Thursday, March 07, 2002
Suddenly I am feeling FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. Something happened while I was with the CPA. I didn't expect it, or even understand it. I am simply willing to accept it!
10506161">2:46:00 PM
Wednesday, March 06, 2002
Yikes! I just realized why all of the homely people move to California!
details to come...
10456766">10:21:00 AM
Two Tanks to Asheville
(part 3---roadtrip blog)
The next morning we woke at 7. Zorrid went to the office and brought back coffee and Krispy-Crème donuts, and turned on the teevee. We watched some retro show called “The Little Rascals.” It was a hoot! A black-and-white of a rough-tumble gang, basically sweet-hearted, poor kids. When it was over I asked Zorrid which character he would be. He said Darla! He is so Darla, indeed, a sly dark-haired princess. I said I would be AlphaAlpha. He said, “You got that right! Same smile. Same optimism.”
NEWS FLASH: Noble, Georgia. Eighty bodies are found in a woods behind a crematorium. The owner has been ill so he turned the operation over to his 28-year-old son. More body parts are sticking up through the red-Georgia clay. More to come. Stay tuned.
I-64 to I-74 to I-75. Just before Knoxville we joined all of the Sunday saints for a buffet at Ryan’s. No kidding! I had been at Ryan’s in Rockford, Illinois just a few weeks ago! It is a chain. Argh. But Zorrid and I wanted to do it, so there we were eating buffet with lots of white, well-dressed church peeps. Guess what? Almost the same food-black-eyed peas, sweet potato Fluff stuff, except you could have carved ham, sliced turkey breast, or sausage, all served by a chef. It was yummy, sort of. Oh wait-they had my fav-vegetable lasagna. I think soul food and Southern food might be almost the same thing. It could be a big trick.
I swung out of the door singing…“Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me.”
Oh! It’s chilly this morning. I tie my road-sign green GAP scarf around my neck. Zorrid throws on his inky black leather jacket.
I-75 is quiet, mostly semis, those always-on-the-road men, carting must-have goods across the country. We are in the Daniel Boone National Forest. Outcroppings of carved out hills are scattered with scrawny evergreens seemingly growing right out of the rocks.
Speaking of rocks, I need one for my garden back home. Say the rocks here lot the same as those in Missouri. What’s up with that? I don’t want any repeats.
We are sweeping through a mountain range, the Bald Mountains. Oh no! The sheer rock cliffs are weeping. I am guessing this is shale. WATCH FOR FALLING ROCKS! The mountains are crumbling. We pass into the New Found Mountains.
Nice colors. The mountains are shades of blue, more intense close up, ombre, growing paler and paler the farther away they are. We are skirting the Great Smoky Mountains. Wedgewood blue peaks, Mt Sterling (5835’) and Chiltoes (5888’) rise out of a brilliant white ring of fog/clouds. The roads are still wide and softly rolling. Down in Maggie Valley I spy a roadside attraction…pink elephants, Davy Crockett, a circus seal, and plastic multicolored flags flap in the breeze. “Let’s get some groovy take home gifts.” An hour later my bag is full-a Herkimer diamond in matrix for my nephew, a pair of salt and pepper shakers shaped like mountains, one says “Blue Ridge Mountains”, and the other says “Great Smokies.” I have a hand-painted Bear mug for Jordan, some bizarre 9-11 memorabilia for CeCe, and a jasper picture rock for Jeret, it looks just like the image on his antique rotating man-fishing Beer sign! Five T-shirts and I am done with my little goofy presents. I bought a Daniel Boone tank for myself. Zorrid can’t find an amusement in the trinkets. He is laughing at me, again. He says my enthusiasm is all he needs.
I ask Zorrid to drive. The man at the store said it was 137 miles to Asheville, North Carolina, our destination. (I wanted to watch the sun rise and set in Key West, but there isn’t enough time.) Zorrid is a Tom Wolfe fan, the older one, “You Can’t Go Home Again” so he is interested in Ashville. F. Scott Fitzgerald didn’t live here, but he came on occasion to write. There could be magic in these mountains.
The storeman added, “Mountains?” when I asked about it, “Honey, you are just in the foothills here. This is nothing.” Whee-hoo! Hang on to your hat!
Already I have developed vertigo. If I am driving and look off into the deep dusky valleys, my head starts to spin. My body is always eager to toss itself off the side. I have to work at it, use my intellect, to save myself from flailing off the mountain. It happens on all mountains, here, out west, it doesn’t seem to matter. Zorrid must drive.
I love mountains…their grandeur, the colors, the way the wind makes curly-cue eddies. I am in awe.
Zorrid takes us up one side and down another, curving, going into the throat of two sharp tunnels dug out right through the mountains. They have lights inside at 2’ intervals. I hold my breath, not intentionally, it just happens.
My ears have been popping all day long.
Am I gonna see God, mommy?/Am I gonna die?/It really hurts mommy!/Am I gonna die?/Smile on mighty Jesus…
I put on ween’s “Spinal Meningitis” song. It makes me feel better.
Damn this is fun!
Asheville. We have arrived. Houses are built up in the towering mountains look down on the city, an old crumbly place with lots of empty storefronts downtown. Once it had been elegant, perhaps in the 20s or 30s, evidenced by a scattering of dramatic Art Deco architecture.
We followed Patton Street in to the Chamber of Commerce to get a local map and select sleeping quarters.
The brochure on Days Inn North looked great. I wanted a Jacuzzi suite. Heading towards Weaverville we found the hotel. It was 3:30 and the rooms weren’t ready yet. “In two hours” the desk clerk said. So we paid and went to a bookstore we had passed, The Reader’s Corner, on Monford Avenue. Inside the front door, to the right, was a large selection of used Tom Wolfe books-“Look Homeward, Angel” “The Web & The Rock” “Of Time and The River” plus a selection of his minor works.
I love used bookstores and this one was particularly nice, jammed floor to ceiling with worthy texts, yet open enough so your ass doesn’t bump into the bookshelf on the other side of the aisle when you bend over to look at the books on the bottom shelf. I bought two travel books. One by Lawrence Durrell, “Spirit of Place” and a contemporary book about an upside-down girl. Yes, I liked the title!
From there we headed over to Woodfin to see the Thomas Wolfe Memorial, the favorite son of Asheville. Ironically, he wrote scathingly of Asheville, much like Hemingway did of Oak Park, IL, “a town of wide streets and small minds.”
The other doodad of Asheville is the Biltmore Estate. It is touted as the largest private home in America, some 240+ rooms of overblown ornamentation. I wanted to see the French Renaissance Chateau architecture, so when we went to the visitor gate we were surprised that it cost $36 for a four-hour tour. No peeking, so we left. You could purchase souvenirs at the fancy store this side of the gate. It is like saying you were there when you weren’t.
We stopped at two galleries, New Morning and a folk art place. They need LuLu’s!!!!!!
I bought a pair of calla lily earring, fine little sculptures by Stuart Nye. When worn the stems that will wind down my neck, perfect for a wedding. Not mine, someone else’s.
Malaprop’s on Haywood was great. It’s the bookstore where they invite Southern authors in for readings. You can find almost anything here. Well, I should say I went shopping. Z stayed in the car and read a free paper called “Snitch.” He is an easy man to tend to. And he looks good naked too!
Swinging back north to the room, we stopped at a liquor store for Z.
OOOH-WHEE! The room was very very very pleasant… spacious, clean, and nicely appointed. Only $70 too! It would be three X’s that in Chicagoland or even Milwaukee.
We unpacked and filled up the Jacuzzi. Our naked bodies need the massage from the vigorous jets. We drank and smoked and ordered pizza. Well, we tried to order pizza from Frank’s Roman but we reached a message that said it was the Sabbath and they were closed, and you should be too. Well, something like that. We settled for Domino’s. Yike’s it was horrid! Big tasteless dough-ball pizza and the garlic bread was just a smash of dough with garlic salt on it. Come to Chicago if you want pizza…crispy thin crust or a deep-dish with spinach. Yummmmmm. And garlic bread is a Gonella Italian-style bread slathered with butter and garlic crisped up under the broiler.
After Z took a snooze and I read a bit, we dressed for a Sunday night in Asheville. Stella Blue was closed so we went over to Club Hairspray. The parking lot was crammed with cars. The building is a wooden nondescript place painted yellow and pink.
Inside it was too fun…50s hair-dryer chairs, Eames warped-plastic light fixtures, and a floor painted in amoebic shapes. All very casual. We ordered drinks and sat at a side table next to the bar where a bunch of men and women were clustered. The boys wore nice make-up and the girls looked like they could kick my ass all of the way to Florida.
In the center room, a bunch of 20-somethings were watching a Janet Jackson video on a big-screen. Then I saw it…a poster…Red Letter Day was playing downstairs. Whee-hoo! What luck.
We stepped into the orange stairwell, down 3 steps, turn, down 3 steps, turn, down 3 steps turn, where we met the Mad Hatter, okay not the Mad Hatter, a girl selling tickets, $10 apiece.
Through the black door we saw the band playing, drenched in spotlights. We could barely see the kissing men or the groping girls. It was so hot in there I was starting to scorch!
If you like punk music you will love Red Letter Day. They are from Illinois. Go to MP3 and listen to “Sincerely Beautiful” or “Friday The 13th” or “Saturday the 14th” Good music for your ears and your happiness.
Fill that hot tub up again. Let’s dip in honey.
10456367">10:10:00 AM
Need a chuckle? Check out the Boneyard
10456271">10:07:00 AM
"I want someday, to be known as the man with the Iron Will and the Nerves of Steel! .. not just another pretty face in a room full of whores; but a guy who grows the damn Orchids."
---wheniamgod
10455766">9:53:00 AM
Tuesday, March 05, 2002
This has been the best day ever. Two BIG things, business things came together today. Plus I successfully moved up a meeting from late June to this Saturday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes!
10439147">9:41:00 PM
Monday, March 04, 2002
Snapshot
I was picking up groceries when I placed the bags in my car and started the engine. I looked out the window and I saw a dad and his four sons coming out of Fantastic Sam’s. They all had fresh haircuts, the same haircut. But what was so very cool was that the boys, his boys, looked exactly like him…very dark brown short hair, same nose, same eye spacing, even the same expression. The boys were stairsteps…I would guess 12, 10, 8, 7. For a moment I thought the man must have married his sister or someone out of his own genepool. Not that I mean that he looked like he belonged on Jerry Springer. Hardly. He was many rungs up on that invisible social-caste ladder that we in America never talk about.
That set of five males was tremendously wonderful. I wished I had my camera. I’d like to have a picture of them on my wall. I am feeling Diane Arbusy, but I would shoot really normal peeps. And to think this could happen in precloning days.
The man has a troop! All handsome! And just how proud must that dad be?
I do hope that wifey has a set of look-just-like-her girls at home. Then again to be the sole female in that sea of men would be nice too.
True Romance
One girl at the shower that I didn’t know told a great story. She said her grandmother who is 70 had just gotten married to a 73 year-old dude.
Her grandmother had been married for 48 years, then her husband died. They had four children and a struggling life. The man she married had become a widower five years ago.
Now here’s the cool part. They met 30 years ago at a social function. And they instantly fell in love with each other but neither of them said anything.
So a year after the death of the husband, the husband-to-be called the woman and told her he had been in love with her since the first moment he saw her and would she be interested in going out with him? Wow!
Now they are married and he is a rich man who lavishes her with stuff she never had before. And they are really happy and are true newlyweds!
So you can see that this Prince Charming stuff might actually be real. But also realize that you may need to live for a really long time for it to happen AND the Prince might come in a wrinkly package.
10395499">9:05:00 PM
|
