Belated Christmas Recap

The Christmas season was fabulous this year.  All of us who shared it continue to comment on how much we enjoyed it.  I think it was a combination of some of these things:  the excitement of decorating our first home, the time spent hanging out with family, the field trips and outings, the dinner with extended family, the rare Nashvillian white Christmas, and the unexpected church snow day that followed.

My dad and step mom drove up from Texas to hang out with us for almost a whole week.  One of our first adventures was to visit the Tennessee State Museum.  It's FREE - always!  At first glance it appears to be a podunk museum with a few exhibits, but each turn of the corner reveals more and more rooms full of things to see.  When you think you've finally come to the end, there's a sign that points downstairs to more exhibits.  And after that there's yet ANOTHER sign pointing down to one last level.  The more valuable stuff is on the bottom two levels.  We know because we started to see suited men with those FBI ear cord thingies. 

Some of the things we saw were:  a mastodon skull and bones, prehistoric tools, a Conestoga wagon, a 200 year-old dugout canoe (that had been used for years by a local farmer as an animal trough), a printer's shop, a woodworker's shop, lots of Andrew Jackson memorabilia, a room of quilts (my favorite part!), a 3,600 year-old Egyptian mummy that was brought to Tennessee in 1860 (eeewww!), a portrait and landscape gallery, lots of artifacts and photos from the Civil War, and lots lots more.  It will take us several more visits to see everything this museum has to offer!

My dad (machinist extraordinaire) 

standing in front of a treadle lathe.

One day during my parents' visit we took a tour of Howard's work.  It wasn't nearly as jowl dropping as the Google tour he used to give*, but he has a great office, wonderful colleagues and mentors, and challenging projects to work on.  After the tour we had to try out Noshville, an authentic New York delicatessen (how authentic can it be if it's in Nashville?).  At first glance, it reminded us of D. Z. Akins in San Diego, only a lot smaller.  The cabbage soup rivaled that of D. Z. Akins, but we weren't too excited about the rest of our food.  We'll have to try it again just to make sure.

On Christmas Eve we saw The Rockettes for the first time ever.  The acts of the show alternated between The Rockettes and another coed team of talented dancers and singers.  The precision of The Rockettes was astounding.  The big surprise for all of us though was the final act, a full-on nativity scene with Joseph, Mary, Baby Jesus, lots of other folks, a real donkey or two,  three real camels, and real sheep.  Does their show always end with that scene or is that just an only-in-Nashville thing?

This is getting long (are you still there?), but I'm going to keep going while I've got momentum.

We spent Christmas hanging out around the house, staring out the windows at the white Christmas, eating lots of yummy fattening food, and playing games.  We taught the folks how to play Quarto, a 2-person 3-dimensional game kind of like Connect Four.  The most fun, though, was playing partner Skip-Bo.  You're not supposed to communicate with your partner, but we found funny ways to get around that rule - or attempt to get around that rule.  My favorite was the woodpecker finger tap next to the card that you wanted your partner to notice.

The Sunday after Christmas we had a church snow day - an official one enacted by the bishop, not by us ;o)  My cousin and her family came over for dinner in the afternoon.  We really enjoyed hanging out and chatting with them.  I've seen my cousin more in the last five months than I have in my entire life!  How fun to have family 15-20 minutes away!

 My cousin (dad's niece), her husband and youngest son

The folks

My cousin's older son and Howard

*On the unofficial Google tour Howard would usually treat you to one of the free meals (breakfast, lunch or dinner!) and then show you all the cool stuff on campus (that's what they call it, campus): micro kitchens with free snacks and drinks of all kinds, napping chairs, Google-colored bicycles to ride from building to building, the doctor's office, the Google store, an occasional glimpse of the 7-person bike if it happened to be out and about, the replica of the dinosaur skeleton adorned with pink plastic flamingos, the first Google server, and lots more. 

Nashville Night Life

Saturday night we went to the Grand Ole Opry for the first time.  One of Howard's high school buddies and his wife were in town, so we shared the experience with them.  What a riot!  It's a live two-hour radio show divided into four 30-minute segments, each hosted by a different celebrity and a different sponsor.  Even though we paid to get in, we still had to listen to commercials - bummer!

It's funny how you grow up hearing names like Charley Pride and Charlie Daniels but you never really know who they are or what they do.  Charley Pride is a country crooner with an amazing career.  In 1993 he was the first African American invited to perform as a regular at the Grand Ole Opry.  And Charlie Daniels - wow!  What a performer!  He looks like a Texan Santa, gigantic belt buckle and all.  Boy can he fiddle!  Howard was quite impressed with his bands' musicianship - so that says something.  

We also saw Little Jimmy Dickens - had never heard of him before.  He's a tiny little (4' 11") 89-year old sequined singer with great geriatric jokes.  Here's the gist of one of his jokes:

Patient:  Doc, I'm having trouble hearing.
Doctor:  Hmmmm, this is strange.  You've got a suppository in your ear!
Patient:  Thanks Doc, that helps a lot.  Now I know what happened to my hearing aid.

Before the show, we soaked up some local color on Honky Tonk Row, also known as Lower Broadway.  Honky Tonk Row is about four blocks of great old architecture covered in neon.  For music lovers there are musicians playing inside the many venues, and many playing on the streets too.  For the fashion-minded there are western apparel and boot shops a plenty.  And for the hungry, there are lots of places to eat, especially barbecue places.  We ate at Jack's - along with the rest of the world.  It's got a lot of character but Howard still has yet to find barbecue that compares to Famous Dave's.

 

 

Veteran's Day

I just love it when you think you're going to do one thing and you end up stumbling upon something else that's way more interesting and meaningful than what you had planned.  Today I set out to explore some quilt shops in Franklin, a cute town in Middle Tennessee that's been around since 1799.  (Howard and I imagine ourselves living there some day.)  Anyway, as I approached the town center, I could see that traffic was blocked off and then I noticed two fire trucks hoisting a gigantic flag into the air.  I'm embarrassed to admit that it took me a few minutes to remember that it was Veteran's Day.

As fate would have it, I arrived about five minutes before the parade started - got to see the whole thing.  There were local high school and middle school marching bands and a few marching ROTC groups - I had no idea that ROTC still existed!  There were a lot of stunning classic cars carrying veterans from many different wars.  But, when these guys (below) rolled past, I got all choked up and teary-eyed and suddenly felt a great appreciation for all those who have served our country in the armed forces.

I was standing next to this woman in a pink top (below) - I think she was alone too.  She turned to me with tears in her eyes and told me how emotional she felt.  She cried throughout the entire parade and shouted out a 'thank you' to every veteran who passed by.  

The quilt shops:  After the parade, I explored two quilt shops.  One was small, cute and super organized.  The other was the most chaotic store I've ever been to.  It was huge and overwhelming, with a ginormous (spell check is accepting this word!) selection of fabrics.  If there's such a thing as a retail hoarder, I think the shop owner might be one.  When I asked where the cutting table was, one of the ladies pointed to a mound of fabric.  Sure enough, there was a table underneath the pile.  She then measured my half yard and tore the fabric - no room for cutting obviously.  If Monk were ever to step into this shop (which is physically difficult anyway because the most recent shipments are kind of blocking the front door and the front aisles), he would immediately go into a catatonic state and probably never recover.

The Perfect Day

It's amazing to see how blogging seems to be connecting women from all over.  Crystal, a friend who lives in California, sent me this link and wrote something like, "You should check out this blog.  This woman, Anna Maria, is a fabric designer and she lives in Nashville.  I love her fabrics."  

It turns out that Anna Maria lives in the next town over.  AND, via her blog I discovered that she was heading up a community project to make quilts for the middle Tennessee flood victims.  AND, they were going to get together on Wednesday, October 20th, for their next sewing session.  I emailed Anna Maria and told her that I wanted to help out.

When Wednesday morning rolled around, I started having thoughts like, "What if I'm walking into a group of women who've known each other for 20 years?  That's awkward!"  (My middle school students used to say everything was awkward.)  I almost talked myself out of going, but I'm so glad that I didn't.  It turned out to be the perfect day.  Here's what I loved about it:

• I met lots of interesting ladies, some who had come alone just like me - one woman had moved from Sunnyvale, California three years ago and her husband had worked at Yahoo!  Btw, it turns out that Anna Maria's husband works at Vandy in a department that occasionally works on projects with Howard's department.
• I received training on Tennessean pronunciation and vocabulary.  If you hear the word flares, they might be talking about flowers.  Some people say hit instead of it.  (The woman who told me about that had been skeptical the first time she had heard about it until when one day when she heard a woman commenting on her new baby, "Isn't hit beautiful?") 
• I got to be a small part of the work of dozens of women working together for a good cause.
• I got to hang out all day in a stunningly unique, but simply restored farm home, in a picturesque Fall country setting. 
• It was 72 degrees with cool breezes and blue skies - I worked on the porch for awhile trimming blocks and listening to country western music.

I regret that I didn't take any pictures, but it turns out that Channel 5 was there covering the story.  Even though I'm not in the footage, I promise you I was there!  It was the perfect day.

When I Grow Up, I Want to be an Alpaca Rancher

I bet that not many of you know that there is a two-day national celebration called National Alpaca Farm Days.  (Click here to find an alpaca farm near you!)  On Saturday Howard and I celebrated by visiting the High Meadows Alpaca Farm in Leiper's Fork, Tennessee.

I'm not much of an animal person...but, I could totally see myself running an alpaca farm.  Alpacas are clean, cuddly, and just plain cute.  Being the fiber freak that I am, I couldn't keep my hands off of them.  Their fleece is super thick and soft.

At this farm there are 320 individually named alpacas and the head (chew chompin' and spittin') rancher knows them all by name.  It's easy to see how he can remember them - just take a look at a few of their unique faces!  "Howard, I want an alpaca and I want it NOW!"

Random alpaca info:

• They don't have any top teeth (same as cows, who knew!?!) and their bottom teeth have to be filed down occasionally.
• They eat hay or grasses, but will try to chew on anything - they tried to chew on Howard's clothes and lick his camera as he took close-up pictures.  Anyone know how to remove alpaca spit from a camera lens!?!
• They are bred for their fiber. 
• Their fleece is softer and warmer than sheep's wool.  It doesn't contain lanolin which makes it less prickly than wool, but not water repellent like wool.
• The female's gestation period is eleven months.
• Some have been house trained because of their clean defecation habits, which means they have a communal poop pile and they don't graze there.