Honky-Tonks and Bowl Games

Nashville!  We packed a lot in to our one day in Nashville.  I had breakfast in the morning with my high school friend, Tamara and her boyfriend, Max.  I haven’t seen Tamara since my wedding and had never met Max, so breakfast turned into wandering over to the coffee shop next door to linger a little longer…

Then I headed back to the hotel to pick up Matt, and we turned around and came back downtown… to eat again!  We went to this place over near Vanderbilt’s called Jackson’s Bistro.  It was so, so good.  I wanted at least ten things on the menu, but since I had just come from breakfast a few hours earlier I stuck with a Caesar salad and tomato soup (which coincidentally, happen to be two my favorite foods anyways.)  But before I could sign that meal off as being too healthy, Matt and I split what the restaurant is famous for – a cookie dough egg roll.  It was as amazing as it sounds.

Now, thoroughly stuffed, we drove over to the Broadway area to see the infamous stretch of Honky-Tonks.  The road was blocked off near the river for a pep rally for the game, and the streets were packed with Wake Forest and Mississippi State fans.  Sadly, more Miss St fans than Wake fans…. my ears were already bleeding from the sound of cowbells which threatened to drown out the noise of the live bands playing in each of the bars.  We wandered for a bit, then settled in to one bar with some live music that was a Shania Twain-Patsy Cline cross.  (Side note: you don’t realize quite how much you appreciate the smoking ban in bars until you are someplace that does NOT have it.  Ugh.)  We tapped our heels to Any Man of Mine and I Go Walkin’ for a few rounds, then packed it up to head over to the stadium.

The stadium was surprisingly full – and the cow bells were once again in full effect.

There’s something different about being at a bowl game (or away game, for that matter) with your fellow fans.  There’s a more intense camaraderie than there is even at a home game.  (That feeling didn’t stop me from wanting to “accidentally” dump my $8 soda on to the fan sitting next to me who thought it was her explicit job to let the defense know it was time to TACKLE TACKLE TACKLE on every single play.) 

We cheered and we cheered, but alas the Deacs didn’t go home victorious this game.  It was a pretty close back and forth game, so it definitely wasn’t a complete embarrassment unlike some of other losses this year.  Disappointing to lose but a fun experience nonetheless. 

Go Deacs!  And now…. time to wrap up this adventure and Go Home!

380 Miles to Music City

380 miles to Music City.  We arrived, got settled in to our hotel and headed in to downtown for dinner and the pre-game Wake Forest event at the Country Music Hall of Fame.  There was, appropriately, music at every venue – at dinner and in multiple locations throughout the museum.  My favorite thought was a group of 4 Wake Forest alum that had had in a sequestered little part of the museum, each one of them an aspiring singer-songwriter.  (From my understanding, they weren’t a quartet – just 4 individual alums who lived in Nashville and were trying to break into the music scene.)  Each of them took turns playing a few songs and they played a few together.  After the event at the music hall of fame, we stopped off for some quick dessert and turned in for the night to get ready for a big day of cheering on the Deacons!  

Return Trip

My trip to DC was a bit of a whirlwind. A friend of mine was having a wedding shower and since I'm in the wedding and unable to attend her bachelorette party, I decided to make a quick trip up 95 to be at her shower. I love me a good road trip. There was a lot I wanted to see in DC, including my 5 year old cousin and my favorite Eastern Market cheese vendor, and with some careful planning and a newly loaded up Metro card I managed to make it happen.

Friday I arrived, white knuckled after having come through the can of worms that is 495 meets 395 meets 95, at my Aunt Jennifer & Uncle Jon's house. Walking into their house is as comforting to me as walking into my parent's house in NY. This was my escape from grad school stress, my home base during coach training. It feels like only yesterday that I would get off the orange line at Ballston, see my uncle waiting for me, walk the quarter mile home to their house and be greeted with a chilled glass of white, my Aunt’s hospitable smile and a sweet newborn to hold.  The wine and my Aunt’s warm welcome remain the same, but that sweet baby is now a smart, chatty adorable 5 year old.  I can't get over it.  Our time together was wonderful – dinner was scrumptious, the company even better and the time with my little cousin was priceless.

Saturday morning, I met my friend Jen for coffee.  Jen and I went to high school together, and while we probably have not seen each other in real life since then, our shared love for all things interwebz means we've been following each other's LiveJournals, then Facebook statuses, then blogs and now Twitter feeds for the better part of the last decade.  Despite the fact that we were in different graduating classes and share only a handful of mutual friends, I feel like I know Jen better than 75% of the people who were at my 10 year reunion this summer.  So to sit down for our first IRL date was literally like picking up a conversation trail we had just left off that morning.  And of course, the first thing she asked me was “Did you check in yet?”  And of course, I had not, because I was waiting for her to get there so our check-ins would sync.  See?  We know each other.  (Check in to FourSquare, for those of you who actually have a good real life/online life balance and don't use every social media app out there.)

After our coffee date, I headed over to Arlington for Sarah's shower.  The shower was lovely and a nice chance to catch up with some Wake friends, including of course the bride and my college roomie, Britta.  I hadn’t seen either of them for awhile, so we filled in the gaps that our emails and phone calls and texts hadn’t covered as best we could in between the gift exchanges and the shower games.  Although I am sure I did this at my own showers, it always makes me chuckle how brides exclaim over their gifts as if they are delighted with the gift giver's taste.  "This bowl is  so cute!" "Oh my gosh, I LOVE these!"  Well of course - you picked them out!  But I know I did this too, if only for the awkwardness of having a roomful of people staring at you as you open presents and not knowing WHAT to say.

Although in my defense, since my husband took over our Pottery Barn registry, many of the items WERE a delightful surprise to me.  Including the candleholders that I thought (hoped) were margarita glasses.

The bridey & gifts, and me with apologies for only bring my phone as a camera to such an event.  Oof.

Back to the hotel (repeating the white knuckled traffic grip again and getting lost TWICE even with my GPS... did I really live here once?), I cracked open a bottle of wine to have my own little happy hour while making plans to meet my friends Karl & Sarah out for dinner.  They chose a place and sent me directions, and I crossed my fingers that I still knew how to ride the Metro.

My Happy Hour.  Relaxing before diving back into the city life..

I did, and dinner with K&S was wonderful.  The place they picked - Ceiba - had a great lounge area that we ate dinner in, the food was delicious and the mojtios top notch.  I have known Karl for literally half my life, and I don't think the universe could have found a better match for him than Sarah.  They are two of my favorite people to hang out with, and I hate that it only happens for weddings and the rare occasions that we both end up in Pittsford for holidays.  So it was great to spend time with them that didn't involve yelling at each other over the music at Pittsford Pub.  They took me out after dinner to a bar where their friends were converging, and I had total non-city-girl culture shock when I had to pay $3 for a PBR and was yawning my face off by 11:00 pm.  I am so not cut out for city life anymore.

After my night life adventure, I was so ready to get home and see my boys that I thought about just getting up at the crack of dawn and hitting the road.  But Matt had to go to work and Buddy was at daycare, so I stuck with my original plan of going and exploring my old neighborhood before I left.  When I lived in Capitol Hill / Eastern Market, I had always wished I had a fun camera to walk around and play with.  So I owed it to my 22 year old self to backtrack.  Eastern Market looked like I remembered it (even though it has been rebuilt since the fire), and most important, my cheese vendor was still there.

*Currently enjoying my hunk of sage cheddar as I write this.  So good.

I snapped some pics, admired some produce, petted a dog, longed for some coffee (it was cold, but my hands were full with my camera and I'd have to dump it before the Metro), and found myself out of things to do after about 10 minutes.  I walked down the street and found myself standing in front of our old house.  It was a bit surreal to look up at it, and feel that weird time-space warp where it somehow felt like forever ago that the 3rd floor front window had been where the sun streamed in on me each morning and yet so recent that I could walk up to the door right now and step in.  After lingering there just long enough to look like a creepy stalker, I headed towards the Metro - realizing before long I was tracing the steps of my every day commute.

I always get twinges of nostalgia about places I've lived in the past - I take it to be an indication that those experiences were positive ones in my life and I miss the cities provide the context for those experiences.  As I headed down the escalator at Capitol South, I picked up a stray copy of the free metro newspaper that I used to read every day and settled into the familiar orange seats.  Besides the nostalgia though, there had been some other emotion nagging at me throughout my entire trip.  It took me reading the first page of the metro paper - an update on the goings-on of the government events which immediately caused my heart to start pounding with (real or imagined?) the stress and bustle of this city- before I could identify it.  It was: relief.

Relief that I was visiting this busy city, and that I no longer lived here.  No offense DC and residents of it - because trust me, I liked it too and I know it’s a wonderful place to live.  In fact, I greatly miss having easy access to public transportation, the networking opportunities, and the plethora of restaurants and bars to choose from.  But I'm simply not a big city girl.  I'm happy that I lived there, on my own, for 2 years.  I learned so much then, and I could feel that "heck yea I can do anything" attitude an d independence permeate me as I power walked to dinner through the busy Penn Quarter on Saturday night.  But along with the independence, when I lived here, there was a certain feeling of being unsettled, transient and temporary that colored my life.  Today, I feel so rooted and so nestled in my  cozy life that waves of contentment wash over me as often as waves of loneliness or stress did then. Is it just the difference in zip code?  Of course not.  I know this. Of course a major difference is that I am married to the person who I was then dating, but had 500 miles of distance between us and I have had 2 jobs here that I greatly loved that have allowed me to make wonderful career connections, and an incredibly supportive and wonderful network of friends. But I think it's more than that – I’m a person who is influenced by my environment. I love my "small town city" that I live in.  I drive around Winston, and it just feels like home.  I think I've always known that I'm not a big city girl, but it took revisiting it to confirm that.  I was happy to visit - overjoyed to see my lovely friends & family - but ever so happy to come back home.

This was supposed to be a post about my trip, but somehow it turned into a post about my home.  Funny how that happens.

Charleston: Easter Weekend 2009

Pictures trump words. Wonderful weekend, beautiful city.
(If you want the play-by-play, get it here).

My To Do List: The Beach Version

Today I woke up in Myrtle Beach, SC. *Cue the Hallelujah chorus.*

Myrtle Beach has been my family's traditional vacation forever - starting with my mom going with HER parents. (Then: camper. Now: 3 story house on the beach with kegerator by the pool. I like my version better.) It is so much a part of our family's tradition that I threw an all out fit when I was in 3rd grade because my parents planned a family trip to Hawaii instead of our usual MB vacay.

Yes, that's right, I was enraged at the idea of going to Maui over the Redneck Riviera. What can I say, I'm a suckah for tradition. And oh yea, I was 7. What did I care about volcanoes and mai tai's?

In the last 8 years, other members of my extended family starting joining us, until gradually we grew from a family of 5 in one house to last year's grand total of 20 in two side-by-side houses. This year we're going for a major dice roll: 19 family members. One house.

Since college and this little thing called "employment", I've only been able to come down and stay with my family at the beach for a long weekend. This year, the stars collided (i.e. I rearranged my teaching schedule) and lo and behold, I was able to get the whole week off. Pretty much, I could not be more tickled. I'd probably still at 26 years old, take an entire week at Myrtle with my fam over a few days in Maui. Although I do anticipate needing those mai tai's with that many family members in close proximity.

My plans for the beach week include: reading approximately 7 books and 4 magazines, revisiting my neglected journal, using up an entire bottle of SPF 50, getting sand in my running sneakers, teaching my 5 year old cousin Amelia how to use my (old) digital camera, playing race cars with my 4 year old cousin William, playing princess with my 3 year old cousin Mae, getting sand dumped on my head by 2 year old Scott and trying to figure out a way to bottle up the precious new baby smell of 6 month old Charlie.

As you can see, I will be very busy this week.

Rhett! Rhett, where are you going?

I am absolutely positive the technology exists that would allow me to work remotely from here and that I never, ever plan to leave. Even on this gray and sulky day where the sky is spitting drizzly drops of precipitation on me as I attempt to window shop on King St, I am in l-o-v-e with this city.

Matt and I came down to Charleston last night for his 2nd to last interview, and we are both just enthralled with this city. Last night we ditched the school sanctioned dinner (if you read this, probably not a surprise) in exchange for a date night/bar crawl of our own. Jason, having recently visited Charleston, had directed us to a seafood restaurant that turned out to be mere yards from our lovely hotel. On our way down, he had texted us to visit the bartender when we got there and pick up a mysterious something. A gift certificate awaited us and we enjoyed a most scrumptious meal - spicy and hearty Bloody Mary's, an appetizer of grit cakes with a light garlic alfredo sauce, and cajun sauteed shrimp - calories don't count on vacation right? Yum. Our experience was capped off with a visit from Maiar Hyman, who according to the history lesson on my menu, is the 3rd generation of Hyman's to run the restaurant. (Gen #5 is currently in charge.) Maiar regaled us with stories of his days in Winston-Salem immediately following the Korean War, and how he was a big timer textile salesman once clinching a deal with the now-Sara-Lee owned Hanes brand.

Delicious Bloody Mary's with Absolut Peppar... Yum!

After our feast, we wobbled on to the streets and looked for somewhere to take shelter from the drizzle. Our prerequisites were simple: other patrons present and live music. While this may sound innocent enough, keep in mind it was only 8:30 pm on a Tuesday, in December. Not exactly the High Season. We wandered into one bar on Vendue St called The Griffon, where 2 other tables were filled with patrons, and a guy with a guitar crooned acoustic versions of Smashing Pumpkins, Eagles and Elliott Smith with an alarmingly similarity. After two rounds of hearing the same wailing on repeat and watching the same drunk girl in ugg boots and a jean skirt heave herself at any present male patronage, we paid our tab and left. Music and boisterous voices lured us into a bar called Mad River that inhabited a former church across from the Market. Something about the half-hearted attempt at rugged outdoor decor (the canoe hanging from the ceiling), the overly cheesy party music (Paradise City when you're sober? Nope) and the presence of what appeared to be an intramural sports team celebrating a season win reminded me of some other place I had frequented. It wasn't until I got home that I put it together: the same bar (decor, music and patrons) was just 4 1/2 blocks from my apartment in Baltimore and I had spent many a Friday nights elbow-deep at Mad River.

After a round at Mad River, we wandered up East Bay St for a lap before succumbing to Wet Willies, a bar with every known daiquiri flavor to man featured in slushie machines on a wall 25 yards long. Matt sampled the "Attitude Adjustment" - a suspicious recommendation from the waitress - while I sipped a Bud Light. Sugar and alcohol don't mix well in my system, and a 5-alarm slurpee is a guaranteed way to ruin my next morning. What really kept us at Wet Willie's though was the entertainment. Six guests rotated through song after song on Karaoke, while the other dozen or so patrons gazed on in shocked amusement, egged on in barely concealed faux encouragement and took secret video footage (me). It was like being at a live American Idol audition, and hearing many of my very favorite songs completely ruined!

The Wall o' Wonder @ Wet Willies

After a dozen ear-splitting performances, we pushed aside the half-finished daiquiri and called it a night. What a Tuesday night it was - from low key mellow bar performance, to pulsating party music, to heart wrenching karaoke, we experienced the finest that Charleston's musical scene had to offer. However, we both agreed neither the rain or melodically challenged performances put a damper on the beautiful backdrop of Charleston.

This morning, we did a driving tour of Charleston and oogled out the window like a proper tourist at the gorgeous scenery on East Bay St. Had it not been raining, I would have insisted on a proper parking so I could shutterbug to my heart content. However, I melt in the rain, in case you didn't know, so a drive-by sufficed for me. After dropping him off at MUSC to interview, I did some half-hearted window shopping on King St. Oh, Economy! Truth be told, I am out of my element in any location that has a real live Louis Vuitton store and no Forever 21 or Target as far as the eye can see.

In an hour, I will meet my gorgeous friend Mikell who I scrambled all around the beautiful pais de Espana with nearly six years ago. The last time I saw her, we bid adios in the Madrid airport, but with the help of facebook I have tracked her wanderlust as she's moved from Costa Rica to Seattle to Peru to Columbia and now to Charleston. I'm hoping to convince her she needs a live-in nutritionist and should clear some room for Matt and I to take up permanent residence in her probably-non-existent spare bedroom. After lunch and some more wandering, I'll pick up the student doctor and north bound we shall be headed, bidding Charleston a sad farewell.

The 2nd Annual Catchphrase Showdown

The best traditions are the ones that start accidentally. Last year, we found out by pure coincidence that friends of ours from college, TJ and Fred, were traveling up to Blowing Rock for a weekend with their wives the same weekend we were planning on traveling down to Boone with Matt's college roommate Jason. We were staying at Matt's grandparent's house in Boone, and intended to pack the weekend full of Guitar Hero, Street Fighter and some seriously long bouts of Doing Nothing. We met up with TJ, Fred and wives Kelli (TJ) and Michelle (Fred) the Saturday of our weekend and had one of those laugh til your stomach hurts kind of nights together playing Catchphrase, drinking wine, and taking ego pot shots the way that only college friends can do.

This year Jason came to town to take his LSATs here at Wake (and I suppose to visit Matt) and we found out the same crew was headed to Blowing Rock again. After the test Saturday we headed down there, making it officially a 2nd annual winter weekend in the mountains. The catch phrase was just as intense - in fact I'm surprised marriages survive being on opposing teams. The wine (and sweet tea vodka) flowed just as freely as did the barbs, and the laughter never ceased. Saturday night we went to a local BBQ joint where a Toby Keith-wannabe belted out his renditions of everything from Rocky Top to Mud on the Tires while the patrons clapped, whistled and clinked together mason jars of Budweiser. After dinner, we headed back to beautiful Chetola where the rest of the crew was staying.

The Catchphrase battle picked up about 9 pm with 3 rounds of North (me, Fred, Michelle and Jason) vs. South (Matt, Kelli & TJ.) In case you're wondering, the North won all 3 times. No surprise there. As the battle heated up, we traded teams (me, TJ, Matt and Kelli) vs. (Fred, Michelle and Jason). The 4-person team won again - an unfair advantage to have an extra brain? The Girls decided to test this theory and went head to head against the 4-man team of The Boys. It was a close and heated battle. Wine bottles were knocked over, fingers were pointed, marriages were tested. We were down 0-6, closed the gap to 6-6 and then took a 4 point lead to make it 10-6. Playing to 16, the boys closed it up again with another 10-10. We were point for point all the way to 16, but in the end the boys (yet another 4-man team) were triumphant. At the close of our 5th game, the clock had struck 3:30 am, so we unwillingly called it quits.

The next day we had a recovery breakfast at Mountain House - Boone's very own version of Cracker Barrel complete with a front room full of tchotchkes for sale. Personalized mailbox flags anyone? Greeting cards with "When You Were Born...." anecdotes? Bike license plates? (They never have Meghan with an "H"... such a farce.) After a hearty mountain breakfast, we worked it off walking up and down the side of a small mountain trying to find the perfect Christmas tree. Granted, Matt and I have set up Ye Olde Artificial again this year, but partaking in the quest for our friends' tree (as well as the much needed exercise) was nearly as exciting had it been for our own living room. Nothing like getting the delicious pine smell, mountain air, hot cider experience without having to vacuum up the needles at home later on. (NTS: Yankee Candle mistletoe candles go on sale after Christmas don't they? There really is nothing like that smell...)

The ride home was a quiet one, but the 24 hour escape to the mountain was enough to refresh us and kick start December off with the true holiday spirit: the smells (the aroma of pine, the notes of red wine) the sounds (squabbling over Catchphrase sounds uncannily like my dad's siblings squabbling over...well, everything), the sights (we saw our first snow of the year in the mountains) and the spirits (uplifted!). Here's to our 2nd annual providing the kick-start to a month of more traditions and holiday spirits.