A and K's Rehearsal Dinner: At Trackside

September 26 bloomed out beautifully -- sweet breezes, turning, fall leaves wafting softly down from the trees, full blue sky and sunshine, and the anticpation of Andrew and Kayla's wedding. 

  

The day began at my sisters with flower arranging, totally DIY,  for the Rehearsal Dinner for Andrew and Kayla being held later that day at Trackside Grill in Kennesaw. My sister Margaret and sister-in-law Janet ran this show while I ran color commentary. Heh.

 

 

the finished project

Aren't they fabulous?

 

Trackside Grill

Oh, and, you can't spell Trackside without an A and a K.

*sic*

 

 the tables set with menus featuring tonight's fare  -- a choice of salmon, short ribs, fried chicken, or pork tenderloin -- all yum!!!!!!! house salad to start, banana bread pudding or sorbet to finish...

Indulge.

I had chicken, btw. I mean, come on, it's fried!!!!!!!

David checks out the menu. Always.

Brother Hunter takes some opening shots; in the background -- video for Andrew and Kayla of their lives together so far {a TYL production} 

Thanks, Teresa!!

the host and hostess of the rehearsal dinner, Ralph and Margaret

After the minister's sweet blessing, Ralph welcomed the crowd of fifty plus to the festivities, noting that some of the guests had walked to the restaurant while others had crossed the country from California.

Then the fifteen minute video of Andrew and Kayla's first twenty-four years played in the background while the service staff brought out hot cornbread muffins.

Yum. Again.

Applause, laughter, and tears accompanied the video, and at the end, it received a round of applause. The video's ending made infamous by the immortal words of the couple's favorite aunt and the groom's brother and bride's brother in law:

Who are you?

No one.

*claps*

Then the guests got down to the business of food as silverware clinging against dishes and conversation hummed the room.

Afterwards, our family gathered for our usual photos. It's a dreaded tradition. Ha.

 

The cousins, minus a few..... not all made it. 

*wipes tear*

 

the fab four with their the outlaws

and then some candids --- cause I like them:

 

Stephen, curb my enthusiasm, James, and Nora get ready for the photo ops of the "cousins"

Bryan, looking positively dapper

Love this shot of brother Ken and Kayla [look how her eyes twinkle!]

Book-ended by beauty, Aunt H stands between Nora and Kayla

 

Paul, Angie, and Glenn give their biggest smiles

  

 love the back of Kayla's dress... perfecto!

Andrew and Kayla

groomsmen Cody and Brooks

and the last two-- taken at the actual rehearsal --- 

My future's so bright/ I have to wear shades.

"I'm sorry. I'm kind of in the middle of something."

Bwha.

and this one of the proud parents of the groom -- cuz, well I like it..

and, I'm the blogger.

Heh.

Next up: Wedding Day!!!

Somebody Got 'em a Bird.

On an late August evening about a month ago, N6* and I stood in my driveway discussing something intelligent.

Heh.

Less than ten feet away and on the right side of the driveway is a type of bird Eden --- four bird feeders, two bird baths, bee balm, gardenia, loropetalum, dogwoods, a maple, and barberrys. Birds fly in and out of there like it's Hartsfield International [it will always be Hartsfield to me even though I think it's Maynard Jackson Airport now?], chattering, chirping, calling, circling and diving into the bushes to roost.

Chipmunks, encouraged by the detritus left by birds, scurry neurotically around and add to the nature preserve of the area -- noisy place, I'm telling you. The chipmunks also burrow in the mulch and soil there, and occasionally when I catch them off their guard, they disappear into their holes, dirt flying up behind them, like cartoon characters.

As we stood there, we heard a thump, saw a fluttering of brown and white, a squeak, and then the whipping sound as "it" took off.

N6: Awesome.

Me: What the heck was that?

N6: A hawk. Got his prey.

Me: Argh. Nature Channel. Live. Uncensored. What did it get? A chipmunk?

N6: Nope. Robin. Had just noticed it on the bird bath when the hawk flew in.

Me: Noooooooooooooooooooooo.

N6 said that the hawk hit the bird bath where the robin had landed, took the robin to the ground, and then flew to the other side of the house.

About twenty minutes later, Tallulah, David, and I sat on the back deck. I had been filling David in on the National Geographic moment, and then as if on cue and from the woods that borders our yard, feathers wafted gently down and landed around us.

Tallulah: Somebody got 'em a bird.

Me: Noooooooooo. Say it aint' so.

David: Wished I'd seen it.

Tallulah: Wish I'd done it.

Yesterday, I caught the killer on my cam.

*N6 is Stephen, one of my many nephews. I'm tired of identifying them by name and sibling relation. From now on, they're numbered.

N4 is getting married in two days.

N2 flew in from California today, N1 comes in Thursday from New Orleans, and N3 and N5 live around here. So many 'phews.

Guess what day it is?

Sometimes, commercials just make me laugh.

Ha.

 

Good one, Geico.

 

:-)

Five Books

One

Claire Tomalin's The Invisible Woman, a non-fiction work about Nelly Ternan, the supposed mistress of Charles Dickens [not enough evidence to confirm it, but the speculation runs high], does a thorough business of looking at this nineteenth century actress and her relationship with Dickens, but Tomalin's not convincing.

Since most of Dickens personal letters were destroyed at his request, what little remains of his correspondence has been studied extensively, not only by Tomalin but by others who desired to determine that Dickens had a mistress.

Why did they care? Did it affect how he wrote? What he wrote? His characters?

*shrugs*

Tomalin divided her work into three parts. The first division, and the most interesting, covered the background of the Terman family with an in depth look at nineteenth century English theater and stage. The second section, and the least compelling, delved into the supposed two year intense relationship between Dickens and Terman, and the last documented the life of the Terman family after the death of Dickens.

Nelly Ternan led a strange life that's for sure, but what influence she had, if any, on Charles Dickens sure encouraged Tomalin to write a long book about her.

As much as I love the work of Charles Dickens, this book is a skip her.

Ha.

BTW: I now have Tomalin's book on Thomas Hardy.

 

*shakes head*
 

Two

Published in 2009, Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone  seemed to be on the reading lists of everyone I knew who was in a book club at the time. So many people asked me, “Have you read Cutting for Stone?” I'd answer in the negative.

Now, I have read it, and --- well...

Marion and Shiva Stone, born to Sister Mary Joseph Praise and Thomas Stone in Addis Ababa in 1954, are immediately orphaned. Their mother dies on the birthing table – the boys are co-joined, and their father, a gifted surgeon, flees the scene and abandons his children. Another doctor, Dr. Kalpana Hemlatha, known as Hema, and Dr. Abhi Ghosh take on the young boys and raise them. Thus begins the saga of the twins, a story told mainly in flashback by the oldest of the twins, Marion.

A hefty novel chronicling in detail and sometimes almost day by day events of Missing Hospital and the lives of the four main characters, the graphic violence and turn-the-stomach surgical procedures caused me to scan pages to get the gist of it since the descriptions were too much.

The title of the novel comes from the Hippocratic oath, but I think it's a pun. That's just me, though.

Eh.

 

Three

As much as I enjoyed Richard Russo's memoir Elsewhere about his mother, the story made me ache.

Growing up as an only child of a single mother in upstate New York, Russo considered his unusual circumstances normal. After all, his father, a gambler, a WW2 veteran, and a drunk, stayed nearby, and his maternal grandparents lived downstairs. His mother had a decent job, provided for him, and what she couldn't do, his extended family, an aunt and uncle, pitched in as they lived two streets over.

So what's wrong? According to Russo's absent but around the corner father, “you do know you're mother is nuts, right?” This statement delivered to Russo when he was twenty sent him reeling.

What? Nuts?

And “nuts” it seemed Jean Russo was. Intertwining her life with that of her son's didn't seem too odd to Rick until he applied for a college scholarship to the University of Arizona. When he received it, she announced to him that she was going with him ---not to college but to a town close by where she would get a job and be nearby. Packing up all they had, they drove cross country to their “new” life.

Nearby Russo became where his mother was and had to be for the rest of her life -- another almost thirty years.

As crazy as Jean Russo seemed, her son wrote her sympathetically. Each time Jean Russo went into breakdown mode, her son came to her rescue and nursed her through her “fugues.”

His dutifulness becomes admirable, and his mother's weakness only heart wrenching.

A powerful memoir, full of stories of loyalty and love, Richard Russo's narrative of his mother and her “condition” made me sad but proud of him for sticking with her.

 

 

Four

A beautiful story of a friendship between two women, let's take the long way home by Gail Caldwell covers the author's relationship with Carolyn Knapp, a fellow writer, who will die young of lung cancer.

The memoir recounts how the two women met, bonded over their love of dogs, and then with time discovered that their commonalities ran much deeper. Just when the friendship seems at its strongest does the news of Knapp's illness and demise brutally sever it, and Caldwell's grief becomes palpable. As sad and real as it was, its honesty makes the brief journey with these two women worth it.

 

Five

Almost any resident of the state of Georgia knows of the powerhouse of high school football that lies four hours south of Atlanta. Valdosta High School, the home of the Wildcats, holds state and national records for the most championships won. It's a bunch, and you can look it up if you care. :-)

In Must Win, journalist Drew Jubera spent the 2010 season following the legendary team and its new head coach, Rance Gillispie, as he attempts to put the floundering program back on track. For the previous ten years, the once renown football dynasty had posted losing seasons and had fired a succession of coaches for not maintaining  the winning legacy of Valdosta High School football. The  year before the once mighty football team had been routed by cross town rivals and upstarts Lowndes County.

An in-depth look not only at the history of the area, Jubera does an excellent job of capturing the game, the players, the fans, and the town that loves it all.
 

 

Showering Kayla

On Sunday, my sister-in-law Sally and I gave our nephew Andrew's fiancée a shower. Hosted at my house at three pm, we invited family and friends to eat, celebrate, and shower Kayla.

 

Bringing out the silver and the good manners, I know we made Hazel, currently residing in Heaven,  proud.

 

"Making Hazel proud" is a phrase my lifelong friend Gloria use to quip whenever I behaved ladylike, which apparently isn't that often. LOL

 

FTR: Hazel is my mother.
 

 

We prepared the table.

 

 

Talented Sally created these "perfect" favors.

Aren't they fabulous?

 

 

I ordered the petit fours.

*tee hee*

I'm talented too.

 

 

The guests gathered, and

 

 

the beautiful Kayla, resplendent in red, opened her gifts like a pro.

  

 

Sister Emily carried the haul for the bride-to-be.

 

 

The family posed.

 

 

Kayla and Margaret, mother of the groom

 

 

Kayla with Sally and me

 

AND

 

 

Andrew and Kayla.

 

32 days and countin'.

 

Wedding blog coming up.

Ashes by Now

In a large, roughly made wooden box in my closet [formerly the toy box of my childhood}, I had stored calendars, correspondence, and pictures from three decades ago --  mostly the 1980s. I had always intended to "some day" go through all of it, and that day arrived --- so I've been doing some reminiscing. I've also done some tossing -- as in most of it.

Stuck in the pages of the month of July, 1981, and carefully written in my handwriting on a small slip of paper are the following lyrics from "Ashes by Now" by Rodney Crowell.

The only way to get lyrics then -- was by listening to a song over and over.

Just sayin'.

This morning is Monday where are you now
Teasin' my memory teaching me how to lay low
When I don't want to
Well love is elusive this I know now
It's making me crazy leaving me out
In the open when I don't want to

The moments of pleasures Never do last
Are gone like a suitcase full of your past
Long gone and in a hurry

Baby, I can't go through this again
I don't need to go down more then I've already been
Just like a wild fire you're running all over town
As much as you burn me baby I should be ashes by now

The second street beggars alone in their life
Drunk on a sidewalk to hide from the night
Like I am They're just like I am

Baby, I can't go through this again
I don't need to go down more then I've already been
Just like a wild fire you're running all over town
As much as you burn me baby I should be ashes by now

Just like a wild fire You're running all over town
As much as you burn me, baby I should be ashes by now
Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah I should be ashes by now.

Aww. Rodney Crowell.


And 1981. I wonder what heartbreak I had then --- cuz, well, it's gone now.

:-)

Turn of Mind

Alice LaPlante's Turn of Mind tells the story of a once successful orthopedic surgeon who has entered the early stages of dementia.

The strength of this novel lies in LaPlante's staccato sentences and her abrupt changes in chronology; presenting only the viewpoint of the main character helps this approach give the novel a realistic feel.

Dr. Jennifer White, widowed and living with a full time caretaker, vacillates between the memory of the present and that of the past. Thoughtfully, someone encourages her to journal when she has “good” days, and then she can go back and read about herself, what she does, what she did, and who she is. These journal entries help lay the foundation of Jennifer's past.

LaPlante gives this story a much needed suspense by opening the narrative with the news that Jennifer's best friend of over thirty years and near neighbor Amanda has been murdered and Jennifer among the suspects because four of Amanda's fingers had been surgically removed. If that wasn't enough to fuel suspicion for Jennifer, then the added details of her an Amanda's conflicted past will do it.

Added to Jennifer's woes are her two children with their own set of problems as one of them sees Jennifer's hefty estate as a way to fix his problems and the other's problems – not even money can correct.

Even though I finished the novel, I didn't find it necessarily compelling --- perhaps because none of the characters were particularly sympathetic, not even Jennifer, whom I should have managed to care a little about.... don't you think?