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Posts Tagged ‘Nashville’

Music City

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on August 27, 2014| Leave a Comment »

We’ve been singing “Happy Birthday” to a certain two year old all week. She can sing right along too, and dance, like Angelina Ballerina. Great Grandma Ada and Hudson are here too, so it’s a multi-generational celebration. Everything is great except the weather, by 10 am I am melting, literally. The humidity is killer and the temps are in the 90s with non-stop sun. This landlocked state almost had me, if it weren’t for August.

I just have one warning for grandparents. The supposedly feminist, fairy tale from Disney, Frozen, is not for the toddler set. Last evening the Bride went to work, and the Groom had a work-related dinner, sooo we popped in the movie. There’s a huge snow monster, and I’m assuming the King and Queen died at sea. It’s not an obvious death, like Bambi, but still. I stopped that film pronto. And I wished I could freeze the landscape, just a little, with my hands.

What can say, Fall is my favorite season.

Still we toured the Ryman, and I talked with the young girl who was taking pictures of the stage. Of course she’s a singer/songwriter and just got back from a tour…her name is Erin McLendon http://theboot.com/erin-mclendon-fire-and-wine/ What can I say, everyone is talented in Nashville! Then we were stuck in traffic as lanes were closed while they were filming the TV show Nashville and trying to pick up the Love Bug from her preschool.

And speaking of tours, The Parlor Mob is at it again. Check out their current tour and maybe you’ll be lucky enough to get tickets to The iconic Stone Pony in that other musical city, Asbury Park!http://www.parlormob.com
Rock On.

Watching Frozen

Watching Frozen

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Transitions

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 20, 2014| 2 Comments »

“Would you eat them here or there? Would you eat them anywhere?” You may recognize the voice of Dr Seuss. His Cat is a master manipulator. You may think you don’t like green eggs and ham, but gosh darn it, you’re gonna like them eventually.

It’s a great book for a toddler, especially the Love Bug. She likes to tell me where to sit, “Nana, sit here!” She likes to tell me where to go, like when I told her that Mama would be home, she looked me right in the eyes and said “Nana go bye bye!” I told her my plan was to stick around for awhile and she smiled as if to say that would be just fine.

Transitions can be hard at every stage in life. Who knew that crossing the threshold of a door – from the world of the wind and the sun outside with popsicles on the porch and school crossing guards who wave “Hello,” to the world inside with high chairs you have to sit in and diapers that for some reason must be changed all the time. My Bug, like Jane Goodall in her new children’s book,”Me Jane,” loves to be outside!

So coaxing her to come in is a major challenge. In fact I’d forgotten this simple fact about toddlers – everything is a negotiation! Then I remembered that the Bride loved a good argument at this age too. I was convinced she was going to study law, that’s how good she was. I found myself saying my daughter’s name instead of the Bug’s, over and over again because her level of sophistication is equal to her mothers.

So last night I thought ahead. After dinner I sat the Bug down and said we needed to talk. I told her I would keep my promise and we would have popsicles on the porch, but then I expected her to be a BIG GIRL when it was time to come in and “Not Cry.” She said “Not cry.” And I said, “OK, big girl, do you want a strawberry or a grape popsicle?” And she said, “Strawberry.”

It worked!

Today was the best day ever. We spent the whole morning at the Nashville Zoo and topped it off with a wild animal carousel ride. She eagerly hopped on the painted kangaroo with me and we waved at Mama who is thankfully home and was waving to us miraculously every time we rode around in a circle.  And now that I’ve got this toddler transition thing down, from getting her into the car without a fuss to getting her out of the tub at night, I’ll be heading home. My husband tells me he’s missing me. But leaving her, will be the hardest transition of all.

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Wildfires

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on May 16, 2014| 4 Comments »

This is gonna hurt! You see I accidentally tripped over a big soft mat at a “Bounce House” the other day and managed to break my pinky finger…so…no worries though, the Love Bug was fine. Nana’s “Ouchie” is turning pretty shades of blue, and according to 3 Emergency Physician consultations – one in real time, one by email, and one by phone – there’s nothing to be done. “Ice, Advil, and Rest.” Which one forgot I’m caring for a toddler? We had to bake cookies!

My daughter has been sending me glowing reports about the West Coast. The weather, the people, the coastline! The Groom has a conference to attend and they are both visiting transplanted friends in LA. Then I turn on CNN this morning, while I’m listening for a few wake-up chirps from the nursery, and you’d think the whole of California is ablaze in wildfires and Santa Anna winds!

Of course my wisecrack comeback to her Cali salutations was to remark about earthquakes maybe being better than tornadoes. I can’t help it when a little Woody Allenesque just comes out. The truth is I love San Francisco, but haven’t seen the rest of the state. Would I miss the humidity? The Mountains? Would I have to get Botox? At some point I think we all get too old to move. Every house we owned I swore would be the last. But ER physicians like to roam, it’s part of their DNA, they carry their skills with them.

It’s almost been like being a military wife. Some people look at moving like it’s a thrilling wonderful adventure, and then there’s me. It was great for awhile, but at some point you wonder if you’re leaving your best friends behind you. The ones who know where the spoons are in your kitchen.

The Rocker and Ms Cait have been talking about a move out west. And the Groom will finish his fellowship soon and be looking for an academic position. If both my children and the Bug and future grandchildren end up out there would we pack it up again? It’s the Irish in me that loves to put down roots, to stay connected to family and friends. Still.

It would have to come with conditions; like moving to the Blue Ridge meant having a view, and building a house. If we do cross the country in the next couple of years there will be no more Bounce Housing! And only looking at earthquake-proof houses that are no where near a mudslide. Maybe we’d find a pony for the Bug, and name her Wildfire.         IMG_0520

 

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March Madness

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 18, 2014| 2 Comments »

I’m not talking about college hoops. Although I must say I felt rather conflicted when VA beat Duke for the ACC title 72 – 63 on Sunday. And it was the first time since 1976 that UVA brought that trophy home. When your husband and daughter went to Duke undergrad, and you find yourself living in Charlottesville because that’s where she went to medical school, along with the Groom who is a “lifer” (both VA undergrad and med), you can understand why my alliances were in conflict.

The madness I’m referring to is the third death that’s been reported of a critically injured person from the SXSW Music Festival in Austin, TX. When we heard that two people died on the scene, my ears tingled. Remember the Rocker is there playing in Nicole Atkins’ band. I didn’t panic, I didn’t call him immediately. In fact, my first reaction was rage. How could the police have chased this drunk driver right into a crowded street, right into a line of people waiting to get into a club? Yes, the drunken/killer made the decision to drink and get into a car, he was responsible for dozens of injured people and now three deaths.

But that cop who was in pursuit presumably wasn’t impaired.He must have had some training about how to apprehend a guy fleeing a sobriety checkpoint that wouldn’t involve chasing his car into a crowd and killing innocent people.  http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-03-17/news/chi-sxsw-austin-car-hits-crowd-20140317_1_southern-mississippi-sxsw-austin

So I casually texted the Rocker, “How’s SXSW going?” This wasn’t his first time at the Austin festival. The Parlor Mob blew through town a few times in the past…”It’s fun for us!” You can see they were head bangin, long hair, hard rock playing back then!

Here’s a clip from a month ago with Nicole. That’s the Rocker over there on the left. His hair is considerably shorter…My son texted back, “Just played the last show, we leave for Dallas tomorrow morning.”

Being on tour, on the road day and night isn’t easy. Don’t cry me a river, but I’m serious. They drive all day, do a sound check, maybe get something to eat and by now the bar food isn’t bad, then they play till the wee hours, get some sleep and get up early to hit the road again. I know he’ll be staying with his sister in Nashville this weekend. At least they didn’t get this last snowstorm. I just hope he has a little time to play with our Love Bug. She’s just starting to sing, and her dance moves are adorable! http://mercylounge.com/calendar/venue/highwatt/2014/03/22/nicole-atkins/

So stay warm and safe out there on the road son. Tell me if you met Lena Dunham, or you listened to Edward Snowden’s Skype chat. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/03/10/288601356/live-edward-snowden-speaks-to-sxsw And GO DUKE!

The morning aviary view

The morning aviary view

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A Patchwork Essay

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 24, 2014| 2 Comments »

Bob was driving yesterday when we happened to catch the last half of Ann Patchett’s interview on NPR with Terri Gross. She was talking about how her life changed when she moved back home to Nashville, because it was her husband’s home too. Most of us do dream of leaving home and making our way in the bigger world, and she certainly did that. I thought about how our lives can pivot at times, we think we’re going one way and suddenly we find ourselves in a different place entirely. And we wake up, look around, and decide to embrace this new place…

You just roll up your sleeves and you do the job that’s in front of you and that’s what people do. And you know what? It’s easy for me to say this now that I’m years on the other side of it, but it’s a privilege to see someone through that time in their life. And the trick of it is to love them for who they are that day…”http://www.npr.org/2014/01/23/265228054/patchett-in-bad-relationships-there-comes-a-day-when-you-gotta-go

Patchett was talking about taking care of her grandmother as she was dying. It was supposed to be her sister who stayed at home, in Nashville, and would be the family’s caretaker. But instead, tables turned and her sister moved away just as Patchett agreed, after an eleven year courtship, to marry her boyfriend Karl. She was still smarting after a brief early marriage. That essay too is included in her new book, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. I’ve yet to read her new book of essays, but after listening to her interview, I’ll have to wait until I return to the Love Bug so I can purchase her book in her bookstore, Parnassus. And no, she wasn’t pushing her bookstore with Terri Gross, but she was extolling about her love of independent bookstores. And I found myself agreeing with her.

I thought about meeting my husband again, after many years apart. I too had been burned by a bad first marriage at nineteen. The kind you know never should have happened, the kind you are second guessing while you’re saying “I Do,” and thinking “What If.” Young feminists at the time called these “starter marriages.” I sometimes think in discovering our own strength, the strength to leave, we started a revolution. I knew it was over when he told my sister Kay he could never be vulnerable. And I think we raised boys who were not afraid of vulnerability. https://medium.com/religion-spirituality-and-philosophy/838b400fe2a5

I had returned home and was keeping watch at my foster father’s dying bedside when my MIL Ada found me and pulled me into Bob’s hospital room. He was recovering from some minor surgery and thought he was hallucinating. His vulnerability matched mine. We met at fourteen, and married at thirty. And so our story resumed, the he.went.to.woodstock  (meets) she.went.to.westchester story.

I’m glad Ada kept most of my newspaper articles, faded yellow paper over the years. There was no Cloud to store and collate all my writing, but my MIL who will be 90 this year, became my biggest fan and super star archivist over the years. I may have to scan all those essays for posterity. They are like all the pictures stored away in boxes, waiting to be digitized on some rainy day. But first I’ll catch up on all things Nashville on Parnassus’ new blog  http://parnassusmusing.net it’s for anyone who loves to read – period!

“Let go of who you think you should be, and become who you are.”

another reason to call Nashville

another reason to call Nashville

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What’s in a Meme

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 31, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Happy New Year everyone! Tonight I will dress to the nines and attend yet another hospital gala, and believe you me I’ve seen many a silent night auction come and go. Someone will get falling down drunk, someone will bid on a puppy they’ll have to return in the new year, and someone will start singing Meatloaf’s Dashboard Light song with alacrity. Electric slide here we go again.

But this morning I’ll kick back and cogitate on a word – meme. What is a meme anyway? We’ve all heard it and let it roll right off the back of our heads like we know what it means. Well, according to dictionary.com it comes from the Greek meaning “mimic” as in imitating a certain behavior; more recently, it is a bow to biology and gene theory. Think of gene cells, how they mimic one another.

meme

a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition and replication in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.

or

a cultural item in the form of an image, video, phrase, etc.,that is spread via the Internet and often altered in a creative or humorous way.
Medicine meet technology! There was a picture of Beyonce that became a meme; meaning it floated around the internet in different adaptations: Beyonce at a football game; at a WWF match etc. Just Google “meme” and her picture will appear.
But I love it when literary and pop culture collide to invent a meme. I happen to love Lena Dunham. The “Girls” creator is never afraid to show her body or try to explain the existential trip of 20 something women living in NYC. She is the present-day equivalent of Carrie Bradshaw’s “Sex and the City.” This year, the character who plays Dunham’s mother attended an academic conference and told her daughter, “I never thought I’d meet so many other women who feel the same way I do about Ann Patchett.”
And there it is – feminist fireworks! Ms Patchett, the owner of my favorite Nashville bookstore Parnassus and writer extraordinaire, is now a meme. A meme who spans the generations. In the past I thought of Ann Tyler as my meme (or maybe my muse?). Her writing spoke to me. Sometimes I’d have to pinch myself just to make sure I wasn’t caught up in one of her novels come to life.
So tonight let’s not list all the great and minor things of 2013. And let’s not try to predict the trends and memes of 2014. After all, it’s just one night in five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.  Let’s all take a deep breath, and stay in that electric slide moment. “If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.”  Unknown

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A Child’s Calendar

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on December 22, 2013| 1 Comment »

Christmas used to be tough for me. Once the kids left home, Bob continued to work on Christmas Eve and Christmas, and I was left to my druthers. Sometimes, a newly divorced friend might join me at the movies, but most times I was on my own to ponder the meaning of the universe. Now that the Bride has followed in her dad’s footsteps, she finds herself working on Christmas too. And lucky for me, I get to hang out with the Love Bug in Nashville, my own personal little Christmas elf.IMG_2317

Yesterday, she took me to the most amazing puppet show at the Nashville Public Library. http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/john-updikes-a-childs-calendar-at-the-library/Content?oid=1203840

Updike’s A Child’s Calendar is an illustrated collection of twelve poems describing a child’s life as the weather changes and the year goes by. This staging is the brainchild of Brian Hull, the Nashville Library’s director of children’s programming, who transforms Updike’s collection into a musical show populated entirely by child-sized puppets. Hull’s puppet fixation is part of a Nashville tradition dating back to 1938, when longtime library associate Tom Tichenor first began holding marionette shows at the main branch.

The puppeteers are dressed entirely in black while they manipulate an old man puppet and a young boy going through each magical month around a growing tree on stage. Birds fly overhead, and blossoms rain down from the sky. At one point a real boy tried crawling up on stage to catch a blossom, and the puppet motioned him away! The Love Bug danced and watched every move with wonder, her eyes open wide. I wanted to cry, with joy. Because this is one of those things we’ve forgotten as adults. The sheer delight of everyday life as seen through a child’s eyes. Here is what Updike had to say about January:

The river is
A frozen place
Held still beneath
The trees’ black lace.

The sky is low.
The wind is gray.
The radiator
Purrs all day.

Christmas holds hidden delights for everyone with children of a certain age. Some are watching a little elf who appears on a shelf every morning. He helps Santa keep track of every single child, naughty and nice. Some are going to see the Nutcracker for the very first time. And some are attending puppet shows and cuddling with their Nana. Instead of sugar plum fairies, grandparents galore are coming to visit!

Have a very Merry Christmas everyone! And tornado warnings or not, don’t forget that family comes first…and after that an egg nog latte helps. Cheers.

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Second Person Singular

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on August 27, 2013| 2 Comments »

We’ve been driving home now for almost nine hours. And out of all the Snap Judgement and This American Life podcasts we listened to, one struck home. It was about an Arab who lived on the Jewish side of Jerusalem. His newspaper column was titled “Second Person Singular” and it’s just about his life, as an outsider on the inside.

Probably because that’s been my MO. I was the foster child, the strawberry blond, the lapsed Catholic who married a Jewish guy; somehow or another I just never fit in. Belonging is one of those basic human needs; my psychologist brother or MIL could tell you all about it. It’s Maslow’s rule of thumb. We all need to belong.

And yesterday, for the Love Bug’s first birthday, I had to stay in bed with a bad virus. I managed to bake the cupcakes, make the frosting, and even wrap up a couple of curried chicken wraps. I had a few days beforehand to play and cuddle with her, but I was absent for the big event.

But still, what’s important about one day? Every month since she was born, I’ve managed to visit with her, either in TN or VA. Almost every day I talk to her and we FaceTime all the time. I just have to get her to say “Nana” and not mean “No” or “Maybe!”

I listened to her party from my feverish upstairs in-law suite. I felt like an Arab living in the wrong part of Jerusalem. But it was all good. The Bride brought her up for a last minute night night before the festivities, before a little boy knocked the baby gate down on my steps and yelled. “It was an accident!” I snapped this picture.

Happy First Birthday Love Bug.

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The Highway Don’t Care

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 18, 2013| 3 Comments »

Today I’m baking mini carrot cake muffins. The last time I made these the Bride was graduating from college, and I had to feed a few tents full of people in our backyard. And it was about that time, in 2001, that we heard about the first cell phone related car accident, It happened early one morning in Shrewsbury, NJ; a school crossing guard was hit and killed because a commuter was rushing to work and dropped his phone.

Nashville is where medicine and music meet, so in honor of  National Trauma Awareness Month this May, I thought I’d post this music video the Bride sent my way. There are a few of her colleagues in the Emergency Department shots. When I drive into Nashville, there is a huge sign that spans the highway telling drivers how many people have died so far this year on the road. Automatically, I slow down. Needless to say, distracted driving is something we’ve all been guilty of, but let’s all pledge to stop.

http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2013/05/vanderbilt-county-superstar-tim-mcgraw-share-important-message-regarding-dangers-of-distracted-driving/

“In 2011, 3,331 people were killed in crashes involving a distracted driver, compared to 3,267 in 2010. An additional, 387,000 people were injured in motor vehicle crashes involving a distracted driver, compared to 416,000 injured in 2010.”  Here are all the myriad ways we can lose our focus while driving:

  • Texting
  • Using a cell phone or smartphone
  • Eating and drinking
  • Talking to passengers
  • Grooming
  • Reading, including maps
  • Using a navigation system
  • Watching a video
  • Adjusting a radio, CD player, or MP3 player

Many of you know that I was raised by foster parents due to a drunk driver Don’t drive drunk, or tired and don’t drive to distraction, please. http://www.distraction.gov/index.html Thanks to Tim McGraw and  Taylor Swift and Keith Urban. Vanderbilt LifeFlight, Vanderbilt University Hospital and the Adult Emergency Department. Distracted-driving-pledge1

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My American Life

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on April 24, 2013| 2 Comments »

My journey lasted all of 9 hours. Along the way I passed a church billboard that read,

“Never give up, remember Moses was a basket case,”

and I listened to Ira Glass on NPR’s This American Life. That’s right folks, no audiobook on this trip. Just when you’re ready to give up, the Bat Building appears around the bend on 40 West. Nashville was welcoming me back. Music to my ears, I could hear the Love Bug from the street; the front door was wide open and she was enjoying her dinner punctuated by boisterously loud “Ummmms,” and Arghhhhhs.” Hooray, I thought, she’s going to be a good eater…and a great talker!

Over the past year, The Bride had told me repeatedly how much she enjoyed listening to This American Life. The Groom also listened to their podcasts on his iPhone, so before my trip, I downloaded the App http://www.thisamericanlife.org/ and plugged my cell into my car’s auxiliary outlet. The first story was about 2 doctors with the same name, and it was a medical/murder mystery too, called “Dr Gilmer and Mr Hyde.”

“Benjamin (Gilmer) starts to get very curious about the murder Dr Vince Gilmer committed, so he begins asking questions and poking around. Soon he develops his own theories to explain the murder, that never came up at Vince’s trial.” You’ll just have to listen in, I’m not spoiling the suspense.

This should be a fun week. The Bride is off for most of the time and we’re planning to celebrate her first Mother’s Day a little early – Nashville style. Maybe some fried pickles along with our blueberries and avocado?
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