Category Archives: Alabama

Food

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After she graduated college this past December, Younger Daughter moved back home to work part-time and figure out the next step – which is going to be wonderfully awesome, whatever it happens to be. In the meantime, I get the benefits of living with someone who is the healthiest eater I know. And she cooks! When I’m empty-nesting, my usual lunch is 1) breakfast, 2) coffee with friends, 3) steam-table civic-club meeting buffets or 4) Cheeto crumbs eaten standing in the middle of the kitchen. I like Younger Daughter’s way much better. Here’s a typical lunch she’ll sort of insist on fixing for us: Organic cream of tomato soup and stir-fried veggies with sourdough cheese and herb toast. She plans and preps and I clean up — a great deal for both of us.

Breakfast

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I’m like many of y’all — in that wonderful period when my kids are grown, my work-at-home freelance-writing hours are flexible and my night-owl husband sleeps late. This means I can — finally, after years of otherwise — enjoy an hour or so of uninterrupted peace and quiet with my morning coffee. No carpools to get ready for, no homework to finish up frantically, no wild I’ve-got-nothing-to-wear closet marathons. I love it! So on a recent morning when it seemed as if 10 people ended up in the kitchen all with Important Things To Do Right At This Very Minutes, it sort of threw me off. But we all got through it. Read more at http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20100122/ARTICLES/1225004 — and have a great weekend!

Books

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When only sitting in a toy box will do ... Almost 22-month-old grandson Capt. Adorable finds the best seat in the house for perusing his favorite read.

Recycling

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My family’s weekly trip to the recycling center in Florence, Alabama — shamefully, our own nearby town doesn’t recycle — usually is simply one more item on the to-do list, but every once in awhile we’ll stumble onto a mystery. Such as a recent visit when we found this collection of remote-control toys carefully placed on the recycling altar and bravely waiting the recycling-forklift fate. We were immediately nosy intrigued and wanted the backstory. Were the robot, monster truck and fire engine broken? Was it a punishment: “If you hit your sister one more time, we’re taking your new toys to the recycling center?” Was a revengeful woman somewhere gloating over finally getting rid of her husband’s/boyfriend’s obsessions? Or — and this is the explanation my family favored — had we inadvertently stumbled onto some sort of Toy Story-esque rescue operation that got halted as we humans approached? And as for the Bob Marley poster … well, use your own imagination. I got nothin’ — except to say, “Let’s get together and feel all right.” (Which is the only Bob Marley song I know and that’s because of the Jamaica commercial. But I really like it.)

Football

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Can you still hear the roar of cheering from Alabama as we look forward to celebrating a whole year of college football supremacy? Around here it’s always football season, whether talk focuses on recruits or practice sessions or the most recent game or the games that are coming up — which in this case is Sept. 4 at home against San Jose State with the first home SEC game on Oct. 2 against Florida. In fact, the release of the upcoming season’s schedule is eagerly awaited since nobody wants to schedule a wedding or anniversary party or other important event during an Alabama or Auburn home game — and if it’s during an away game, just be sure to have TVs handy. And since it’s all football all the time around here, I gave over my newspaper column this week to Dear Husband, a newspaper sports editor who still patiently explains to me the difference between fullbacks and linebackers. This week he’s answered questions I had about the Alabama v. Texas BCS championship game — with his own spin, of course. For example, when I asked why players jump on opposing players who are already down on the field and everybody ends up in a big pile, he said, “It’s a good chance to get off their feet for minute. Football is tiring.” Read it at http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20100115/ARTICLES/1155005 — and you’ll learn a bit more about football, too.

Shopping

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Charmed, I’m sure! Recently Younger Daughter and I explored the latest addition to retail whimsy in Birmingham, Alabama — a boutique called Charm, on Second Avenue North across from Urban Standard coffee shop. I mean, where else are you going to find a glittery and sequined deer’s head but in downtown Birmingham??? This little gem of a shop specializes in vintage and locally handmade jewelry, scarves and handbags — but with attitude. It’s like rummaging through your crazy aunt’s closet while she’s out dancing on tables because the fleet has come in. Or something. Owner Chatham Hellmers had the late and great Jinx boutique in Birmingham’s Five Points that was always a must-stop destination for quirky jewelry and retro-hip style. Charm is a grownup upscale version perfect for browsing, especially if you’re looking for gifts. I was immediately delighted and impressed with Hellmers’ taste when I spied an “old” jewelry box made in the shape of a rolltop office desk — the same jewelry box I had growing up. The drawers and compartments are lined with a red velvet-type fabric, and I kept them lovingly stocked with silver turquoise rings and copper bracelets to show I was In Tune with Nature and One with the Universe and wide plastic cuffs to show I read Vogue. Hey — don’t judge! It was the 1970s, remember, and I was young(er). Anyway, find out more about Charm at http://www.charmonsecond.com/

Food

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I am such a grocery-store geek. I love wandering around groceries, checking out what’s new and taking note of what they’ve got that our stores in northwest Alabama do not have — which is usually quite a lot. Take, for instance, this Kroger in Madison, Alabama (which is just north Alabama without the “west” part), which has an incredible international or global or ethnic aisle or whatever you want to call it. I call it, “There are some wonderful things here that I really should buy and take home and learn to cook.” Now, our local northwest-Alabama stores do have “ethnic” food, but it’s more along the lines of tortillas, salsa with some duck sauce and rice thrown in. This array, on the other hand, was  impressive — there’s even a British section that made me want to brew a cup of tea, put my feet up in front of a cozy fire and read an Agatha Christie mystery. While eating a digestive biscuit, of course.

Etiquette — and Elvis

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Etiquette rules have loosened up considerably since the days when women had to make sure they had a pair of white gloves handy when they went out, but good behaviour never goes out of style. I thought, anyway. Recently Younger Daughter and I were at a popular local lunch spot in Florence, Alabama, and put our purses on a table to save it while we stood in line to order — only to find our table stolen and the thieves brazenly offering to let us sit there if we wanted. Uh, ‘scuse me??? We declined to share and plotted revenge all through our salads — spilling water and dropping plates of food figured prominently. Arrrggghhhh! Then later that afternoon, I posted about it on Facebook and got tons of responses and advice, plus the suggestion to write my next newspaper column about it. So I did: http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20100108/ARTICLES/1085027

Also, happy 75th birthday, Elvis! If anybody needs something to do this weekend, go to Tupelo, Mississippi, and pay homage to the king at his birthplace — http://tupelo.net/things-to-do/birthplace-elvis.asp. And there’s a party going on at http://www.elvis.com/graceland/calendar/elvis_birthday.asp

Alabama

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It’s almost like the whole state of Alabama has shut down today, due to 1) snow and 2) the University of Alabama playing for the national college-football championship tonight. So far, at least in my northwest corner of the state, the snow is not impressing and doesn’t seem to warrant all the school-closings and grocery-store frenzies that went on yesterday. Here’s hoping that Alabama’s football showing tonight is better. Now, normally I am not an Alabama fan — you know it’s a rule here that you have to choose between Alabama and Auburn and I’ve just sort of gravitated toward Auburn as the usual underdog (plus I like the campus better because it’s prettier and smaller) — but tonight I feel as if the honor of SEC football is at stake in front of the whole country and Alabama Must Win. Younger Daughter, on the other hand, is bitterly anti-Alabama and already has declared that we’re a house divided tonight if I’m going to jump ship like this. And it does pain me, it really does — but it’s vital we in the SEC show everyone that we deserve to be represented in the national championship, at least by one team if we can’t have both. So — and you won’t often hear me say this — “Roll, Tide!” Tonight we’ll all be like 21-month-old grandson Capt. Adorable — lounging in our easy chairs with eyes glued to the screens and snacks nearby.

Winter

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Hello, winter! Nice of you to stop by for a visit. Just remember not to overstay your welcome, please.

Now, we here in the mid-South do get freezing temperatures every year or so — for about a day or maybe two or three at the most. Not uncommon at all — we have to have a reason to wear all those scarves and gloves we got for Christmas, you know.  But this week-long run of sustained bitter cold we’re in right now is a bit unusual. We’re talking really and truly cold here — pipe-bursting, fountain-freezing, thermal underwear-wearing, do-not-go-outside-without-your coat-and-hat cold. Brrrrrrrr. I was driving through downtown Florence, Alabama, on Monday afternoon and had to look twice at this hotel fountain to realize it was frozen absolutely solid. Younger Daughter just got back from a trip to Portland, Maine, to visit her very cool uncle and aunt (my younger brother and his wife) and except for the snow she said she feels as if she’s still there. Also except for the warming effects of napping with their 125-pound Alaskan malamute, Thule. Although in Maine folks are probably experienced enough to turn their fountains off when freezing weather threatens. I’m just saying.