Goodbye, Columbus

With God all things are possible.

This is the motto of the state of Ohio and though I am not very churchy, I am willing at this point to go with God because I am at the end of my nanny rope.

The Child has become officially impossible and her deadbeat dad is off roaming someplace and has left me hung out to dry with a difficult little buckeye on my hands. But, she is just a kid and as Woody used to say to me when I was sitting on the bench, paralyze resistance with persistence.

So in the spirit of persistence, I went out to Morse road to try and find something to make peace with her. And I found this amazing store.

They sell just about everything from Mexico and pretty instantly I found what I was looking for.



Fresh cactus, right off the tree, bush, vine, whatever. But, the thorns were still in place and I don’t know how to deal with them but lucky for La Gringa, safety cactus comes harmlessly tamed in a jar. I cannot take the child to her dad in Guadalajara but I can bring a little of Mexico to her.The Mexican supermercado is muy fantastico and this shrine to the virgin of Guadaloupe that is next to the produce section says it all. When I was wandering by the meat counter I started chatting with this woman, Margaret who was buying spicy chicken to grill.

Margaret is from Cameroon in west Africa. She told me that she can get any African products she needs here in Columbus, right at the supermercado, actually. Margaret said she misses her parents but otherwise she loves it here.

Next door to Michocana is another store, the Jubba Halal meat market and it is run by this fellow, Farrah.



Farrah is from Somalia and I bought some amazing coconut cookie bars from him and we chatted about the complicated politics of his country. He too said that he loves it here, and the "USA is the best country in the world", which kind of surprised me, considering our recent history with his homeland. He told me he was from Mogadishu and when I asked him what he missed about Somalia he told me “I miss walking for miles and miles in my city. And playing soccer.”

This is Deb in the City, globetrotting on Morse Road from Mexico to Cameroon to Somalia in Columbus, OH.

Sporting Fools

Deb in the City here. OK, not to dwell, but Columbus is crazy for sports. There is a lady football team, OK? The Columbus Comets are a pro women’s team and I can’t wait for their season to start so I can go watch Chelsea and Whitney and Ashley and Ebony dominate on the gridiron. Behold their awesomeness:But it’s not all contact sports, there is also Columbus’ native son and legend of the links, Mr. Jack Nicklaus. He has his own fantastic museum over on the OSU campus and though not directly related to the Golden Bear or his gift shop, I did notice that I can also go to my final resting place with a golf theme.This casket is called the Fairway to Heaven and even though I don’t really get golf, the thought of being buried in this makes a passion for the links burn in my heartplace. New hobby, here I come!

So today I was walking around looking at insurance company buildings (very impressive array) and I came upon this park downtown. From the street, it looks kind of regular but once I passed through the gates and walked in a bit, it was like a trip to the Louvre in Paris or something.

OK, it’s hard to tell because my lousy snapshot does not do it justice but this is a topiary recreation of the Stephen Sondheim musical, Sunday in the Park with George! Seriously! I could not believe it. It is incredible. Look at the shrubbery lady walking her shrubbery dog.
I don’t know what kind of bush clipping genius took on this beautiful notion but it is truly amazing and I think the bushes themselves speak to the majesty of this vision.

Maybe it’s just me but cenral Ohio seems to like things that are made to look like other things. Bushes that are shaped like dogs and buildings that are just amazing. This is the corporate headquarters of the Longaberger Basket Company in nearby Newark and I cannot say enough about the basket passion that made this possible. Longabergers are highly collectible, handmade baskets and they are sold through a shadowy network of 45,000 basket agents around North America. Perhaps it is possible to be buried in a human sized picnic basket, for devotees of the basket cult.

Besides a good cult, I really like a good hall of fame and the OSU campus has a couple of excellent ones. I headed over to the Fisher College of Business, wearing my buckeye necklace to blend in with the crowd, looking for the accounting hall of fame there. I was bummed to find there is no real hall with plaques and it’s just an award given to the titans of accounting. Personally, I think this is a rip-off for the winners.

Then I wandered into the Agricultural Engineering building where I found this first-rate hall of fame.
Yes, this is the Drainage Hall of Fame and it recognizes the visionaries and innovators in the field of agricultural drainage. Humble water, the giver of life, has to go somewhere after it falls out of the sky and these gentlemen have made it their life’s work to figure that out so all the rest of us don’t have to. Personally, I’m pretty happy about that because I would not know the first thing about draining a field, though I bet I could flood one if given the chance.

This is Deb in the city, saying so long from Ohio, where the state insect is the ladybug, the state rock song is "Hang on Sloopy" and the state beverage is tomato juice. And the state tree is the buckeye. But everybody knows that.

High in the Middle and Round on the Ends

Hello out there wide world of webs. My name is Deb and you have clicked on my blog Deb in the City. OK, I know, I know, it’s not really a blog, it’s a vlog because it’s video. But seriously, do I have to use the word vlog? It sounds like some part of the Starship Enterprise that Chekov might refer to. (with bad Slavic accent) "Captain, the vlog accelerator has reached maximum!" It’s just too hard for me.

Anyway, Deb in the City is my little coping mechanism since the economy has gotten rotten and I’ve had to curb my discretionary spending. So, no more Precious Moments collectibles and I am trying to deal with the fact that I now live in a fabulous new city, Columbus, Ohio.

I get to live in this fantastic house.

As you can see, they sort of ran out steam on the lawn there. And landscaping is not in my nanny job description.

The house is in a community with its own name, Marble Cliff Crossing.
Here’s the marble cliff, which according to the Google is technically made of Columbus Limestone. The cliff has its Crossing as I mentioned and its own gate and community center and concierge service. Oh, and self-watering lawns. Sweet!

When I first got here, everyone kept telling me about Buckeyes and how they were so great and I looked into it, once again, on the Google and it did not add up for me that everyone was so devoted to a nut off a tree that you can’t even eat. It’s poisonous, actually. What's with worshipping this killer nut?

But the locals were really kind with my misunderstanding and set me straight that the buckeye is just the symbol for the people that live in Ohio. And that the real site of worship, the cathedral to buckeyes past and future is this edifice.
OK, this buckeye worship is a very well developed cult and I’ve discovered that living in Columbus and becoming a buckeye is essentially a cradle-to-grave deal, literally. Start here:

With the Buckeye pacifier.

And end here:











It is possible for me to get buried in high Buckeye style with an Ohio State University memorial casket or if I decide to go with cremation, my ashes can sit on a shelf in a handsome OSU licensed urn. As a domestic worker I like the idea of leaving a legacy for somebody else to dust.

This is Deb in the City, singing off from Columbus, OH where Cristopher Columbus parked his ship after he discovered America with the Pilgrims.

SANTA MARIA?