Gaynor Puffs Cold Potpie
Monday, Mar. 12, 2007 at 10:24 a.m.
On this day in 1888, the massive and unexpected Blizzard of 1888 strikes the East coast of the United States, paralyzing New York and many other cities and leaving at least 400 dead. Snowdrifts fifty feet high were reported, and New York received over 40 inches of snow.
Wow. I did hear someone say the other week up in snow country: Al Gore Can Shovel My Driveway. On the other hand, this is an El Nino/La Nina year so pretty much anything can happen, including hurricanes like none has ever seen, which always puts the Gulf Coast in a state of apoplexy. As it should, really.
Speaking of the Gulf Coast, Pensacola is still pretty thrashed from Hurricane Ivan which landed almost three years ago. Debris and blue-tarp roofs are still everywhere, business signs are still cattywhumpus, and bridges are still in disrepair. However, the end of Pensacola Pier, which had been occupied by the Bayfront Auditorium until Ivan blew the old condemned rat trap down, was home for a couple of days to this lovely clipper:
The Stad Amsterdam, isn�t it pretty? It made me think of poolagirl, natch. They weren�t giving any tours, but we did get to see a couple of swarthy men in short shorts shinny up the mainmast to better dress the sails. Woot!
Hubster and I also learned one thing on this trip to my �rents, and that lesson was:
Do not let Valkyrie�s mother make hotel reservations.
Down the road from the �rent�s house, there is an extended-stay-type hotel that has been around for at least 20 years. It looks nice enough from the outside. It�s close to the �rents (which I think was their main purpose for choosing this hotel) and the �rents were kind enough to kick the bill, since they simply don�t have room in their house for us to stay there.
Well, there is, if Hubster sleeps on a camper cot.
And yes, my Bubba and SIL live in the same town, but he is a fink. More on that later.
But when the Hubster and I walked into our (supposed) non-smoking room, we were met with a room that was nothing short of a pit, the types of which are normally only seen on COPS and location shoots of Jerry Springer. I think the shock of the room sent us in a momentary lapse of reason, as Hubster and I said we�d be okay with staying there. However, by the time our vision cleared and we could smell the years of cigarette smoke, see the wallpaper peeling off what appeared to be mouldy drywall, and we�d stayed awake most of the first night imagining that we are being eaten alive by fleas . . . we made the decision to check out and find another hotel. It was then that we discovered that Mum had paid for our week in advance, and that she was paying $50 a night, and we nearly lost it. We found another hotel and sucked it up for one more night in the Pit, since we were road-tripping to Tuscaloosa the following day, but I swore I saw a mouse, and I don�t think we slept the second night. Then we discovered the stains on the underside of the top coverlet. We were gone.
We did the roadtrip up to Tuscaloosa, following the old Highway 82 just like I always used as a student. Unfortunately, the Hollywood Palace and John�s Plumbing/John�s Disco are no more, and some of the creepiness/Deliverance factor has been removed, but the left turn that leads to the Twix�n�Tween is still there. Hubster was introduced to fried okra and hominy, and he wasn�t having any of it, the fussy eater that he is. I did get to visit with most of my professors from grad school, and learned that the graffiti that says �Valkyrie and A are Goddesses!� still reigns in the paint shop. Dreamland ribs still serves up a good rack (although the sauce isn�t as spicy as I remember) and the Waysider still leans about 6* to the left but serves up the biscuits like nobody�s business.
We trekked around the campus and surrounding town, and I gave a walking tour about the buildings that survived the Civil War and the age of other buildings, and we visited the Museum of Natural History on campus. It�s small and some of the displays are really outdated, but they had a new display called �CSI: Alabama� complete with skeletons and shrunken heads. We got to make fingerprint cards for ourselves and play with the witness facial recognition software. It was cool. We also visited Moundville, a Native American mound-building civilization and archeological site about 16 miles to the south. It was fairly interesting although in need of some renovation. Hubster didn�t realize that we had mound-builders in Alabama, and furthermore, the mounds were for living purposes, not burial.
We went back to Pensacola and into our new hotel, which was clean and nice and clean and non-smelly and clean and did I say it was clean? It was. Anyhoo, we spent some nice time with my �rents and had some interesting conversations with Dad, who was in good spirits and had a good appetite for once. We really don�t know what he�s talking about half the time, but that�s okay. I asked him a lot of questions about his time in the navy and he enjoyed talking about that.
Mom, however, still hasn�t quite embraced what her new role is and still won�t ask for the help that she needs -- although I realized that everyone she knows is more than willing to give her a hand, and I think that she�s embarrassed about Dad�s Alzheimer�s. Meanwhile, everyone has already guessed, and why be ashamed anyway? I don�t get it. I only wish that she wouldn�t get so frustrated with Dad, and I wondered on more than one occaision if she treated her mentally challenged students (she taught in special ed for 25 years or so) the way she treated Dad at some times. He got confused as to which side of the front door opened in which direction, and he stumbled off the front step and fell down. I tried to catch him and then I helped him back up, and all Mom would do was snap at him. I snapped at Mom about her attitude and then everyone was yelling so Hubster and I left and I cried all the way to the hotel. Sigh.
Oh, yes, and my Bubba is a Fink. This title actually came from the Hubster, who said, �In my family, when someone comes 1500 miles to visit, we make a point out of making sure we get to spend some time with them.� Yes, Hubster, your family is actually warm and fuzzy in comparison to my family of Master Manipulators. We attempted to meet up with the Bubba and SIL when we first arrived, and then asked them to call the �rents to let them know a better day to visit (briefly, like an hour, fer chrissakes) but we never heard. Mom found out that the annual St. Patrick�s day Run was happening the morning we were leaving, and Bubba plays drums in the local bagpipe band, but he never bothered to let us know . . . oh, well. So he�s currently a Fink.
Yeah, we had some good times. Didn�t take a single picture. Do you ever wonder why we take pictures? I�m not a scrapbooker, and Lord knows I have way too many photos as it is. I never look at them again. Well, not really. I have something like 1300 photos of our wedding and only 10% of them are fit for others to see. But I suppose if we only took 13 pictures, only 1 of them would be okay. Is that why? But then, if no one took vacation pictures, how could I share things like this with you?
[snark]Yummy![/snark]