Mind & Body
Slowing Down with a Baby
A New Parent Drops Out of the Active Boulder Summer Life
During the summertime in Boulder, there's no reason to ever be indoors when you're not at work. The bike paths teem with cyclists, the farmer's market bustles, the hiking trails and climbing areas are packed, and there are plenty of restaurants and bars with outdoor patios. Unless you have a four-week-old baby: New parenthood has confined me inside the house, causing me to spend most of the summer, so far, on the couch. This lassitude feels kind of dirty, especially since I have a clear view of one of the busiest sections of the bike path out of my living room window, and I can see fit people in exercise gear walking, running, and cycling at all hours of the day. I'm living in one of the healthiest towns in America, and I'm watching the activity like it's TV.
I've vowed, at the very least, not to succumb to the tawdry allure of daytime television. (Okay, I had the Tyra show on in the background the other day while I fed the baby--but that was only after I'd read to her for an hour from the mind-enhancing fiction of Thomas McGuane and her neurons were obviously over-stimulated.)
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Boulder Hospital Offers Deluxe Childbirth
Childbirth the Boulder Way
The birth of my first child in June turned out to be a very Boulder experience. In childbirth classes I attended, I learned that Boulder women tend to have very different hopes and expectations about childbirth than does the average American woman. They're more likely to opt for a drug-free childbirth and arrive at the hospital equipped with a doula or a midwife. (According to my delivery nurse, the epidural rate in Boulder is around 40 percent, whereas in some hospitals in New York, for example, it's as high as 90 percent.)
Boulder moms are less likely to have cesareans, in part because elective cesareans--which have become de riguer in some parts of the country--are not allowed at the Boulder Community Foothills Hospital, the only hospital that delivers babies in Boulder city limits. The episiotomy rate is likewise one of the lowest in the country. This hospital is also the most expensive place to have a baby in Colorado, but I wasn't complaining about costs during my stay there. Foothills Hospital is at the forefront of a national trend in which hospitals are offering luxury amenities for childbirth, perhaps to attract future business by providing good memories.
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The Swimming Pool Guide
Boulder’s Best Water Parks
My first pool was the downtown YMCA in Little Rock, Ark. It was an old-fashioned 20-yard tile pool with narrow lanes , often murky water, and a traditional men's swim where fat naked guys got in and paddled end-to-end for an hour every day.
Things have improved since then. Below, just in time for the 4th of July, is a brief guide to some of the more notable pools around Boulder County, both indoor and outdoor. This list is highly subjective and incomplete; we invite you to send along your own favorites in the comments section and we'll add them to the list as the summer progresses.
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Bodyworlds 2
Science, Or a “Cadaver Circus”?
The "Bodyworlds 2" exhibit at the Denver Museum of Science and Natural History, which closes July 23, has been packing in crowds for weeks, necessitating the addition of extra evening hours. A show of mummified dead bodies might be expected to have a macabre appeal, but the museum, like the other institutes around the world that have displayed the work of German anatomist Gunther von Hagens -- who invented the "plastination" process that preserves body parts and allows the corpses to be displayed in standing, running, or leaping poses -- touts the exhibit as hard science, contributing to our understanding of the wonders of human anatomy.
My reaction: the show's great, if you like looking at cadavers.
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Pointed Musings
Strip Malls and Hair WhoresStrip malls, vacant retail space, strangely-named lingerie shops and putting volcanic ash in one's hair -- very expensive volcanic ash. It's all go here in Moscow, Idaho. [more]
DUH SYNDROME
Utah Legislature Mentally-Challenged When It Comes to Disabled ServicesApparently when it comes to the disabled, Utah’s state government doesn’t have a square to spare. Despite ending this fiscal year some $300 million dollars in the black, the state plans to make devastating cuts in services and cash assistance to Utah’s disabled.
After an already demoralizing blow in federal cuts, the state is proposing to reduce the two-year time limit for cash assistance to Utahns with both long and short-term disabilities down to one year. This will, in effect, slash aid and benefits for close to 600 disabled and unemployed Utahns, which, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, amounts to “more than a third of the state’s 1,733-person caseload.”
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Internetting on Vacation
Tourist Season In My Mountain TownBy Heidi Borg
Guest Writer
When do you really know the tourist season has arrived in the Flathead Valley? Maybe it can be displayed by the multitude of brand new Subarus with tiny barcode stickers in the back window. Or maybe your favorite restaurant is backed wall to wall by 6:30 pm.
But in my small town of Columbia Falls, gateway to Glacier National Park, gauging the start of the summer tourist season just takes a trip to the local library.
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New Sounds in Town
SnowGhost Productions Presents Brightblack Morning LightThere's a new production company in town, and they hope to change music as we know it in Whitefish. SnowGhost Productions, the brainchild of Whitefish music enthusiasts Dave Gawe and Brett Allen, is geared toward producing and promoting new music and fresh sounds. SnowGhost is working on a ten concert series that'll unroll this summer. Its first band, Matador-signed Brightblack Morning Light, will play tonight at Grouse Mountain Lodge. [more]
We Are Culture
The Young and (Un)Professional in a Rural CommunityYou're sitting in traffic, staring at neon, remembering when your city used to be so much quainter and quieter. Or maybe your town is dying. Your aging population is shrinking by the second and you're losing your young and educated to more exciting places. Friedman's Flat World? Florida's Creative Class? Karlgaard's "Where of Happiness?" All of the buzzed-up pop culture references apply, no matter your growth-related dilemma.
In the Flathead Valley, we're hoping this new, Flat World will enable us to be the Where of Happiness for the much-coveted Creative Class. We're one of those aging populations. We're one of those changing economies, trying to find its niche. My friends in cities take this kind of stuff for granted. They live among the Creative Class; they are the Creative Class. And so are we.
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Oh What a Night
A Belated Thanks to New West Flathead Valley Party-GoersOver 50 of the Flathead Valley's movers and shakers showed up last Thursday night at the Great Northern in Whitefish to celebrate the New West Valley kickoff with us. The sun was shining, the conversation and the microbrew were flowing and the party was just a great time. [more]
