Six DGs of Observation

Favorite Thing #7: Stephen Foster's "Hard Times"

2010-08-24T20:42:00.000-07:00

As we pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears
Let us all taste the hungers of the poor.
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears:
Hard times, come again no more.

It's a song and a sigh of the weary.
Hard times, hard times, come again no more.
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door.
Hard times, come again no more.

As we seek mirth, and beauty, and music light and gay
There are frail forms fainting at the door.
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say:
Hard times, come again no more.

It's a song and a sigh of the weary.
Hard times, hard times, come again no more.
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door.
Hard times, come again no more.

It's a song that the wind blows across the troubled wave.
It's a cry that is heard along the shore.
It's the words that are whispered beside the lowly grave
When hard times will come again no more.

It's a song and a sigh of the weary.
Hard times, hard times, come again no more.
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door.
Hard times, come again no more.

And then there's this.

Send me money!

2010-07-14T18:23:00.001-07:00

Ok, y'all. Buy my bumper sticker.

http://www.cafepress.com/GFYArizona

Because that's some fucked up shit.

The Blue Room

2009-12-04T08:37:00.000-08:00

So we have this one room, it's supposedly a breakfast room but it's not really big enough for any dining table we have and we don't eat breakfast anyway and also it's one foot from the dining room so I can't figure out why we wouldn't just eat in there in the first place. But anyway. It's always been a tricky room, just sort of a wide place in the hall. But after ten years in this house, I think we finally got it the way we want it. It originally had linoleum stuck to the floors; we scraped all that up upon moving in and had the floor refinished; I then painted it icy blue. Then for some reason, about six months later, we painted it the color of a flower pot. And it stayed that way for nine years.

Until last week when I painted it back blue. I love the way it looks like a Scandanavian ice room or something. It's where this year's Chrismas tree lives and the difficult-to-work-in Louis Ghost chairs. I love it so much.

The pictures on the wall are my #1 prized possession: paintings on paper by Barbara Page, mother of my mother's childhood best friend. When we bought this house, Mom and Dad asked us what we'd like from theirs and without missing a beat, I said "the Barbara Page paintings." There are eight in all and I wish I could figure out how to reproduce and sell them. They're incredibly fragile, painted with tempera on like grocery store bags from the fifties. The frames were made by Mr. Click of Elkin, NC, who is a little vague to me other than he has a cartoon character name.

So there you have another thrilling entry. memorize it; there might be a test.

End of September

2009-09-28T05:54:00.000-07:00

That means: toad lilies.

My Saddest Facebook Friend

2009-09-24T12:49:00.001-07:00

Guest Room

2009-08-14T11:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, with the exception of painting the window and the doors, the guest room is done. We refurbished the crazy chandelier so now each guest can write or draw on a piece of paper and attach it. Beats a boring old guestbook! And Sister Meg's pocketbooks made the move downstairs. We also finished the crown moulding and freshened up some of the green wall paint. Our old dead cat Eleanor sneezed on the walls a lot.

Come visit! Call first.

Upstairs, Upstairs

2009-08-04T15:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday and today, Sister Meg and I moved the 2500 book library upstairs to the weird area at the top of the stairs where nothing ever worked. Here are some in-progress pics. FInished ones coming later.

Old library, partially destructed:

New library, partially, uh, structed.

Favorite Things #6

2009-07-28T14:45:00.000-07:00

The Overlook Wodehouse series. I alphabetized them last night so I could more easily figure out what I was missing. I'm only missing nine - and four of those don't come out until later this year.

The National Civil Rights Museum

2009-07-26T06:52:00.000-07:00

I spent some time Friday at the National Civil Rights Museum (warning: uplifting music) in Memphis. It's an interesting place, but like a lot of history-type museums, it's a little bit problematic. It's seriously heavy on text panels and skimpy on artifacts (especially the first section, all the way up to the Civil War), which causes a lot of bottlenecking. But I really liked it on the whole. I was unnerved a little when I turned a corner and was literally standing looking from the insidethrough a glass wall at the actual room at the Lorraine Motel where MLK Jr stayed (the museum is built in and around the motel). You can look out the window and see the spot where he died one foot from your eyeballs. It's weird because you don't know it's coming - I mean, you know where you are in the Civil Rights timeline at all times in the museum but you don't really expect to get to stand in the room. They're nuts about you taking pictures (they say it's about various people owning trademarks blah blah blah but really I think it's about selling postcards in one of the two gift shops) so I don't have a photo of it, but I will say: it's something else. A very strange feeling.

Then - again without warning - you go to an annex where you're standing in the bathroom from where James Earl Ray aimed his rifle. The window is open just so, just enough to squeeze a rifle barrel through. It's positively freaky and I noticed a lot of people - really, a lot - skipped this altogether the minute they got a whiff of what it was. Then there's a whole other enormous room devoted to the manhunt for Ray and another for the Did Ray Act Alone? conspiracy theories. I thought this was a mistake - you get a whole room of this but Selma gets one wall in the other building? It seemed disproportionate and even though you get a little bit of hope after that - a room of recent Civil Rights achievements - you almost come away with a little sense of hopelessness because so much square footage is devoted to James Earl Ray.

But everyone should go - it doesn't feel like medicine. It's really interesting and that real Lorraine Motel room thing...well, I can't even explain it.

They did miss a big chance though - there should be a place to eat and it should be designed like a vintage lunch counter.

Sumpin' Ain't Right

2009-07-16T15:09:00.000-07:00

It's July in Nashville! Which means, you know, quilts at night and hot chocolate.

Mr Burns, At Rest

2009-07-03T15:03:00.000-07:00

The Burns died this morning. It had been a while since he ate and he could barely hold his head up so we took him to the vet and made the decision. We've been prepared for a while, but we were still surprisingly unprepared. Sister Meg and I stayed n the room with our hands on him while they put the needle in and his faint little heartbeat stopped.

We buried him with all of his winter sweaters. In the garden, near the fountain he fell in repeatedly.

He was one goddamned weird, difficult little dog but I'll miss him all the rest of the days of my life.

Camp Junebug

2009-06-26T17:44:00.000-07:00

Back to Big South Fork, with Mom, Dad, Sister Meg and The Burns. Camped next to a raft-load of Jesusy teens, singing Jesusy type songs. Hymns, I guess you'd call them. They had no qualms about singing them at top volume waaaay past the Official Quiet Time hours, so they can all just fuck right off.

ANYWAY! The Burns settles in to his tent:

Dad and Mom and Junebug (one day Junebug will be MINE and she will be COVERED with STICKERS!):

Fancy dinner (NY Strip, sauteed sweet potatoes, spinach with lemon and garlic):

The Burns sleeps:

The Burs settles in for a hike with Sister Meg:

And then she threw the dog in the river:

Honky-Tonkin'

2009-06-21T11:10:00.001-07:00

A late night in Music City.

The legendary Robert's Western Wear

Face lifts for everybody!

Sister Meg and WC Fields, out on the town.

Something New

2009-06-20T15:56:00.000-07:00

Here's an idea I've had for a while and now I'm doing it. I am obsessed with the many different permutations of hair salon names. I can't give any away in advance but gee whiz, there are a TON and they're all fabulous.

I can't promise it'll be every single day or every two days or whatever, especially since I want the photos to be pretty which means I have to go do them myself but:

The Curl Up and DIaries.

Favorite Thing #5

2009-06-02T19:46:00.000-07:00

Needlepointed by my mother before I was born.

Shiver

2009-06-01T14:48:00.001-07:00

Here's something you don't like to see in the woods.

Random Literary Criticism

2009-05-31T19:14:00.001-07:00

Found on the title page of a book I was reading. I agree wholeheartedly, by the way.

Topsy Turvy Update

2009-05-27T12:45:00.001-07:00

You all laughed at me! I heard you. And yet....here is the Topsy Turvy, already with tomatoes on it. In May. Ha ha ha, eat it detractors. Five weeks from a two-inch tall seedling to this.

SRSLY, I Don't Mess Around

2009-05-19T15:49:00.000-07:00

The camping pile...so far, and some of the associated lists. Big South Fork countdown: 8 days.

Rabbit-Proof

2009-05-19T05:18:00.000-07:00

A rabbit has been eating my herbs. I'VE SEEN HIM. So I moved them all up onto this table. I've never seen a rabbit jump UP so we'll see if this works.

Old Man River

2009-05-17T09:24:00.000-07:00

I went on a riverboat ride Friday night. It's like ten feet from my house and I'd never been on it.

There was a "show" and there was "dinner" but really the outside part was the only thing I was really interested in.

Glamping

2009-05-16T12:29:00.000-07:00

Here's this year's ridiculous camping trip menu. Admit it! You want to come too!

I don't mess around - I ain't eating no hot dog.

Mystery Flower

2009-05-05T06:55:00.000-07:00

Can anyone ID this plant for me? It came from the woods in the mountains of NC - I've had it in the ground four years and this year it went crazy, spreading like mad. Long, bright green sword-like leaves, multiple medium purple blossoms on each stem.

Thanks in advance, plant nerds!

More Spring evidence

2009-04-25T17:12:00.000-07:00

Sorry I'm a crappy photographer. Here are some pictures of my hike yesterday at Beaman Park. 2.1 miles. Wildflowers like crazy.

Something yellow

A Shooting Star. These were everywhere.

Something red.

Woodland phlox. Lots of this too.

Moss sending up stems. I always like this.

Teeny woodland iris.

Wild azalea.

Kitchen Wisdom

2009-04-23T18:30:00.000-07:00

You know, there just aren't enough recipes that involve both the garage and wrapping something in a quilt. I might need to rectify that.

Rock Star!

2009-04-22T20:50:00.000-07:00

I sort of forgot about this. A couple of years ago, I got to be a music journalist. I interviewed the White Stripes and then had to write a bunch of hoo-ha about their riveting life-changing rock star album. This, while I was busy listening to out-of-print Doris Day records.

I haven't read it since I sent it off, but almost two years later, I think it reads pretty damned well. Someone should fucking hire me. HINT HINT, motherfuckers.

Hospital Observations

2009-04-22T14:54:00.000-07:00

Dad had heart surgery on Saturday. Five bypasses! I think that's the most you can have! Woooooooooo, more Strong Family DOMINATION! Most wine consumption in a single night! Most bypasses! I'm gonna go buy my lottery ticket right now.

When we went to wait while they were sawing him open, we parked in the four-leaf clover section of the parking garage. It worked!

Also, this sign is on the door of the food court at the hospital. It mystified me until I walked into the food court and saw the food.

It seemed like dentists giving kids candy, but whatever. I ate it!

Anyway, he lived. He's already at home, doing that thing dads do where they think they're cute but they're really just annoying. You know.

Spring IS here!

2009-04-02T07:02:00.000-07:00

Lenten roses. Asparagus tart. One's for lookin', one's for eatin'. You figure it out.

Favorite Things, #3 & 4

2009-03-18T07:00:00.001-07:00

One concrete bunny, from my grandmother's house up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Wits' End.

Liberace potholder from the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas. When I went to the Liberace Museum, there was a nice lady in a blazer who filled us in on all the details about each little brooch and outfit in the museum. For like an hour. When I thanked her and said she should probably get back to guiding other people around, she looked puzzled and said "oh, I don't work here dear!" and then she pulled out a knife and stabbed us. Okay, not the last part.

Favorite Things, #1 & 2

2009-03-15T08:37:00.000-07:00

This is a knife given to me by my friend Katharine Weber. She gave it to me when I admired it during a visit to her house in Connecticut. I should have admired something fancier! If you come to my house and use it, you can only use it to slice tomatoes because it clearly says on the punch-out blade "TOMATE" which my fact-checkers tell me is French for "tomato." So don't screw it up if you come visit.

This is a little geegaw given to me by my long-lost friend Quelita. She gave it to me right before we had lunch at Chez Panisse. I have no idea what it actually is. It's about an inch and a half tall and it's silver over some sort of stone. I can't read the stamp on the bottom, so I just know it's one of those things people take to Antiques Roadshow and it turns out to be the top of the Romanoff royal scepter or something. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The Bookcase Project :: Bookcase 3

2009-03-10T10:04:00.000-07:00

Bookcase 3, Shelf 1: Byatt, AS - Dibdin, Michael - Doty, Mark
Quantity: 27 / Quantity Read: 18
Candidate: The Last Thing He Wanted, Joan Didion

Bookcase 3, Shelf 2: Doty, Mark - Ellis, Bret Easton
Quantity: 33 / Quantity Read: 23
Candidate: Oscar Wilde Discovers America, Louis Edwards

Bookcase 3, Shelf 3: Ellroy, James - Firbank, Ronald
Quantity: 18 / Quantity Read: 13
Candidates: All of the Firbanks
Also on this shelf: one graphite on wood painting by Jeremy Lehmann

Bookcase 3, Shelf 4: Fischer, Tibor - Ford, Ford Madox
Quantity: 17 / Quantity Read: 10
Candidates: I Wake Up Screaming, Steve Fisher; Not Now But Now, MFK Fisher
Also on this shelf: a television, a cable box, a rock from Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Bookcase 3, Shelf 5: Ford, Catherine - Gaitskill, Mary
Quantity: 29 / Quantity Read: 22
Candidate: The Life to Come, EM Forster

Bookcase 3, Shelf 6: Gaitskill, Mary - Gilchrist, Ellen
Quantity: 33 / Quantity Read: 16
Candidates: Collected Stories, Gabriel Garcia Marquez; Age of Miracles, Ellen Gilchrist

Bookcase 3, Shelf 7: Gilchrist, Ellen - Greene, Graham
Quantity: 33 / Quantity Read: 15
Candidates: all of the Henry Green books

Just in case some of you bitches didn't believe me...

2009-03-08T20:38:00.000-07:00

Here I am holding the regional Emmy I was the Creative Director for! My speech would have been:

I'd like to thank everyone I've ever known EXCEPT FOR the following people.... (redacted)

The Bookcase Project :: Bookcase 2

2009-03-04T08:48:00.000-08:00

Bookcase 2, Shelf 1: Byatt, AS - Windham, Donald (subj: Capote, Truman)
Quantity: 18 / Quantity Read: 16
Candidates: Three by Cain, James M Cain; God's Little Acre, Erskine Caldwell

Bookcase 2, Shelf 2: Moates, Marianne (subj: Capote, Truman) - Carey, Peter
Quantity: 16 / Quantity Read: 16
Candidates: none

Bookcase 2, Shelf 3: Carey, Peter - Chabon, Michael
Quantity: 18 / Quantity Read: 13
Candidates: Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather

Bookcase 2, Shelf 4: Chabon, Michael - Chekhov, Anton
Quantity: 17 / Quantity Read: 15
Candidate: Oh What a Paradise it Seems, John Cheever

Bookcase 2, Shelf 5: Chekhov, Anton - Compton-Burnett, Ivy
Quantity: 20 / Quantity Read: 12
Candidates: all of the Compton-Burnetts (jealous, Lauren?), The Black Monk, Anton Chekhov

Bookcase 2, Shelf 6: Compton-Burnett, Ivy - Crews, Harry
Quantity: 18 / Quantity Read: 8
Candidates: all of the Compton-Burnetts; Maggie, a Girl of the Streets, Stephen Crane

Bookcase 2, Shelf 7: Crews, Harry - Dibdin, Michael
Quantity: 20 / Quantity Read: 11
Candidates: Two Years Before the Mast, Richard Henry Dana Jr
Mysteriously missing from this shelf: most of my Pirates! books. Hmmmm.

Mom, interrupted

2009-02-27T18:45:00.000-08:00

I have about fifty stories to explain this picture of my mother pouring herself a drink at a bar at which she didn't actually work, but I think it might just be self -explanatory. If it's not, remind me to tell you later about the time she drank too much Bailey's at Christmas dinner and left the table and came back in her nightgown. Either way: HI, MOM! You rock!

The Bookcase Project :: Bookcase 1

2009-02-26T08:23:00.000-08:00

Here we go! Due to continuing financial hardship, I am on a strict no-new-books policy, so I'm determined to shop from my own shelves, to revisit titles I loved or to read ones I haven't gotten to yet.
One bookcase documented per week (more or less), until I'm done, noting candidates for near-future reading as I go.

Bookcase 1, Shelf 1: Ackerley, JR - Ashbery, John
Quantity: 29 / Quantity Read: 18
Candidates: Little Men, Louisa May Alcott; Beyond the Mountain, Elizabeth Arthur

Bookcase 1, Shelf 2: Ashbery, John - de Balzac, Honore
Quantity: 32 / Quantity Read: 22
Candidates: Lady Susan, Jane Austen; Another Country, James Baldwin

Bookcase 1, Shelf 3: Ashbery, John - Beerbohm, Max
Quantity: 31 / Quantity Read: 19
Candidate: A Favorite of the Gods, Sybille Bedford

Bookcase 1, Shelf 4: Begley, Louis - Benson, EF
Quantity: 27 / Quantity Read: 20
Also on this shelf: antique glass slide featuring a cocker spaniel and the words "Topsy," "No Fear" and "No Alcohol
Candidates: Writing Home, Alan Bennett; Colin, EF Benson

Bookcase 1, Shelf 5: Benson, EF - Blackburn, Julia
Quantity: 26 / Quantity Read: 18
Candidate: none

Bookcase 1, Shelf 6: Blackburn, Julia - Brandeis, Gayle
Quantity: 28 / Quantity Read: 14
Candidate: The Crazy Hunter, Kay Boyle

Bookcase 1, Shelf 7: Brite, Poppy Z - Busch, Charles
Quantity: 32 / Quantity Read: 25
Candidates: Undue Influence, Anita Brookner; Tarzan of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs

Five Pounds, Dripping Wet

2009-02-26T07:57:00.000-08:00

A bath can be very exhausting.

And for you weirdos who look at the books on the shelves in the backgrounds of pictures, you're looking at the corner that holds fiction, roughly the Poe-Twain area.

Earth Day

2009-02-24T12:19:00.000-08:00

Today I made a terrarium because my friend Beth has one and I am so jealous of it I can hardly stand it. Plus I think our gradually re-modeled kitchen could use a little something organic in it besides that gnocchi that fell down between the stove and the counter that we are not talking about.

Anyway! It's easy. First you get a jar (Target!) and put some pebbles in it. These came from an aquarium supply store.

Then you add activated charcoal, also available from an aquarium supply store. By the way: in my experience, people who have aquariums are weirdos. That's not part of the terrarium lesson, it's just a fact you should file away. Oh and also, the aquarium supplies are usually uncomfortably close to the snake aisle at most pet shops so be prepared for that because they do not like it when you shriek out loud repeatedly at the pet store. Again, in my experience.

Okay! So then you add some moss (it keeps the about-to-be-added soil from filtering down into the gravel. Neato!) and then some plain old potting soil. Then a plant or two. I bought a too-big one but we'll see.

I also added a Bigfoot.

And now I'm off to do other things from the seventies, like make a macrame pocketbook and/possibly/or swing with the neighbors! See you later!

Young and pretty

2009-02-14T22:14:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture that I was very happy to see: me and my friend Suzy at our friends John & David's wedding many many years ago. This was a big day: after this, which was all the way down the road in Monteagle, we drove back to town for Beth & Thom's wedding reception. I think we made a pretty couple: my seersucker is traditional blue and white; her dress was pink. I was wearing white saddle shoes. I wish I had known then that you're supposed to unbutton your jacket when you sat down because I was totally a 29-inch waist in those days and the buttoned jacket makes me look fat.

We look so young and pretty! My hair looked so cute! I HAD HAIR! Anyway. Picture courtesy of Kathryn Schoepflin.

Almost finished!

2009-02-13T18:31:00.000-08:00

The cabinet project turned out really pretty, though everything took longer, especially because I put stuff back in one of them and it all stuck and then I had to repaint. Also a Typical Strong Family Crisis has arisen: the sea mist green Fiesta plates in our Fiesta color mix look icky in the green cabinets. So we have to replace all the sea-foam green ones with the shamrock green, even though I think food will look gross on it like it does on the persimmon orange that I already can't even eat off of.

Sea mist green has been discontinued and I'm going to let my friend Janet in NYC have it if she wants it, but if she doesn't, let me know in the comments and you'll be next up. Two dinner plates, two bread plates, two mugs with saucers, two cereal bowls, one vegetable bowl, one platter thingy. two bouillon bowls. The only person who can't have it is one Mr. Joseph F from Chicago who is a LIAR who doesn't do what he SAYS he's going to do when you send him the Fiesta he ASKS for and if I could leave NEGATIVE FEEDBACK on his LIFE, well I WOULD.

ANYWAY! Look how pretty. I like that it's this crazy intense green when you open them but when the doors are closed, you just get a little hint.

Oh Baby

2009-02-10T20:47:00.001-08:00

No context, just a funny picture of a baby in distress. Isn't it hilarious?

Worst. Project. Ever.

2009-02-10T06:17:00.000-08:00

Okay, so here's some advice: never undertake a kitchen cabinet painting project. My house was immaculate before I started. Now it looks like Sanford & Son just moved in. The green's fantastic, though.

Yes, that might be chicken wing detritus visible in one of the pictures. Very important to the painting process.

Going Green

2009-02-08T11:17:00.001-08:00

Me: "Gee Sister Meg, that sure is green."

Sister Meg: "It'll dry darker."

Me: "Mmmm hmm. Will it also dry not green?"

Sister Meg: "It's my signature color."

Sister Meg's Pocketbook Wall

2009-02-08T06:42:00.000-08:00

Somebody asked to see this so y'alls all gotta suffer cause this was the best way to show them....and I thought it might be nice to get the dead cat post off the top.

This is Sister Meg's pocketbook wall. She collects this one kind of pocketbook - Enid Collins box bags. Not the canvas ones, just the wooden boxes. It's pretty arresting when you walk up the stairs and you see them all like art on the wall. Also, they have to be from the era when Enid's husband made the boxes and she painted them, not after they started being manufactured by some company. Also, painted backgrounds are preferable. She never carries them because people ask her about them NON-STOP (seriously, every single person asks about them) and Sister Meg does not like to be the center of attention. Which is my strongest piece of evidence that she's adopted.

She has one that's a donkey and one that's an elephant and they have the words "People's Choice" on them.

When she lived in Atlanta, someone broke into her house and nearly went crazy opening all the pocketbooks looking for money. It must have been very frustrating.

If you look closely on the lower left of that upper pic, you can see Buster, one of our un-dead cats.

She Went To Sleep

2009-02-06T08:37:00.000-08:00

Sarcastic Voice: "Well, That Was Easy"

2009-01-31T11:56:00.000-08:00

Someone just reminded me that I never posted pics of the final end results of the bathroom renovation. The main reason behind that is because it's JUST NOW FINISHED. Anyway. One day I'll post the whole long involved story so you can all be warned away from ever undertaking any sort of project whatsoever. But in the meantime, here are the pictures.

There are a couple of things I'd do differently but overall, it turned out almost exactly as envisioned.

Cold & Warm

2009-01-28T11:55:00.001-08:00

No news! I just wanted to post a pic of my house in the little bit of snow we got today.

And also of my dog curled up in a basket!

I'd Like to Thank the Little People...

2009-01-26T09:14:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, when I worked for a film production company, my friend Jason called because he needed a video done really inexpensively for his alter-ego children's act, Farmer Jason. We were able to help him out and I felt very protective of it because I had been in on the creative meetings for it and had basically begged everyone at the company to practically work for free on a Saturday. With children. And animals. In the woods. It's a miracle any of them are still speaking to me. Wait. Only two are!

ANYWAY. We made a really funny and charming video on verrrrry little money and we delivered it and then promptly heard nothing forever. A studio/label was involved for a while and I don't know all the smoky-back-room details, but it ended up running on the local PBS affiliate as interstitial material, along with three or four other videos Jason had the affiliate shoot. And they got nominated for a regional Emmy for Outstanding Chidren's Programming.

And Saturday night they won! So that's very exciting. My name's nowhere near it, so I don't have an Emmy sitting on my mantle right now or anything, but I'm really happy about the way it turned out. The Farmer Jason project is just a fantastic concept and I really think he deserves to be huge.

You can watch the video here.

It's Moving Day In America!

2009-01-20T10:41:00.001-08:00

I wonder if Bush had to pay for that coffee table he broke when he choked on that pretzel....

Eureka Springs Eternal

2009-01-09T15:16:00.000-08:00

Last week, I was delighted to spend a few days with some old friends high atop an Ozark mountain in northwestern Arkansas, just a mile or so north of Eureka Springs, land of $1.29 gas and egregious misuse of the letter K. We almost just left the pump running all over the concrete, it was so cheap.

We spent all five days in an astonishingly well-equipped ginormous cabin, sipping wine and throwing logs on the fire and watching Valley of the Dolls. Here's some craziness from that. Luckily, it doubles as documentary footage from my college years! It's an endlessly quotable movie but what surprised me is that the one we probably quoted the most was "I'm not the butler, Neely." That comes in handy, trust me. When your mother asks "could you pass me the butter?" just yell I'M NOT THE BUTLER, NEELY. Hours and hours of mirth will ensue.

We went on a long hike down from the cabin to some crazy dam where something strange seems to have happened to my hairdo.

ANYWAY. One day we went down the mountain into town and went in and out of about five million pottery shops and stained glass suncatcher shops and hand-carved pencil shops or WHATEVER and it kind of wore me out because I don't really care about any of that stuff. I have enough pottery, thank you, not to mention pencils. There were six of us and I was just a tiny bit dreading the dinner decision - it was our only night out of the cabin and I didn't think we'd luck into anything good, if only because we all have different likes and dislikes. So, indecisive until almost the very end, we asked our cocktail waitress (yes, there were afternoon cocktails at a fancy hotel) and she said - without hesitation - "Local Flavor." And it was great. The slightly plain-sounding menu might not give that impression but really, everything was just perfect. So if you're ever in Eureka Springs to take the cure, stop by and have dinner there. You can thank me later. Oh and ask for Rick, who was a complete bitch in the best way.

I hope I get invited back next year. I tried really hard to not be as bossy as usual and I think I only slipped up once. But maybe no one noticed. Someone did notice that I drank all the vanilla vodka, though....

What's That In the Corner?

2008-11-22T06:32:00.000-08:00

It always surprises me when I catch of a glimpse of part of my life - like clothes or the car I drive or I hear myself talking about something - and that glimpse reveals that I'm a different type of person that I had planned to be. Not better or worse, just different.

For example I always thought I'd end up in some groovy Palm Springs-type sleek house, with low-slung armless sofas and Barcelona chairs. Instead I live in a dark little Tudor Revival house. My father made furniture his whole life and the various arms of the Strong family are chock full of it. I recently ended up with this corner cupboard that he made. I never thought I was a corner cupboard person - I mean, what's next? A butter churn? But you know what? I really love it. It's handsome - solid cherry - and not fussy and offers a world of storage and let me tell you: Tudor Revivals are a little skimpy on storage closets so that really does come in handy. And I get to display my skull and crossbones crystal! And Sister Meg's girly china.

I'm still not used to it yet; I catch it out of the corner of my eye and think for a second "what the hell is THAT?" But then I remember that that's what type of person I turned out to be. A corner cupboard person. Huh.

Pussies in Heat

2008-11-21T14:21:00.000-08:00

Well if you're looking for my cats this winter, look no further than the nearest heating vent.

Here's Miss Ellie, fat and fluffy. She likes the one behind the dining room door.

And Fanny, a hundred years old and about three pounds soaking wet. She prefers the living room, being an elderly spinster. I think she's waiting on a gentleman caller.

This, by the way, is the famous Fanny. As an added bonus, you get to see how dirty my house is in this picture and also what looks like a little cat vomit on the vent. Mmmmmmm!

Autumn and Really Old People

2008-11-11T15:17:00.000-08:00

So today I had to drive 500 miles, from Nashville to Gatlinburg and back. I had to deliver some printed material I designed and couldn't get it delivered on Veterans' Day. Stupid Veterans! WHAT DID YOU EVER DO FOR ME? I decided to try and make it feel less work-like by jamming in a hike while I was there, since Gatlinburg is the gateway to Great Smoky Mountains National Park....since 2008 is DG's Year of National Parks (Six, if you include Colorado Natl Monument, which you probably shouldn't).

I left at 4:30 am so I could make me delivery by 9 EST and then I decided to have some pancakes. Gatlinburg is chock full of pancakes and I've never been able to figure out why. I'm not exaggerating: there are at least fifty pancake houses in a ten-block stretch. I settled on Log Cabin Pancake House and I ended up having country ham biscuits because I am not really a pancake person, I think. I don't like sweet in the morning.

ANYWAY, the waitress was rude - I was trying to finish Somerset Maugham's Mrs Craddock, and with just eight pages to go, she asked me to get up because she "needed the table." So I told her I needed the 20% I was going to tip and left her a dollar. Sorry, lady....I was a waiter for a decade....there are subtler ways to get the humps out of the chairs, as my (yet another!) newly-re-found friend Melissa used to say. So I still have eight pages to find out what happened to Bertha Craddock.

Then I did the short drive to the Laurel Falls trailhead. This is an easy trail - it's paved! - but only because traffic was so heavy on it they had to pave it to prevent erosion. 1.3 miles to a lovely 30-foot cascade (it looks small in the pic, but that's a pretty good guess, I think), where I promptly slipped and fell despite the five hundred signs on the trail that say "yoo-hoo, this will be slippery: children have died!" And also there were bear warnings every ten feet. What there were NOT were warning signs about: OLD PEOPLE. Here's a note for you to type into your Blackberry or your iPhone or your Rolodex or to just yell at your ASSISTANT or WHATEVER you have for this sort of thing: Fall + Veterans Day + Paved Trail equals 10,000 Grannies. And they don't say HELLO on the trail and it pisses me off. By the end of it, after I had passed the cast of The Golden Girls fifteen times, I made a point of saying REALLY LOUD: "Hi! You're ALMOST THERE! Just a FEW MORE STEPS! YOU CAN DO IT" Even though it was still like a mile and a half away. That's what you get for not saying "morning," you stupid old bags.

Anyway, it was pretty, fall, leaves, waterfall, blah blah blah. The usual with this sort of shit. Very inspiring. Sigh.

Once You Go Blackboard...

2008-11-08T18:06:00.001-08:00

I love my new kitchen chalkboard wall! I've recently taken to writing all of the possible upcoming meals on it - based on what's in the pantry - and Sister Meg makes a checkmark by the one that she wants for dinner each night before she leaves every day...then we erase it off the list after we eat it. It's an ideal collaboration: I choose and cook all the meals and she tells me when she wants them! Also, before you say anything? I'M AFRAID OF HER.

Just a Few Hours 'Til the Revolution!

2008-11-04T06:45:00.001-08:00

All Fall Down

2008-11-03T14:42:00.000-08:00

We never get a real fall, it seems like. Things just turn brown and fall off the trees and that's it. But I looked out my window today and saw this tree in my side yard blazing yellow. It'll probably only last five minutes so I ran out and took pictures. I like the yellow and blue and the red brick all together.

You can all probably sleep better now.

Functioning Artoholic

2008-10-31T07:14:00.000-07:00

So I quit making art about a year ago. I always tell people that it was for this reason or that reason but in reality it was because I was tired of making a mess in my house and then having to clean it up. I had already scaled down the size of things I was working on, going from door-sized charcoal drawings down to little foot-square collages that I could make while I was watching Project Runway. I liked the encouragement Tim Gunn offered me! I made it work. And then a gluestick got stuck to the sofa and that was, as they say, that.

But I was cleaning up my computer desktop yesterday and ran across something that surprised me...for the past year or maybe more, I've been doing these little illustrations for Readerville.com at the behest of my friend Karen who owns it. Most of them are computer-generated, though there are a lot of hand drawn things that get scanned and then manipulated in the box. It was weird opening them all up and looking at them together because with maybe two exceptions - the Ethel Merman one and the teacup - they look like work I would have done anyway!I'm pleased at how many of them reflect my personal aesthetic even though they were created to illustrate someone else's idea. Maybe I'm an illustrator!

So I didn't give up making art after all, I guess. It was surprising how many of them there were. Anyway, here's some of that, along with a couple that got rejected by mean Karen.

(Oh and everthing's ©DG Strong and I am just bored enough to sue you and burn your house down if you steal from me, bitches.)

Reunited and it Feels So Good!

2008-10-25T13:15:00.000-07:00

Last night I had dinner with an old friend. Not a friend who is old but someone I've known longer than almost anyone I still speak to. But the funny thing is we hadn't spoken in like fifteen years. Maybe even longer. I acted like a jerk once and anyone who knows me knows I am not really an apologizer so the jerkiness stood uncorrected forever. And then out of the blue she emailed me and she didn't make me apologize and then we went to dinner and now it's like I have my old best friend back! It's like magic. Or AA where they make you make amends but you still get to drink! Best of both worlds! But I do know she reads this so I really do apologize for being a jerk.

Now our mutual best friend Jeff can talk about us in front of each other, which he couldn't do before and I think that has been making him crazy for fifteen years.

And Sarah's a camper so now I can quit bothering everyone else in my life with my constant "would you like to go camping?" inquiries. You're all off the hook!

Probama

2008-10-17T16:22:00.000-07:00

Well since all the newspapers are publishing their presidential endorsements this weekend, I might as well do mine since I'm way more influential than that tired old Washington Post: Vote for Barack Obama. Oh, and you can just save your dissenting opinion - while America is a democracy, my blog most assuredly is not and I'll just delete any comments I don't agree with...it's my Bush-iest quality. I told you everything would be different after the Revolution!

I've had this Obama sticker on my car for almost eighteen months...EIGHTEEN MONTHS! I've had it on there so long I had to buy it from Cafe Press; there weren't any Obama stickers way back then! That seems so crazy now, to think back about who seemed the more likely candidate at different times: Edwards (remember him?), Hillary, hmmm, whoever those other people were. Early on - beyond the eighteen months - I was a devoted Hillary supporter but even then I thought Obama's rightness was truly the better choice, even if it meant the party's eventual Election Day loss. So I switched allegiances and for once, I might have backed the right horse!

Over the months since, I've endured a little bit of heckling - one guy stood by my car in a parking lot and waited for me to come out of a shop just so he could call me a "nigger-lover." Another time, a woman in a car flagged me down at a red-light to tell me Barack Obama was going to drive America to ruin. That'd be a short trip, I thought, considering the ruins the current administration's left it in. But instead I said "why don't you just fuck off?" because that's just the type of guy I am. I know what you're thinking: this sort of abuse practically makes me the Rosa Parks of 40+ white guys...and I completely agree.

I early voted today. I pressed the Obama button with pride and glee, thrilled that for once I wasn't voting for the lesser of two evils - I was voting for a truly great candidate, one with vision, principles and a wife who can still move her face. A candidate who still believes there's such a thing as social justice and economic fairness and a woman's right to choose what happens in her own womb. A candidate who doesn't rely on Joe the Plumber horse-shit to make his point because he can make his point without using manufactured metaphors. I live in Tennessee and I harbor no illusions about the Volunteer State turning blue anytime soon. But there were long lines and more African-Americans than I've ever noticed before. So who knows what that means. But I'm hopeful that it signals an end to this brutal, ignorant, scare-tactic era run by a murderous, venal, dishonest handful of money-grubbers and that I can once again live in a country I'm proud of rather than one I'm too poor to move away from.

Don't be a dick: Vote Obama.

My Birthday: Joshua Tree National Park

2008-10-13T07:53:00.000-07:00

I spent my birthday last Friday wandering around (in some cases literally) and driving through Joshua Tree National Park. It's a pretty amazing place. My friend Carol and I got up pretty early, had a fifty-dollar breakfast in Palm Springs (that's the only kind they have there, actually), picked up our rental car and drove forty miles to the little-used Cottonwood Springs entrance. Palm Springs does a lot of things well, but promote nearby Joshua Tree isn't one of them. Virtually NO mention of the park in any of the promotional literature scattered throughout the whole town. NONE. Which explains why this nearby entrance is little-used, I guess.

We had decided to do a pretty good-sized desert hike, the Lost Palms Oasis hike at 8 miles. When we got there, we learned it was really only 6.8 but still: that's a long walk in the god-forsaken desert. We handled it with aplomb, mainly because it never got above 90 and was pleasantly breezy most of the time. Sand sand sand, ocotillo, sand. Oh look a rock. Lizard. Sand, cactusy thing. OOO a rock. And then ta-da, oasis. Then all of that backwards.

We then left that section of the park, the Colorado desert part, and went to the Mojave part which was like visiting Mars. Thirty degrees cooler and alien-looking. Lots of photos like this. 247 of them, actually. I sort of wish we'd hiked in this part rather than the hotter part but eh, what can you do. Then we committed some felonies and stole some joshua tree seed pods. Ha ha, eat it, Park Service.

It was a pretty cool place. Crappy gift shop, though, and if you're keeping score this year that's a LOT of crappy National Park gift shoppes. I really do need to just go up there to DC and get the Dept of the Interior t-shirts in order. It's shameful how awful most of them are.

2008 Vacation No. 249

2008-10-07T16:40:00.000-07:00

Off to Palm Springs and Joshua Tree National Park for sun and fun and lots of hiking, sightseeing, and mini-bar abuse. See you next week.

Same View, Different Subject

2008-10-06T11:29:00.000-07:00

I was just going through my digital photo library and it seems a LOT of crazy stuff happens outside my office window, though it's not all people fornicating. This picture is from a few months ago. I hope he's not dead.

And one day, this happened.

It's like going to the movies! Sex, death, stunts.

Sex and the City

2008-10-02T12:04:00.000-07:00

Well here's something you don't see every day! The view from my office window just moments ago (NSFW, unless you work in a porno factory, which you might, I guess):

Look closely! The gentleman on top was borderline homeless. The lady on the bottom was a business lady in a suit. And that used to be the library! ON ROSA PARKS BOULEVARD. When they were done, they looked up and saw us all looking and taking pictures and waving and they ran off top speed. And here's the best part: he was wearing a shirt that said KEEP YOUR EYES ON JESUS.

Only one word will suffice, I think. C-L-A-S-S-Y.

Update: after looking at some of the pics other people took, we think we have deduced that the "lady" in question seems to be wearing a hotel uniform of some sort. So we're going to go into the two nearby hotels (we think it's the less-fancy one) and look at her all sideways like we know something.

Ballad of the Hot Beef Sundae

2008-09-29T12:15:00.000-07:00

A couple of weekends ago, I went with my friend Meg (see milking parlor pic) to the sad, sad Tennessee State Fair. We heard somewhere it was the 49th worst state fair or something and I can't imagine which one is worse. There was lots to blog about and I might dole out a few stories over the next few days so that it's not one loooong post but I'll start with the Hot Beef Sundae.

Mmmmm! Pot roast with a scoop of mashed potatoes and then gravy and cheese and a cherry tomato. I'd eat it again, no problem. It would have been better if it hadn't been 90 degrees outside, but sometimes you just have to throw yourself on a sword, you know? We washed this down with a fried Goo Goo Cluster.

And then we died. Good thing Jesus was right next door to resurrect us...but more on that tomorrow.

Whatever, Lady

2008-09-10T10:08:00.000-07:00

So take a look at this:

This is a big, not-very-good drawing of a knot I did a decade or so ago and for the past few years, it's been hanging in a local restaurant. It's not a great drawing - I have no particular love for it - but it's big and this restaurant needed big art so I let them have it and it's been profitable to do so, as people have contacted me about other work. So win-win, right?

Until. Last week, three African-American ladies - who are regular customers and have been for years and have always been perfectly charming - called the manager-on-duty over to the table to complain that they were highly upset about the racist artwork hanging in the restaurant. Befuddled, the manager asked, "huh?" and then one of them went on a bit about how the big drawing of the "noose" was racist and made her uncomfortable and they were all offended.

Now, I'll give you a second to go back and look at the drawing. Do you see a noose? Yeah, I didn't think so. It really has me befuddled, as if she had said "this painting of a duck offends me!"

I'm not bothered if the restaurateurs decide to remove the piece; it's theirs to do with as they please. And to their credit, it's still up and they seem as amazed by the whole thing as I am. But I am bothered in a larger way, a more political one. Has the social climate become so charged that even someone who is walking around not bothering to pay attention to reality - remember, not a noose in sight - can invent outrage out of thin air and prevail? It's not like it's a matter of opinion - again, no noose in sight - it's an argument against actual fact. I can't figure out a way to be on the winning side of this argument - either I say "no, madam, you obviously don't know what a noose looks like" and piss them off or I say "oh, gee, I see your point!" and take it down which I of course won't... because it's not a noose.

(Just thinking about it, though....I think those book pages that the drawing is on are from Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities...in which case a noose would have been entirely appropriate! I must check the next time I'm in there; I can't remember what book I used for it.)

Anyway, at least they didn't comp her food. While she seemed incapable of choking down her "outrage," she had no trouble with the crab cakes, apparently.

The Trip to Bountiful

2008-08-31T05:53:00.001-07:00

Enormous CSA basket this week. My mouth hurts from eating tomatoes already. That one yellowish stripey thing is some sort of Asian melon and I have no idea how to tell if it's ripe. The whitish thing to the right is a Lebanese squash, which tastes like regular squash. Two heads of lettuce. In August. That seems crazy. Seven pounds of tomatoes. Hahahaha. Seven pounds.

Eastward Ho! Days 9-11: The BORING states

2008-08-22T08:54:00.000-07:00

Did you think I died on my way through Oklahoma and Arkansas? Well I almost DID. OF BOREDOM.

After I left Dodge City, I drove straight south and was happy to see some sunflowers in the Sunflower State.

I tried to see some buffalo on a prairie preserve, but I didn't see any and the Beetle has low clearance and the road was a little rutted so I was worried about that so I turned around and kept going across the border to Oklahoma and on to Tulsa.

This is what all of Oklahoma looks like:

You have to pay to get on the roads into Tulsa, which is a big fat joke because you pay and then you pay again and then your reward is....Tulsa! I kid! Tulsa looked fun. I was happy to see my old friends J&D, though I was disappointed that their new house didn't smell like Indian food like most of the places I had been staying. We went out to dinner at somewhere fancy, which wasn't easy because every restaurant in Tulsa is closed up on Sundays, let me tell you. I guess they're all in church eating wafers one at a time. I had a fig salad and some scallops. I don't have a picture of that, but here's a picture of my Dodge City Across-the-Street steak from the previous night, as well as the weirdest creme brulee I've ever had, which the bartender set on fire in front of me.

Anyway, my friends had a houseguest who was, hmmm, let me be kind....five-star crazy is about right, I guess, but not in a funny way so I sort of felt like I was in the way a little and that maybe they were going to kill the crazy person later and put her in a trunk. So I got out of there the next day, not wanting to be a witness to anything.

This was the worst day, from Tulsa all the way to Nashville, almost ten hours, most of it in the rain. God I hate Arkansas. I have Arkanseen it.

And that is the end of the trip. Mom and Dad beat me back and they close on a house today. Champagne for everyone! But mainly for me.

Eastward Ho! Day 8: Pueblo, CO ---> Dodge City, KS

2008-08-10T06:28:00.000-07:00

Today was a sad day; this entire trip I've had it in my head that once I left Colorado, well, I was almost home. Through Kansas, drop down into Oklahoma for a nice dinner with my oldest friends in Tulsa and then straight through Arkansas - The Gem State! - and then home. And once I crossed the Kansas border, I admit I did feel a little down, though Kansas has a particular extreme quality that appeals to me. My disappointment doesn't have anything to do with Kansas itself, only that the geography is starting to signal the beginning of the end of one of the best things I've ever done. So the border crossing was bittersweet...and almost instantly classic Kansas.

Then on to Dodge City, which actually may be the saddest town I've yet visited. And I've been to Green River, Utah. By happy (?) coincidence, my friend Chris is either from here or maybe his grandmother just lives here...I never pay attention when he talks, so I don't really know. Anyway, he comes back to visit twice a year and is always telling me how awful it is and I always roll my eyes and say "now now, everyone says that about where they're from." WELL I WON'T SAY THAT ANY MORE. I asked the concierge (cough cough) about a decent place to eat and she recommended the Kentucky Fried Chicken. NOW. I don't have to have truffled risotto EVERY NIGHT but this is a strict no-fast-food trip. So I called Chris back in Nashville, who couldn't think of a place to recommend to me, so he called his fabulous father Charlie...who couldn't think of a place either, so he then called a friend who lives here and so on and so on and so on and in the end it looks like I'm having steak for dinner. Which makes sense, I guess, since I passed a hundred million cows in feed lots on the way into town. Yesterday I was in Royal Gorge; today, I am in the middle of a cattle feedlot, which I guess is a royal gorge of a different sort.

I made a quick trip to Boot Hill, an astonishingly tiresome imitation-recreation of an old west town built on a real site that would otherwise be compelling and interesting. It's too bad they don't know what they have; the actual museum is quite interesting (except for the part where you stand in a room and hear buffalo stampeding and the floor vibrates with threat; it's like that part at the Holocaust Museum where they make you walk through the train boxcar. Only different!) but it's all surrounded by so much fake stuff - the olde tyme ice creame parlore and the photographie shoppe and ye olde west footstoole museum - it sort of cancels the good stuff out. I like fake, but I like it to be completely sincere, if that makes any sense (though I will say...Dodge City houses the Kansas Teachers Hall of Fame & Gunfighters Wax Museum - THAT'S ONE THING in case you were wondering). This was very half-hearted fake, with local high school boys acting like cowboys and putting on medicine shows and not really bothering to believe any of it. It was a little like those people who when Halloween rolls around decide at the last second to dress up like a hobo because it's
easy.

Tomorrow, Oklahoma, which will be my first "new state" of the trip; I've been to all the others on the route before. Once I check off Oklahoma, I'll be up to 36 total. Stupid Nebraska; I've been all the way around it but never in it.

Oh and one more thing: when I was at Arches National Park, it seems Wall Arch collapsed. It has nothing to do with that Ziploc bag full of rocks in the car. NOTHING. I didn't even GO to Wall Arch.

Eastward Ho! Day 7: Grand Junction, CO ---> Pueblo, CO

2008-08-09T06:08:00.000-07:00

Friday was a big day so I was out of Grand Junction by 7. By the way, if by "Grand," they mean "confusing," then they named it right. Otherwise: no. It's a confusing town where directions involve "oh, that's at the corner of F and 23 and a half." Really? Go fuck yourself, Grand Junction.

Anyway! Off to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, a truly staggering place. Like Arches, there's nothing to do but look, hike and gasp. So if that's not your thing, scroll down and read about the tourist trap I went to. I went below the rim of Black Canyon for a two-mile hike - the Oak Flat Loop - and I don't know how on earth I could have forgotten my eye-popping experience at the Grand Canyon a few years ago when I forgot that every step down meant one back up. But it wasn't quite that hard and it allowed for some astonishing views of the almost 90-degree vertical walls of the north rim.

I did my loop, gasped for air as I came back up to the rim and then got in the car and visited the their overlooks, the most amazing one being Painted Wall, the highest cliff in Colorado.

Oh! SIDEBAR! About superlatives: When I was talking about Great Basin a few days ago, I said it was our newest national park. WELL IT'S NOT. Black Canyon of the Gunnison is newer. And I think Congareee in SC might be newer than that even; I'm not quite sure when it switched over from a National Monument or whatever the hell it was before it was an official Park.

I was there about three hours total (moderately okay gift shop, with two books I almost bought but decided to Amazon later), then I hopped in the car and headed east across the continental divide. 58 degrees.

Now...my original plan was to turn south in Salida and visit one more National Park - Great Sand Dunes National Park - before the big push east begins in earnest on Saturday. At the absolute last opportunity to do so before the turn, I noticed that if I did that, I'd miss Royal Gorge. So because I'm spontaneous and not really a slave to my travel book that I put together, that's what I did...headed to Royal Gorge, which has the world's highest suspension bridge.

And it's a hilarious tourist trap! I loved it! I rode a cable car over the gorge, I rode an incline railway down to the bottom of the gorge, I petted a bighorn sheep, I ate a funnel cake. I walked across the bridge and then drove across it as well. It bounces, which I know it's supposed to do but halfway across the bridge I started singing under my breath to the car "bang bang chitty chitty bang bang chitty chitty bang bang I love you" because I had the distinct feeling that I was about to need to fly and/or float when the bridge gave way.

So that was exciting, because the trip has been very heavy on natural beauty and spiritual blah blah and except for the Kokopelli Fried Chicken, not very chintzy. Royal Gorge is privately held, and like most things like that, it's rinky-dink,, poorly signage-d, not handicap-accessible in any way and looks borderline unsafe. Seriously, I expected at least five children to fall to their deaths there, it's so not well-designed safety-wise. I kept hoping anyway, but no dice. It really makes you admire the National Parks Service because in comparison, they're practically a model of organization and clarity. But! BEST GIFT SHOP ever, except for maybe the Trees of Mystery gift shop in Klamath, CA. I cut a swath through the Royal Gorge gift shop like a lumberjack with a chain saw. So check your stockings this Christmas!

On the way from Royal Gorge to Pueblo, I saw this sign. I have no idea what it means, but it works on many many levels.

Then I headed on to Pueblo to try and watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. How'd that guy run sideways up in the air like that? Those crazy Chinese! I did think the globe thing was cool, because when I was a child, I thought people in China walked upside down on the other side of the world because I was right-side up. And wa-la! There they were walking upside down!

Today I head to Dodge City, where I am scheduled to shoot the person of my choice on Main Street at sunset. Will it be you? Stay tuned!

Eastward Ho! Day 6: Moab, UT ---> Grand Junction, CO

2008-08-07T16:44:00.000-07:00

Today was a short day; I had to do some work and I had to get to a motel in time to do laundry, so I only did a couple of amazing things as opposed to the five million amazing things I've done every day so far.

I left Moab and took the Colorado River Road up past Fisher Towers, seen in every movie ever set in the west. I stopped and took some pictures but the parking lot was dirty-hippie infested so I didn't stay long. Today was overcast again, so the towers looked like the poked up into the clouds. Pretty dramatic.

Then on across the state line to Colorado National Monument outside Grand Junction; cloudy and rainy, which minimized visibility. Crappy gift shop, if you're keeping score. I can't figure out why the National Park Service gets t-shirts so consistently wrong.

Now the laundry's in. Motel breakdown so far: Motel 6es are the most consistent, though internet access is tricky and frequently not as advertised; one night I piggy-backed on a KOA wireless signal because the Motel 6 one was so weak. Travelodges are dirty. And the two indies I've been to were wildly different but both managed to smell like cheese.

Tonight, some small plates at some wine joint. Tomorrow: Black Canyon of the GUnnison National Park and then a loooong drive to Pueblo.

Eastward Ho! Day 5: Arches National Park

2008-08-06T19:32:00.000-07:00

Okay FIRST OFF let me just say that I'm awfully fucking glad I've been hiking almost every weekend this year because if I hadn't you'd be reading this in a somewhat different form...like engraved into my headstone, perhaps. I purposely didn't over-research this stop because I wanted something to be a surprise. Well....leave it to me to be "surprised" that everything I decided to do was either "strenuous" or "moderately strenuous" and the only difference I can detect between those two levels is the numbers of "where's the motherfucking parking lot"s mumbled under my breath. In case you were wondering, eleven for the former, seven for the latter.

I started the day with some sort of potato-bacon-cheese-vomit-skillet-y concoction at the local "diner." No counter! Means no diner! In my book, anyway.

I had done enough research to know that I wanted to hike into the Fiery Furnace, but it's ranger-led only, so you have to reserve in advance, which I did. 4pm. For a 3-hour hike. I went ahead and went to the park at 9am. I did an easy mile all the way around the Windows Arches, then a half mile over to Double Arch. La la la, no big deal, and Double Arch is pretty amazing.

Then back in the car and over to Delicate Arch, which if you are wondering what it looks like, just look at the Utah state quarter. Or look at the pictures below. I decide since I had so much time to kill - LIKE SEVEN HOURS - I would do the hike to the base of Delicate Arch. Three miles round trip. STRENUOUS. And they aren't kidding. A good mile of it was over a big "slickrock" and oh, did I mention it was overcast and lightly rainy? WELL IT WAS. And that is why they call it slickrock IN CASE YOU WERE ABOUT TO ASK. Which you were. It was HARD. And then, wa-la, there it is all of a sudden, a total surprise and you actually laugh out loud because it was so worth the hike. Lots of people at first, but it thinned the hour I was up there, down to just ten or so. Lunchtime! Anyway, I did a quick sketch and took some pics and then slipped and slid all the way back to the parking lot. I took my time, so this whole journey was over two hours; close to three actually.

Then some little side trips to Broken Arch (1.4 miles) and then I drove to the ends of where I could drive and then headed back to the place for the Fiery Furnace meet-up. Twenty-five people. Germans, French, ten Japanese (one was wearing a wig!), two indeterminate-nationality couples (I am confused by Belgians), a fatehr-son from Utah and me. We had a terrific ranger though I think they should teach her to say "don't touch the poison ivy" in Japanese because every time the Japanese did touch it, she'd just yell in English, louder. SIR! IT'S POISON! ITCHY ITCHY! ANd they'd keep right on fondling it like they were selecting salad greens. ANYWAY. Into the Fiery Furnace we went. It's a maze of hundred-feet high fins and I got lost EVEN THOUGH I WAS WITH TWENTY-FOUR OTHER PEOPLE and had to yell "hey LADY!" and it echoed around I guess until I was supposed to die and they came back for me. After that I stuck with the wig-wearing Japanese lady. It is impossible for me to oversell this hike. It's specTACular. Also? MODERATELY STRENUOUS. Which is no less strenuous than STRENUOUS but if they called it STRENUOUS, no one would pay ten dollars to do it. That's like paying to go to jail. This shit was hard...but beautiful. At one point, I had to put my feet on one wall and my ass on another and shimmy fifty horizontal feet on my ass. OR FALL TO MY DEATH. Eh, maybe.

Anyway, we threaded our way from canyon to crevice, arches overhead, little pools of water at our feet. It was a slippery three miles. But I'd do it again. IN ABOUT FIVE YEARS.

I do want to be sure that you all know how terrific I think Arches National Park is. There's not a lot of folderol; it's trails and nature and that's it. No lodge, no restaurant...but an excellent gift shop. I made out with this, part of the set that I collect....but only if I've been there. I ended up having a ten-plus-mile day, six of which were hard. So yay me.

Eastward Ho! Day 4: Part 2 - Moab

2008-08-05T16:10:00.000-07:00

No photos this time! Just observations.

Moab is the town nearest the entrances to Arches and Canyonlands. It is full of three kinds of things: hippies, Germans with funny pants, and people who take decorating with Kokopelli seriously. Ach, this Kokopelli. I used to work with this really hateful woman (Suzy and Chris, it's Kelly) who got a tattoo of Kokopelli on her ankle. When I saw it, I said SARCASTICALLY "hey, where'd you get that idea?" and she said "oooo DG, the image came to me in a dream. I got up and drew it; it's my own design." And I said, "really? Because I think you can buy a leather sofa embossed with that very same image from the Sundance catalog..." and then for months I tortured her by digging up other versions of her "original" design, all of them identical to the tiny smudge on her ankle. I even started calling her Koko for a little while but it didn't stick. I don't know who she was trying to fool. I mean, it was like me getting a cross tattooed on me and saying "I had this dream about a telephone pole...."

ANYWAY. Moab is full of those Kokopelli people. The same way Sedona, Arizona is, though it's maybe less New Age-y and more mountain bike-y. There are no fat people here, even though I know for a fact that you can get a stack of Kokopancakes.

Moab is also the home of Negro Bill Canyon, which I hiked a little bit of late this afternoon. Not much, just enough so I could say "Negro Bill" in conversation just to see what people do. NEGRO BILL NEGRO BILL NEGRO BILL. I HIKED it so I can SAY it.

Eastward Ho! Day 4: Part 1 - Canyonlands

2008-08-05T14:46:00.000-07:00

I won't go on and on about Canyonlands National Park, though it was pretty amazing....except for the crappy gift shop. I mean! I'm a spender and even I left empty-handed. Again....a deserted National Park. Everybody write that down: Mondays and Tuesdays are the days to go. I suspect Canyonlands is the unpopular sister with little boobs in comparison to Arches National Park's busty prom queen, because the line to get in the latter was long when I drove by it later in the day.

I heard a ranger do a talk about geology - boring! - and then hiked two different hikes, Mesa Arch and Upheaval Dome. Not two miles between them, no big deal. Here are some pictures. I'm now using two cameras...the little Kodak to do the panoramas and the Sony to do the rest. The Sony takes much much better pics...but it's heavier and I don't like carting it around.

Tomorrow, I feel up the prom queen at Arches.

Eastward Ho! Day 3: Ely, NV ---> Green River, UT

2008-08-04T18:29:00.000-07:00

Today was a loooong day so the post is going to be looong as well. If you don't like it, go read one of your favorite cats-are-cute blogs. YOU KNOW YOU HAVE ONE.

I got up bright and early in Ely and had breakfast in the casino. I have yet to have a meal not at a counter (rather than a table) and now that's one of my plans: to go the rest of the time without sitting at a table for a meal. Six-dollar steak and eggs to give me energy for the road. I was on my way to Great basin National Park but I took a side trip to Ward Ovens State Historical Park. The ovens made charcoal, which I thought just came out of the ground and got into bags and went to the grocery store. BUT NO! That is not the case. Back in ye olden tymes, they burned acres of piñon pine to get sixty bushels of charcoal and they did it in these beehive-shaped ovens. This was a really cool place, kind of spooky, and they had pictures of rattlesnakes everywhere - which I think they shouldn't do because then you look at the ground the whole time and don't see anything - and worth the hour-long detour. I art-ed up one of the shots for you because I can do that.

Then I headed sixty miles to Great Basin, our youngest National Park - at least that's what the book says. I would also argue that it's one of the ten least visited and that's really a shame. It's a gorgeous place, smack dab in the middle of nowhere, and there's no way to get to it easily...which I guess is why it's not very visited. I drove up Wheeler Peak and hiked the Alpine Lakes loop, an easy 2.5 mile hike, but my time constraint kept me from going further....I think I could have reached the summit if I had planned more time for this park visit. The lakes were really pretty and the water comes straight from a tiny snow field up on the peak. They call it a glacier because it moves stuff, but I thought that was really splitting hairs....but apparently it gets regulated differently if it's a glacier, so I'm sure my tax dollars are at work.

Then it was on to Utah, where they give you a wife just for crossing the state line! Utah kind of freaked me out right off the bat - it seemed designed to intimidate me...105 degrees! "No services next 185 miles"! TURN BACK NOW! And then there are salt flats for miles and miles, which just made me think if I had to walk ten feet on them, I would actually die from dehydration in five minutes.

I stopped in Salina for cherry pie. Another counter seat. A glass of milk. Not the best pie I've ever had, but it was good pie.

I was mad about having to hop on the interstate - I'm trying to stay off of them until Tulsa. But then! It turned out to be the most dramatic interstate in the world with all this crazy stuff to look at. They should put that on the Utah license plates: "Lots Of Crazy Stuff To Look At."

Tomorrow: Canyonlands.

Eastward Ho! Day 2: Fallon, NV ---> Ely, NV

2008-08-03T16:30:00.001-07:00

This is going to be a long post because I did a lot. If you have a problem with that, here's the short version: eggs, sand, prehistoric doodles, deserts, mountains, a castle, a hamburger, Pier 1 Imports, Eureka!, a neon cowboy. If you want to read the in-betweens, read on...

Today was all about Highway 50 across Nevada, the "Loneliest Road in America." It's not a fake name I just made up: it's on all the signs. It's also true. I counted and in almost three-hundred miles (not counting the two towns Austin and Eureka), I saw nine other cars.

After eating a skillet full of wok-charred broccoli covered with fried eggs (don't ask), I left Fallon around seven and was at Grimes Point just east of Fallon in a few minutes. Grimes Point has a trail that loops around that features some petroglyphs that predate Christ (IF HE EVER EXISTED) by about 5000 years - so suck on that, Dead Sea Scrolls. It was a short half mile loop but really interesting. You do wonder what they all mean - no one's really sure but I think they were meant to remind themselves where the good hunting was. Like the loopy figure eight thing means jack-rabbit or something. Or maybe it means "here's where stupid Ungoohoo with the glasses got speared himself in the foot and died." I don't think it's really words. Anyway, did you know you aren't supposed to remove any of the rocks with petroglyphs on them from the site? WELL YOU'RE NOT. And even if you were, they're really heavy. I HEAR. But the light colored rocks with the honeycombings are pick-right-uppable. ALLEGEDLY.

Just thirty more miles got me to Sand Mountain, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's a HUGE - 600 feet tall! - sand dune mountain and at the base of it, there's like this camp of dirty-looking boys, all on ATVs trying to ride up the thing. I didn't see a single lady, but that just proves what I've always known: women are smart. Anyway, they were like a secret society, like that stupid Knightriders movie where Ed Harris led a Renaissance Faire motorcycle gang. They all looked at me funny, but maybe that's because I was prancing around in my plaid flip-flops taking pictures of a big pile of sand with Dolly Parton blaring out the open door of the Beetle.

Okay, so then just a mile or so away was Sand Springs, which was a Pony Express station back in the whenever. This one was under sand until 1978 or something, when it was discovered. So that was neat. I gotta say: the Pony Express looked really hard. The way I'm going had a lot of Pony Express stations and they were all so desolate and lonely-looking. I bet all those station masters drank like nobody's business. I started thinking how if somebody was smart, they'd buy one up and fix it up and turn it into a coffee bar called The Pony Espresso. Now that I've said that, you watch: I'll see one tomorrow.

Okay! So then a few miles later was the Shoe Tree, a tree full of shoes. I have no idea, but it's the exact sort of dumb stupid thing I slam on the brakes for, which is exactly what I did and then the cooler full of wine tipped over and a bunch of ice went all over the place so I hate the stupid Shoe Tree.

The next stop was Austin, whick is just a hair off being the geographical center of Nevada, but I can tell you this: it is in the exact geographical center of Nowhere. It's a tiny old west town that hasn't been all fixed up like the ones in California; I didn't see a single scented candle or jar of apple butter for sale. I did see a hamburger, however, at the International Hotel and Cafe.

I also visited Stokes Castle, a faux medieval tower built in the late 1800s for some dumb reason or another. Look it up; I can't remember. It looked out over the amazing Reese River Valley, though, so I was all for it. When I got out of the car, I couldn't figure out why it smelled like Pier 1. Then it hit me: piñon pine. Remember when they used to sell piñon pine incense? Anyway, that's what it smelled like. I was looking around for a papa-san chair as well.

I also went to the Gridley Store, mentioned (scroll down to Chapter XLV) in Mark Twain's Roughing It. It's a complicated tale, so you can read the pertinent chapter here, except for Chicago Meg, who hates Mark Twain for some reason. Frankly, I think that's like hating air or Emma Thompson, but okay whatever. Anyway, it's an interesting sidebar, the chapter from Roughing It. I still don't get why anyone would buy a sack of flour that had already been sold.

Just a few miles past that was another set of petroglyphs at Hickison Summit. Still interesting, though I got a definite snake vibe from this trail, so I didn't dilly-dally. Because if I see a snake, I will abandon my mother's car immediately and fly home.

Then, a quick drive through Eureka. I didn't stop.

But I did see twin dirt devils, which was pretty groovy.

And now I am in Ely, on the eastern side of the state - you should check back because I think Ely has a happening nightlife...I mean, there is a neon prospector on the side of the hotel I'm staying in and so far, they've called me twice to see if I'd like my free margarita yet. The middle of Nevada is crazy extreme but also really beautiful. It might contain not only the loneliest road in America, but also the loveliest. I'd come back in a heartbeat.

Eastward Ho! Day 1: Lodi, CA ---> Fallon, NV

2008-08-02T15:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, let's get things rolling with the right kind of start. I needed breakfast!:

I'll leave it to you to guess whether I stopped or not. Okay, so Day 1 featured about fifty different kinds of landscapes, and since I drove lass than 250 miles, that's saying something. I left Lodi at 7 and made my way out of the San Joaquin valley up into the Sierra foothills to Placerville. Now I have mentioned Placerville before, when I made a Hangtown Fry at my house last year. When Mom and I went to Placerville ("Hangtown") a few years ago, we were foiled in our search for one. But not this time! I ended up at Chuck's ("American and Chinese Food! Serving Hangtown Fry since 1964!" -- mmm hmmm, FIVE STAR CRAZY), which was a vintage diner without a trace of irony. I have almost a chemical allergy to fake nostalgia, so I was very excited when I walked in and it was all original and clean clean. I ordered the Hangtown Fry and hash browns and ten minutes later, voila, I was eating it. Criminally good, but I would have said that even if it had turned out awful because I've been thinking about having it for so many years. I chatted with Gwen the waitress (SHE STARETED IT so SHUT. UP.) a bit and then I drove away, my belly full of eggs, bacon and oysters.

An hour later, I crested Echo Pass and holy moly, there was Lake Tahoe in all it's obscene beauty. Saturday at Lake Tahoe was a bit of a mistake; there were fifty million people there. I hiked a little bit at Emerald Bay, but there really were just too many people for me to enjoy it, so I scenic drove more than I had planned. Then back around the south end of the lake and up the east side, where I stopped at Logan Shoals and had Deep Thoughts while I stared at the lake. Let me just say: the Sierras do not suck in the scenic department.

Then like ten feet later...the crazy-looking Nevada side of the Sierras. It looks like the moon! If I had come across America in 1840 in a freaking covered wagon, I would have started sobbing immediately upon setting eyes on the Sierras and turned around and wagon wheeled it back to Boston, or wherever the hell I was from. That side was seriously foreboding looking. Oh and within twenty minutes of driving, the temperature went from 78 to 105. And now I am in Fallon, where it looks like a dust storm is moving through. They don't put that on the brochure, you know. But now I am fixated on getting a tumbleweed. I can just put it in the corner of the living room, next to all those dust bunnies. Anyway, here's a picture of a threatening thundercloud, Nevada-style.

J-E-A-L-O-U-S

2008-07-31T14:15:00.000-07:00

Sweet fancy Moses! My parents bought a teardrop trailer, only my #1 most-desired thing on the planet. And it's apparently not a gift! I don't know what they're thinking; it's so clearly meant to be mine it isn't even funny, ha ha, no I am not laughing.

I arrived in California today to pick up Mom's suspiciously-un-towbar-equipped VW Beetle to drive back across America to Tennessee. Imagine how much motel money I would save if I could bring back the teardrop trailer as well! But no, they're having none of it; they have some big idea that they're going to camp in it when they drive back next week. I KNOW! Rude!

More about this unforeseen development later, when I can speak without hissing.

At Long Last...Tile.

2008-07-27T14:28:00.000-07:00

A miraculous weekend, where a fabulous tile guy showed up on a Saturday and tiled our backsplash and actually showed back up on Sunday to grout it. I almost fell over at his conscientiousness (I spelled that without looking it up, by the way). And the kitchen is a little miracle now. Only the floor left to go...

We also had some undermount lights hard-wired, though one of them electrocutes me when I touch it so I think the electrician has to come back. I mean...I like a jolt in the morning, but I prefer to get it from a little Bailey's in my coffee.

It's Hot Where I Live

2008-07-21T09:46:00.000-07:00

So a hiking update. It's been crazy hot and I admit I have missed a couple of weekends but Sunday I was determined to do something so Sister Meg and I hiked on part of the Nashville greenways system. An easy two and a half flat miles but ohmigod it was so crazy hot I thought I was going to kill myself and all the people around me. My friend Carol says when marathoners are thirsty they lick the roofs of their mouths. Well I tried it and it did most definitely not give me the pause that refreshes. Anyway, we hiked up to the fancy new pedestrian bridge over the Cumberland river that connects the middle of nowhere to the area slightly to the east of the middle of nowhere. It's a nice multi-million dollar bridge and here is a picture of Sister Meg standing on it. Wearing the world's nuttiest hiking costume. That is not a skirt; they're like plaza pants shortened to gaucho length.

My Tattoo's Not Fading, But My Memory Is

2008-07-17T07:57:00.001-07:00

Yeah, I don't know what it means. I can't remember. I've had it for almost twenty years and I have a vague memory of my ex-roommate Allison's ex-boyfriend having a similar tattoo and while he was a perfectly nice guy, I'm not sure I would have just outright copied him, so it must have had some Deeper Other Meaning which is now lost to the annals of time. I know there's a snake in a circle - an ouroboros - and there's a fish and what used to be flames (I think yellow fades first) that now look more like a flower. Hmmm, it's a puzzlement.

I still love it though, and it's easy to hide. I have some friends who've known me for over a decade who say "when did you get that?" when I get particularly hand-flappy, which I guess happens pretty often. It also comes up at drive-through windows pretty often with people asking "gosh, did that hurt?" I usually respond "like a motherfucker." Because that much I do remember...

Also, I have no idea why my knuckle looks so swollen. I mean, it is a little swollen from where I smacked it on a hard surface by accident but this scan exaggerates it. I look like I have an alien hand.

Sonker Mania

2008-07-08T11:03:00.000-07:00

So, I think I had gone over a week without turning on the oven until July 4th, and even then it was only to make a sonker. "A sonker?" you ask. Mmm hmmm, sonker. Mom says "zonker" with a z, but all the research I turned up has it with an s. It's an odd thing, like a puffy fruit cobbler, specific to western North Carolina, and even there to just a small area - there's even a Sonker Festival (yes, I'm going). If you look at the blackboard picture, you can see the recipe (though the list on the upper left is not part of the recipe...as far as I can recall, a sonker does not require the inclusion of any Miller High Life; also, there is no grapefruit juice involved. The blackboard is Complicated). We used blackberries. Mom said on the phone "now this is Ellen Church's recipe, so if you don't like it you can just blame her." One of the recipe instructions - according to Ellen Church - was "DON'T RUIN IT BY STIRRING IT!" But! There was no reason to take it up with Ellen Church because it was delicious. Of course, it had a stick of butter in it so I don't know how it couldn't be.

The rest of the menu was grilled: corn and chicken. Oh, and watermelon salad. It looked like a magazine photo when it was all put on the platter together. I try to keep food porn off this blog, but I couldn't resist. With the CSA basket starting to overflow now, you're pretty much looking at the menu for the rest of the summer. Poor me.

A Shaved Cat and Something That Scares Me

2008-07-01T08:20:00.000-07:00

Absolutely nothing of interest happened this whole livelong week, so now this blog is officially like every other blog on the internet, posting pictures of cats. I went on a pretty difficult five-mile hike with my friend Carol and sort of hurt my foot a little bit. I went to a Slow Food hot dog thing where they were selling crazy artisan hot dogs. I had my cat shaved.

Then I saw this truck. It's been parked in this space for a few days and has tickets on the windshield. I am secretly hoping all the bodies of the Word Championship Barbershop Quartet singers are stacked up in the back, because almost nothing scares me quite as much as a barbershop quartet. And I just found out this very minute that the International Headquarters for that stuff is just feet from my office! What if I run into one of them on the street? Good thing the Supreme Court says I can use a handgun in self-defense. Which I will totally do if I hear any unsolicited four-part harmony.

B-I-N-G-uh-O!

2008-06-24T21:34:00.000-07:00

Let's get right to it! On the spur of the moment tonight, my friend Beth Lee called me to go with her to Drag Queen Bingo at a local boîte. For those of you who are shut-ins or Republicans, Drag Queen Bingo is where a drag queen calls out all the letter and number combinations for a few rounds of Bingo, interspersed with some lip-syncing and arm-flailing. She tells filthy jokes and demands cocktails and every now and then awards a prize to whomever managed to decipher the letter/number combinations she apparently yelled out in between filthy jokes. It's free and it's spectacular.

Our hostess this evening was the Pantomine Rage, Miss Bianca Paige. She has a voice that makes Harvey Fierstein sound like Dawn Upshaw...seriously. I waited tables with Bianca years and years ago (she was plain old Mark then) at a dive restaurant and I was flattered that tonight she almost remembered me. We made a lot of money back in the old days at that dump even though all we did that whole entire job was drink peppermint schnappes nonstop. She's now blind in one eye because she was having "safe sex" in her armpit with a gentleman acquaintance who, hmmm, climaxed into her eye and thus blinded her. I'm sure it was awful, but it's a funny story when she tells it, I swear, even though she had to wear an eye patch for like a year. MOM! You can quit reading now!

I won the second game. The prize was two tickets to a Nashville Sounds baseball game. Yes, a Wild Turkey-drinking drag queen awarded me two tickets to a baseball game. I'm sure I'll get called out onto the, uh, mound and recognized. I do like a baseball game, so that worked out. Other prizes throughout the night included edible pasties, Virgin bubble bath ("It grows your lips back together!") and some other borderline filthy items. I was surprised how tense Bingo can make a person. I've never wanted to hear N-41 so badly in my whole life. Also, you got a free beer every time she called out "O-69," which she managed to do about four times every round. We drank a lot of that and also Maker's Mark.

You'll be surprised to learn that this is not my first run in with Drag Queen Bingo. A few years ago, I went to visit my friends Jeff and David in Washington DC, just after 9-11, and we went to some crazy-assed steakhouse where the exact same thing was going on. That night, I won the first game and received a hideous ceramic napkin holder, which I insisted Jeff and David keep. They subsequently moved to Tulsa, where I'm sure it's the chicest thing within the city limits. ANYWAY. Standing date now, anyone who comes to town on a Tuesday: you're going to see a sexually-blinded one-eyed drag queen yell Bingo numbers for a few hours. Consider yourself ~~warned~~ blessed.

(photos: Beth Lee)

Oh God, the Moon Pie Festival

2008-06-23T08:52:00.001-07:00

I can't really explain it. Really. Just put all these words in your brain: Moon Pie, RC Cola, Goo Goo Cluster, Holy Grail, Wading Pool, General Hospital star Lane Davies, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Queen Bowel-ina, Mother Goo, and Jazz Hands. Now: mix them up and try to come up with a plot for it all. No matter what you invent, it will never approach the sheer insanity of the Moon Pie Festival.

Here I am! I'm the one with the shapely legs!

World's Largest Moon Pie. Bigger than it looks.

A woman dressed as a Goo Goo cluster, frolicking in the Holy Grail with two shirtless teenagers. You know: the usual.

RC and Moon Pie: 2gether 4ever!

Jazz hands.

Garden of Eden

2008-06-19T10:42:00.001-07:00

I went out to lovely Bon Aqua yesterday afternoon to my friends Suzy and Jason's farm to celebrate the birthday of Jason's oldest daughter Kelsey, who lives in Australia now and looks just like Olivia Newton-John, which she didn't like me saying over and over. Jason has struggled for years getting the garden to really work. He's on the road a lot being a rock star, so a lot of the work is left to Suzy to do and well, sometimes things get away from her.

For the past two years, though, Jason designed the garden as a series of raised boxes. And it's perfection - there's landscape cloth down under the entire garden and then each box is filled with produce of various sorts. Not a single weed. It's surrounded by a mildly-electrified fence to keep rabbits and raccoons out. I wish I was a better picture-taker, because it really does look like a magazine layout. Jason built all the out-buildings from scrap lumber, including this little garden shed. It's the sort of garden I always thought I could handle if I could ever figure out how to do.

By the way, the Americana Music Association is honoring Jason and his band, Jason and the Scorchers, this year with a Lifetime Achievement award. It's a big deal.

Kitchen Update

2008-06-18T06:06:00.001-07:00

I know. You're on the edge of your seat. But we selected the tile for the backsplash and it's on the way. Zen Moonlight. that was almost a dealbreaker, that name. Not stupid expensive, $15 per square foot. We don't need much...somewhere around 25 square feet. Should be here next week.

Blackboard Bungle

2008-06-09T17:09:00.000-07:00

So! Making a chalkboard wall is easy. But messy! I looked like a dalmatian when it was all over, desperately looking for my parents, Pongo and Perdita. Also? Putting a vase of sunflowers in a room makes everything better. We're waiting on backsplash tile samples to arrive but I think it might be a combo of clear white and grey, but I can't say that out loud or Sister Meg will choose the pink.

Consumer Report: Kitchen

2008-06-06T05:53:00.000-07:00

Some of you may know that Chez Strong has been undergoing a double bathroom renovation for over two years. I'll post more about that disaster one day, when I can do it without typing "motherfucker" over and over for three weeks. What you might not know is that we decided to do a kitchen update - on a whim! - about six weeks ago. In contrast with the bathroom nightmare, i's going along swimmingly so far - we're doing it through different people, and they seem delighted to show up the other contractor. The new counters and sink went in yesterday. Before:

Annnnnnd After:

This weekend, the chalkboard paint goes up on two walls. We're back to the drawing board on the backsplash. Our initial selections looked a little "off-the-shelf" and we want something, um, specialer. So we're on the hunt for some white glass tiles that aren't $35 per square foot. It'll go all the way down to the counter - we got rid of that stupid little two inch thing that was at the back of the counter. Why do people have that?

Yeah, About That Guide to Life

2008-06-05T07:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, after posting How To Fold a Dishtowel, my wheels got to churning and I decided to dedicate a blog solely to that. It seems like a different animal than this Observation blog. So here ya go....bookmark away if you dare!

The Psychopedia: Crazy Stuff Everyone Should Know

DG's Guide to Life: Episode 1

2008-06-04T13:16:00.001-07:00

The first in a series! Once a week, I show you how to do something. I know...you're on the edge of your seat. This week...folding a dishtowel! Thank me later, when harmony has been restored to your household. Click to make it printably large and suitable for framing.

Hallefuckinggoddamnedlujah!

2008-06-03T18:50:00.000-07:00

Next up: I want my country back.

YSL, RIP

2008-06-02T07:33:00.000-07:00

Yves Saint Laurent died yesterday. I have no real personal connection to him, though it does seem like someone who was truly a giant in his field is gone and that's always sad. ANYWAY! Here's a picture from the Elkin (N.C.) Tribune of my mother with Saint Laurent back in November of 1965, less than a year before I was born. She was in "Fashion School" in Atlanta and YSL came to visit. When I first saw this clipping, I briefly entertained the idea that they had had a torrid affair and maybe - just maybe - he was my father. Wouldn't that have been fun? But I already knew who my father was so perhaps there was some wine involved when I cooked up this theory. And also for that to happen, I would have had to be an eleven-month pregnancy and also YSL would have had to, you know, like women that way. But if he was gonna switch over...just look at her! Va-va-voooom!

Six Miles, Soaking Wet and Some Other Stuff

2008-05-29T09:42:00.001-07:00

Monday, Chicago Meg and I headed out to Montgomery Bell State Park. Before you ask me the burning question, here's who the hell Montgomery Bell was. He was the "Iron Master of Middle Tennessee" which is, coincidentally a pageant you can enter to win, I think, and also one of the levels Dungeons and Dragons nerds aspire to. ANYWAY. We were itching for a longer hike than we had managed to do the previous week at Big South Fork, and MBSP was just the place. We hiked the Northeast Loop of the Montgomery Bell Trail; six miles total. Pretty hike across a ridge, then down into a hollow and next to a creek for a while, then down a logging road and circling back past Creech Hollow Lake and back to the start. I won't bore you with the details; this guy describes it pretty perfectly, including the confusion about that sign. It rained on us the last two or three miles but that wasn't as irritating as you might imagine. Cooling off was a welcome relief. Chicago Meg was having allergy problems, so I think it was tough on her, though. Six miles might have been pushing it.

Then we went to visit Crazy Suzy and her daughters, one of whom is my goddaughter. We had a lovely vegetarian lunch (seriously, Suzy whips up vegetarian stuff that almost convinces me it isn't insane - oh and keep your veggie-propaganda out of the comments! I'll just delete them!) and then were, um, "treated" to a talent show that seemed to involve Alvin and the Chipmunks, High School Musical, and, hmmm, perhaps the Manson Family. That's really the only explanation for what we witnessed, which I can't really even begin to explain, though I will give them some serious credit for writing a song called "I Like Pie" on the spur of the moment which was not the worst song I have ever heard about pie, not by a long-shot. We sat on a screened-in porch and drank some wine and watched a raccoon eat all the cat food they keep in the playhouse. They're freaky little things, aren't they? Fact of the Day: they are the Official Wild Animal of Tennessee. A raccoon is also the mascot of the Tennessee Titans, for some damned reason I can never figure out. So stuff that in your trivia hat.

I forgot to bring my camera, so you'll have to imagine it all with your pointy head but here are some pictures from my garden. It's all perennials; I don't think I've put in a single thing this year except that fern and the herbs. I love not having to do anything and still getting all this lush reward. Things are a little weedy right now, but not too bad. If you don't like it, you can come weed a little.

Campasaurus Rex, Part Two! Big South Fork: Days 3 & 4

2008-05-27T08:56:00.000-07:00

We woke up Sunday morning to hike the 6-mile Honey Creek Loop. This hike has an almost legendary status in Tennessee and has been called "the hardest hike in Tennessee" (mainly by the crazy hiking ladies from a few months ago at Beaman Park, but whatever). I have had an almost laser-like focus on it for months and it was pretty much the whole reason I wanted to go to Big South Fork in the first place. We ate chicken sausage and polenta and then got into Loretta....right as it started to sprinkle. This was bad news: in addition to not really wanting to hike in the rain, part of the Honey Creek trail is literally in a creek bed and you hike about two-tenths of a mile up the creek. If the water is high, it's not do-able at all. We headed to the trailhead, with me being wishy-washy about it all of a sudden, saying "oh let's just forget it!" and then five seconds later saying "let's do it!" and then five seconds after that saying "what do you think?" so welcome to passive-aggressive Sunday, everybody! In the end, we did decide to go ahead and attempt the hike - the weather ended up being agreeable and sunny. We got to the trailhead and started out briskly, yodelling Alpine tunes with our hats cocked jauntily and descended into the dark woods. I might be misremembering a bit of that. It's an unbelievably beautiful hike. Soaring rock walls, waterfalls (Moonshine Falls and Hideout Falls), bleeding heart.

We did end up only doing half of the hike - at the halfway point, there's a steep set of ladders that get you to the overlook above the Big South Fork and my left knee was bothering me just a bit - we still had the creek-walking to go and I was really worried I might get "stuck" and not be able to go forward or backward on a bum knee. So I played it conservatively and we skittered up the ladders and back to the trailhead a mile or so away. But! I will go back - maybe even later this summer - and hike the whole thing. Because if that's the hardest hike in Tennessee, I'm a fucking mountain goat.

Then we meandered over to the historic town of Rugby. Rugby is a preserved Victorian town that was some sort of Utopian society back in the old days and it's now all preserved "just as it was" which means I have figured out why they all died out and that's because all they lived on was horehound candy and salt water taffy, from the looks of the "just how it was" stuff. They happened to be having a festival that celebrated British and Appalachian culture and you know what that means - it's like a Renaissance Faire! I quelled my initial urge to just gun the engine and run over everyone walking around in bonnets and breeches and we walked around and looked at stuff. Native plants for sale. A lady that made pocketbooks out of old bark-cloth ("the perfect size for your Bible!" Boy was she the stupidest woman on earth or what? I almost said "yeah, about that. What do you have for athiests and/or Jews?" but I didn't.) Then! A lady who was yanking the fur off of a rabbit and spinning it into yarn right in front of my eyes! It was like magic! Especially when I asked if she was gonna pluck that rabbit bald and without missing a beat she said "yes, and then I make him a little rabbit cozy" which pretty much made my ears stand up on high alert and I demanded to see a photo of a rabbit cozy and she pulled one right out. So a rabbit gets all his fur yanked out, it gets spun into a rabbit cozy and then put back on him! I thought it was sort of like making a cow wear a leather jacket. Eh, sort of. Then we watched the crazy people who were taking this shit seriously do a maypole dance. Yes, that's a black person doing a maypole dance. Leave it to East Tennessee to whiten up the only brother in a hundred-mile radius.

Back to camp! Where we finally got the campfire going. Grilled flank steak, potatoes in foil, roasted red pepper slabs. Good eatin'! We both read a little, and stared into the campfire - which was quite large by the end of it, so much so that I had my chair like fifty feet from it, which cancelled out even needing a campfire, I guess, but la la la. Campfire! Then off to bed.

We woke up Monday and sort of lazily started breaking down camp. We packed up Loretta and headed off to the last hike of the trip, a short out and back to Twin Arches. Chicago Meg says they must be fraternal twins because they don't look alike, and then she told me a funny story about her friend Judy who has twins, a boy and a girl, and how people are always asking her if they're identical. People are so dumb. ANYWAY. The two arches are really impressive - you can't see them until you're RIGHT THERE under them. We figured out there must be a vantage point where you can see both, but we couldn't figure out exactly where it would be. We are writing letters demanding clearer signage. Then back to the car and, sadly, home. Which is not at all like Big South Fork.

Campasaurus Rex! Big South Fork: Days 1 & 2

2008-05-23T07:30:00.000-07:00

So! The camping trip! Chicago Meg and I left Nashville around 10am on Friday; we had to drop off her dog Cooper at Almost Home in Carthage, the all-lesbian, all-fabulous home-away-from-home for dogs. They romp around (the dogs, not the lesbians. Though maybe. Oh nevermind) on acres and acres of wooded hilltop. It's a really pretty place but almost impossible to actually drive to. They normally do pick-up and drop-off in Nashville, but since we were headed that way anyway, we opted to just do the drop-off ourselves. Back in the Element and via back roads we made our way to Jamestown, on the edge of Big South Fork. Ominous heavy sprinkling rain on the way there, which made Chicago Meg a little tight-lipped, as I had promised no rain and no cold. Because all of that is within my power.

We arrived at BSF and made our way to the tent-only loop (Loop A, for those of you who care about such things) which is nice because you don't have to hear anybody's generator or - more importantly - child. We quickly set up camp becasue we wanted to try and do a little bit of hiking before the sun set. We did about a mile on the John Litton Farm Loop, which was full of rockhouses and lady's slipper and giant thirty-foot tall rhododendron, which was all amazing. The air was misty, which made everything feel Jurrassic Park-y, moist giant ferns and coo-coo-coo-ing of whatever strange birds were up in those woods. Back to camp.

Where! The temperature was dropping ominously. We had previously laughed at the hypothermia warning on the board at the washouse but now we weren't laughing so much because our larynxes had frozen solid. We had no luck getting the campfire lit - we had plenty of starter paper and big logs but absolutely no kindling-sized wood for the middle part. This was officially NOT. GOOD. I cooked up some lamb burgers on the camp stove and we had some wine and then played a couple of games of cribbage. Cribbage was new to me but I won two games, so maybe I'll play that again.

It was seriously cold. I might have been able to sleep if I hadn't heard Chicago Meg whispering ARE. YOU. FUCKING. KIDDING. ME? from the next tent over and over, like every ten minutes all night long. There was also some loud-assed bird, the Chuck's-will-widow (second one down) making its godforsaken mating call or some other cawing all goddamned night long. I got maybe an hour of sleep and I know Meg got even less. I felt badly because so far, camping was not being very much fun for her.

The next day, we got up to a much warmer, much clearer day and we were up EARLY! because we had to drive to the river raft place to go white water rafting on the Cumberland River. After a quick breakfast of granola, fruit and yogurt, we hightailed it up into Kentucky, through Cumberland Falls State Park ("The Niagara of the south!" Uh, okay then, whatever you say) and onto Sheltowee Trace Outfitters, where we were dismayed to find that all the other people rafting with us were Boy Scouts, which actually turned out to be cool because the ones in our boat (Tyler, Tony and Droopy - I'm not making that up) were pretty cool kids. And there was one other person, the receptionist from the Outfitter, who had never rafted before. We think they made her do it. She was a big fucking baby, practically crying before we even got in the boat.

Our river guide's name was Brian, but he insisted that we call him "River Dawg," and let me tell you: the chances of me ever calling anyone "River Dawg" are pretty damned infinitesimal. But! I did it. He was absolutely fantastic; I was pretty much doubled over with laughter before we got in the boat because he looked right at Chicago Meg and me and asked "do you guys mind if I dip?" and then he proceeded to dip and spit in the river all day long, even when offing us sips of water from his bottle ("uh, no thanks, River Dawg..."). He was chock full of good stories, and they all started something like this: "I dated NASCAR driver Ernie Ervin's sister-in-law till I figgered out she was cotton-pickin' crazy!" or "I watched Larry the Cable Guy last night and plumb fell off the couch laughin'!" Then he told some nutty story about how the Indians named Daniel Boone "Sheltowee," which is some Indian word for turtle, which they chose because he supposedly fought on his back. Which sounded like a not very good way to fight to us, so we've sent that factoid off to the New Yorker magazine fact checking department for verification.

ANYWAY. So we went down the river. We got through two Class I rapids with no worries (except the damned receptionist girl whimpering non-stop) and then we got to Center Rock (Class II - maybe III, I can't remember) and ta-da! We flipped the boat over! A gaggle of Boy Scouts everywhere, flapping their arms. Chicago Meg trapped beneath the boat. Fat-assed Donkey Girl blubbering and exaggerating and not dying fast enough. DG serenely swimming to a little pool and collecting all the paddles everybody threw into the river. Flipping over was the awesomest thing of the day - no sooner were we back in the boat than Chicago Meg, the Boy Scouts, River Dawg and me were all "let's do it again!" and the Donkey Girl practically started crying and in what would be the theme of the rest of her dialogue all day long, insisted that we let her out before every rapid. River Dawg refused (except once, he did let her out) and that dumb girl seemed hell bent on ruining the trip for the rest of us; she basically quit paddling, which prevented us from being aggressive on some of the runs. The best part was when she asked River Dawg if the next one was gonna be bad. His response was, "no sugar, it's gonna be awesome!" But we made it through anyway - past Pinball, down the Staircase, Screaming Right, Purgatory, Last Drop. 5 miles of rapids, then five miles of drift to the takeout. Lunch on Jump Rock, at the halfway mark. The whole thing was great but if I ever see that receptionist again, I'm going to drown her.

Back in the car for the drive back to camp; a stop at East Rim and the Leatherwood Ford. A very short walk at Leatherwood Ford - solomon's seal and trillium lined the trail. Back at camp, delicious white bean stew, Renwood Zin and a whomping good game of Scrabble where Chicago Meg came from waaaaay behind to beat me in the final round. A warm night, which was lucky since we were still having no luck with the campfire, despite the one and a half gallons of lighter fluid I put on there. Here's a little proof that Chicago Meg did indeed go camping, since there are so many of you who don't think it's possible.

Why You MIGHT Not Want to Go Camping With Me

2008-05-15T08:29:00.000-07:00

So the big camping trip starts tomorrow! Four days at Big South Fork with Chicago Meg. Three hikes, one river raft. Planning this thing has been like planning the Normandy invasion. And there are MENU CARDS! With GRAPHICS on them! I KNOW! Chicago Meg should be very very afraid. OR THRILLED!

Why People Who DON'T Live in California Hate the People Who DO

2008-05-07T10:26:00.001-07:00

Last weekend took me to the magical land of California for a whirlwind weekend of Bob's birthday revelry, art acquisition and wine-drinking. I flew into Sacramento on Friday and had dinner with Mom and Dad in Lodi (sloppy joes, a food I never ever think about but really really LOVE) and then the next day we hopped into the car and drove over to Vallejo to surprise Bob. We drank champagne in the middle of the day and then went wine-tasting in Sonoma, at Bartholomew Park. A short hike up into the hills above the winery, a short hike back down, then on to Buena Vista for a few more sips of something or other and a whole lot of attitude. But I promised to quit bitching about it already. Then several fierce rounds of petanque, then dinner - New York strips, pasta tossed with parmesan and favas from Karen's garden, salad. Wine. WINE. Wine.

Sunday we went to Alameda for the flea market, which you aren't supposed to call a flea market but instead something la-ti-da like the Alameda Old Stuff Sale or WHATEVER. They had everything you can imagine there except an ATM, which was weird and insanely frustrating. I ended up getting an engraving of a birds' nest just by being nice: the guy said "oh, send me a check whenever." So that was nice (and yes, I've since sent the check). Then we ate and window-shopped in Berkeley for a little while, then home to Lodi for outdoor hamburgers with the neighbors.

The whole weekend was a big fat argument for moving to California: champagne, wine, fava beans, free stuff. On the way back Monday, I got my usual coming-back-from-CA blues, trying to figure out why I live where I live. La la la. Maybe one day.

OhmigodOhmigodOhmigodOhmigodOhmigod

2008-04-28T15:59:00.000-07:00

Okay. Breathe. We're still not completely done yet but the BIG THINGS are finished. I give you THE DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM! This is the bathroom with the year-long sink saga; we started with this sink but, due to a design flaw in the sink itself, it wouldn't empty properly; there'd always be a little pool of water. The one nice thing Expo has done is that they let me choose a different (much more expensive) sink and they didn't charge the difference, though after two years, I would have been very surprised (and hissy-fittish) if they had. This new wall-mount sink solves a lot of problems: you see more of the floor (which I love) and the basin itself is a little more substantial. That medicine cabinet is temporary; a wall-mounted mirror is going in as soon as I save the money for that. The sink itself has a partitioned drawer that's much bigger, so I can lose the medicine cabinet storage.

And! They moved the toilet back against the wall, so I no longer have a walk-behind can. Only three things left in the whole house: seal the stone floor, re-bead a glass shower wall and install the laundry room counter backsplash. You too could live your bathroom fantasies....just twenty-seven months later!

Bonus Hike! And? Lost!

2008-04-27T13:44:00.000-07:00

The Sunday Morning Hiking Club met again today, even though the President and Vice-President hiked yesterday at Grundy Forest. We did, after all, have 10,000 carbs to work off after our visit to the National Cornbread Festival and Crazy Person Convention. No other members of the Sunday Morning Hiking Club showed up today, however (probation looms, in your future, people), so it was still strictly an Executive Branch sort of hike. Chicago Meg and I headed out to Hamilton Creek Park to conquer the Pinnacle Trail. This is actually a mountain biking trail, but we only ran into a single lone biker.

Okay, this was one crazy, meandering hike. I swear there's only like ten acres of land or something but this thing snakes around a lot more than you might think. Mostly woods-hiking, but there were a lot of different micro-climates jammed into a very small area: woodland, meadow, rocky, suburban split levels. The trail book says it's only five miles but there's no way that's true. This was not a difficult trail, very gentle up and down, but we were EXHAUSTED at the end so we're sure the mileage is wrong. The map doesn't really reflect exactly how many trail junctions there were - and not a single one of them was marked. We kept passing slightly-unofficial-looking markers that seemed to be random numbers. 4! 3! 6! 8! Connector! What the fuck?

I think we chose correctly at every junction, though, and I will give myself some credit: at one point I knew exactly where we were because of the compass on my walking stick!. There was a busy road to our right and based on which way the compass said we were headed, I knew where we were. At least 90% of me did. The other 10% was sending a note to Sacagawea to come get me the hell out of there. I give Chicago Meg some credit here too: when I said we should go a certain way and she seemed to be leaning a different direction, she said "okay!" and we went my way and it did turn out to be the right thing. I'm not so sure I could ever be so cheerful while at the same time being positive that I was going to starve to death walking in a death spiral in the woods. Which is why she's the Vice-President of the Sunday Morning Hiking Club! I like Yes Men!

The National Cornbread Festival and Crazy Person Convention

2008-04-26T18:39:00.000-07:00

So! The National Cornbread Festival and Cookoff. MY GOODNESS! If you open up Google Maps and type in "Crazy Town U.S.A.," I can state with a fair amount of certainty that you will be given the following answer: South Pittsburg, Tennessee. Just a quick trip down I-24 and over the Monteagle mountain from Nashville, this little old-fashioned town is definitely the epicenter of full-blown crazy ... especially if you are in the mood for some Jesus-inspired pottery, some Jesus-inspired stained glass windows or some Jesus-inspired chicken on a stick. Or, you know, cornbread.

Chicago Meg (who is watching her Chicago-style-life recede faster than ethics in the White House) and I drove down to South Pittsburg at the crack of dawn - we had planned a brief stop for a 2-mile hike in Grundy Forest, and it was a lovely little loop, all waterfalls and cascades and giant hemlocks and mountain laurel (not blooming yet) and it had that smell that I can't quite identify, but it smells like the Sierras. Are there hemlocks in the Sierras? I'm trying to figure out the lowest common smell denominator ... what is it?

BUT ANYWAY we were very focused on the Cornbread Festival. So we rushed the hike a bit and got back in the car and headed down the mountain toward Crazy Town.

•••••••••••

The National Cornbread Festival and Cookoff is almost impossible to describe. Combine the supporting cast of Deliverance, a possible Food Network program called Coronary Challenge and TLC's What Not to Wear and you pretty much have it. Never before have I seen so many precariously-situated tube-tops in such close proximity to fried chicken and cross-eyed banjo players! Well, outside of my Baptism, of course. But! We paid the outrageous admission price ($3) and got our hands stamped with the image of a little red cast iron frying pan and entered. The first thing we saw when we entered was the souvenir hut (I bought the t-shirt with the image of a license plate that reads I82 MCH). We immediately headed to Cornbread Alley, which was this thing where you paid $2 and got samples of eight different kinds of cornbread on one plate. Okra Cornbread. Cornbread Donuts. Upside Down Cheesy Chicken Cornbread. Etc. Etc. Lots of shit that didn't go together. But still, it was funny. Chicago Meg didn't eat more than one bite of any of it! She hated the Okra Cornbread; it was my favorite. She liked the Cornbread Donut; I thought it was icky. The National Cornbread Festival is divisive, just like Barack Obama says race is. Who knew? Anyway, Obama Oeight!

From there, we walked the length of the Festival, past the craft tents and food court and carnival down to the Lodge Factory Outlet. South Pittsburg is the home of Lodge, the company that makes all that cast iron stuff. It was packed, so we had anxiety and left. We strolled back the way we came and happened upon a cornbread eating contest ("Don't choke" was the emcee advice) and an ice-cream eating contest. We missed the Buttermilk Chug, which actually I think I could have done well in - I do like buttemilk (don't clog the comments with your buttermilk-hate; I'll just delete them!). Then I bought a sculpture made up of a syrup can, two spools and two dominoes. I was cornbread-drunk! Then we sat and watched the first round of the Cook-Off. I was rooting for a lady from Arkansas who was making a cornbread hot brown, because I do like a hot brown. Food of the gods! Turkey, cheese sauce, bacon, tomato. And she was piling it up on top of cornbread! I don't know if she won or not; we didn't stay for the crowning. The emcee lady was some small-market news lady who reminded us that Memphis was in the state of Tennessee, then courted controversy by saying it might be okay to put sugar in cornbread (which it is absolutely not) and the crowd grumbled a bit and planned a lynching for later that night. Poor future dead news lady! Then we strolled over to this weird twilight zone where there was a roomful of restored Coca-Cola machines and beautiful vintage coolers which was freaky because I am a tiny bit obsessed with coolers, especially ones that say "Pleasure Chest" on the outside of them, of which there were two. Thank god they were $150 each; I could not have explained that to Sister Meg, especially since there are already four coolers in the basement. We also stopped into an antique store that had really pretty things where Chicago Meg almost bought this pretty piece of abstract metal that turned out to be a template for making parts for a prison door and since she has a crazy fear of prisons she didn't buy it and I discovered that I might need yet another set of dishes, these Noritake Silverdale things, which are just white with silver rims, but the shapes of the sugar bowl and creamer are a little space age and Japanese at the same time. So that was trouble and my new eBay search term is born.

Okay! So then we went all the way back down the length of the festival and back to the Lodge Outlet, where I bought some really pretty green speckled enamelware (25% off!) to ensure that I win the Best Campsite award during any possible future camping trip and Chicago Meg bought some magic crazy red suede gloves. We were just about cornbreaded out by this point, so we headed out and went to Dixie Freeze and got a brown derby and a peanut butter milkshake. That was pretty much the end of Crazy Cornbread Day, and I haven't even gotten to the part about seeing Jesus - though a picture follows - or the Hillbilly Restaurant that amusingly requires shirts and shoes or the giant ice cream-promoting cow but really: some things are just impossible to expain. You'll all just have to come and see it for yourselves next year, if you're in the mood for crazy....

Flower Power

2008-04-24T11:06:00.000-07:00

A few pretty things from my garden. Things finally started happening. The world's most invasive Lenten rose; a jack-in-the-pulpit; and some columbine.