Happy Mother's Day!

It's been a very strange year for me, and I haven't been active on my blog for months. (My Facebook life is busier, as I can do that on my phone. Note to CJ: I can access FB messenger now 😜)

My daughter, her husband, and their wonderful baby are all doing well. This baby is, of course, the best baby ever ❤️. Being a granny would be a lot more fun if i weren't sooo far away, but she's giving me daily updates with photos and videos and that helps. We're planning to drive up there and spend a week late this summer or maybe in September. 

I crashed and burned self-care-wise this year, and my recent doctor visit illustrated that fact. I haven't exercised at all, haven't eaten right, haven't taken any of my supplements, haven't worn my weight vest... You get the idea. I've turned over a new leaf now, though, and hope to see improvements. My doctor wants one of my lab tests re-done this week and all the others in six months. We'll see. I would really love to avoid prescription medications.

That said, I hope to get back to my blog and y'all's. I've missed everybody.

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A Day at the Races 42

from the Tootsie-Frootsie Ice Cream scene from A Day at the Races:

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For the last several years The Husband's work has had him living about 2 hours away. He came home on weekends (Thursday night through Saturday midday for him), and I would sometimes go visit him. He's being transferred back to Memphis, and we are in the process of moving his stuff back to the townhouse. I've let the blogging part of my life go to pot, sadly. I'm able to keep up with Facebook on my phone, but don't do any blogging that way. I hope to be back in the swing of things by mid-July. I'm sure it'll take some effort to mesh our ways back into common living -our eating habits and schedules, for example, couldn't be more different- but we are so grateful we can be back together full time!

The Terrace at Vernonnet

The Terrace at Vernonnet:

is a 1938 painting by Pierre Bonnard, who died on January 23 in 1947. Please share your own drink-related post at the T Stands for Tuesday blogger gathering.

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The Husband's experience with COVID has been blessedly mild as cases go. He got prescription meds quickly and has completed his isolation period. Symptoms continue, but he's able to go back to work. Because he's a 65+ year old insulin-dependent diabetic heart patient who has had cancer twice he's at high risk for complications, and I can't tell you how relieved we both are that he's navigating this process outside the hospital and seeing steady improvement. Onward!

Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™

Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™ is an award-winning 2017 science fiction short story by Rebecca Roanhorse. You can read it online here. It begins,

You maintain a menu of a half dozen Experiences on your digital blackboard, but Vision Quest is the one the Tourists choose the most. That certainly makes your workday easy. All a Vision Quest requires is a dash of mystical shaman, a spirit animal (wolf usually, but birds of prey are on the upswing this year), and the approximation of a peyote experience. Tourists always come out of the Experience feeling spiritually transformed. (You’ve never actually tried peyote, but you did smoke your share of weed during that one year at Arizona State, and who’s going to call you on the difference?) It’s all 101 stuff, really, these Quests. But no other Indian working at Sedona Sweats can do it better. Your sales numbers are tops.

Your wife Theresa doesn’t approve of the gig. Oh, she likes you working, especially after that dismal stretch of unemployment the year before last when she almost left you, but she thinks the job itself is demeaning.

“Our last name’s not Trueblood,” she complains when you tell her about your nom de rêve.

“Nobody wants to buy a Vision Quest from a Jesse Turnblatt,” you explain. “I need to sound more Indian.”

“You are Indian,” she says. “Turnblatt’s Indian-sounding enough because you’re already Indian.”

“We’re not the right kind of Indian,” you counter. “I mean, we’re Catholic, for Christ’s sake.”

What Theresa doesn’t understand is that Tourists don’t want a real Indian experience.

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The Daughter came over yesterday afternoon for a wonderful socially distant patio visit and brought a blueberry pie made from scratch. What a treat! And it's sweet of her to think of me :)

Please join me at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's T Stands for Tuesday blogger gathering.

Central 42

Thinking back to warmer days, I remember eating BBQ out on the deck at Central BBQ. I saw the 42 right next to our table overlooking the Tiger and Central Avenue. I ate a BBQ sandwich and onion rings.

Here's a video that shows the energy at this place. Watch them plate up some of that great food:

Chattanooga, part 7

We had a completely uneventful trip home, which is always a good thing. We had decided to stop for lunch at Jack's, a short order restaurant chain we'd never heard of.

I had a sausage and biscuit:

Our daughter had taken good care of the patio during our absence. This is what it looked like before we left town:

and it was thriving when we returned to it. Home Sweet Home.

Chattanooga, part 6

We decided to make our last full day in Chattanooga relatively low-key. We took the free downtown shuttle across the river to the North Shore and walked from the station to Coolidge Park.

We wandered around North Chattanooga a bit. There were dance instructions for all kinds of dances embedded in the sidewalks:

I already knew how to do the Hokey Pokey and was unable to talk The Husband into trying the Rumba with me, but he did sit here to "play":

After exploring for a bit, we took the shuttle back to the hotel. We'd walked around more than the photos might suggest, so we propped our feet up and rested for a bit before we decided to have lunch at the Pickle Barrel Restaurant, which is in one of the unusual wedge-shaped buildings I don't see often. Back onto the free shuttle, and the driver dropped us off at a stop right across the street from the restaurant.

You can read their menu here. So hard to decide! But I had the Bacon Mushroom Swiss burger with a side of onion rings:

It was delicious!

Here's the view from our table:

Saying goodbye to our last Chattanooga restaurant, we rode the shuttle back towards the hotel but walked the last few blocks just to soak up our last taste of Chattanooga. Back at the hotel, having rested for a while, we decided we weren't quite ready to stop exploring. We headed back out on foot and found dessert:

I wandered across the crosswalk towards the art museum:

and then back towards the pedestrian bridge:

We both went out onto the Walnut Street pedestrian bridge but not all the way across it.

We headed back to the hotel by a different route and saw these four season statues:

Back at the hotel, we were truly ready for some down time before the drive home the next day.

Chattanooga, part 5

There's a history in our family going back to when the kids were little of us trying without success to ride a train. Either they only offered them on alternate weekends, or they leave the station at 2 in the morning, or there's a random "closed" sign in the window when we show up, or some other scheduling complication arises, but we finally made it. I rode a train! Here's proof:

We bought tickets here:

It was a short ride, but I got such a kick out of it:

The station at the other end:

had a snack shop and a repair shed where they do renovations, reconstructions, and repairs:

We got to see the engine turned around:

The return trip was, of course, the same as the trip out, but I did get a better shot of coming out of the tunnel:

It's quite a narrow space. You can see the TVRail video of the train coming out of the tunnel here:

They had a number of train cars on display:

and you could enter this old dining car:

Now I'd like to ride the Orient Express, please.

On the way back to the hotel we passed the Boathouse restaurant and stopped in for lunch.

The parking lot was all but full and we thought we'd have a wait ahead of us, but we gave them our name and sat in the little entryway:

In no time at all we were seated on the covered deck overlooking the Tennessee River:

They have a pretty extensive menu, but I had the catfish, of course, with a side of fried okra:

We rested at the hotel for a bit before heading up the mountain by car to go to Ruby Falls:

It's a private attraction, and quite touristy, with much less emphasis on geologic formations and history and more emphasis on "cute," but we'd been before and knew the history and what to expect and have been in enough caves to know about the formations we'd see. People come from all over the world to see this, and since we were in Chattanooga I wanted to see it again. It is a dramatic sight. You can read a short history at the Wikipedia article here. The website Only In Your State says, "It's the largest underground waterfall that's accessible to the public, and many consider it to be one of the most beautiful in the world."

One visitor has posted a 6-minute video overview of their trip:

The tours are crowded and move quickly down the narrow path to the falls, but I had no trouble getting some photos along the way. You take an elevator down to this point:

and begin the tour there.

and the Falls:

The way back was along the same route but offered another look.

Back down the mountain's narrow, curving road we went, headed back to the hotel. We had a snack supper in the room and watched the second night of the Democratic presidential debate. While the first night could well be summarized as "Centrist candidates use Republican talking points to pick at Sanders and Warren," this second night was "Let's dig through the candidates' ancient history files for actions that are no longer considered politically correct".