Back in the spring, I told you about my valentine to small town life: I’m going to write about what makes small town life worth it, when there's one grocery store in town and no pizza deliery and it doesn't matter. It will be a series of observations along the lines of those about the Vaiden Truck Stop and the Varsity. It should be fun, from right here in my own small town.
This is the first one:
I was at the local salon, what our mothers call the beauty shop. I a couple of hours I was having photos taken in my wedding dress; you may remember the saga.
I’ve been coming to this place for about a year. Tiffany is young and pretty, and I just know she plays in the floor with her one-year-old son when she gets home from work.
She was asking how The Child was, and what time of day the wedding was, chatting. It had been mild and overcast when I pulled up in front of the shop that is in a converted train depot. As she worked and we talked, the sky outside darkened and sheets of rain began pounding down.
“Oh, no!” I said. I told her I didn’t bring my umbrella inside. She said, “I have one in the car – I can run get it before you leave.”
Thank goodness. I thanked her and then I had a thought. “I hope I didn’t leave my windows down.” We turned to look out the big plate glass window, which my car was parked directly in front of. The windows were down about two inches. It was pouring down rain; it was hard to see even across the street. Tiffany grabbed my keys, ran to her car, got her umbrella, ran to my car, unlocked the doors, got in, rolled up the windows, and dashed inside. She was soaked.
She set her umbrella down, picked the curling iron up, and went back to work. She brushed away my thank yous and continued chatting.
Service.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Thursday, July 09, 2009
"Air"
Saturday afternoon a high school friend posted a Facebook update and mentioned she couldn’t believe Steve McNair was dead.
I ran – literally – into the den. “IjustheardSteveMcNairwasfounddead!” I shouted. I couldn’t get the TV to ESPN fast enough.
The channel was showing the same thing the other news stations were. No details, just that he and at least one other person had been found shot to death in a Nashville apartment.
ESPN ran an interview with Steve McNair’s mother that was filmed a few years ago. I liked her right away; she seemed genuine. She talked about her childhood, of being one of 11 children born to a sharecropper, of working in cotton fields when she was six. I didn’t get the sense that she was expecting, or wanting, sympathy. She was matter of fact.
Steve’s father left when he was two years old. She had four children to care for and often worked two to three factory shifts, sometimes 16 hours a day. What must it have been like for a mother working at what was surely a grueling and tedious job for the better part of an entire day while her children were at home?
They showed a clip of a young Steve McNair, throwing passes at Alcorn State, and later just before he was the first round draft pick, or maybe it was when he won the Walter Payton Award. Somewhere along in there, he gave his mother a handwritten note, telling her she’d been fired from her factory job, that she would never have to work again. They both cried when he gave it to her.
He bought her a large parcel of land out in the country. He drove her to it and when they got it she realized that it was the site of that cotton farm where she and her family had worked the fields. He hadn’t known.
He built a 10,000 square foot house for her. It’s red brick, two-story, with columns and a balcony. In a voiceover the interviewer made the obligatory comment about her now owning the plantation but she talked about sitting on the front porch sometimes and looking out over the land and just marveling at it all.
Her face lit up every time she talked about Steve. I got the feeling that her pride in him had little to do with his fame and money.
Since then with every new piece of news revealed, I keep seeing her face, her smile, the obvious pride. I can’t imagine what kind of hell she’s going through.
I’ve seen the reports about McNair, how he was well-liked on and off the field, that he was genuinely a nice guy and known for his charitable work. In pictures and interviews, that infectious smile! He seemed so happy to be where he was.
Quickly on the heels of the accolades come the darker stories – his girlfriend, who was also found dead, his current wife. I didn’t know he was married much less that he was married with a girlfriend.
I keep thinking about his mother, his children, his whole family. It’s just sad.
I ran – literally – into the den. “IjustheardSteveMcNairwasfounddead!” I shouted. I couldn’t get the TV to ESPN fast enough.
The channel was showing the same thing the other news stations were. No details, just that he and at least one other person had been found shot to death in a Nashville apartment.
ESPN ran an interview with Steve McNair’s mother that was filmed a few years ago. I liked her right away; she seemed genuine. She talked about her childhood, of being one of 11 children born to a sharecropper, of working in cotton fields when she was six. I didn’t get the sense that she was expecting, or wanting, sympathy. She was matter of fact.
Steve’s father left when he was two years old. She had four children to care for and often worked two to three factory shifts, sometimes 16 hours a day. What must it have been like for a mother working at what was surely a grueling and tedious job for the better part of an entire day while her children were at home?
They showed a clip of a young Steve McNair, throwing passes at Alcorn State, and later just before he was the first round draft pick, or maybe it was when he won the Walter Payton Award. Somewhere along in there, he gave his mother a handwritten note, telling her she’d been fired from her factory job, that she would never have to work again. They both cried when he gave it to her.
He bought her a large parcel of land out in the country. He drove her to it and when they got it she realized that it was the site of that cotton farm where she and her family had worked the fields. He hadn’t known.
He built a 10,000 square foot house for her. It’s red brick, two-story, with columns and a balcony. In a voiceover the interviewer made the obligatory comment about her now owning the plantation but she talked about sitting on the front porch sometimes and looking out over the land and just marveling at it all.
Her face lit up every time she talked about Steve. I got the feeling that her pride in him had little to do with his fame and money.
Since then with every new piece of news revealed, I keep seeing her face, her smile, the obvious pride. I can’t imagine what kind of hell she’s going through.
I’ve seen the reports about McNair, how he was well-liked on and off the field, that he was genuinely a nice guy and known for his charitable work. In pictures and interviews, that infectious smile! He seemed so happy to be where he was.
Quickly on the heels of the accolades come the darker stories – his girlfriend, who was also found dead, his current wife. I didn’t know he was married much less that he was married with a girlfriend.
I keep thinking about his mother, his children, his whole family. It’s just sad.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Every Bit As Addictive As Chocolate, Trashy Novels, and Cheese Straws
To some people the stack of utilitarian containers under fluorescent lights wouldn’t look like much. I immediately pictured my kitchen cabinets, their contents tidily tucked in rows upon rows of those clear shoebox storage containers. It was a Pottery Barn-inspired fantasy and nothing could dim my daydream, especially not when the boxes were $1.19 each. One dollar and nineteen cents! $1.19! Bargain!
I bought ten of them.
Friday morning I cleared this cabinet.
This would be the baking cabinet. Measuring cups, vanilla, cinnamon, cloves, three sets of mixing bowls, miniature tart pans, vanilla bean, candied ginger, twee sets of miniature cookie cutters, soufflé cups, sprinkles, umpteen sets of tart pans that I rarely use yet can’t get rid of – they’re so pretty, sprinkles, cupcake holders, sprinkles, cupcake holders, eight springform pans, sprinkles.
A closeup of the insanity.
Makes you twitch, doesn't it, all the stuff piled in there jumbled together?
I pulled everything out.
That is a heckuva lot of stuff. All of it wouldn’t fit in the picture, I’m saying.
I got rid of very little. Nothing, actually, now that I think of it. I found a box of cookie stamps from Williams-Sonoma. They’re for pressing holiday patterns – a gingerbread man, bell, holly – into shortbread. At some point I apparently found them necessary for life and bought them. I’m at least 99% positive I’ve never used them, ever, which means I’ve packed them up and moved them probably four times. Maybe this year, right?
I did what the perky, bright-eyed experts on HGTV do when they show up at someone’s house to organize: I sorted and grouped like items together.
I had a box for fall/Halloween/harvest and a box for everyday/birthday/holidays. A box of baking chocolates, a box of baking spices. Everything fit.
Ahh. Order.
Sweet, sweet order.
This makes me uncommonly happy.
It’s a good thing I didn’t get my label maker involved; that may have tipped me right over into giddy hysteria.
I bought ten of them.
Friday morning I cleared this cabinet.
This would be the baking cabinet. Measuring cups, vanilla, cinnamon, cloves, three sets of mixing bowls, miniature tart pans, vanilla bean, candied ginger, twee sets of miniature cookie cutters, soufflé cups, sprinkles, umpteen sets of tart pans that I rarely use yet can’t get rid of – they’re so pretty, sprinkles, cupcake holders, sprinkles, cupcake holders, eight springform pans, sprinkles.
A closeup of the insanity.
Makes you twitch, doesn't it, all the stuff piled in there jumbled together?
I pulled everything out.
That is a heckuva lot of stuff. All of it wouldn’t fit in the picture, I’m saying.
I got rid of very little. Nothing, actually, now that I think of it. I found a box of cookie stamps from Williams-Sonoma. They’re for pressing holiday patterns – a gingerbread man, bell, holly – into shortbread. At some point I apparently found them necessary for life and bought them. I’m at least 99% positive I’ve never used them, ever, which means I’ve packed them up and moved them probably four times. Maybe this year, right?
I did what the perky, bright-eyed experts on HGTV do when they show up at someone’s house to organize: I sorted and grouped like items together.
I had a box for fall/Halloween/harvest and a box for everyday/birthday/holidays. A box of baking chocolates, a box of baking spices. Everything fit.
Ahh. Order.
Sweet, sweet order.
This makes me uncommonly happy.
It’s a good thing I didn’t get my label maker involved; that may have tipped me right over into giddy hysteria.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
In the Meantime
I’m on overload here. There’s so much to share and ask you about and tell you about that I don’t know where to start: Steve McNair and a day spent in the city and then the cooking and organizing and reading.
Did everyone spend their Independence Day picnicking, watching a parade, eating barbecued ribs, making homemade ice cream?
I think it’s so cool when people actually do things like that. We never did much to celebrate the Fourth when I was a child; it is too hot!
We cooked and we ate. Stayed inside a lot. I am a big fan of that during the summer. We played in the kitchen a lot, too. Didn’t really plan on it, it just worked out that way. That seems to happen pretty often.
Between The Husband and I, we made grilled shrimp, grilled tilapia, sugar cookies, drunk chicken, grilled new potatoes, grilled green beans, hamburgers on the grill (notice a theme?), blackberry cobbler, and I don’t even know what else.
There’s a list, just as long, of the things I didn’t do over the long weekend. Like clean, update scrapbooks, iron, write thank you notes, work on a sewing project. That’s okay. The things we did do make me so happy that having a list of things undone is okay. It will come.
Did everyone spend their Independence Day picnicking, watching a parade, eating barbecued ribs, making homemade ice cream?
I think it’s so cool when people actually do things like that. We never did much to celebrate the Fourth when I was a child; it is too hot!
We cooked and we ate. Stayed inside a lot. I am a big fan of that during the summer. We played in the kitchen a lot, too. Didn’t really plan on it, it just worked out that way. That seems to happen pretty often.
Between The Husband and I, we made grilled shrimp, grilled tilapia, sugar cookies, drunk chicken, grilled new potatoes, grilled green beans, hamburgers on the grill (notice a theme?), blackberry cobbler, and I don’t even know what else.
There’s a list, just as long, of the things I didn’t do over the long weekend. Like clean, update scrapbooks, iron, write thank you notes, work on a sewing project. That’s okay. The things we did do make me so happy that having a list of things undone is okay. It will come.
Friday, July 03, 2009
Fourth
"We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled...solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states...that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
June Books
When Olivia Goldsmith’s book, The Bestseller, was published, it raised some eyebrows in the publishing industry as many of the characters were apparently thinly veiled caricatures of real live actual people. They talk of how one publishing house refused to publish a book by a controversial, young wunderkind as what he submitted was vile. It seems like the author sued. At any rate, another house picked up the book amid a firestorm of First Amendment rights controversy.
I wonder if that incident was inspired by author Bret Easton Ellis. I’m thinking it was by his book, American Psycho. I haven’t seen or read American Psycho, nor shall I. This one was bad enough.
Less Than Zero takes place in the 80s in Los Angeles. I had thought it to be about excess and debauchery and typical 80s stuff. I was wrong; it’s about degradation and it is disturbing in the extreme.
I was a teen in the 80s; I turned 18 in January of 1990. After reading Less Than Zero, I am glad I wasn’t the child of moneyed oblivious parents living in Los Angeles.
This book is disturbing.
While I read a fairly wide range of genres, I notice that I’m drawn to books that take place in small towns, books set in the south, stories that deal with families and friends and their relationships, and books about entrepreneurs.
Driftwood Summer takes place in the small town of Palmetto Beach, South Carolina (check and check) and is the story of three sisters (check), and the family bookstore (checkcheckcheck). I was hooked.
The sisters’ mother is something else; an old school doyenne whose bookstore is failing and her has just been diagnosed with a serious disease. She puts on a good face while her girls are gathered round to celebrate her birthday.
The older daughter muses about their mother: “…Mama was still attempting to keep up the gracious lifestyle of her married life – dressing up for cocktails at five, dinner at eight…”
This cracked me up: “She smiled above her sorrow and went to join her sisters and mother.”
That’s the kind of thing I imagine said in a voiceover of Katherine Chancellor or Erica Kane, with a dramatic toss of the head.
Wicked by Gregory Maguire is the retelling of the Wizard of Oz from the Wicked Witch of the West’s point of view. It’s compelling and very readable and I liked it a whole lot. Something about it made me think of The Hobbit. I think it was the otherworldliness.
From Publishers Weekly
"Born with green skin and huge teeth, like a dragon, the free-spirited Elphaba grows up to be an anti-totalitarian agitator, an animal-rights activist, a nun, then a nurse who tends the dying and, ultimately, the headstrong Wicked Witch of the West in the land of Oz. Maguire's strange and imaginative postmodernist fable uses L. Frank Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a springboard to create a tense realm inhabited by humans, talking animals (a rhino librarian, a goat physician), Munchkinlanders, dwarves and various tribes. The Wizard of Oz, emperor of this dystopian dictatorship, promotes Industrial Modern architecture and restricts animals' right to freedom of travel; his holy book is an ancient manuscript of magic that was clairvoyantly located by Madam Blavatsky 40 years earlier. Much of the narrative concerns Elphaba's troubled youth (she is raised by a giddy alcoholic mother and a hermitlike minister father who transmits to her his habits of loathing and self-hatred) and with her student years. Dorothy appears only near novel's end, as her house crash-lands on Elphaba's sister, the Wicked Witch of the East, in an accident that sets Elphaba on the trail of the girl from Kansas,as well as the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman and the Lion, and her fabulous new shoes. Maguire combines puckish humor and bracing pessimism in this fantastical meditation on good and evil, God and free will, which should, despite being far removed in spirit from the Baum books, captivate devotees of fantasy."
Favorite Book of the Month: Wicked
Character Who I’d Most Like to Have a Drink With: Goat from Wicked
This will likely be of interest only to Harry Potter fans. If you’re reading the books but haven’t read all of them, stop here – spoilers ahead.
I saw a commercial for the movie Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I couldn’t remember anything about the book and thought that I should go back and re-read it, and maybe the one before and after it, before seeing the movie.
(When I read the book the first time, I read it really quickly. I tend to do that, and I'm not bragging - if the book is halfway good, I'm in such a hurry to see what happens next that I am almost skimming. That means I miss a lot of little things, which is why if I like a book even a little bit, at some point I go back and re-read it. I always, ever single time, get more out of it the second time. If you're not a re-reader this sounds strange because you already know what happens - what's the point? It's a story! It's a great story. Everyone knew how Titanic and Bonnie and Clyde ends but that didn't stop people from turning out in droves to see those movies.)
I picked up Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I remembered after I started reading that it had been my least favorite of all seven books. It was so dark and not just in subject matter and tone but also – the house where much of the book takes place is gloomy and full of spider webs and dust and it’s dark dark dark. Then Delores Umbridge’s name was mentioned. That’s when I closed the book and put it back on the shelf. I hated that woman.
When I put that one down I picked up Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.
It came back to me as I read - Dumbledore’s injured arm being, Harry and Ginny Weasley, and that creepy lake near the end.
What I had forgotten was this is the book where Dumbledore dies! It’s awful, Fawkes’ song and Hagrid inconsolable. Sad.
The first time I read it when Snape apparently murders Dumbledore I thought that something was up, that Snape and Dumbledore must have had some kind of agreement, that Snape would end it for him if asked. That wasn’t like Dumbledore to beg, not for mercy. I think he was asking Snape to kill him.
It seems like when I read the last book, that was right. But then again, I can’t remember. The last book dealt a lot with Snape and Lily and it was all very tragic, that much I do remember but not any of the particulars as far as Snape’s roll and if he was a double agent for Dumbledore or for Voldemort. I also can’t remember how Harry vanquished Voldemort. I remember the ending, where it’s several years in the future and they’re bringing their kids to the train station to send them to Hogwarts.
I want one of those scarlett and gold - Gryffindor colors - scarves. At the height of Harry Potter mania, I’d see them in stores. I should have gotten one. I think I decided I’d look ridiculous in it. I’m not fourteen, you know.
Although I am clearly a big nerd when it comes to the Harry Potter books.
I wonder if that incident was inspired by author Bret Easton Ellis. I’m thinking it was by his book, American Psycho. I haven’t seen or read American Psycho, nor shall I. This one was bad enough.
Less Than Zero takes place in the 80s in Los Angeles. I had thought it to be about excess and debauchery and typical 80s stuff. I was wrong; it’s about degradation and it is disturbing in the extreme.
I was a teen in the 80s; I turned 18 in January of 1990. After reading Less Than Zero, I am glad I wasn’t the child of moneyed oblivious parents living in Los Angeles.
This book is disturbing.
While I read a fairly wide range of genres, I notice that I’m drawn to books that take place in small towns, books set in the south, stories that deal with families and friends and their relationships, and books about entrepreneurs.
Driftwood Summer takes place in the small town of Palmetto Beach, South Carolina (check and check) and is the story of three sisters (check), and the family bookstore (checkcheckcheck). I was hooked.
The sisters’ mother is something else; an old school doyenne whose bookstore is failing and her has just been diagnosed with a serious disease. She puts on a good face while her girls are gathered round to celebrate her birthday.
The older daughter muses about their mother: “…Mama was still attempting to keep up the gracious lifestyle of her married life – dressing up for cocktails at five, dinner at eight…”
This cracked me up: “She smiled above her sorrow and went to join her sisters and mother.”
That’s the kind of thing I imagine said in a voiceover of Katherine Chancellor or Erica Kane, with a dramatic toss of the head.
Wicked by Gregory Maguire is the retelling of the Wizard of Oz from the Wicked Witch of the West’s point of view. It’s compelling and very readable and I liked it a whole lot. Something about it made me think of The Hobbit. I think it was the otherworldliness.
From Publishers Weekly
"Born with green skin and huge teeth, like a dragon, the free-spirited Elphaba grows up to be an anti-totalitarian agitator, an animal-rights activist, a nun, then a nurse who tends the dying and, ultimately, the headstrong Wicked Witch of the West in the land of Oz. Maguire's strange and imaginative postmodernist fable uses L. Frank Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a springboard to create a tense realm inhabited by humans, talking animals (a rhino librarian, a goat physician), Munchkinlanders, dwarves and various tribes. The Wizard of Oz, emperor of this dystopian dictatorship, promotes Industrial Modern architecture and restricts animals' right to freedom of travel; his holy book is an ancient manuscript of magic that was clairvoyantly located by Madam Blavatsky 40 years earlier. Much of the narrative concerns Elphaba's troubled youth (she is raised by a giddy alcoholic mother and a hermitlike minister father who transmits to her his habits of loathing and self-hatred) and with her student years. Dorothy appears only near novel's end, as her house crash-lands on Elphaba's sister, the Wicked Witch of the East, in an accident that sets Elphaba on the trail of the girl from Kansas,as well as the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman and the Lion, and her fabulous new shoes. Maguire combines puckish humor and bracing pessimism in this fantastical meditation on good and evil, God and free will, which should, despite being far removed in spirit from the Baum books, captivate devotees of fantasy."
Favorite Book of the Month: Wicked
Character Who I’d Most Like to Have a Drink With: Goat from Wicked
This will likely be of interest only to Harry Potter fans. If you’re reading the books but haven’t read all of them, stop here – spoilers ahead.
I saw a commercial for the movie Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I couldn’t remember anything about the book and thought that I should go back and re-read it, and maybe the one before and after it, before seeing the movie.
(When I read the book the first time, I read it really quickly. I tend to do that, and I'm not bragging - if the book is halfway good, I'm in such a hurry to see what happens next that I am almost skimming. That means I miss a lot of little things, which is why if I like a book even a little bit, at some point I go back and re-read it. I always, ever single time, get more out of it the second time. If you're not a re-reader this sounds strange because you already know what happens - what's the point? It's a story! It's a great story. Everyone knew how Titanic and Bonnie and Clyde ends but that didn't stop people from turning out in droves to see those movies.)
I picked up Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I remembered after I started reading that it had been my least favorite of all seven books. It was so dark and not just in subject matter and tone but also – the house where much of the book takes place is gloomy and full of spider webs and dust and it’s dark dark dark. Then Delores Umbridge’s name was mentioned. That’s when I closed the book and put it back on the shelf. I hated that woman.
When I put that one down I picked up Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.
It came back to me as I read - Dumbledore’s injured arm being, Harry and Ginny Weasley, and that creepy lake near the end.
What I had forgotten was this is the book where Dumbledore dies! It’s awful, Fawkes’ song and Hagrid inconsolable. Sad.
The first time I read it when Snape apparently murders Dumbledore I thought that something was up, that Snape and Dumbledore must have had some kind of agreement, that Snape would end it for him if asked. That wasn’t like Dumbledore to beg, not for mercy. I think he was asking Snape to kill him.
It seems like when I read the last book, that was right. But then again, I can’t remember. The last book dealt a lot with Snape and Lily and it was all very tragic, that much I do remember but not any of the particulars as far as Snape’s roll and if he was a double agent for Dumbledore or for Voldemort. I also can’t remember how Harry vanquished Voldemort. I remember the ending, where it’s several years in the future and they’re bringing their kids to the train station to send them to Hogwarts.
I want one of those scarlett and gold - Gryffindor colors - scarves. At the height of Harry Potter mania, I’d see them in stores. I should have gotten one. I think I decided I’d look ridiculous in it. I’m not fourteen, you know.
Although I am clearly a big nerd when it comes to the Harry Potter books.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Country Living
My parents bought an old house in December. They basically gutted it and started over. They moved in Memorial Day weekend and the house is still full of workers on any given day. I didn’t realize this until a couple of weeks ago when we were there celebrating my niece’s birthday.
We were standing in the kitchen and the electrician walked through the door. It was like Norm coming in Cheers. My brother offered him one of the burgers he’d just taken off the grill. The Child said, “Where have you been? I didn’t know you were here!” and followed him. I got the impression they were continuing a conversation they’d started earlier in the day.
A little later a neighbor came by with a chocolate pound cake. She knocked on the door and re-introduced herself to my mother. She couldn’t be enticed to stay or join the birthday celebration. She just wanted to say hello and bring a cake. I love that. I want to get to know her; that chocolate cake smelled out of this world.
Saturday afternoon my mom baked a strawberry pecan cake for that neighbor. You know you can’t return an empty serving dish. That’s the rule.
We were standing in the kitchen and the electrician walked through the door. It was like Norm coming in Cheers. My brother offered him one of the burgers he’d just taken off the grill. The Child said, “Where have you been? I didn’t know you were here!” and followed him. I got the impression they were continuing a conversation they’d started earlier in the day.
A little later a neighbor came by with a chocolate pound cake. She knocked on the door and re-introduced herself to my mother. She couldn’t be enticed to stay or join the birthday celebration. She just wanted to say hello and bring a cake. I love that. I want to get to know her; that chocolate cake smelled out of this world.
Saturday afternoon my mom baked a strawberry pecan cake for that neighbor. You know you can’t return an empty serving dish. That’s the rule.
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