Into the Woods
We've now been in the new apartment for 2 weeks. The golf course we live on is next to a state park and I find that I tend to find excuses to drive through the park regardless if whether or not going through the park is the most practical route. It’s just such a pretty drive with the changing leaves of the trees in electric colors and the light grey, stone hills lining the road. I've even been avoiding freeways just to take the scenic routes through the jewel colored woods surrounding Nashville.
We've decided, for the time being, to forgo getting cable and in so can't get internet. Or so we thought. The local cable company won't provide internet service unless you have cable and no one else will provide internet service to our neighborhood. Well, one company will but it will cost me a ridiculous amount of money to get 3 mbps. High speed internet they do not have out here. Yes, I have re-entered the dark ages.
Luckily, the library is nearby and they offer free internet along with the clubhouse for the golf course. So each day I go out to check my email and occasionally pick up a new book to read. I've already zipped through About A Boy and History of the Blues. Now, I'm making my way through Stardust. And then I come home to stream web TV. Yes, we have found a way around the corporations and no longer waste away the days in front of the tube.
In the evenings, Mom and I read to each other. I picked up a copy of the duel edition Eragon/Eldest which we're nearly done with. (Paolini is painfully obtuse.) Then we're going to read Fahrenheit 451 because I've never had the opportunity to read it and it has been 30 years since Mom read it.
We discovered Sonic last week. I've heard about the fast food chain with little regard to those who've eaten there. I find that Sonic, like many things in the south, is something the people here don't understand just how wonderful they have it. It’s definitely a cheap, little fast food place but it’s far better than Mickey Dee's or Jack in the Crack.
The weather has been heavenly. It’s mild; 70s during the day and 40s at night. The sun is unusually bright to me but I finally realized it was so bright because I'm used to the brown haze diffusing the light. That's another thing you can't see the air here. I have been troubled by chills at night, which I'm sure is simply a matter of me needing to acclimate, but it’s nice to breathe in the cold night air nonetheless.
The people here are pleasant unless they're behind the wheel of a car. Then they're insane - as in worse than LA drivers type of insane. One more reason to take the scenic, less traveled routes.
On the 1st, we went out to the Americana Folk Festival, a music and arts festival. It was very small but I wanted to see a certain singer I was never able to see in LA, Sonia Leigh. In the way that Clay Aiken is the love child of Barry Manilow and KD Lang, Sonia is obviously the love child of Johnny Cash and Melissa Ethridge. She was fantastic to listen to and it will be great fun watching her career. As Mom said, she has so much music in her it must hurt. And in true motherly fashion, she also added, “I wish she’d cut her hair. Such a pretty girl and you can’t see her face.”
The festival was also a learning experience for me. It was held at a park and one of the stages was in the middle of the woods. A beautiful setting indeed despite the fact that I quite unknowingly stood surrounded by oak trees. Not a problem for most but I’m allergic to such trees. (Yes, spring could be hell for me.) At one point I stood, leaning on one of the oaks looking at the ground at the acorns not realizing they were acorns. I stared at them feeling a sort of familiarity and thinking there was something ominous about them I should be remembering. After 10 years in LA, away from nature beyond the occasional sapling and palm trees, I have little recognition of things which were once familiar warning signs. So, this morning when I woke up not feeling quite right, Mom finally mentioned that those were acorns from all those oak trees. I’m glad we only stayed a few hours at the festival.
We’re still exploring the area. We’ve walked through a number of the shopping malls and gotten lost going to and from. The roads here change names a lot and the signage, especially on the highways, leaves something to be desired. We found one store at the Opryland Mall which is full of booths by local merchants. It’s a store to get lost in but we found my perfect key chain: a red and silver heart surrounding the word “Nashville”. It’s my bling. We also found Mom’s favorite cookie store, the American Cookie Company. And damn those be some gooood cookies.
That’s one of the best things about this place: the food. The food is incredible. In LA, the fruits and vegetables are not nearly as rich in flavor. The tomatoes here are amazing, ruby red and dessert like. We’ve been eating much better lately and yet our grocery bill is less than half what it was in LA. We expected it to be a little less but not quite so much less. And I don’t care what people say about southern cooking being unhealthy, it tastes so good. Basically, we’ve been enjoying going to Cracker Barrel when the opportunity presents. They have the best chef salad: huge tomatoes, bits of turkey and bacon, chunks of delicious cheddar cheese, shredded ham, buttery soft croutons and all smothered in ranch dressing. Oh, and lettuce too. Real lettuce not that iceberg shit. Then there’s a place called O’Charley’s which has the most amazing rolls. Did you know bread can melt in your mouth? They have a decent salad there too but those sweet bread rolls, covered in butter and too hot to touch are something to long for. It’s nice to be able to go out to eat and not break the bank doing so. Cooking somehow became fun again something which I bemoaned in LA but maybe because going out to eat wasn’t an option there due to the people, the traffic, and the poor food quality.
The more we explore the more we firmly believe that we found the perfect area in Nashville to live. Life is most certainly different and for the better. Every time we come to an obstacle, such as the problem with getting cable from a company that doesn't want to screw you with some lame package, we find that it’s simply a nudge to get us out of our old patterns. I’m not settled yet but life is certainly better out here.