Consumer Report: Kitchen

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

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

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!

Next up: I want my country back.

YSL, RIP

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

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

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.