Monday « Kenny Smith | Omnes hic sumus discere.

Monday

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27
Jun 16

The search for the Maltese tuna

We pedaled out to one of the lakes this weekend. Going out there is nice. Getting out of the lakes is a different thing, because there are hills. We thought we knew hills. We didn’t know hills. But here’s the big “everybody goes here” lake:

Allie stayed home, thank you very much. She is enjoying her afternoons on the landing in the sun.

She looks like she’s in a scene of a kitteh noir, doesn’t she?

“He walked through my door like a hooman with no tuna, all slow and clumsy with excuses for hours. No Joe I knew would think to come here without tuna, and he knew the game, so the jig was up. His rap was tired. He had the kind of expression that told me he was a hapless sort. He had bad news written all over his face. At least the pets were pretty good.”

The Yankee made an apple pie.

When that happens you enjoy your apple pie. (It was tasty.)

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20
Jun 16

Our seventh anniversary

It started in a classroom. It had to start somewhere, and of course it started there. Lauren and I were in this grad school class and we hated it. The only person less interested was the professor. Near the end of the term she showed back up and, she says, I made some snarky comment. And, she says, she checked me out.

It started in the parking lot of that classroom building, which has since been razed. We complained about the class and talked about this and that. We talked a long time. She was smart and funny and quick witted. The next week we did the same thing. And she was smart and funny and quick witted again. Also, she was pretty and had this smile.

It started over scratch made lemon icebox pie. The first meal we shared. Later she and I went on a date and our classmates, the Chess Club, (we have king pieces and everything) began to think of us as inseparable.

It started among people that care the most for us. I met her parents, who are delightful. She met my family, which is lovely. We took family trips. After some long time, she wondered when I would propose. I drew that out as long as possible.

It started in Forsyth Park, under our tree, where we always sat and read and talked and listened as the world went by. I, finally, proposed. I was trying to work up nerve to ask this question to which I already knew the answer. Just looking for a sign. Give me a signal. Any signal will do. Was that falling leaf my signal? Why am I so bad at subtlety? I’d excused myself to go to the restroom, a feint to leave so that I could come back, which was my plan. In between I met a man and we quoted scriptures to one another about family and marriage and that was, I took it, as my signal. Who has mastered subtlety? This guy. So I excused myself from one of the better-timed Biblical conversations I’ve ever had to return to one of the longest running, most important conversations I have.

It started without a speech. “Would you like to have more adventures with me?” That was it. Somehow it didn’t occur to me beforehand to think up anything to say. But it was perfect and simple. It was a callback to an early conversation about adventures and history. She said yes.

Then we got married. It started seven years ago under a heavy canopy on the hottest day of the year with a small group of important people. The things I recall most often are that smile, the picture-taking, learning what the clinking of silverware on glasses meant and the thought I had, immediately after, that I wished I’d done this cool thing and that gracious thing during the ceremony. My uncle married us, and was terrific. Our guests always, always, talk about the heat. One of our best friends likes to remind us I turned scarily white. There is no such thing as summer wool.

It started with her. It had to start with her. We’ve had many adventures. We’ve gone places and created memories I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. Most of them were of her doing. All of them — the trips and the more important, bigger, moment where we were just sitting on the sofa and reading together — fall neatly into the idea that your experiences make you who you are. When people say that you can hear the happiness, satisfaction, contentment; you can pick up on the recognition of self-awareness in the voice. It is difficult, then, to imagine any better thing to be.

I took this picture of her in Savannah, the night before we married. The night before it started.

It started in Savannah. It started in a classroom in Birmingham and it started in the parking lot outside. It started at a friend’s apartment and in my house. It started among friends. It started among family. It started in our homes.

That’s the fun thing about adventures. If you are up for it, you’re always starting one.

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13
Jun 16

What’s a blind dinosaur called? A Do-you-think-he-saurus

We journeyed up to Indianapolis for a Saturday trip. And we saw dinosaurs!

I don’t understand how everyone can be so casual about this. There are giant lizards destroying buildings and no one is under any sort of panic or is demonstrating the slightest bit of concern:

That’s at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, which is the largest in the world. They say there are 472,900 square feet on five floors and holds more than 120,000 artifacts. They get more than a million guests a year. But we didn’t go there today.

The Yankee has some family friends in Indy. Since my mother-in-law is in town we drove up for a visit, a catch-up, lunch and a little tour.

I also took a picture of the biggest sky walk I’ve ever seen, this is at the Arts Council of Indianapolis.

This was my first trip downtown. It feels like a small town, but busy. And it is just up the road, which is good, because I have to go see that museum.

The unpacking continues. I’ve got to figure out where to hang things. Like this:

Note the year, 1953. I’ve had that magazine — bought it in Kansas City I’d bet — for probably 20 years, because of a feature on the inside:

That’s my bachelor’s degree, after all, so naturally it is something I framed long ago. It should go on a wall somewhere. Somewhere that the dinosaurs can’t reach.

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6
Jun 16

Photos from the weekend

We went to the Surplus Store. This is a facility IU runs where all of their extra equipment and furniture and what not from the many different campuses comes to be picked over by the general public. Plus, they were having a sale. I mean look at the deal they’re offering on these:

Cheaper than Wheel of Fortune. And authentic in ways that the Wheel letters haven’t been for quite some time. Vanna just touches the rectangle now, she doesn’t even spin them around any more.

The surplus store is interesting, but mostly office stuff. And the stuff that isn’t office stuff seems to be either almost-worn out or the sort of things you might not buy secondhand. I did get some pool paddles, though. And I would have stayed longer, there was that sale, if only to avoid this:

We are overrun with packing paper. Someone came in and poured water on it or fed it after midnight or whatever makes paper multiple. It is overwhelming. There’s at least two full car loads of paper due to a trip to a recycling center. It has to be more than one car load.

And then there’s the tape. And the boxes. We are making good progress, though:

I’m starting to hear the sounds that packing tape makes in my sleep, though, so I’m ready for that to be finished.

We went on a bike ride this weekend. I saw a bridge and took a poorly composed, off the hip while pedaling-beneath-it photo for no reason:

We made our way to one of the lakes, this one is named Lemon:

This ride took us through four towns, I believe. (I’m not sure if we should distinguish Unionville from New Unionville.) And we enjoyed the rural scenery:

And there was so much climbing! At least we didn’t have to go up that hill in the distance. (We’d already gone up that hill in the distance.)

I was vacuuming and wanted to make a joke about this Dyson. (I am not its biggest fan.)

Best I can tell, this Dyson was designed to stop working when it encounters more than four strands of hair or anything with the tensile strength of nine covalently bonded dust motes. Its seven-foot power cord was also an attractive selling point.
But it has this giant orange ball!

The Yankee points out I’m the only one that has trouble with it. Probably because I use it.

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30
May 16

The Natchez Trace

We rode our bikes in three states today. We started in western Tennessee and cut the corner off of Alabama and pedaled into eastern Mississippi and then back into Alabama on the Natchez Trace. (Grab a map, this makes sense.) The Trace marks the old forest trail which ran about 440 miles Natchez, Mississippi, to Nashville, Tennessee. It was used by Native Americans, early European explorers, American settlers and traders from all over until well into the 19th century. Today, the path is marked by a closed access road that generally follows the original Trace. It is a great place for scene rides. Perhaps one day I’ll get in the entire route.

But, today, we got in a little over 50 miles of it. I took photographs.

Here we are after having worked through a few miles of Tennessee:

If you’ve ever wondered, Tennessee gets its southern border, and consequently much of the northern borders of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi from the 1663 land grant from King Charles II and North Carolina giving up their lands west of the mountains in 1735. All of the state borders around here were surveyed and established by John Coffee, a lifelong friend of Andrew Jackson’s, who was also a general in the War of 1812. He also negotiated some of the native American resettlements. (Bet we view those differently these days.) He has counties in Alabama and Tennessee and at least four towns across the south named after him. He lived around here and was considered a founder of the city. There’s a chance some of my ancestors knew him. A Walmart stands next to his family cemetery.

The weather was perfect:

The scenery was lovely:

We crossed the Tennessee:

The roads were quiet. So quiet that, twice cars from the other direction stopped in the middle of the road to talk to us. One lady asked us to move a turtle she’d seen in the road just a bit ahead and another guy asked for directions.

The Yankee, making her way into Alabama from Tennessee:

And here she is going from Alabama into Mississippi:

As for the cat, she’s settling in nicely.

She’ll go back in the car tomorrow. So will we.