Mama & Me from PDX

Vacation, Day 3, 10/23/2009, Part 5

2009-12-14T05:35:00.000-08:00

My swell brother H and his sweet wife V have a beautiful house with plenty of room but also with steep stairs to the guest room on the second floor and indoor cats, so in order to make certain that Mama didn't have a fall on the stairs and that I didn't get into trouble being allergic to cats, they put us up for three nights at the Embassy Suites near their home. Mama and I still haven't gotten over how sweet and thoughtful that was of them! So, here you'll see a few photos of our lovely suite.

Tired-looking little Mama in the living area, artwork above her. Almost every single wall had at least one piece of artwork hanging on it.

The TV in the living area.

The counter in the kitchen area. H and V let us borrow their blender for Mama's daily Shaklee Protein drink.

The table and the "business center" area. There's Honk, my little iBook!

TV, dresser, artwork and lamp in the bedroom.

The huge, extremely comfortable beds and more artwork.

The artwork in the bathroom.

The shower with the provided shower seat.

We settled in and rest for a while before H and V came to get us for supper. We enjoyed a delicious, great-to-be-with-each-other meal at Vasilios in Madison before heading back for a good night's sleep. Thanks, H and V!

Vacation, Day 3, 10/23/2009, Part 4

2009-12-09T05:35:00.000-08:00

Just a bit for you, around downtown Jackson, Mississippi, the city I was born in almost 62 years ago, in the no-longer-there Baptist Hospital on North State Street which is also Highway 51. Whoa. Does that sound ever-lovin' weird! How could I be 62 on Saturday? How? Not sure, just thankful!

The King Edward Hotel, also known as Edwards Hotel, is a historic hotel in downtown Jackson, Mississippi. The second of two buildings located on the site at the corner of Capitol and Mill Streets, it was closed and vacant for nearly 40 years before renovations began in 2006. The hotel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976[1] and declared a Mississippi Landmark in 1990.[2] The Hilton Garden Inn-Jackson Downtown, formerly known as King Edward Hotel will open to the public December 15, 2009.

The entrance faces West Capitol Street, walk out, turn left and cross at the light--you're on your way to the Jackson Amtrak Station, beautifully renovated between 2003-2004.

It would have been a sacrilege to tear down this wonderful building.

Surely this sign will remain, even with the name change.

History

The original hotel on the site was known as the Confederate House, built by "Major" R.O. Edwards. After being destroyed in the Civil War, the hotel was reopened in 1867 as the Edwards House. This structure was replaced in 1923 by the present building, a 12 story beige brick structure, designed in the Beaux-Arts architecture style by New Orleans architect William Nolan. The hotel was the center of Jackson society and politics for over forty years.

A room at the hotel was used by Okeh Records to record a number of important blues sessions in December 1930.

In 1955, the hotel was purchased by R.E. "Dumas" Milner, a wealthy automobile dealer and businessman. Milner renovated the hotel in the popular modernist style of the day. Many of the original details were obscured in the renovations. The hotel closed in 1967 after years of declining occupancy rates and has remained vacant since. Standard Life bought the building in 1976 and got it placed on the National Register of Historic Places. They sold to private developers for half a million dollars in 1981. While a number of attempts to restore the building had proven ineffective and demolition of the building continued to be considered by Jackson city leadership, a workable plan was finally agreed upon. The former Mayor of Jackson, Harvey Johnson Jr., called the renovation of the hotel the "linchpin" [sic] in attempts to revitalize the downtown of the city.

As of December 2006, Watkins Partners, former New Orleans Saints running back Deuce McAllister and Historic Restoration Inc. of New Orleans have formed a partnership to restore the King Edward. It is expected to reopen its doors as a Hilton Garden Inn in December of 2009 with 186 hotel rooms, 64 luxury apartments expected to be ready in December, a signature restaurant, bar coffee shop and some retail space. The interior renovation of the historic hotel, designed by Thomas Hamilton & Associates of Richmond, Virginia, incorporates Hilton brand design requirements into the existing hotel, while preserving some of the original historic architectural elements as part of the hotel project. The renovation began in November, 2007 and will be completed in December, 2009, at a cost of $90 million.

H.R.I. and Watkins Partners also plan to renovate the adjacent Standard Life Building into 76 luxury apartments, beginning in 2008 with an anticipated completion in late 2009.

Two Portland Skyline Photos

2009-12-08T05:35:00.000-08:00

I took these photos last Thursday, Dec. 4, right after I got to my building. The sun reflected in that brightest spot sent rays of light clean across the Willamette River into the windows of my building! All the way from the windows, through an opening between two pods of cubicles, through an open door and onto the office wall, a glowing rectangle to the right of the door that opens from our Front Office into the hallway that leads to the elevators. Amazing!

Vacation returns soon, once I've rested up some more from my busy, busy Sunday!

Whooee!! We been busy today, the Saints and me!! Whooee!!

2009-12-06T16:49:00.000-08:00

Yippee!! Wow!! I'm tickled all gold and black and white!! Y'all Saints' fans know just what I'm talkin' about!!!!

Today I've been busy--see below after the two updates.

Mama's doing OK, not great but OK. She doesn't seem to be getting enough oxygen at the setting she's on, so we're calling tomorrow to see if we can increase it.

Duncan's at the vet to have his teeth cleaned and his semi-annual check. He needed one molar pulled, had an elevated kidney level which meant he had to have IV fluids before he could get knocked out for the teeth cleaning. He also had an elevated calcium level which could mean cancer--they called to get the OK to do an additional calcium test that might give us an answer. He's had 16+ really good years, so as emotional as it will be to lose him, we hope that we can remember that as time goes on. Maybe he's OK. I will find out more when I go to get him at 5:30 p.m.

I've made three batches of brownies today, in foil cupcake pans with paper cups to keep them from sticking (for tomorrow's building-wide pot luck), washed, dried, folded and put away two load of clothes, mopped the hardwood floors, shopped for two hours for three kids whose names I got from our Transitional School Christmas wreath at work, at Fred Meyer near Duncan's vet (I did very well, I think, getting all of each list pretty closely matched and spending only $112--Freddie's discounts and the coupons I got in the mail because I use my FM card every time I shop--hooray), helped Mama with her bath, wrapped and bagged all of the gifts, uploaded more vacation photos to my friend Kay's Walgreens' account (she and her husband are the ones who took me to Talladega). I'm tired but pleased.

Gotta go get the brownies figured out--how to get them to work safely.

Vacation, Day 3, 10/23/2009, Part 4

2009-12-03T05:35:00.000-08:00

I took all of these photos in the Fondren neighborhood in Jackson, Mississippi, from my brother's vehicle as he slowed down a little bit. The gray, overcast skies lent a hard edge to everything, as well as somewhat washed out colors.

Here's a bit about the neighborhood, found on the Web site Fondren Renaissance dot org: Jackson’s historic Fondren Arts District is in the middle of everything. Unique restaurants, shopping and urban living combine to create a vibrant place to live, work and play.

Located between Northside Drive on the north and Woodrow Wilson on the
south, and between Interstate 55 to the east and Mill Street to the west, Fondren’s central location offers something for everyone – from fine dining to soda fountains, chic fashion to cherished antiques, still life to live music. If it’s
happening, it’s happening in Fondren.

Fondren Corner, a building I like a whole lot, not only for its design and those wonderful aluminum-looking letters, but also for its mixed use. See the railing around the roof? One night I got to go up there to a party--what a blast! And a splendid view! I called both of my sons who already were living in Portland and asked them to guess where I was. Silly, I know, but I was some kind of tickled to be up there. Thank goodness Lamont and Leland willingly put up with my idiosyncrasies! I just had to tell them that I could look down onto the shopping center nearby and see the loading dock of the Rainbow Natural Grocery--a business which includes High Noon Deli & Bakery and High Noon Cafe--places where they used to work. At the far left of the photo is the end of the building where I used to be privileged to set up my photographs for sale, on a couple of tables during the monthly Arts, Eats & Beats event, held in those days April through September. Mama used to go with me--we loved every second of it, seeing friends, laughing, talking and sometimes selling a photo or two.

From the "About Us at Fondren Corner's Web site: Fondren Corner is a mixed use development featuring shopping, dining, office and residential spaces in the heart of Jackson’s Historic Fondren Arts District.

Conveniently located minutes from downtown Jackson, Interstate 55, and the metro area’s medical corridor, Fondren Corner also serves as the central hub for a host of cultural events including Fondren After 5, Fondren Unwrapped, and Arts, Eats & Beats.

Located in what was once Jackson’s first “suburb,” the Fondren Corner area is becoming well know for its trendy retail shops, vintage clothing stores, antique merchants and interior design firms, award-winning restaurants, fine arts galleries and an increasing number of art studios.

Cups, in the same shopping center as Rainbow. Vividly I remember sitting there inside the railing around the outside dining area with Mama, on a sunny afternoon four or five years ago--we'd been to Rainbow to visit the guys. She had her cup of regular coffee and a muffin that I shared. I don't drink coffee, and I can't remember what I had to drink--seems like I had some sort of chocolate bar I'd bought in Rainbow. We watched people walk by, vehicles drive by, and after a while, she said, "It's hard to believe we're in Jackson." Love it!

From the "About Us" section at Cups' Web site: CUPS is a family owned and operated business. We live right here in Jackson, so we know our customers because they are our neighbors. We try to keep as much of the money we make in the community by roasting our own coffee, baking much of our pastries and purchasing as many items as possible from local sources. A couple of these items include our wildflower honey (harvested in Florence, MS). We also purchase our disposable utensils through a program run by Whitfield State Hospital.

We support our community through various charities and community services and activities. We support local artists by providing gallery space at no cost and no commission at seven of our locations.

Our managers and baristas are friendly, knowledgeable and highly motivated to serve you the finest products in a courteous, efficient and friendly manner.

Almost next door to Cups is this building which is home to the Jackson Free Press, my hometown's award-winning alternative newsweekly. That description doesn't do justice to this enterprising, eye-opening, truth-and-justice-seeking, think-global-shop-local, Jackson-Mississippi-loving organization, peopled with folks whose creativity and love of a good time are legendary. I ought to know--I used to be one of them! What a great time I had, writing, proofing, copy editing, and photographing for the JFP. I owe a great deal of my continuing creativity and curiosity to being associated with the JFP, probably a good deal of my sanity, to tell you the truth. Just go up the stairs--the offices are down the hall on the right.

Another nearby shopping center, one of my favorite signs in the neighborhood.

More about Fondren on another vacation day post when I was driving myself. I promise I stopped to take the photos!

Vacation, Day 3, 10/23/2009, Part 3

2009-12-02T05:35:00.000-08:00

Updated to add--My Mama's name is Edna Earle, and one of Miss Welty's most popular characters is Edna Earle Ponder, from "The Ponder Heart." Neat-o!

Time to rejoin our vacation. I've decided to go straight to Miss Welty's home and leave downtown Jackson for the next post. It's just a couple of hours out of sequence, no big deal.

My photo of a photo of Miss Welty, hanging on the wall in the Visitor Center that is next door to her home. I don't know how old she is, nor do I know who took the photo. Nevertheless, I really do like this photo of her--it makes me feel that she understands much about life. She looks cool and collected, even though it appears she's sitting outside in the rocker on the porch at the side of the house. You'll see the photo I took of possibly the same rocker when you continue to read this post.

How can I convey to you the import of my getting to visit Miss Welty's home?

You know how much I like to document every thing possible, so you may be surprised at what I'm about to say. I figured all along that no photographs would be allowed inside, so I hardly feel heartbroken at that eventuality. I've got my memories of the size of the rooms, of her beloved books everywhere, of the kitchen window that looks down over the backyard, of seeing her typewriter in her bedroom where she did most of her writing, of the art on the walls (including portraits of her parents), of the example of her editing method--the original cut and paste, let me tell you.

I did have the Nikon D50 in my purse, ready for when we walked through the side and back yards.

Here is the view of a wisteria arbor on the east side of the house, looking down into the backyard. Use your imagination and see delicate, pale purple and white blossoms hanging over your head. See in the distance the garden bench inside a second arbor. Imagine Miss Welty or her mother Chestina seated there on a lovely spring day.

Here's the same arbor, looking up from the backyard. The company where my brother works, Iron Innovations of Clinton, Mississippi, made that lovely handrail. H told me that he measured for it and designed it according to their needs.

Camellias abound in the side yard and outside the living room windows. I wonder what these buds look like now, over a month after I took this photo?

Here's one a bit more open, so delicate.

Miss Welty's bedroom windows, upstairs. The living room windows, downstairs.

Here's the rocker--doesn't it look like the one in the photo of her, above? I'd love it if you'd have a seat in the rocker on her side porch. With your back to the camellias, relax and read the following review of my favorite Eudora Welty book, "Losing Battles." If you get a chance to read it, I'd love to hear what you think about it.

From "The New York Times On the Web," the Books Section:

April 12, 1970
'I call this a reunion to remember, all!'
By JAMES BOATWRIGHT
LOSING BATTLES
By Eudora Welty.

In a bleak time, the career of Eudora Welty is instructive. Her dedication and artistic integrity, her clarity of vision, her persistence are altogether remarkable. Since 1936, when her first story was published, she has given us four books of stories, two novellas, a novel, several uncollected stories in The New Yorker over the past few years, and now "Losing Battles," a major work of the imagination and a gift to cause general rejoicing.

The gift is presented on April 13, Miss Welty's 61st birthday, and it appears before us with a liveliness and inventiveness which are almost unseemly. "Losing Battles" is conclusive evidence of what many have long believed: that Eudora Welty possesses the surest comic sense of any American writer alive. It is a comedy that takes no easy liberties, that presents character without fake compassion or amused condescension, a comedy that releases, illuminates, renews our own seeing, that moves in full knowledge of loss, bondage, panic and death.

The time of the novel is all day Sunday and Monday morning during a summer in the 1930's. The place is a farm and the nearby community of Banner in the hill country of northeast Mississippi. At the close of the chief event, a family reunion on Granny Vaughn's 90th birthday, Uncle Noah Webster Beecham says to Gloria, the wife of the hero Jack Renfro: "'Gloria, this has been a story on us all that will never be allowed to be forgotten. . . . Long after you're an old lady without much further stretch to go, sitting back in the same rocking chair Granny's got her little self in now, you'll be hearing it told to Lady May and all her hovering brood. How we brought Jack Renfro back safe from the pen! How you contrived to send a court judge up Banner Top and caused him to sit at our table and pass a night with the family, wife along with him. The story of Jack making it home through thick and thin and into Granny's arms for her biggest and last celebration--for so I have a notion it is--I call this a reunion to remember, all! . . Do you hear me, blessed sweethearts?' He swung over to Granny's chair and folded his arms around her, not letting go, begging for a kiss, not getting it.""

A critic would be rash to ignore such a convenient summary of the novel's action, but he would be equally rash to let it suffice. Uncle Noah is a participant, not an observer, and there is much he either doesn't hear or doesn't recount: the reported death of the schoolteacher who taught them all, Miss Julia Mortimer; tale after tale from the past, involving wretched suffering, murder, maiming, senility, madness, drowning, abandonment.

Uncle Noah's parting speech with its particular felicities and limitations does more than give a synopsis: it points toward the novel's meaning, which is both complex and elusive. Not that the reader will be in any hurry to get there. Even without close scrutiny, the book offers multiple pleasures: it is a joyous, rich, uproarious comic spectacle, teeming with brilliant characters, some introduced for a single scene. Its pulse of life is so strong that this alone may satisfy many a reader; the clearheaded, keenly observed, and loving portrayal of a family's life, a community's, in all its variety, quirkiness, energy.

But more is there than Uncle Noah's and the other voices say, and this brings us to a consideration of the telling of the story. Much of Miss Welty's earlier work, particularly the stories in "The Golden Apples" and "The Bride of the Innisfallen," displays an indirectness, a complexity, of style and narrative in which language, consciousness and event are so delicately manipulated that the story emerges as a kind of difficult and teasing poem; the mediating hand and voice of the creator are powers to reckon with.

"Losing Battles," in contrast, presents a surface of mock objectivity, mock simplicity; it is almost totally dramatic. The narrative offers itself, with a few significant exceptions, as pure dialogue, external event; there is no narrative voice to speak of, and except for one brief passage toward the end of the novel, when we are allowed into the mind of Vaughn, Jack's younger brother, we are denied reflection by any character.

This seems to me a radical and bold experiment in a relatively long novel; it is plausible and it works mainly because the world presented here is one virtually without silence. Someone is always talking and silence is suspicious, a wonder; it implies secrecy, guilt, pride, a rejection of communion, an affirmation of individuality.

In the single interior passage already referred to, Vaughn hears the sound of the night surrounding him: "As he plodded on through the racket, it rang behind him and was ahead of him too. It was all-present enough to spill over into voices, as everything, he was ready to believe now, threatened to do, the closer he might come to where something might happen. The night might turn into more and more voices, all telling it--bragging, lying, singing, pretending, protesting, swearing everything away--but telling it. Even after people gave up each other's company, said good-bye and went home, if there was one left, Vaughn Renfro, the world around him was still one huge, soul-defying reunion."

The concatenation of voices in the long day's reunion has literally defied more than one soul; it dares the soul to break the chain, to remain apart in its own mysteries. The voices seem to say: Here is your own home. Talk.

Gloria Renfro is one of those who won't talk, who try to preserve their mystery and separateness. Her mother-in-law says she has "a sweet voice when she deigns to use it, she's so spotless the sight of her hurts your eyes, she's so neat that once you've hidden her Bible, stolen her baby, put away her curl papers, and wished her writing tablet out of sight, you wouldn't find a trace of her in the company room, and she can be pretty. But you can't read her."

Gloria doesn't want to be read, to add her voice to this babel of voices, and this conflict is at the core of the novel and at the center of Miss Welty's vision. We are all double, at war in our own minds and hearts, and we are inescapably losers in these battles. Being fully human is being participant and observer, torn between our desires for love, safety, blind acceptance, communion, and our equally strong desires for separateness, danger, clear knowledge and individual and primal joy. The intricacies of our double nature have been explored by Miss Welty with the acutest sensibility before, and in "Losing Battles" that exploration yields its richest and most varied discovery.

Gloria is an orphan, of mysterious parentage, whom Miss Julia Mortimer has educated and prepared to follow in her own footsteps; Miss Julia herself is an outsider, an observer, a schoolteacher devoted to a universal, indiscriminate love and concern for her students, in a pitched battle with the ways of natural man, demanding perfection, clarity, knowledge. The announcement of Miss Julia's death is an embarrassment to the reunion; a perverse and serious warrior, she had plagued them when they were young, and she returns to plague them now, with her curse--"You fools--mourn me"--and her desire to be buried beneath the steps of the schoolhouse. Her last days were terrible; those she hadn't turned away no longer bothered to visit her, and death comes to her in the middle of the road as she wanders, mad. Judge Moody says of her ending, "The complete and utter mortification of life!" And those words must be accommodated in the golden romance of Jack and Gloria.

Gloria has chosen to devote all her teaching to one, to her beloved student Jack (which moved Miss Julia to mocking laughter). But Jack is caught in the flood of family, of history. Gloria is a novice in love, possessive and single-minded: "If it wasn't for all the other people around us, our life would be different this minute," and she pinpoints the trouble: "Home ties. Jack Renfro has got family piled all over him." Her impassioned battle cry is Save Jack!

How do you save a man who doesn't want saving, who finds the ties that bind a blessing, who implores Gloria to change her mind, to love his family? ("Not for all the tea in China," she responds.) Jack is a poet of relationship: "When he listened to Uncle Homer it was the same as when he listened to all his family--he leaned forward with his clear eyes fixed on the speaker as though what was now being said would never be said again or repeated by anybody else."

Like George of Miss Welty's "Delta Wedding," Jack is an example of the hero striving to be fully human; like George, he is an adept of love. ("Losing Battles" is similar to "Delta Wedding" in other ways as well.) Although Jack is young, he is already battle-scarred, and he carries out the orders of duty and desire with a keen moral intelligence and a full heart. After Gloria tells him that because of her love for him she has to hate everybody else, he asks that she spare the others some love. When she says she will pity them instead, "Don't pity anybody you could love," he whispers to her. She insists that she can safely pity Miss Julia. I reckon I even love her," said Jack. "I heard her story." Finally Gloria tells him that she gave up Miss Julia and all Miss Julia stood for, and she would willingly give up his family, all for him. He says, "Don't give anybody up. . . or leave anybody out. . . . There's room for everything, and time for everybody, if you take your day the way it comes along and try not to be much later than you can help."

All the other characters in this Breughel-like world are involved in and reflect this conflict, this mystery of love and relation--and the involvement flowers naturally, without a sense of strain or contrivance. Granny Vaughn addresses her dead husband and grandson as if they were present at the reunion; someone tells the story of Jack's grandparents, who one night fled from their children, their whole world of love and duty, and drowned in the Bywy River. (Why did they flee? "A deep question," "a story lost to time.") Bachelors, husbands, spinsters, wives, widows, children are all warriors; they gather on the porch as night falls, and from a distance we see, in the harsh glare of the porch light, their "caves of mouth and eyes opened wide, black with the lonesomeness and hilarity of survival."

But determined analysis of the mystery the characters inhabit may give too somber an impression of the novel. The overwhelming effect is comic--lyrical and touching, as in the counterpoint of voices heard as the household settles for sleep; funny and baffling, when the baby, Lady May, utters her very first words as a storm breaks over the house: "What you huntin', man?"; or joyous and redemptive, even in the midst of defeat, in the novel's last scene: Miss Julia Mortimer, against her wishes, is buried in Banner Cemetery, among the Comforts, Renfros and the rest, an outsider no longer; Jack suffers his final humiliation at the hands of the endearing villain Curly-- he's knocked out, his shirttail is cut off--and he trudges homeward with his wife, singing "Bringing in the Sheaves" for all Banner to hear, an appropriate coda to a beautiful and valuable novel.

Mr. Boatwright is editor of Shenandoah: The Washington and Lee University Review, which last spring published "A Tribute to Eudora Welty."

She's home! And finally, I got to see the New Orleans Saints play on TV!

2009-12-01T05:35:00.000-08:00

I took this photo at the Grand Central Bowl last March.

Monday we knew about 11 a.m. or so that she could go home, but it took until about 2:30 p.m. to get outta there! Not that they didn't do a great job taking care of her, but y'all know how just plain tired it makes everyone when someone is hospitalized. We were so ready to go that we completely forgot a couple of things. Leland's going there tomorrow to get them. He and Lamont are coming over to the apartment around 2 p.m. to check on her and to vacuum the rugs and run the Swiffer over the floor--I'll be at work.

Mama's on home oxygen when exerting herself which right now will be pretty much all of the time that she's awake--her oxygen saturation level needs the home oxygen to be at a good level for her. She's got an appointment in a month with both the cardiologist and the lung doctor. Before those two she has an appointment with her regular doctor and the eye doctor. Thank goodness Lamont and Leland can help out with those.

Once again, thanks to everyone for your good wishes and prayers!

I'll go back to the vacation fun soon as I get rested up a bit.

Who dat beat the stew out of New England?

All I got to see was the 4th quarter--too much going on around here, fixing supper, walking to Walgreen's to pick up the prescriptions, listening to the home oxygen instructions, washing the dishes.

Y'all notice Mama's got on her Mississippi State sweatshirt--that's in honor of their Egg Bowl victory. I know I already mentioned it, but I can't help myself, I'm still so tickled about that score, 41-27!

Mama Update and Banana Cream Pie

2009-11-29T07:33:00.000-08:00

Banana Cream Pie from 3 Doors Down Cafe, SE 37th and Hawthorne, Portland, Oregon!

I'm home, doing Laundry, but I've just talked with her on the phone. She told me she felt a little better--hooray! I asked her to ask the doctor to call me if he shows up before I can get there--I'm riding the bus today because both guys have to be at work from 9 a.m. until 10 p.m. at the earliest. And I thought I was tired!

Yesterday she walked twice in the hall, with a hospital walker whose wheel(s)--and I use that term loosely because you actually couldn't see them turning--made a sound so embarrassing that I told a nurse in the hallway, "That's the walker, not my Mama!" She was attached to an oxygen cylinder on wheels which, thankfully, made no sounds at all. She also sat up in the chair several times.

The only food she ate with any enthusiasm was a piece of banana cream pie from 3 Doors Down Cafe--Kathy and Dave sent it in one of those cute little white take-out boxes. Dave wrote "Get Well!" on it. The minute I mentioned it to her, she said, "I want some milk to go with it," so I pushed the button and ordered some lactose-free milk.

I'm off in a few minutes to put the stuff in the dryer.

Thanks again so much for all of your prayers and good wishes for each of us. We are truly blessed.

P.S. How 'bout them Dawgs! At this point, I really don't care about the season record, I only care about the 41-27 whupping Mississippi State put all over Ole Miss. (Sorry to my Ole Miss buds, but just think about it for a minute. Wouldn't you be just as obnoxiously excited?

A Thanksgiving Day Mama Update

2009-11-26T19:19:00.000-08:00

A 11/27/2009, Friday, update at the bottom.

Mama and Duncan, together in their recliner, taken August 19, 2008.

We do have a lot to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day, when it gets right down to it. Mama got to go to a regular room in the cardiac area around noon, which is good news. What's not very good news is that she was having a progressively harder time breathing than anyone wanted, most of all her.

The nurse there in the other room let the doctor know what her lungs sounded like and he prescribed Lasix which would make her pee a whole lot--there seemed to be too much fluid around her lungs which naturally made it more difficult to breathe. A few hours passed, she peed like a horse, sat up in one armed chair with her feet in another unarmed chair--which helped her lungs, too--got two puffs from an inhaler (something she uses now and then at home), and worked with a little device that Respiratory brought for her to blow into which would hopefully lead to coughing up some phlegm. She began to look better and breathe easier. In fact she told the nurse, in answer to "What should I tell the doctor about how you're breathing now?" "Tell him I'm better but not real good."

Thank goodness they're watching her very often there which meant that I could come home to Duncan without feeling too guilty. There's a slight, slight chance she'll get to come home tomorrow.

Oh, I couldn't find a plain electrical outlet in the new room, so I didn't get to plug in the computer--my battery won't hold a charge. I'm going to take it with me again tomorrow and keep looking for an outlet, maybe in the nearby lobby, and/or ask if it's OK to plug it into one of the red ones. There's an oscillating fan plugged into one of them, so maybe it will be OK. I didn't press it today--I was helping her go to the bathroom pretty often since she's not supposed to get up by herself yet.

Thanks again for being there with your love, prayers and good wishes.

11/27/2009 Update

She won't be going home today, maybe over the weekend or Monday even. She's breathing better but is still weak. The doctor wants her to sit up in the chair a good bit and walk in the hall some. Her heart muscle shows no permanent damage!

It took Duncan 50 minutes to decide to eat his breakfast this morning--he's such a little ol' man these days, wondering I'm sure where she is.

It was raining most of the night but the sun's out now--hooray!

A break from the vacation--Mama's in the hospital.

2009-11-25T05:35:00.000-08:00

Mama, January 18, 2009

I always call her at lunch, so I called her about 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday. She answered the phone, and I asked if she'd taken a shower--I knew it was what she was planning to do. She said she had but then said she'd started to feel bad right at the end of it, so much so that she laid down on the bathroom floor for a while, then finally made her way to the bed and crawled under her blanket. I asked where she felt bad, and when she told me in her chest, along her left arm, underneath the left side of her chin and on her neck felt very uncomfortable. I immediately said that we need to get that checked, it could be her heart. She said wouldn't something have already happened if it was her heart--she'd felt bad for an hour probably. I said I don't know but I'm going to call Leland and get him to get me, then we would get her and head for the ER. The man in the cube next to mine at work hear me and offered to give me a ride to the apartment, so I called Leland and told him to meet me there. When I walked into her bedroom, she'd somehow managed to go back to the bathroom to get her sweater and underwear which she had put on before covering up again with the blanket. I helped her put on her slacks; when I helped her sit up to do that, she burped and said that she felt a little better, so I'm thinking, is this going to turn out to be indigestion? I got Duncan into his kennel just before Leland arrived. We got her to the hospital in no time, it seemed.

The triage nurse checked her pretty quickly and when she couldn't get an oxygen reading with one of those clip on finger things, we quickly went to a room in the ER for an EKG. It alarmed everyone--I could see it and thought it did not look like any I'd ever seen. All this time she was alert, answering questions, and had even walked down our three steps and acorss the sidewalk to the car!

Once they saw the EKG, the room filled with people all doing different things to get her ready for the cardiovascular lab for an angiogram. They had her chew up four baby aspirin--the nurse told her that she looked like a little bird and I said her shiny brown eyes added to that impression for me, the nurse grinned and said she agreed--and gave her a bigger dose of Plavix that she usually takes every day. By 2:05 p.m. she was rolled through those double doors. A little later on one of the nurses who had taken her there came back by and told us that they were getting her ready for the procedure, that she was in really good hands. Another one came by and said that we'd done the right thing, getting her to the hospital within two hours of when she started to hurt.

About 3:20 p.m., they rolled her by on the way to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, wide awake and having done well, the nurses said, going on to say that the doctor would be out soon. He came not long after and said that no complete blockages had been found on her heart, that the right coronary artery was 80% blocked and they'd opened it up with a stent, that it was located on her heart at the point that the EKG had pointed to as being where something had happened out of the ordinary, the other blood vessels on her heart looked pretty good, that they'd do some blood tests and an echo cardiogram to see if they could find out if she had any permanent damage to her heart muscle which would help to determine if she had indeed had a heart attack, that she ought to do well.

A little over 30 minutes later, we got to go into CICU to see her. Since she'd had the angiogram she had to stay flat on her back for at least four hours, until the places in her groin stopped bleeding. You know that were they put that instrument into you that they then snake up to your heart and look around, etc. She had to be poked more than once, so she had, I think the nurse said, four holes, less than the size of a straw but nevertheless still bleeding some. Mama asked me to stand by her head and feed her ice chips which I did. By 4:50 p.m. she decided that she was hungry. Providence Hospital has a sort of room service thing going on with their food, so I called and got her half a sliced turkey sandwich on a multi-grain bread with a bit of mayo, cranberry sauce on the side, and some black coffee. I cut the sandwich into bite-sized pieces--she ate all of everything and then told Leland and me to go on home.

Duncan was glad to see me because the little guy was hungry! He's asleep now in the recliner. I'm watching "So You Think You Can Dance" prior to watching "Dancing with the Stars." I'll be back at the hospital by 9 a.m. tomorrow to find out what else is known about her condition. I'll get back with you at some point tomorrow. I can't call out from the CICU--you must turn off your phones because they could interfere with monitors, etc.

We all thank you for your prayers!

Love y'all,

Vacation, Day 3, 10/23/2009, Part 2

2009-11-23T05:35:00.001-08:00

After lunch, which many Southerners call dinner, we made a stop at the Fred's Store in McComb. Why, we wondered. Milton's answer was something along the lines of, "If I get what I want, I'll show you. I'm going to see if I can get something for free." Huh? All I can say, is come back later on, and I'll show you just what he ended up getting for free.

I couldn't resist these clouds disappearing into the distance like a row of giant gray Twinkies on a clear plastic cookie sheet. We rode north up I-55 towards Jackson, Mississippi, our ultimate destination Miss Eudora Welty's house in the Belhaven neighborhood.

An interesting highway sign, Calling Panther Lake.

I have never seen this before. I thought highway signs got printed/worked on/whatever in a shop somewhere and were merely installed alongside the highway.

Almost there.

I can't count the times the I've driven to Miss Welty's house before she died in 2001, just to park out front and sit there for a few minutes, quietly thinking about her being inside the home she so dearly loved. "Hi, Miss Welty," I'd say out loud before starting the car to drive home. Now I would walk through her front door in a little over an hour. Awesome.

I had knocked on the front door once in 2004, not too long after I'd interviewed master gardener Susan Haltom for the Jackson Free Press, the alternative newsweekly in my hometown. (See the article below.) I wanted to make sure it would be OK for me to take Mama for a quick look at the garden. Miss Welty's niece Mary Alice came to the door and graciously said that it would be OK. What a privilege.

A close-up of the sign out front of Miss Welty's house. I took these photos from Kay's truck as we waited first for the arrival of my brother. He was to pick up Mama and take her to the hotel to get her settled while I toured the house.

Go to Eudora Welty House to take the virtual tour of the house and the one of the garden. Here's the article I wrote for the Jackson Free Press in 2004, about the revival of the Weltys' beloved garden and the woman tasked with making it ready for the public.

Susan Haltom

by Lynette Hanson
April 7, 2004

Can you even imagine your first job right out of the University of Mississippi being curator of exhibits at the Old Capitol? And then, almost 20 years later, when you’re back with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History—part time—being asked to go check on Miss Welty’s yard? And having that turn into a 10-year-long odyssey of cohesive research and tireless effort that culminated this past weekend with the opening of the garden at Eudora Welty’s Belhaven home?

That’s just what’s happened with Susan Haltom, 50, since she graduated from Ole Miss in 1975. The mother of three sons now lives on 13 acres in Ridgeland where her family settled 15 years ago after travelling around the country during her husband Jim’s medical training.

Haltom vividly remembers talking with Miss Welty back in 1994. “We were in her living room, and it was so poignantly sad when she said, ‘I can’t bear to look out the window and see what’s happened to my mother’s garden.’”

With the help of volunteer labor—people still volunteer to weed today—the honeysuckle and poison ivy were pulled off the beds. “Then we just watched,” she said.

Essentially, the same thing is still happening—the uncovered garden is there for us to watch, just the way Miss Welty and her mother used to do. Visit now and enjoy the pale lavender azalea, beside the arbor entrance to the garden, and the aptly named Lady Banks rose. She’s at the east end of the 50-foot trellis separating the upper and lower gardens and resembles nothing more than the muted yellow hoop skirt of a Southern belle, gently rippling in a spring breeze. Splashes of color are everywhere—lavender verbena, red poppies, blue ragged robins, white spirea and sweet alyssum, jewel-bright phlox and larkspur.

“When we restored the garden, we kept it true to the spirit of the place—a term people use in the study of her literature but we can appreciate in the garden, too,” Haltom, now a full-time garden designer, says. The time period selected for the restoration is 1925 to 1945, the first 20 years the Weltys lived in the house.

As we sat in the arbor at the center of the trellis, Haltom looked around for a moment and said, “I wish she could look out and see it now.”

Come back tomorrow for how we met up with my brother, H, a quick driving tour of parts of downtown Jackson, and all about our hotel and then our supper with H and his sweet wife, V.

Vacation, Day 3, 10/23/2009, Part 1

2009-11-22T05:35:00.000-08:00

Bright and not too early Friday morning everyone got into the truck at Milton and Kay's. Our first destination--the Dinner Bell in McComb, Mississippi.

Tinkerbell wouldn't be dining with us, but that didn't matter to her--she just wanted to ride.

Kay's favorite field, seen on the road between their house and I-55 and shot through the rolled-up window, hence the ghost-like spots in the trees.

We arrived at the Dinner Bell a few minutes before it opened for the day. Here's a bit about the restaurant that I found at their Web site: Welcome to The Dinner Bell, located in McComb, Mississippi. We are located in a colonial structure, where our diners sit around large round lazy susan style tables loaded with a large selection of good down home cooking. You simply spin the lazy susan and within your reach are huge quantities of comfort food including the house specialty, fried eggplant. When any serving dish starts getting empty, out comes a full one from the kitchen. To drink with all this good food, there is only one proper thirst quencher, ice cold sweet tea. I found more about the restaurant at other sites and have put two of them at the bottom of today's post.

I had already looked up Friday's menu at their Web site, so I knew my dreams would come true, if the food lived up to Milton and Kay's reports to us. "We don't eat breakfast when we're going to lunch at the Dinner Bell," both of them told us. Thank goodness for that piece of advice because it only took moments for Mama and me to realize that we were in home-cooked-comfort-food heaven on earth!

Here's that menu at the Dinner Bell: Catfish, Fried Chicken, Fried Okra, the House Specialty Fried Eggplant, Yams, Dumplings, Turnips, Green Beans, Lima Beans, Field Peas, Mashed Potatoes, Rice & Gravy, Cole Slaw. Now for the photos.

Well, they're calling them lima beans on the menu, but they'll always be butterbeans to me!

Butterbeans, my favorite Southern vegetable, are perfect when each bean's skin tightly covers the meaty, plump insides. See how firm and tight each bean looks? See the bacon? I have to admit that eating vegetables with bacon in them, after years of not having done so, gave me pause. Would the bacon flavor overpower the beans or peas or greens? Would I find each spoonful greasy in my mouth? Not at the Dinner Bell! Each bite of butterbeans satisfied me. Each bite brought back memories of butterbeans on the family table at home as well as on the holiday table at my grandmothers' or my aunt's homes. One more good point--these butterbeans were not overloaded with liquid which we in our family call butterbean juice. I just checked with Mama to make sure I remembered that right!

Fried chicken. All of the plump, perfect chicken breasts were already on somebody's plate, one of them mine.

Once I saw that crispy, crusty chicken and smelled it as it spun by, I figured I was in for a treat. Oh, my, was I ever. All it took was one bite for me to realize I had found El Dorado. Not the actual gold mine--it's golden fried chicken at the Dinner Bell! Succulent, flavorful, crispy. Each bite took me straight back to the fried chicken of my youth, cooked by Mama, her mother Mama Sudie, my Daddy's mother Ma, or his sister my Aunt Baker, in seasoned, heavy iron skillets. I even used to cook it pretty good myself--not as good as theirs--but it's been years and years. After I read what I'd written about the fried chicken to Mama, she said, "Both of us, it's been years and years."

The Dinner Bell's house speciality, fried eggplant. As I ate a bite of it, I heard the manager say that the entire recipe and process of cooking this memorable dish is known by only three people, all in the kitchen. I couldn't begin to guess how they did it. How does the breading stay on so well through the frying? What makes the breading taste unique? I ate two slices of it, and I still don't know.

Fried okra! Crispy, crunchy on the outside, fresh-cut okra on the inside. My gosh! I wish I could have gone in that kitchen and hugged somebody!

Us at the Dinner Bell, standing, Kay. Left to right, Ian, Milton, Mama, Me.

Dessert, peach cobbler on the right front, banana pudding on the back left. I ate some banana pudding--tasty pudding, not too sweet, firm bananas.

Left to right, margarine or butter (I don't know which), cornbread, a bottle of pepper sauce hiding behind it--lots of people sprinkle it on their greens--other condiments and sweeteners, lemon wedges, and those jewels of the garden, beets.

Notice in the background, beyond our table. That's the front dining room, right off the front door. When we entered we were directed to the back one, or at least I'd call it the back one because it was behind the other one which had two smaller tables in it. Our room held only our really big table. Let me see, there were five of us, three people together on my right, next a family of four or five, then two couples.

Fried catfish, fried chicken, and sweet tea.

While the catfish tempted me, I knew it would be best for me to save myself for Milton's fried fish at Talladega the next week, so I didn't try it.

Turnip greens and mashed potatoes--I didn't eat any of either one, there was just so much else! And I figured my Aunt Baker would cook some turnip greens when we visited her and my Uncle J the next week. She didn't get to do that, but I'm OK with it.

Look at that beautiful curving line of serving dishes! All lined up like dutiful soldiers, waiting to serve. I'll never, ever get over how good that food tasted. If I had a private jet and the money to fly it, I believe I'd be hardpressed not to fly down to McComb once a month!

Field peas--I ate these little beauties, such a fresh, hearty taste in a small shape. Notice there is more liquid here, pea juice. For some reason which must have something to do with my raising and the eating that went on during those years, I've never been bothered by generous amounts pea juice, but I sure don't want it with my butterbeans.

I also ate delicious yams but not the sweet potato casserole--Mama ate some of it and reports that it was good; she also ate chicken and dumplings, also good. Both of us seem to remember cooked cabbage, too, but neither one of us ate any. (I cooked us a tiny organic cabbage last Sunday, pretty doggone good if I do say so myself. I paired it with steamed broccoli, rice and a meatloaf.) Somehow I missed taking photos of everything. Mama says it happened because I was so busy eating. She's telling you the truth 'cause that's just what I was doing!

Dinner Bell server Tuesday answered yes when I asked if I could take her photo for my blog.

I came up with this title for her, professional-lazy-susan-spinner-extraordinaire! She'd walk up, serving dish in one hand, reach carefully between two patrons with her other hand, and give the table just the right amount of spin to make an almost empty bowl stop right in front of her. Or she'd get an already empty spot on the table to come right where she needed it. One of the other diners commented on how tentatively all of us spun the table compared to her comfort level with it.

Speedy table spinning, courtesy of Tuesday.

Parts of the bell collection display that Ian pointed out to me.

Here's more about the Dinner Bell that I found at Roadfood dot com:
The Dinner Bell’s glorious reputation for extravagant southern meals has unfurled since it opened in 1945. The restaurant changed locations in 1959 due to a fire, and in 1978, to the horror of its fans, it closed. Two years later the Lopinto family came along and opened it again, for which they were selected "Family of the Month" by the local Chamber of Commerce Howdycrat Board.

The Lopintos' goal was to preserve a great and unusual dining tradition. The tables at the Dinner Bell have always been known for the fried chicken and vegetable casseroles they hold, as well as for the fact that they spin in circles.

Yes, the tables revolve. They are round, and in the center of each is a lavish lazy susan. Service is boarding house style: spin the lazy susan and take what you want. When any serving tray starts getting empty, out comes a full one from the kitchen. Grab as much as you want and eat at your own speed.

It isn't only quantity and convenience that make Dinner Bell meals memorable. This is marvelous food: chicken and dumplings, catfish, ham, corn sticks, sweet potato casseroles, black eyed peas, fried eggplant and fried okra. The dishes we cannot resist are the flamboyant vegetable casseroles supercharged with cheese and cracker crumbs: our kind of health food. Spinach casserole enriched with cream cheese and margarine and cans of artichoke hearts is good for the soul ... not to mention the fact that it is scrumptious. To drink with all this good food, there is only one proper libation: sweet, sweet tea.

More that I found at Chowhound dot com:
Ding Ding Dinner's Served

I'd been wanting to hit the Dinner Bell in downtown McComb for some time. On the way back from my hot dog quest, I drove another couple hundred miles out of my way to take advantage of time and opportunity.

The Dinner Bell is only open Tuesday thru Sunday for lunch, 11A - 2P, so you have to time a visit from out of town just right.

The Bell serves its meals family style, at round tables that sit 18. Atop the table is a huge "lazy susan," laden with entrees, salads, side dishes, desserts, and icy pitchers of sweet ice tea. On a typical day, you might find any of the following: fried chicken, carved ham, turkey, chicken and dumplings, meatloaf, catfish, ribs, liver and onions, white rice, dirty rice, gravy, sweet potato casserole, cole slaw, greens, green beans, black-eyed peas, okra, red beans, corn, biscuits, rolls, corn bread and a multitude of desserts. Sundays at the Bell are even more lavish.

I dare say it's the best fried chicken I've "ever et anywheres," and I don't usually give a hoot about fried chicken.

The 50 year old restaurant specializes in "comfort food" and has been in its present location, a restored home from the early 20's, since 1959. The restaurant has passed through several generations of owners, and the current proprietors, although new to the Bell, are old-timers in the area, and have continued the traditions, menu, and service of the Bell without missing a beat.

Vacation, Day 2, 10/22/2009, Part 4

2009-11-20T05:35:00.000-08:00

A perfect day continued with muscle cars and ended with an antebellum home, all in Mississippi, a tasty supper in Louisiana, and some penny-machine fun (for Mama anyway), back in Mississippi.

There were two muscle cars inside the buildings at Milton's friend's place. A purple Charger--1970 if I remember right--in the process of being restored sat in the newer building, and a yellow 1970 Dodge Challenger T/A sat in the other one, completely covered with a dustcover.

Here are the photos of the Challenger, a car that has won awards at cruise-ins. I think he said that he and his wife ride in the car to those events. Wouldn't that be a neat thing to see? He started the car and let it run for just a little while, knowing we shouldn't be exposed to the exhaust for long. Listening to the powerful sound, I looked up and said, "I love it when you can hear that you've got cylinders!"

Clean lines, clean car.

You could eat in here, right?

A model of the 1970 Dodge Challenger T/A.

Some of the car's trophies.

I was so excited to see the gorgeous purple car, the Charger, that evidently I was shaking, plus it was a lowlight situation. I'm sharing this blurry photo with you so that you can see the rich purple color.

Work's going on, as you can see.

Milton drove us home in the fine Corvette. Thinking I would have room to get out, he backed in, then realized I really couldn't fit between the car and the low brick wall on their carport, so he pulled back out to give me room. Kay and Mama both asked what had taken us so long, so I explained enthusiastically about the speedy ride and about the muscle cars! Kay had been busy while we were gone, making ten pounds of potato salad to take to an event at their church that night. She offered all of us bowls of it, along with saltines and sweet tea. Yummy! We sat around, enjoying being dry when it started to rain and planning our evening outing.

Both of them knew how much Mama enjoys playing the penny machines, so they had decided we ought to go west to Natchez, on the Mississippi River, so we could eat supper and go to the Isle of Capri, a casino on a docked riverboat. Sounded good to me, too.

As we drove around Natchez near the Mississippi River Bridge, figuring out where to eat, I thought I had seen a building we came upon as we neared a left-hand curve in the road. "That's Rosalie!" I said, raising my camera to take a photo through the window.

Found on the Internet: Rosalie Mansion is a historic pre-Civil War mansion in Natchez, Mississippi, significant for its influence on architecture in a wide area. During the American Civil War, it served as Union headquarters for the Natchez area from July 1863 on.

It was built for a wealthy cotton broker in 1823 on the bluff overlooking the Mississippi River, on a portion of the site of the Natchez Indians massacre of the French in 1729 at Fort Rosalie. It has been owned, operated and maintained by the Mississippi State Society Daughters of the American Revolution for over 70 years. On July 13, 1863 General Grant took possession of Rosalie to use as Union Army Headquarters. On August 26, 1863 General Walter Gresham took command of Union Army troops at Natchez. His headquarters remained at Rosalie.

Gresham had much of the owner's furnishings stored in the attic and put under guard to prevent theft or destruction. Union army tents covered much of the property surrounding the mansion. Union Army soldiers were placed in position in the observatory on top of the mansion.

It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1989. It's architectural style is Greek Revival.

We parked in the lot of Fat Mama's Tamales while Milton went in to get a menu for us to check out. I was able to get another photo of the mansion that I toured in the mid-1980's.

Deciding we were in a tamale mood, Milton suggested we go across the river to Vidalia, Louisiana, and see if the Sandbar was open. You can tell that it continued to rain in this photo I took of the bridges.

I held the camera over my right shoulder to get this quick shot of the Isle of Capri.

I wanted to show you something I saw at the Sandbar that I remember from growing up in the humid South.

Yep, that's raw rice inside the salt shaker. It keeps the salt from clumping. You can tell there's moisture in the air by checking out the crystals around the holes in the shaker's metal lid. Curious, I Googled "rice in a salt shaker" and got 148,000 hits in .43 seconds! Among the first hits, the one that caught my eye is at ehow.com, "How to Refill Your Salt Shaker," instructions in seven steps. Entertaining, to say the least!

I ate my tasty fried chicken salad without giving the camera another thought. As we left I tried to get a photo of the sign, another moving, lowlight effort. I sort of like it, though.

We continued on to the casino where Mama had fun and left with $17 more than she brought. I had an OK time but I left with nothing left of what I brought.

Friday night I'm going to the Rose Garden Arena for the "So You Think You Can Dance" live show! Whoopee!

Vacation, Day 2, 10/22/2009, Part 3

2009-11-19T05:35:00.000-08:00

We made it to Mississippi! Hooray! To tell you the truth, neither one of us ever expected to get back home again, so this is just so special, so sweet. We knew we were in for some fun, for days and days and days! It all started with Kay and Milton, out in the country at their house. They had plans for us, let me tell you.

First thing after we got the suitcases inside the house, Milton got the keys to Kay's 1980 Corvette and said, "Come on, Lynette. I'm taking you for a ride."

Here's the Corvette in the carport, speed sitting still.

When Milton started it up, the rest of us, including their grandson Ian and their rescued, cutie-pie, little dog Tinkerbell, were on the carport, sitting there visiting. Did Mama ever squeal and jump in her seat! I stood there in awe, reveling in the power, the deep rumble, the potential.

Milton goosed it a time or two before pulling out onto the driveway. Mama jumped again, giggling. I grinned.

Milton got out, took both T-tops (or whatever you call them) out of roof of the car, helped me get way down into the seat, made sure I was belted in. Milton got in, started the engine. Whoa! What a sound! I'm thinking, "Anticipation!" He hooked up an iPod to the dash and the car's sound system. Holding the iPod in his left hand, steering with his right, Milton said, "Now, I don't know for sure what's on here, Lynette. My grandson and my son-in-law loaded it, so it's all kinds of stuff." He drove us down their driveway and turned left, out onto the country road, where he stepped on the gas, and I felt myself pushed back into the seat--whoopee! I wondered at how NASCAR drivers must feel so much more force when going nearly 200 mph. For an inkling, I realized how addictive speed can be.

I took this photo of Tinkerbell before I got into the Corvette. She's wishing she could go along for the ride, but settled for telling us good-bye at the edge of the carport.

To tell you the truth, I don't remember what we listened to on that fine sound system, but I do know that we could hear every bit of it even with the air rushing by--Milton just pumped up the volume! We could've been the music source for one fine lawn party, if Milton had decided to stop somewhere.

The Corvette responded quickly to Milton's foot on the gas pedal, barreling down this road and that road. I don't know for sure where we went because I didn't know for sure where we were in the first place. I mean, in general I knew we were west of I-55 near McComb. I do know that I had an ever-lovin' blast! At one point I asked him, "How fast are we going?" He replied, "Only 65." "We sure did get there fast," I said. Milton laughed and laughed while I grinned at him. (Later on we sped up to 85, Milton told me after we were back home.) We zoomed past fenced fields, houses with porches, a country store and gas station, at least one church, a post office, groves of pines and leafless hardwoods beneath a battleship gray sky.

I took this photo looking straight up out of the swiftly moving Corvette. I wondered at their speed and skill, how it matched with the car's and Milton's.

After a few more miles flew by, I asked over the roar of the wind and the radio, "Is this a muscle car, Milton?" He said no and went on to explain the difference which I can't quite remember except that I think he mentioned 442's and GTO's and MOPAR. Little did I know that I'd hatched an idea in his head with that short little question.

Pretty soon Milton slowed down, made a sharp right turn and headed up a slight incline, then turned left into a curving lane lined with mostly tall pines, some young hardwoods, with two dirt tracks separated by a grassy strip, pine needles strewn here and there. "I'm taking you somewhere where you can take all the pictures you want to take, Lynette," he explained.

Soon the track turned to all grass that ended at an obviously new garage-sized out-building, situated beside a smaller, older one. Milton blew and blew the horn as we both looked toward the open, regular-sized door on the left front of the building. A man walked out and good ol'boy hellos ensued. We were at Milton's train engineer's home. "I brought her out here," Milton explained, "after she asked me if the Corvette was a muscle car." Turns out he's a muscle car man! Come back tomorrow to see what I mean--you won't be disappointed.

Milton parked the Corvette, and naturally I couldn't resist one more photo of the first Corvette I've had the pleasure of sitting in, much less speeding around the countryside.

Vacation, Day 2, 10/22/2009, Part 2

2009-11-18T05:35:00.000-08:00

We rode in Kay's truck from New Orleans to hers and Milton's home in South Mississippi. For you, random sights and sites seen as we moved along the streets and highways.

Seen before we got onto I-10.

Robert Dafford's mural, the 150-foot-tall clarinet painted on the side of a Holiday Inn hotel on Loyola Avenue, is trompe l'oeil . This mural was dedicated in May 1996. From Wikipedia: Trompe l'oeil (French for 'trick the eye') is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions, instead of actually being a two-dimensional painting.

Seen on Poydras, as we neared I-10, the Louisiana Superdome.

Seen just off I-10, one of New Orleans' cemeteries, also known as cities of the dead.

Found on the Internet: Why aren’t the dead in New Orleans buried underground as they are in most of the rest of the country? Tour guides are fond of explaining (and sometimes embellishing) the practice to shocked tourists. The main issue, they explain, is that New Orleans is actually located slightly below sea level. Because of this, the water table is quite high. When early European settlers put coffins under six feet of earth, they found that the water level would often rise above them, especially during the city’s frequent floods. Since the coffins were filled with air, the water sometimes pushed them up through the earth, causing both a gruesome sight and a health hazard. To keep the coffins underground, holes were drilled in the lid to let air escape, and the coffins were weighted down with rocks and sand. But this was only partially successful, and in any case the saturated corpses did not decompose properly, leading to unsanitary conditions. The only solution was to bury the dead above ground.

Tour guides seldom mention that above-ground burial was a common practice in both France and Spain, where many of the early settlers were from. Even without the resurfacing coffins—which, by the way, were the exception rather than the rule—this practice may well have been adopted simply to keep with tradition. In any case, this method is still widely used today, even though the water table has dropped considerably over the past two centuries as nearby marshes and swamps were drained.

Seen on the way out of town, just to the side of I-10.

Found on their Web site: Faux Pas Prints is a cutting-edge screen printing, embroidery, and promotional item company. We specialize in the corporate casual clothing market with products such as printed t-shirts, embroidered golf shirts, hats, jackets, and much more!

Faux Pas Prints is growing daily through a large number of satisfied customers coupled with competitive pricing! Your complete satisfaction is guaranteed.

Seen off I-55, at Manchac.

Kay says the railroad bridge is lowered when a train is coming. Milton works for the railroad.

Seen off I-55, at Manchac.

Found on the Internet: There is a place north of New Orleans called Pass Manchac or as the locals call it "Manchac." Pass Manchac is the home of Middendor's - a wonderful seafood restuarant that has been there longer than most people can remember. Pass Manchac is a small waterway that connects Lake Ponchartrain to Lake Maurpaus. On a thin sliver of land is the town of Pass Manchac. Residing on that land is Middendorf's. This is a small, crowded, noisy seafood restaurant that serves great seafood. There are no big signs that say "Authentic Cajun Food" or any such tourist nonsense. This is a real, local restaurant that serves great food. For generations, people from New Orleans (home of a few good seafood restaurants :-) ) have taken the 45-minute drive north to find. People from the north lake region have also frequented this place.

The specialty is fried thin-sliced catfish filets. These are great. So are the shrimp, oyster, crawfish, crabs, and everything else on the menu.

The atmosphere is casual - quit casual. Don't wear a tie or put on airs. Come and enjoy real food served by some real people.

Seen off I-55, at Manchac.

This is where Milton comes on the train. Can you tell that the small print reads, "Barge, Truck, Rail"?

Seen on I-55, near Ponchatoula, I think.

Personal fireworks rank real high with lots of people--I'll bet there's a great selection at this place. And I see they're also a Mardi Gras Party Shop--I love beads! To tell the truth, I adore sparkling, shiny stuff, period.

Seen on I-55.

I couldn't believe how many birds I saw sitting atop what appeared to be an unused billboard. Looking at it just now, I saw even more birds on the second level. And then I noticed how small those full-grown cows look beside the wooden framework. What in the world was advertised here?

Seen on I-55, in Pike County, Mississippi.

Welcome to Mississippi, Birthplace of America's Music. Found on the Internet in the May 13, 2009, Desoto Times Tribune: In recognition of tourism’s $6 billion impact on the Mississippi economy, Gov. Haley Barbour Tuesday unveiled new highway welcome signs that highlight the state’s emerging identity as the “Birthplace of America’s Music.”

“It has been known for many years that Mississippi’s musical heritage makes us the real ‘Birthplace of America’s Music’ – from the blues, to country, to rock ‘n roll, to gospel,” Barbour said. “These new welcome signs and the slogan are really designed to recognize and honor all of the talented men and women whose incredible array of entertainment skills put Mississippi on the world’s music map.”

During a press conference at Jackson-Evers International Airport, Barbour unveiled a replica of the new signs and proclaimed this week as Mississippi Tourism Week, coinciding with National Travel and Tourism Week, the tourism industry's commemorative event that runs through May 17. The governor chose Mississippi’s largest airport for the event because it is one of the state’s preeminent gateways; one of the first new welcome signs was placed on Airport Road.

“I dare say, no state has a greater claim on the slogan ‘Birthplace of America’s Music’ than Mississippi, and no state’s governor could be as proud as I am today with this recognition,” Barbour said.

So far, signs also have been placed at the Mississippi Welcome Center in Vicksburg; on I-55 in DeSoto County; I-20 in Warren, Lauderdale, and Jackson counties; I-10 in Jackson and Hancock counties; Highway 78 and Highway 61 in DeSoto county; the newest will go up on I-55 in Pike County this week.

Come back tomorrow to find out the plans Milton and Kay had for us while we were at their home.

Vacation, Day 2, 10/22/2009, Part 1

2009-11-13T05:35:00.000-08:00

If you looked at yesterday's blog, more than likely you guessed where we planned to go this morning, first thing--Cafe Du Monde.

Well, I have to tell you that I never figured out the thermostat in our beautiful room, but we did have the ceiling fan and those fabulous high ceilings, so we all managed to get a good night's rest despite the humidity.

I felt so much better that I decided to get out my little laptop Honk and try to connect to the wireless. Hooray! I checked e-mail, cleaned out the junk, then downloaded the photos I'd taken on 10/21/2009 to the computer. Mama still had some energy although her arms and shoulders were sore from holding onto her walker for that long walk the night before. We three talked about our much shorter walk from the Place D'Armes Hotel on St. Ann to the Cafe Du Monde on Decatur--a mere tenth of a mile. That right there tells you why I picked that hotel. My main goal for our overnight in New Orleans was for Mama to be able to walk to the Cafe Du Monde and get herself some beignets and coffee without feeling like she was being a burden to anyone.

Well, OK, I'll 'fess up--I wanted some beignets, too! My dearly departed husband LeRoy and I used to order the beignet mix and the coffee shipped to us in Kansas City. He'd been to New Orleans with several buddies back in the late '60's or early '70's. He fell hard for those two staples of the Cafe Du Monde. Sometimes on Sundays we'd load up our little LUV truck with our electric skillet, a bottle of Crisco or Wesson oil, his Chemex coffeemaker, some filters, the beignet mix and the coffee in the gold can. We were brunch-on-wheels for our best buds in KC. What good memories I'm having as a result of our being in New Orleans!

Check-out time at the Place D'Armes is 11 a.m., so we had to get a move on once we'd all finished our daily ablutions. As we walked through the courtyard I again marveled at the lush plants. I mean I see plenty of them up here in Portland, but these in New Orleans were so lovely. And the two climates are so different--it makes it all so interesting when you can witness for yourself those difference and then enjoy the similar outcomes.

Another portion of the courtyard

Look at these ferns!

While we walked and talked and watched out for uneven surfaces for each other, I planned to peel off when we came alongside Jackson Square so that I could take a few photos before we made it all the way to Cafe Du Monde.

Here's what I found on the Internet about the building we walked beside on St. Ann.

The Presbytere, taken from St. Ann Street, looking towards the cathedral and the Cabildo which is not visible at all in the photo.

Flanking St. Louis Cathedral on either side are identical Spanish Colonial buildings. On the right (facing from Jackson Square) is the Presbytere, on the left the Cabildo. Both are massive, two-story stuccoed brick structures. The lower stories have wide porticos with semi-circular arches. They were designed by Gilberto Guillemard, a French architect serving in the Spanish military. Rear wings were added in 1840, and the French mansard roof (the third story) was added in 1847. Construction of both buildings, as well as the cathedral itself, was financed by Don Andres Almonester y Roxas.

Andrew Jackson in the center of Jackson Square--it looks like his hat is touching that crane. The building is the Cabildo which also houses part of the Louisiana State Museum.

Construction of the Presbytere began first, in 1791. It was located on the site of the residence of the Capuchin monks, and was to become the Casa Curial (Ecclesiastical House), or Rectory, for St. Louis Cathedral. Construction stopped in 1798 and wasn’t completed until it was taken over by the wardens of St Louis Cathedral in 1813. The building never served its intended purpose – the diocese first rented the building as a courthouse, then finally sold it to the city in 1833. The city continued to use it as a courthouse, until 1911 when it was given to the state for use as a museum in conjunction with the Cabildo. The Presbytere became the natural science museum to complement the Cabildo’s role as a history museum.

Wow! That's some big looking sky! I quickly turned around and walked through the gate, out onto the sidewalk along Decatur where you can always find carriages for hire.

I quickly turned around and walked through the gate, out onto the sidewalk along Decatur where you can always find carriages for hire. I'm guessing here's one on its way back to where it began.

We're close now! I can smell the beignets!

Cafe Du Monde, from their Web site:
History
The Original Cafe Du Monde Coffee Stand was established in 1862 in the New Orleans French Market. The Cafe is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It closes only on Christmas Day and on the day an occasional Hurricane passes too close to New Orleans.

The Original Cafe Du Monde is a traditional coffee shop. Its menu consists of dark roasted Coffee and Chicory, Beignets, White and Chocolate Milk, and fresh squeezed Orange Juice. The coffee is served Black or Au Lait. Au Lait means that it is mixed half and half with hot milk. Beignets are square French -style doughnuts, lavishly covered with powdered sugar. In 1988 Iced Coffee was introduced to the cafe. Soft drinks also made their debut that year.

I drank fresh-squeezed orange juice, well after I'd finished my three beignets. I didn't want any clash of tastes going on in my mouth, nope.

Beignets
Beignets were also brought to Louisiana by the Acadians. These were fried fritters, sometimes filled with fruit. Today, the beignet is a square piece of dough, fried and covered with powdered sugar. They are served in orders of three.

Before we crossed the street, I turned around and took this shot. I like it because I can almost see women and men from yesteryear, strolling along. Since it was about 9 a.m., not much was happening right then, but I still like the perspective on the photo.

Here's that same carriage, just after it passed us at the intersection. Some day I'll go back to New Orleans and ride in one of these--that's good goal to have. Plus my friend Michelle e-mailed today to tell me about the Carousel Bar and Lounge in the Hotel Monteleone (there's a photo of it in yesterday's post). The bar revolves and overlooks Royal. That's another good goal to have, to don my motion sickness bracelets and have a seat at the bar!

Here we are, pre-beignet-clean. If you've never eanted one of them, you don't know what I'm talking about--sorry. Every time you take a bite, powdered sugar flies. Naturally it lands all over the place. I put the camera away before I took the first bite.

This man entertained everyone, singing and playing his trumpet and testifying for the Lord. I made sure to leave him a tip--he was pretty good.

While Mama finished her last beignet, Kay walked down Decatur, in search of fresh fruit at the market. I walked up onto the levee to take photos.

The Mississippi River curves here. I don't know if you can tell it or not in this quickly snapped shot. Back when my sons were in elementary school we rode a paddle wheeler on the river--it was a memorable but short trip. The calliope was so loud!

That might be the very boat, there with the two black smokestacks and the Natchez on its side. That green roof is on the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, another great place to visit in New Orleans. The gift shop there is where I believe I saw George Clinton shopping the rubber sharks. If it wasn't him, it was his double!

We walked back to the hotel. I got Mama to wait in the lobby and got one of the hotel's nice employees to come get our luggage. Kay came back, disappointed in the fruit selection and ready to hit the road for her home in south Mississippi.

Last, two sort of iconic French Quarter photos.

The wrought iron, the narrow street.

Finally a blue sky to add to the beauty of St. Louis Cathedral.

Vacation, Day 1, 10/21/2009, Part 4

2009-11-12T05:35:00.000-08:00

My favorite neon of the night--at the Acme Oyster House--for the team, not the beer. I'm not much of a beer drinker.

Kay, Mama and I thought we'd be walking a little over six blocks from the Place D'Armes Hotel to the Acme Oyster House. We'd made that estimate after looking at a paper place mat sized French Quarter map. What we didn't know was that we'd be covering half a mile--I just got the Google walking directions which actually matched our route. Thank goodness Mama had her walker because when she felt like a rest, she'd whip that little thing around, set the hand brakes and take a seat. Kay and I would stand beside her, looking here, looking there, all three of us talking and watching people. Naturally, I took photos.

We walked up St. Anne to Royal, where we turned left. Naghi's, Jewelry, Judaica and Antiques, is on the corner. Would that the sky had been blue that late afternoon. I really like this view of the wrought iron and the balcony.

We walked by the back of St. Louis Cathedral. From their Web site: The Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis King of France is the oldest Catholic cathedral in continual use in the United States. Be sure to remember this photo when you see another one that I took on our walk back to the hotel.

Right across Royal is the Rodrigue Studio. From its Web site: Featuring the artwork of Cajun artist George Rodrigue, most famous for the "Blue Dog" series of paintings.

Looking along the side of the cathedral, towards the Mississippi River. How would you like to encounter pirates down this alley, by the dark of night? We did, naturally. It's Pirate Alley, y'all! There's a cafe about half way down--that's where we came across folks in pirate garb, talking like pirates, too. They loved Mama!

What in inviting spot, even on a humid evening. Can anyone explain that window at the top of the photo?

This didn't just catch my eye, it grabbed it. For seven and a half years back in the early to mid 1950's, my family moved every three months or less--Daddy's job building water cooling towers for industrial purposes led to that situation. We lived in various trailers, none more than seven feet wide, in 26 states. As a result, maps fascinate me. I asked permission to take this photo.

Here's the sign for the store, Road Trip on Royal.

We saw several of these. I like all the layers of paint.

One of the more well-known eateries we passed on our way to our destination.

Mama's stepping out. Kay's grinning at the metal cutie in the shop doorway.

Makes you wonder who would answer any one of those five buzzers, doesn't it?

Fleur de Paris, custom milliners, on Royal.

I found this online, about French Quarter architecture: Outside doors are tall and surmounted by arched and barred transoms. Above them one should note the narrow second-floor balcony, just two or three feet deep and supported by scrolling brackets of hand-wrought iron from the forge. The cast-iron "gallery" of later vintage is different--wide and supported on columns, all cast from molds in commercial foundries, not from mom-and-pop blacksmith shops. These were frequently added in the 1850s to houses first built with balconies in the 1830s.

So I'm wondering if the one with the posts in this photo is a gallery. It doesn't look wider than two or three feet to me, but it might be.

I'm thinking these two are balconies--they look narrower than the ones in the previous photo, don't they? See the person on the lower one? I doubt I could have ever been comfortable in that position, even in my younger years.

Wait a minute. This might be the one that shows both of them side-by-side, the balcony on the right, the gallery on the left. I can't explain to y'all why I'm so curious about this distinction, I just am.

My smiling Mama in the French Quarter!

Looking back the way we came, down Royal, past a great big tree that stands beside the building that houses the Louisiana State Court of Appeal Fourth Circuit and the Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Isn't this a beautiful building? It's the New Orleans Police 8th District--seems like I've seen it in TV shows and/or movies.

Mama's resting in front of the police precinct. I wonder what Kay said to make her laugh?

Y'all know I love neon.

Here's the hotel itself--huge, ornate and so white.

We're almost there. Watch out, we're all hungry!

I had my assignment.

More great neon.

Food orders placed, my Acme Sunset arrived at the table--love that plastic cup! Fruity hard liquor is relaxing, ya'll. Honest.

My fried shrimp platter, before I ate it all right up! To tell you the truth, I started eating without giving a thought to taking a photo. Those Ritz Bits and Kraft Caramels were so long gone. Thank goodness it dawned on me to take a photo. Mama got a fried oyster po'boy, Kay got a fried shrimp one. Both cleaned their plates, just like I did--I shared fries with Mama.

Another neat neon sign in the back room of the Acme--we were seated back there which was just fine with us because the air conditioning was holding its own, not like in the front room where the opening door let in warm, humid air every few minutes.

Here's the front room, shot from that door just before I stepped out onto the sidewalk for our walk back.

We made stops by two praline shops, Royal Pralines and New Orleans Praline, to get Mama a sweet tidbit at both stores. She'd said no to the bread pudding at the Acme Oyster House but couldn't turn down the thoughts of sugar and pecans. No photos of that, though.

Saw these looking in store windows on the walk back to the hotel.

Guess where we planned to go the next morning!

Here's the photo that I wanted you to see, in relation to the day time one I put earlier in this post.

Back at the hotel after some fine time together, walking along Royal mostly, enjoying being with each other and with Kay. All of us looked forward to a good night's rest.

Vacation, Day 1, 10/21/2009, Part 3

2009-11-11T05:35:00.000-08:00

A bit about our hotel, found on the Internet. Well, the bit I found on the Internet. The hotel we found at 625 Saint Ann St., New Orleans:

The Place D'Armes Hotel is an intimate, historic hotel property perfectly located at Jackson Square in the heart of New Orleans' fabled French Quarter. The hotel is one of three distinctive and unique AAA triple diamond rated French Quarter hotels owned and operated by the Valentino family of New Orleans. The Place's 84 guest rooms are set in eight historic renovated and restored townhouses which surround a lushly planted courtyard.

The two sections of the courtyard and the swimming pool, as seen from the third floor gallery right outside our door. Notice how tall those magnolias are?

The Place D'Armes is literally steps away from the St. Louis Cathedral and the rich street theater of Jackson Square and within easy walking distance of all major downtown New Orleans attractions - Bourbon Street, Royal Street, the French Market, and Canal Street.

The Place D'Armes recently underwent a major renovation and without losing its historic charm is discreetly equipped with the latest amenities and services including high speed internet access in all guest rooms and wireless access in all public spaces.

Guests of the Place d'Armes Hotel experience Southern grace and charm in well appointed rooms and suites decorated with a French Quarter sensibility.

Mama in our room, with her walker.

Another shot of Mama that shows one of the beds.

Guest rooms at the Place D'Armes feature elegant antique reproduction furnishings and rich appointments that create a warm and authentic New Orleans atmosphere. Amenities at the hotel are comprehensive and include high speed internet access and wireless in each room as well as outstanding 24-hour concierge service.

Kay in our room.

The Place D'Armes is a AAA triple-diamond rated property featuring 84 guest rooms in eight historic restored French Quarter townhouses.

In the lobby.

Our room is on the third floor, right. You can see our window peaking out through the leaves of those magnolia trees.

Another one of the townhouses that make up the hotel.

The first floor of our building is in the background behind this ornate fountain in this section of the courtyard.

We left our hotel to walk to the Acme Oyster House for our supper. Mama's walker is just out of sight in the photo. Thank goodness we had it with us because she'd never had made it there or back. Mislead by a tourist map, we underestimated the number of blocks between the hotel and the restaurant. More on that tomorrow!

By the way, Kay's truck is parked just to the right behind us, where the Park sign is. When we drove up and were being helped with the luggage, one of the men looked out of the garage opening and said, "Wasn't that Brad's wife, walking by? I sure think it was." So I immediately pop out onto the sidewalk and see a slim, well-dressed brunette walking away from me, wearing these out-of-sight-unusual high heels. Seems like two other women were with her, too. Not wanting to holler out, "Angelina!" I turned to ask the man, "Do you mean Brad Pitt's wife?" "Yep," he replied, going on to tell us that they own a house "...right over there." Only my utter fatigue at having by then been awake for so many hours and traveling so many miles kept me from trotting right out of the garage and down the street, just to make sure. I didn't even take a photo. I'm telling you, I was tired, T-I-R-E-D.

Vacation, Day 1, 10/21/2009, Part 2

2009-11-10T05:35:00.000-08:00

We're home! We had a great time! We hugged and visited with family and friends and ate fine Southern food, home-cooked and in restaurants! I took loads of photos! Now I have to find time to get them to Flickr and pick some to share. I've had a mental struggle with myself, deciding how to post about our super vacation--by date, by category, randomly. Since I'm almost always also struggling to remember details these days, I'm taking the easy road out and continuing in date order. You'll find some after I explain things a bit--you know I can't help myself 'cause I love words!

So, in New Orleans we made our way from the plane to the gate where our friend Kay waited with open arms and a huge smile. Mama saw her first as a really tall man wheeled her along in the airport wheelchair. I caught a glimpse of her beautiful snow white hair and knew we had truly arrived. Later after he had retrieved our luggage, the man wheeled Mama out the door and across the street, voice booming at the slowly moving traffic to our left and holding out his left hand to get their attention--none of them dared advance until we had passed. Once we got out of the elevator to make those last few steps to Kay's truck, he was telling me how blessed I was to still have my Mama. "Yes," I agreed with him. "I surely am." "And she looks good, too," he said. "Yes, she does," I started to say. He quickly went on, "She looks better than you do!" Well, we all hollered with laughter at that one and I agreed with him wholeheartedly!

We realized from the get-go that we'd only have a few hours in New Orleans before hitting the hay and a few more the next morning, but at least we were there to do our part by spending some money and some time. Kay had printed out the direction to Hotel Place D'Armes in the French Quarter, so we set off in the warm, humid air to find it. Somewhere along the way a traffic direction sign had disappeared--honest--so we ended up going round about instead of straight there. Each one of us thoroughly enjoyed this serendipitous turn of events, seeing graceful wrought iron...

...enticing neon signs...

Be sure to read that exhortation in blue!

...colorful cottages and...

...mule-drawn carriages...

...and a St. Charles streetcar, turning right onto Canal.

When we arrived at the hotel, thank goodness I remembered to get this photo! Back at the airport when Kay attempted to latch Mama's seatbelt, she discovered that all four of our suitcases sat on one of the pieces, so she tied Mama into the seat!

I'm so glad to be blogging again! Tomorrow I'll finish with Day 1.

I hope you'll stick with me over the days to come as I share much more of our Southern bliss!

Vacation, Day 1, 10/21/2009, Part 1

2009-10-27T05:35:00.000-07:00

Before we flew out at 6:15 a.m.--she looks great for having been awake since 3:20 a.m.

The Iceman cometh, thank goodness, to de-ice our plane's wings in Denver, our place to change planes.

Our lunch--ha, ha! We did just fine on it, too!

We've landed!

And now I have to report that I will be away from the World Wide Web for a whole week!

Mama's staying with Aunt Baker and Uncle JL, and I'm off to Talladega with our friends Milton and Kay!

You know I'll return loaded with pix! In fact, I've already got almost 1000 to go through from Wednesday through Sunday--surely some of them will be worth sharing with y'all.

Now that's a grill!

2009-10-26T05:35:00.000-07:00

Great advice appears in these store windows

2009-10-25T05:35:00.000-07:00

These windows are at Moule, 1225 NW Everett St., in the Pearl. I stood across the street to take them, in between passing vehicles.

Mama and I are on vacation. I don't think I'll be around the Internet much, but I'll be back by Nov. 5th or so.

You know how you see someone you've never seen before and ...

2009-10-24T05:35:00.000-07:00

...then you see that same person again! Well, I thought that's what had happened with these two sightings two days apart. However, upon closer inspection of the largest size of each photo, I don't think that this is the same woman, though at the time I took the second photo I remember thinking, "Oh, wow! There's that woman I saw downtown the other day!"

First at Pioneer Courthouse Square on Sept. 17.

Then on Sept. 19 across the street from Three Doors Down on SE 37th.

The view from Mama's bedroom window

2009-10-23T05:35:00.000-07:00

Isn't she blessed?

Three Doors Down Cafe, A Fine Food and Drink Series, No. 5

2009-10-22T05:35:00.000-07:00

Chicken liver pate with grilled foccacia, a pungent, smooth appetizer that matches perfectly the crispy foccacia.

Linguini with slowly simmered beef and pork sugo. Here's another truly wonderful comfort food that amazes me. Flavor, texture, taste--it's got it all going on. I immediately thought about how some children always want spaghetti, but if one were to come to 3DD, the parents could order this instead. I believe the child would be satisfied with the taste and enjoy trying to wrap the linguini around a fork.

Seems like I shared my appetizer with Kailey, and I had some of my sugo boxed up for the next day. That left room for dessert and wine. Here's the red wine--Notios, Peloponnisos Regional Wine, Red Dry Wine. Perfect accompaniment to my dessert.

Bocca Negra, my favorite chocolate dessert in Portland!