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books / hobby / photo / weekend — Comments Off
8
Aug 10

Meet the new neighbors

We’re beginning to have regular visitors at the bird feeders. Here are two of them:

Pretty bird

It’s hardly nature photography — sitting in the shade on my porch, trying to be very still, waiting for the birds — but I figure if we’re going to ask the birds to come visit the least they can do is pose for a picture.

We’ll soon be doing this to our human friends, as well. Just be prepared.

For a quality reference on the local birds, including pictures, maps, descriptions and CD calls, check out the Birds of Alabama Field Guide. As soon as I buy mine I’ll know what I’m looking at. Until then, I’m woefully deficient in bird identification.

adventures / Auburn / Friday / photo / Pie Day — Comments Off
6
Aug 10

Our first Auburn Pie Day

Our Pie Day options

I solicited recommendations for pie in Auburn. There was a tie. One of them I’ve tried before, and did not enjoy. So we went to Mike and Ed’s, which is new to me. It is owned by a lady who is named neither Mike nor Ed.

Mike and Ed’s uses the Zaxby’s model. Place your order, wait for your number, have a seat, get your drink and so on.

Tea?

Give them this, they do the drinks right.

The Yankee debated between ribs and a pork plate. I talked her into the pork, just in case she didn’t like it. This was her first experience with mustard-based barbecue sauce. She did not care for it much. I don’t blame her. I had the chicken, which was tender and reminded me of a good dry rub. And then they poured the sauce on it.

(Barbecue sauce is a regional thing. Your mileage may vary, but the Carolina sauces just don’t carry the same appeal for me. People that like the style are fans of Mike and Ed’s, we just have a different taste. We prefer the Texas and Kansas City styles.)

You saw the pie choices above. The presentation leaves something to be desired.

The pie

We tried the peanut butter because, really, how often do you run across that? It was rich and true to the name. It isn’t the sort of thing you would order too often. The restaurant itself is decent enough. It has an eat-and-go atmosphere, though, and Pie Day has always been more about the people — eating and lingering and fellowship — than anything else. So we’ll keep looking. That’s half the fun!

Give ’em this: Mike and Ed’s is displaying what they say are the hands to the clock on Old Main. It was built in 1859 and burned in 1887. I have a copy of this image and I’m not sure where the clock was, but that’s a cool piece of history if it is legitimate.

Any suggestions? Leave ’em in the comments.

In other, happy news, we’re finished with the unpacking. The boxes in the garage have been moved and emptied. So, I suppose, that means we’re settled. Now we just have to decorate.

Auburn / iPhone / memories / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
3
Aug 10

And now for something slightly different

We had lunch at the original Momma Goldberg’s today. You’re jealous, I can feel it from here. And I understand.

For the first time in a long time I did not hear Dave Matthews while we dined. Same slanted floors. Same newspapers covering the walls. Though, while waiting for our sandwiches I did hear two guys talking about the wall they were going to move and the expansion they were going to make.

I’m not sure how comfortable I am with that.

Momma G’s, if you are unaware, is one of those older, funky with time and dirt and graffiti places you have to experience. The food isn’t bad either. The place opened in 1976, still sits on the same choice corner lot and, despite a recent amount of franchise expansion, has remained perfect in its timelessness. It was the first place I ever ate, here, some now 15 years ago. Little has changed in that time.

C&A 4ever Aug. 1987

They’d still recognize it. You wonder if they made it to 4ever. They could be celebrating the 23rd anniversary of this little scrawl on the wall any day now. Maybe they’ve brought their kids to see it. Maybe they’ve been here with their eventual partner and sheepishly sat at some table, any other table than this one. We may never know.

But if you know, let me know.

I took a picture of the sign out front:

Momma G's

And then I ran it through an iPhone app, HDRforFree that I picked up last week:

Momma G's

Makes rust and distressed wood look great, but what do you think?

While sweating in the attic once again (this will never end, I fear) the police came by to visit. The Yankee did it.

I heard a voice at the door and walked back through the mudroom to investigate. Two nice young officers had knocked to deliver Official Literature. They want us to Do Something. (Seems The Yankee got away with whatever she did. And, just to throw the police off of her trail, she made some joke about how this and that had caught up to me. The police officers weren’t terribly concerned by this.)

This was National Night Out or National Get to Know Your Neighbors or National Get Bitten By Mosquitoes Night or something.

On the homefront: We are to that stage of unpacking, I believe, where we are trying to hide all of the things we need only occasionally. The attic situation is under control, the garage storage situation has been revamped twice more — but we’ve advanced now beyond that point and are merely focusing on emptying and removing the boxes. Progress continues apace.

friends / photo / weekend — Comments Off
31
Jul 10

Starting the settling

Slept in a bit after the world’s longest day, which was preceded by two hours of sleep. As yesterday wound down I started the count. I think I’d had about nine hours of sleep in the previous three days. So it was a great relief to sleep this morning. I spent the first part of the day much like the TiVo, “Preparing to connect …”

Brian, who spent the night with us after the move, continued his routine awesomeness today by generally helping out with the handyman stuff and also building a bookshelf.

The Glomshelf

I stocked it with all of my Gloms.

We discovered that one of my wrenches is antique. It is a Craftman. Singular. They were only doing the one thing back then … It fell apart in my hands (Isn’t this the company that promises that won’t happen?) while I replaced a shower head. We had to save the wrench to install the washer connectors.

And then we decided to get new washer connectors. (I have a feeling the next few days on the blog will be about unpacking and trips to Lowe’s. If you want to avoid that, I don’t blame you. I want to, too.)

For instance: We discovered a few pieces of large Tupperware the previous owner so graciously left behind. I’m storing cables in it — so they stay fresh, you understand. I’ve discovered today we have a lot of cables. If you need any RCA, coax, cat-5 or USB cables, stop by and pick some up.

The Yankee set up the kitchen today. I pulled all of my books out of boxes and started juggling things in the office.

All the furniture is in place. Now we’ll just have the boxes, a ton of which are in the garage.

We met a neighbor. She’s a woman who moved here from California. She takes care of the grandchild while her son is doing his doctoral work. Nice job if you can get it, eh? Turns out her son served in Iraq and Afghanistan, will soon finish his PhD in engineering and then head north to teach for the rest of his career at West Point. Sounds like one together guy.

The neighbor already knew all about us. We’re no longer talking out in the yard, just in case the community has strategically placed microphones in the hedges.

We bought Brian, who is awesome, dinner at Niffer’s Place. He wanted corn nuggets and the man deserved corn nuggets. He’s sleeping them off tonight and then, having craftily avoided a baby shower, will head home tomorrow. (We’re trying to talk him into staying longer and diving into a few more of these boxes.)

Tried out the pool tonight. Triple-digit temperatures mean an exotically warm swimming experience. Sitting on the pool deck it was nice to just relax and not sweat. And then the moisture dried off, the warm summer air kicked in and, lo, at 11 p.m. at night we did begin to sweat again, while stationary.

It only reached 99 today … though I saw a bank sign that disagreed. If you stare at the heat wafting off the asphalt long enough it will rise into the shape of a number. And that number was 104. Who am I to disagree with the heat itself?

friends / memories / photo / Pie Day / Thursday — Comments Off
29
Jul 10

The pre-move

The heat index only made it up to 99 degrees today. And I did my part, I tried, to get that last extra degree so I could say “Hey, I moved furniture in triple-digit temperatures today.”

Because 99, somehow, doesn’t sound impressive.

And that’s when you know sunstroke has set in.

So the recliner went downstairs to the garage. One of the rocking chairs joined its mate. The living room chair found its way safely into the garage. Numerous boxes, all of our books all made it downstairs. The plan, since the move is tomorrow, is to sling everything from the garage onto the truck and call it a day.

This evening we packed up the kitchen. All of our clothes have been dutifully stored in wardrobe boxes. Later I’ll tear down the network and pack up the televisions.

Even still, I managed to do three voiceovers this morning. But the place looks entirely different from that, even 12 hours later. Now it looks like a cardboard factory explosion.

Pie Day

We had our last regular Pie Day with Ward tonight. (Incidentally, that’s the banana cream pie, which is new to Jim ‘N’ Nicks, and quite tasty.)

Ward

I’m a fairly sappy and sentimental person, and waxing on about it is possible, and would be silly. Ward, there, has looked after us for a long time. We’ve been coming here for five-and-a-half years. This is as much a part of our history and social culture as anything else we do. And we’ll still make it here when we are in town visiting, but this was our last regular visit.

Yes, barbecue means that much. Pie means that much. That it was the first excuse I had to get my eventual wife to have a bite to eat with me means even more. (As I’ve mentioned before, it was a competitor’s waitress’ line about how “Friday is Pie Day” that cinched the deal. When The Yankee and I were standing in a parking lot one afternoon I impulsively invited her for a barbecue sandwich. She hedged. And then I invited her for pie. Friday, I said, is Pie Day. You just can’t argue with logic like that, friends.)

We’ve had untold celebrations here. Birthdays, graduations, quiet nights of dinner for two, loud nights of dinner for a dozen. This has always been our date night and we’ve always incorporated everyone that wanted to come. I used to keep count of the people, stopping somewhere around four dozen, that joined us for Pie Day.

And now when I mention it — or even when I don’t mention it — on Twitter people respond to it even people I haven’t yet met in person.

Sure, The Yankee and I will still have Pie Day. Yes, I’m looking forward to finding the new home for the event. But, still, I hold onto things, tightly and closely. And this has been a wonderful event worth holding onto for a long time now.

We managed to sit in the same table where we ate there the first time.

And now, so I don’t waste any more of your time on it, cute cat pictures:

She's helping.

She’s helping.

She stopped helping ...

She stopped helping.

And now for a late night and early morning of last minute panic packing…