Why BuyLife is a Dead End

Ryan Seacrest, Alicia Keys and Kim Kardashian are dead.  And I'm not sad - I'm a bit disgusted.  I wrote a guest post for the Jackson Spalding Thinkstand on why this week's BuyLife.org promotion for World AIDS Day is a grave misstep.  Please enjoy this little bit of shameless self-promotion - unlike the celebrities mentioned, I won't make you pay $10 for it.

Terra Cotta's Gotta Go from Walnut Grove

When I was looking at houses, I passed over the one I bought a couple dozen times because I hated the shutters.  I know what that anonymous eponymous they say about getting hung up on paint colors that can be changed.  But this paint color gave the house such a repugnant drab watery look that I couldn't get over it.  These terra cotta shutters destroyed the whole house for me - so much so that it took a little convincing from my real estate agent to include it on the caravan of listings we were scheduled to see in the neighborhood.  Once I saw the inside and - let's face it - the towering trees in the backyard, I was sold.  Suddenly the odious repulsive shutters seemed like a small obstacle standing between me and home sweet home.  (We need not return to the list of much larger obstacles that have presented themselves since then.)  But back to the vile shutters that looked like this:

There's something so...old about those boring brick-colored shutters that do absolutely nothing for the brick color of the house.  It all melted together in one awful conglomeration of blah.  And I may be many things, but blah is not one of them.  As such, I decided to leave Terra Cotta Town for the olive-toned territory of Walnut Grove.  Behold the great greenness:

It's like a new house.  Like I left behind moth balls and knitting nights for swinging 21st century living.  Or something like that.  Also, I clearly need to spend some time admiring my new shutters while raking. *Ahem*  And while I was at it, I had the deck stained to better match the house, too.

Perhaps part of the moving problem had to do with the atrocious exterior - the dated ill-chosen shutters that made me feel like I might be learning macrame and hanging velvet paint-by-numbers inside while wearing orthopedic shoes and sporting shapeless day dresses.  But now that we're in Walnut Grove, I think that I have found a befitting haven for my stilettos, pumps and flats that is retro chic instead of retro shack.

Adventure Monkey: Tallulah Gorge

Appetite for Destruction

In the 27 years we have lived in this house, a lot of things about it have changed.  The county renumbered our street, taking our original 255 house number.  The carpet in the downstairs changed twice before getting the hardwood treatment.  Wallpaper stuck up and then stripped down off walls now layered with paints of many colors.  But aside from the avocado green and Gulden's mustard yellow fixtures in the bathrooms, the kitchen is probably the most constant.

The cabinet doors, once a depressingly dark wood, received a whitewash some time in the 90s.  But other than that, the white freckled formica counters and the pantry with the squeaky door and even the totally retro shelf paper have stood the test of time.  That is until a leaky sink led to rotted cabinets and the need for some serious kitchen aid.

Yesterday morning, I let a guy in who demolished those 30-year-old cabinets, stripped out the pantry with its squeaky door and pulverized those plastic-topped counters.  And now, we find ourselves inhabiting a house in which the following are true:

- The stove is in the garage.  The kitchen table is in my bedroom.
- When Dad put the utensil drawer under the table, he said to Mom, "Be careful when you pull out that drawer that you don't tear the carpet."
- I wash dishes in the bathroom.  I put them away in my bedroom.  My sister's bedroom.  And the dining room floor.
- The microwave is in my parents' room.  So is the coffeemaker.
- The poor cats are so distressed.  Last night I found one of them sitting in the bald patch left behind by the pantry.  He's since taken to sleeping in a cardboard box at the foot of my parents' bed.
- Half the contents of our refrigerator are at my house.  The essentials - creamer, for example - are in the tiny microfridge I had in college that now resides in our bonus room upstairs.
- Likewise, my mother carefully located the box of Splenda like she was transporting the Ark of the Covenant.
- You may be asked, "Do you know where the salt is?"  And the answer may be, "In Ashley's room."
- Yesterday morning, I was putting on makeup during the demolition, as the various lights in the room blinked on and off while they worked with the circuit box.
- Paper plates are dispensable.  And therefore, indispensable.
- We will not be hosting Thanksgiving at our house this year.

Just as I was about to post this, I knocked over my water glass.  I headed toward the kitchen to get a towel.  And of course, all I found was rubble.  And so it goes.

Introducing the New Guy in My Life

A few weeks ago, I was on a whirlwind tour of five states in five weeks.  I went from D.C. to the hills of northwest Georgia.  Then west to Texas, north to Indiana and east to North Carolina.  Along the way, I acquired a new companion.  A lone Barrel of Monkeys monkey got mixed up at a bar with a bunch of Jenga pieces.  Who could leave such a poor bereft creature behind?  Clearly, he'd broken free from the confines of his barrel, consorted with a bunch of wooden blocks of questionable stability and made his way into my life.  And so following that night at a Dallas pub (in which the rickety Jenga blocks failed me several times), Adventure Monkey joined my travels.

As noted before, I am not a particularly fine traveler.  Adventurer in heart but trapped in a definitively homebody, I don't even have my passport.  But perhaps, with the help of a swinging monkey man, I can find my way to a few more adventures in life. 

Adventure Monkey is Born

Adventure Monkey takes on the Texas State Fair

Adventure Monkey in Kokomo, Indiana, City of Firsts

Adventure Monkey explores the cornfields of the Hoosier State

Rocking goat at the Valle Crucis Fair

With a little help from Dad, Adventure Monkey takes in the Valle Crucis view

Mama Harp joins in the Adventure Monkey game.

One of the 10 People from Heaven You Meet on Earth

On a dour gray day at the end of my first semester of college, I mounted the steps of the great white columned house of Berry's founder and pressed the doorbell.  Someone shouted for me to come in, and when I pushed open the door, I realized it was the large jovial man on the ladder who was disassembling an antique brass chandelier in the carpeted front hall.  He smiled and asked if he could help me.  I told him I was looking for Vesta Salmon in that tentative way of a green college freshman who isn't certain what she's just stumbled into.  "Kitchen," he answered.

In the kitchen - where I would spend almost as many hours during my college years as I did in my dorm room.  Where the white painted door was propped open, there was a long metal table where an army of college girls were seated with rags and toothbrushes and tubes of foul-smelling pink goop that they were applying to pieces of the antique chandelier I'd seen in the hall.  Among them, scrubbing and buffing with the best of them sat Vesta.  I don't know that I exactly remember that she said it, but I know she would've looked up, seen me standing there all lost and confused and said, "Whatchya need, hon?"

I needed a job to rescue me from the dreck of the college dining hall.  And ever since I'd seen a picture in the newspaper of a local girl who worked as a tour guide at Oak Hill and donned a beautiful hoopskirted dress, I'd wanted to be an Oak Hill girl, too.

The interview was brief; I don't remember if Vesta even asked me about my skills.  I would guess instead that she shrewdly assessed my puny spirit and decided somebody needed to look after this poor waify thing standing in front of her.  And by the grace of God, she decided that somebody would be her.

For the next three and a half years, I worked under the supervision of Vesta.  I dusted and vacuumed and scrubbed and polished every inch of that house.  I gave tours, dutifully telling the stories of the house and its owner.  I served lunches to potential donors and the college president.  Those were all the requirements of the job.

But more important than all that, I observed.  I observed Vesta in her provisions.  She cooked biscuits and hot tea for breakfast for the morning girls.  She made cornbread and big pots of vegetable soup when it was cold and blustery outside.  She made lunches for visitors and lemonade for the grounds crew.  When I was sick, she'd buy oranges and slice them for me to eat at lunch.  She fed my body.

She prayed for us all - including the poetry professor who dared give me a B on an assignment, assuring me that we just needed to pray for him.  (For the record, I ended up with an A in the class.)  She talked to us about her faith - one that she demonstrated in so many ways: by baking an endless number of lemon poundcakes (for which she is famous) for birthdays, anniversaries, sympathy and get well wishes; by inviting those without family to her home for Thanksgiving and Christmas; by being involved in all sorts of causes that helped others.  She was the essence of moral fiber.  I never knew her to say no when someone needed her.  She fed my spirit.

Having lost my biological grandparents at a young age, I was thirsty for her wisdom.  She offered guidance in such simple and sage ways.  She hugged me close and dried my tears on more than one occasion.  Going to work became my refuge in times of turmoil.  I could always count on Vesta for advice or support or encouragement or a hot cup of coffee and a hug.  She fed my heart.

She once met Martha Berry.  And her cooking was featured in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.  One of the professor's established a scholarship in her name.  Yet, she's always humble, always embodying the Berry mission - not to be ministered unto, but to minister.

I graduated from Berry almost 10 years ago, but Vesta and me have kept in touch through letters and cards and phone calls and the occasional visit to the alma mater.  I cherish the times I get a Vesta hug and get to hear her ask, "How are you doing, hon?" in that marvelous way that you can't wait to tell her and hope she's proud.

When I think about the lessons I learned in college, some of the most important ones were from Vesta.  She taught me so much about integrity and character and spiritual strength and just loving people so much that you can't stand but to do something to help them.  I know she's touched about as many lives as there are stars in the sky.  And I feel so lucky that mine is one of them.

Captain Fail Pants Goes to Washington

Traveling with me is like traveling with one of the three Stooges - or maybe all three wrapped into one prat-falling package.  Case in point: last week's trip to Washington, D.C. for a conference.

• We were greeted by the Head of the Conference who hugged me and asked how I was feeling.  How am I feeling??  And then it registered that she had me confused with the other woman of the same name who works on the account and is pregnant.  Oh, sweet fancy Moses.  She think I'm pregnant.  Do I look like I am with child?  
• After dinner, the waitress brings a rather sizable glass dish mounded with blue cotton candy.  One of my dinner companions has a few bites.  And then I proceeded to eat all of it.  All.  By.  Myself.  And no one stopped me.
• This lead to the mother of all stomachaches at roughly 2 a.m.  Like, fetal-position-whimpering-praying-to-God stomachache- a prayer in which I prayed that God would smite me for my gluttony.
• Tuesday I woke up very late with a very serious spun-sugar-over.
• Once dressed, I stood sideways and gazed upon myself in the full-length mirror for confirmation that I do not, in fact, look pregnant.
• At Tuesday's dinner, I vowed to be very good and not overeat.  Instead, I stood up to go to the bathroom, dragging the tablecloth with me, and turning over an entire glass of water.
• Later, I lost my cell phone - my precious 3-year-old Nokia flip phone with the busted front.  We were assisted in our search by the waitress whose attention was no doubt captured by me on my hands and knees with my head under the table in this very nice restaurant.  When she finally located the phone under the table, she told me she felt compelled to just leave it there, thereby deducting all the cool points I had in reserve.
• Wednesday morning, I'm wearing a dress.  Which reveals the lovely blue goose egg on my shin, origins of which remain unknown.  Perhaps from crawling around in the restaurant?
• I added to the attractiveness of my legs later while using industrial packing tape on a package and slipping the serrated edge against my knee.
• My dress nearly gave me a heart attack at the self check-in kiosk at the airport.  Because when I bent to retrieve my credit card from my bag, I realized that the two most crucial buttons were gaping wide open.  In the middle of the airport.  Classy.
• I thought I would be done with dress mishaps at this point - until I was also flagged by security for my "decorative belt loops."  Yeah, you have to watch out for synthetic bamboo.  It's a killer.
• Once seated on the plane, I took a deep breath and hoped for a quiet flight back to Georgia.  Instead, I got teeth-rattling turbulence on a flight that I decided to brave without Dramamine.  By the time we landed, I had a greasy oil slick in the bottom of my stomach that would've made BP look like amateurs.

It's no wonder nothing gets done in Washington.