Look Out Stomach, Here It Comes

Katrina tagged me in a meme to:
1. Name and link to the person who tagged you.
2. Name the state and country where you reside.
3. Name your five favorite local restaurants.
4. Tag others.

So, having dispensed with step one, we move on to the fact that I reside in Nashville, Tennessee, which offers a plethora of dining options. I see fantastical restaurant reviews often but, sadly, am often too poor to partake of their Asian/Southern/Greek/Mediterranean fusion creations. I also do not have a sophisticated palate. Alas, I offer my humble choices:

1. Amerigos on West End. This Italian place serves my favorite meal – Chicken Marguerite. Swimming in a high-carb pool of pasta and scallion cream sauce, with some yummy bread to help sop it all up, is a chicken breast that is always done to perfection. I like to sit by the window and watch all the people go by.

2. The Melting Pot. What is not to love about an entire bowl full of cheese or chocolate? With fun pointy sticks? I’m all there. This place is as much about the work it takes to prepare your food as the gastronomic delight that awaits once you have fondued everything to perfection. It is also the site of my infamous potato-flinging incident. Lesson learned: Never try to force a veggie out of a fondue pot.

3. Sunset Grill. I knew I was in love when the waiter gave me a choice of colored napkins based on the color of my slacks (so the fussy white linen didn’t leave fussy white lint on black) and then afterwards whipped out a little crumb tray to sweep up my mess. For a simple gal from San Diego who was used to eating hamburgers from a beach shack, the staff at the Sunset Grill made me feel like a queen. Bonus: star spotting and desserts.

4. Swetts. This cafeteria-style meat and three in a less than desirable location at first gave me doubts, but one bite of the chocolate pie made me a believer. Go for lunch on Sunday.

5. Cancun’s in Bellevue. It’s hard to admit how many times a week my friends and I frequent this place. But the Mexican food here is good, cheap, and incredibly fast. The wait staff has been around for ages and, if you are a regular like some of my friends, they apparently just put your order in the kitchen when they see you walk in the door. As a real treat, check out the murals on the wall, which feature some of the worst foreshortening and symmetry techniques I’ve ever seen.

And for step 4, I’m tagging Jules.

Dirty Business

The first draft of my novel has been sitting silently on my flash drive since the end of May. I’ve been carrying it around in my purse, and every time I open it up I see it glinting up at me, reminding me that it exists, it is here, and it has been waiting.

The problem is, I’m afraid to look at it. I started it in November, and at the end of each writing session I wrote a sentence to myself stating where I thought the story should go in the next writing session. This kept me from reading back over my work, which was vital in outpacing my Inner Critic. Because if I had started re-reading it I think I would have given up on the whole enterprise.

But now… now it is time to roll up my sleeves, grab the trowel, the watering can, and the pruning shears, and start tearing this thing apart.

Wish me sunny days.

Llama Spit Washes Out, Doesn't It?

I’ve been invited to a fancy-pants wedding this weekend on the sniff-sniff side of town, which has been the catalyst for the great dress hunt of 2007. I’ve tried on quite a few in the past weeks, but at the moment I’ve got nada, zero, zilch, nothing.

The great majority of dresses I’ve found fall into a simple pattern formula – thin straps holding up a fitted bodice with a full skirt that reaches down to about my calves. It always looks great on the hanger, but when I try it on I either discover that I appear to have gained a significant amount of weight around my middle or the top gives me a, umm, rather enhanced appearance in an area that didn’t need any enhancing, if you get my drift. The length inconveniently chops me off at the fattest part of my leg, so that doesn’t help matters.

That seems to leave the alternative of the halter dress, in which the top is actually constructed of two triangles. This doesn’t work for me either, for a variety of reasons. That dress would then necessitate the purchase of one of those bras that are supremely versatile, can convert in a 100 different ways and, apparently, are also capable of running the country if given half the chance. They also cost about as much as the dress.

I do have a fallback, however - my old, trusty going-to-weddings dress. It’s been around for a while and hasn’t let me down yet. It’s seen me through vigorous bouts of Celtic country dancing at a wedding in the Lowlands of Scotland and an energetic electric slide in New Bern, North Carolina. It’s also wash and wear, which may be handy as the wedding this weekend will have its reception at a llama farm and llamas spit, don’t they? I just want to be prepared for that unfortunate event, and I don't know if a new dress will be able to handle it. Because if anyone is going to be target of a llama incident, it will probably be me.

But this dress is just that – seen, serviceable, and getting a bit long in the tooth. So I continue my mission. Three days left….

Propping Mountains Up on Matchsticks

I have avoided commenting about the Mary Winkler case on here because the last time I did that it opened a whopping big can of worms. But I’ve got comment moderation on now so, ergo, control.

For those of you who weren’t reading my blog when I was over at Live Journal, Mary and Matthew were friends of mine when he was our youth minister. This was back when Allie was born and Tricia was about 3. I helped them on youth retreats, went caving and rappelling with Matthew, and played cards late at night with Mary. I remember him as a great big guy who always had a smile on his face. The kids in the youth group called him “Wink.” His girls loved him; Mary loved him. I remember her laughing and riding around on his shoulders at a youth event. I remember Tricia crawling into his lap.

When I first heard what had happened, I didn’t know what to think. I visited Mary in jail, sent her cards of support, and wrote a letter for her probation. I stood there and prayed with her sister and father outside the McNairy County jail and watched while most of the media relied on outdated stereotypes or wrong information about the churches of Christ.

Long before most people knew what the motive was, I was told. And while I was shocked and horrified at the allegations of abuse, I also struggled to make sense of murder as a way out. I am aware of what abuse does to a person – how it lowers your self-esteem to the point where it doesn’t even occur to you to ask for help anymore because you honestly believe no one can.

I was never told about the check-kiting scheme. As details began to emerge, as I watched her lawyers mount a carefully calculated public relations scheme to enhance a sympathetic image, I grew more confused. The slick “Dream Team of the South” pretty much ruled the entire trial and courtroom. The prosecution came across as woefully under prepared for their strategy. There were a lot of questions left unanswered and a lot of angles that weren’t really explored.

I watched because I wanted answers, but I got none. Mostly just an overwhelming sense of sadness for three little girls who lives will never be the same. Matthew was made out to be a monster. Perhaps he was; there is so much that happens in a marriage that the rest of the world never sees. But we’ll never really know the truth. I’m sad for Dan and Diane Winkler and Matthew’s brothers. And I’m sad for Mary as well, because I truly believe she needs a lot of help mentally. When you know the individuals involved in something like this, things tend to go from a very clear black and white to a muddled gray.

There are people in my congregation who think she got off too easily. There are those who are broken-hearted that she has to spend even one night in jail. We don’t talk about it openly, but each person in the pew has an opinion about it. I’m proud of the fact that despite our differences of opinion, we can still get along and respect one another.

She was sentenced today; it looks like she’ll serve about two months. I still don’t know what to make of the situation. I feel like there is a feebleness in my humanity to comprehend the enormity of taking a life, the pain for his family too intense to digest, and a heavy sadness that weighs it all down. I'll keep on praying.

Zoos, Motorcycles, and the B-52s

Jules over at Pearls and Jules of Wisdom tagged me for eight random or unknown things about myself. In lieu of the fact that I have not had time to blog about my recent family vacation, which included a rather adventuresome canoe trip, I offer you the following trivial tidbits:

1. I am a zoo snob. I grew up as a card-carrying member of the Koala Kids Klub at the San Diego Zoo, and I therefore believed all zoos were like the one in San Diego. Imagine my extreme disappointment and shock when it turned out that zoo was an exception, rather than the rule. To this day I have a hard time visiting other zoos because I feel sorry for the animals.

2. I won an air-band contest my senior year of high school. Some friends and I performed as the B-52s to the song “Dance This Mess Around.” A beehive hairdo, flapper dress, and hula hoop were involved. We advanced to regionals but our road to fame ended there.

3. I like to ride motorcycles with my father. When I was a toddler he strapped my booster seat to the back of his motorcycle and we would go on rides. We tried to rent a Harley last week when he visited and go for a day down the Natchez Trace Parkway, but all the rentals were sold out.

4. My senior prom was at Sea World.

5. I leave loose change everywhere – my dresser, my desk, the coffee table, my closet floor. Worse, some of it is still UK currency, although I haven’t been back in two years. As I write this, there is a 20 pence coin in my pen holder.

6. I refuse to shop at Wal-Mart on a Saturday afternoon.

7. I actually like Ramen Noodles (Creamy Chicken Flavor). I took a whole case with me to college, much to the chagrin of my roommate who couldn’t stand the smell of them.

8. While I hope this would not be a random nor unknown fact about myself – I am a Christian. I was baptized and became a Christian when I was 14 and love the Lord and my church family. I try to make serving God the most important thing in my life. I also have a passion for mission work and missionaries and am blessed to have friends in Scotland, England, Australia, India, Uganda, and Romania.

All right, Jules – hope you are happy!