California Dreamin'

My husband and I began the arduous process of househunting 11 years ago, from our rented condo in Bethesda (where we knew we couldn't afford to continue living!). We wanted to stay in Montgomery County, preferably in a city or at least a town setting (since we had grown incredibly spoiled by being able to walk to restaurants, stores, etc). So I put him in charge of narrowing down our options. When he had done some research, he reported back with: Olney. "Olney?" I gasped, mildly horrified, "isn't that in the middle of nowhere?"

Now,  I grew up in Monrovia--serious Frederick County cow-country. I found out later by driving to my parents' house that it's only about a half-hour from here, yet somehow I thought Olney was some tiny, distant speck on the map, difficult to get to and containing nothing but...farms or something.  How wrong I was. As soon as my husband pointed out that there was a Starbucks (within walking distance from our potential neighborhood, no less), I realized that in fact Olney would do very nicely. It was fairly quiet and peaceful, a little bit out-of-the-way of the Rockville/Gaithersburg hubbub, but only a short drive to pretty much anything you wanted to see or do, including both D.C. and Baltimore (bonus!).

Of course, life in suburbia is changing a bit these days. It used to be that the most commotion you could expect on a regular basis was a loud siren from the Sandy Spring Fire Department, or perhaps a military helicopter zooming overhead on its way to official business. But now we are treated to ICC construction--seemingly from all around us--with the related noise and dust and heavy-equipment and cones and flagmen. Traffic seems to have gotten a little slower, the roads a little more congested. And then, to really shake things up (pun intended : ) in this semi-sleepy little town, we got to experience: an earthquake. What the heck is up with that? After the initial shock (and excitement, if I'm being completely honest!) wore off, I found myself thinking "hmm...we have traffic...we have earthquakes...are we trying to emulate Southern California?" (if so, I'd like to throw in my vote for: "no" to mudslides and wildfires, but "yes" to Star Sightings...especially if, say, Bradley Cooper shows up in our local Starbucks!)