresses really.  I don’t have panty hose. I don’t have dress heels.  My only watch is a Timex IronMan.  I work for a public agency for goodness sakes!  I don’t have to look great – I get away with Dansko shoes and look (comparatively) pretty good most of the time. 

To top it off, I’m not that adventurous in the way of fashion.  So far I’ve purchased a plain, sleeveless, black Ann Taylor dress, which I cannot find online, a silver necklace and a light, gauzy, pink wrap.  Now I need shoes.  I have ankle problems.  Without risk of physical and mental injury, I cannot wear tiny, tall heels. 

Let me close this ridiculous post by saying once again that I know I have a good life and realize these are NOT real problems.

TV

The yuppie that I am, I have spent this weekend listening to podcasts, watching movies ("films"), knitting, reading books and magazine articles, and making bread (but *not* in a bread machine). I made blueberry bread but the loaves came out sort of less plump than in the past but still tasty:

Anyway, I noted a theme in a few of my mental consumables this weekend: TV.

The Slate Cultural Gabfest podcast, an old episode of This American Life, and my choice in viewing all involved this. I am not really a TV watcher but this topic comes up occasionally in conversation. It always sounds so uppity when I mention that I don't watch TV. What people usually don't hear is why I don't watch - because I'm a freaking addict. If I had cable I'd be about 300 lbs and have jelly for brains because I'd just sit there and channel surf endlessly.

This past week's Slate Culture Gabfest (The Mature Adaptation Edition) - two of the three Gabfest participants do not watch TV and one does. They had an interesting conversation about network TV versus...what, HBO TV? Where is TV going with things like the internet, Tivo, and Hulu around. They also talked about why two of them don't watch TV. Sadly there was no real answer other than time constraints. The show often discusses TV shows but doesn't usually ponder TV in general. Interesting.

An episode of This American Life (What I Learned From Television) from 2008 had TV as its theme. The most interesting act (the show is almost always performed 3 acts) was David Rakoff's bit. He hadn't watched TV for 20 (?) years and the show's producers wondered what someone who has been away for so long would think of TV today. At first he couldn't watch it, then he got into it too much, but in the end he rejected it. He admitted feeling a bit stupid about the things he found funny (e.g. America's funniest home videos) and not really getting other things (e.g. MTV's My Super Sweet 16).

Finally, we started watching a now ended show from HBO - The Wire. We watched the first three episodes of the first season. I was sort of luke warm on it but Sandy really liked it. It takes a while for me to get into things. It seems we're tentatively moving forward with our viewing of the show and trying not to get totally addicted. We've established a "No Blockbuster" rule, which means that we have to wait for the episodes to come in on Netflix and not cheat by running to Blockbuster (we spent a lot of money doing this watching Six Feet Under on DVD).

Ok, well I've gone on loooong enough. Stay tuned for more in the near future.