Memphis Diaries: Part I

Memphis bridge - Adobe Stock

Some days I can't quite believe we made it here. In December, we packed most of the very last of our belongings into the truck and car. Stuffed, more like - the car was on a trailer, and everything I thought I might need in the apartment for the first week was wedged inside. Clothes, kitchenwares, bedding - stuffed.

I wrote "most of the last" because some of it just didn't fit. The vacuum? Left with my brother-in-law to donate (we would have donated it ourselves, but it was, like 11pm or so). And there's a lampshade we barely fit into the truck that we left with my mom to mail later.

Remembering Memphis

Sometimes it feels funny to experience Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Portland, OR. Political correctness is...assumed, and expected. That's not to say racism doesn't happen, but it's different, and often more subtle.

Not so in Memphis. You can't get through the morning commute without noticing the stark racial and socio-economic divide. When I drove Danny to work in the morning, we'd be driving from the east side of the city to the center along with other Caucasian commuters, usually driving newer American cars or German imports.

On my way back to our hotel, though, I drove back with the African American service employees headed to work on the east side. The cars were either much older, much flashier, or both. Sometimes the tires were worn so deeply that the metal core sparked on the asphalt, and yet I've never seen so many Mustangs and Corvettes as I did on Memphis roads.

I'll never forget what it was like to be driving somewhere new, and to transition from a clean, photogenic neighborhood into a poorer, less safe one - with only a street or two in between. Antebellum-style houses would give way to loan shops, alcohol stores, run-down restaurants, and most tragically, funeral homes. So many funeral homes. All of these would have bars on the windows.

Danny and I once picked up Thai food for takeout, from a restaurant we later realized was near the Hickory Hill area. We counted the number of cop cars we saw until we returned to the hotel; there were seven.

Some time on the internet will tell you more about the racial/socio-economic divides that plague the city. Violent crime rates in the poorer neighborhoods are some of the highest in the nation. Public schools are predominately populated with African-American students; most of the middle-class Caucasian families send their children to private schools or home-school.

Memphis is, of course, home to the Lorraine Hotel, where Dr. King was assassinated. That site is now the home of the National Civil Rights Museum. Having spent time in that city, I can only hope and pray that one day it will be a place where grace and generosity will abound. As it was two years ago, I found it a city that could alternately the friendliest and the most frightening place I'd ever been.

As a Caucasian woman in the Pacific Northwest, I feel profoundly under-qualified to offer any sort of commentary on race relations. But I've traveled enough that in remembering Martin Luther King Jr., I can't shake the profound sense that we still have so very, very far to go. 

Little Boxes

I'm writing this from my phone while we drive to Shiloh vet, where he will be thrilled to see some of his favorite people,  and less thrilled to receive a series of vaccines.

This hasn't been his favorite week, since we've been packing up the house. But soon we'll be quasi-settled in our interim housing while we sell our house.

Right now, we're trying to squash a much as we can into our last days in Richland, wishing there was time for more even while wishing we were already in Portland. And while I hate packing up,  I've been culling through a good deal of clutter. It feels good to be clearing things out,  getting ready for the next chapter.

Lots of excitement ahead, though! We'll be headed to Atlanta (specifically Decatur) for my cousin's wedding, and I'll be continuing work on the edits.

My hope is to be able to find a little pocket of time to enjoy some summer weather - Oregon is capable of some glorious Indian summers.

That's what I'm looking forward to  -  what about you?

Happy Anniversary, Us - Part VI

Six years ago today, I married my best friend.

What’s amazed me, over the years, is exactly how much change and transition we’ve been able to fit in over those years, whether it’s my beginnings in publishing, Danny’s graduate school, our travels to Memphis and Richland, and now a move to Portland very near on the horizon.

A lot of change, but in some ways we’ve become good at it. When we were engaged, we drove eleven hours to California for Danny’s cousin’s wedding (our own wedding was some two months off). And I remember how we drove down, stayed for a short while and returned – another eleven hours, of course, and returned still wanting to be near each other. I remember thinking at the time that it was a good sign.

The ability to often spend long periods of time together has served us well over the years, during the seasons when we've been unmoored from family, from a church, from friends, from outside activities. While we always celebrate a return to social life, in the times between we still enjoy each other's company.

As our hopes to begin a family have been deferred, we've had more time together than, I think, either of us anticipated. By now, we know each other really well, and yet Danny still surprises me in the very best of ways.

This next year will be yet another year of changes - at least two moves, the search for a new church, and settling into a new social circle. We'll figure out which grocery store we like the best, and decide the best place to walk the dog. We'll find new haunts and favorite date spots.

At the heart of all of it, though, I feel so very blessed that I enjoy the person I'll be doing those things with. If I see a movie, Danny's the one I want to see it with. If I read a particularly interesting book - something like Where'd You Go Bernadette - he's the one I want to discuss it with. Long walks are nicer if he's along for the stroll. I love exploring new places together.

So here's to another year of adventures, of home-hunting, of change.

Another year of us.

The Countdown

Very soon...

1.) Tesla will no longer have vertical blinds to drive us crazy with.

2.) Neither will she have a coffee table to hide under.

(We've been in a furnished corporate apartment)

3.) We will have COUNTER SPACE.

4.) And a full-sized fridge!  For the first time in four years!

5.) Our things will be out of storage. Including:

               a.) My KitchenAid! Sadie!

               b.) My pastry-cutter! Which I stupidly did not haul out to Memphis!

               

               c.) My knives!

               

               d.) My DISHES!!!

               

               e.) My husband's third and fourth pairs of cargo shorts! (It's been 90+ degrees around here since June, and he only brought two pairs to Memphis because we wintered in Memphis and bringing more seemed silly. O that we knew how we'd have only that which we took to Memphis for our first five months in Richland...in the spring and summer. Hindsight and all that.)

               

               f.) My desk!

             
               g.) My copies of Plain Jayne and Simply Sara! (So that when people ask to buy/ read copies, I'll actually have one on hand. Or, like, fifty.)

             
6.) No more crazy-loud upstairs neighbors!

7.) No more crazy-loud downstairs neighbors...

8.) No more housekeepers who show up at inopportune moments.

9.) No more housekeepers to take out the trash and occasionally scrub out the guest bathroom tub.  Hm.

10.) Likewise the landscapers...

11.) We'll have a kitchen with an actually, honest-to-goodness PANTRY!

12.) Also, we'll have real-live guest rooms.  With beds.  For guests.

13.) No more Oregon sales-tax exemption...

14.) No more state income tax (and if you're self-employed in the state of Oregon, you know there is a definite ouch factor there!).  Ooh, and LTD tax. For a bus I haven't ridden since my freshman years of high school.

15.) We'll finally have a home. And that is something to look forward to.

P.S. That picture? So totally not actually our house. Just in case you were wondering

                     

Back From Hiatus

Didn't exactly *mean* to go on hiatus, but that's what happened.  Since the last post, we've...

1.) Driven across the country
2.) Visited friends and family at home VERY quickly
3.) Gathered our somewhat-in-storage belongings from various family members (four homes in total, bless them)
4.) Drove northeast with family to Richland, WA, our new home, and moved into our
5.) Glorious corporate apartment, which is fabulously amazing (especially after the...um...less than ideal hotel room we'd survived for the previous three months.)

I can wax about the apartment.  It has a mostly full kitchen, complete with a real oven and a real dishwasher and a real garbage disposal, which means I don't have to flush scraps down the toilet anymore.

If that grosses you out, you can either a.) know that the toilet was only six feet away, so this was actually a very convenient solution, or b.) pretend I didn't write it.  Whatever works for you, I'm good with it.

Anyway, we also have a second bedroom, AND a second bathroom (which is great for the after-church bathroom rush, you know?), and there are walls and doors and - oh yeah - CENTRAL AIR, and a fireplace...

...the only thing that could make it more magical would be a unicorn on the patio.  Which the dog would probably bark at.

Also a little more counter space.  But it's fantastic for now.

What else?

6.) The dog - we got a puppy.  And in all honesty, this is probably one of the biggest reasons I've been on hiatus.  Because she's less of a puppy than she is a 7-month-old infant who bit and peed and ran circles around things and caused me to cry and wonder why I'd spent three years desperately wanting a puppy.

Then, because she's full of much wisdom, she would choose that particular moment to curl up in my lap and sleep.

This caused two reactions.  First, I didn't give her away.  Secondly, I went to sleep myself.  Since those first few weeks, Tesla has a.) house-trained, save the evening accident, b.) kennel-trained, c.) learned to sit, d.) learned to lay down, e.) learned to drop (when it suits her), f.)  learned to roll over, and most importantly, g.) figured out that nipping lands her in jail (aka kitchen), and that licking people's hands instead grants her far more positive attention.

However, she's yet to figure out that a bath has yet to lead to her imminent demise.  Oh well.

So things, at this stage, are good.  We love the puppy.  The puppy loves us.  It was just a bit rocky there for a while, especially on four hours of sleep.

But wait, there's more!

7.) We put in an offer on a house.  After a long, protracted amount of back-and-forthing, we
8.) Decided to build in a neighborhood with easy access to the Barnhart yard for Danny, and easy access to Target and Starbucks for me.
9.)We've since picked out our exterior paint as well as our counter tops, despite the presence of walls or counter tops.

But enough about us.  How about the rest of the world?! The Royal Wedding-pocalypse came and...kind of went.  Kind of, in that it isn't dominating all of the media, but there's still plenty of coverage concerning Pippa's date and the going-away clothes and the timing of the honeymoon...

And let's be honest.  We know the pregnancy speculation is right around the corner.  It's like a Presidential campaign - you know it's coming, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.  If I were Kate, I'd invest in some industrial-strength level Spanx.  Though she is impressively svelte as is, you know that the moment she exhales the wrong way, that photo's going viral in a mater of seconds.

That's just my two cents.

And while the world was engrossed in said wedding, a super-secret-don't-tell-ANYONE-especially-not-People-Magazine SEAL team (who used to be referred to as Team 6, but after the press coverage, they've probably changed their name to Team 8 or something, to keep things top secret) struck in Pakistan, killing Osama bin Laden in a fire fight, thoroughly confirming the identity of the body before burying it at sea.

While I'm glad the search is over, I do have mixed feelings on this.  I wish bin Laden could have been tried for his crimes.  I wish another death wasn't necessary.  I wish we didn't live in a fallen world. It's interesting seeing the reactions of others, from measured dread to jubilation. I think this C.S. Lewis quote sums up a Godly response nicely - "We may kill if necessary, but we must not hate and enjoy hating. We may punish if necessary, but we must not enjoy it."

On a lighter note...

A few days ago, Tesla picked up her water dish (my 5-inch Corningware dish) with her mouth from its place on the carpet to the tile by the fireplace, where she dropped it for no reason but noise.  Now, it's Corningware, so it's nearly indestructible (I say nearly, because I broke one at a Target once), but the overall effect was reminiscent of the clanging of a beer stein and yelling for the barkeep.

Glad to be back! Be sure to check in in the comments section down below.

Oh! And to kick off my return to the blogging world, I'll be doing my first-ever contest.  And let me tell you, it's cool.  So stay tuned!

Travels, Part II

So we arrived in Memphis, and we pulled up at the place where we were to stay for the next three months.

The lobby smelled of stale cigarette smoke. I was worried but didn't say anything. We accepted our keys and walked down the musty hallway to our assigned room.

It didn't smell of stale cigarettes, but it did smell like slightly rancid fried potatoes. The furniture was dated and chipped. The carpet was stained. There were wires where the smoke detector used to be.

I plugged in one of my Febreeze scented-plug-ins, but had difficulty because all of the outlets were either upside-down or sideways. (Note: it wasn't until yesterday that I discovered that the Febreeze pluggy-thingy is actually rotatable. So keep that under your hat). Danny pulled out one of our power-strips and tied it around the chair in a slip-knot we could try to replace our room's greasy fryer scent.

But...by the time we found hairs of a concerning nature in various places in the bathroom...it was time to decamp.

Calls were made. Opinions asked. It was a tricky situation to be in, considering that Memphis, Tennessee is not anything like anywhere in Oregon, or anything like anywhere bordering Oregon. I don't wish to insult any from the south, but here's the thing - the Pacific Northwest and the Mid South are not like apples and oranges. They're like apples and dental floss.

Eventually, one of Danny's co-workers from Portland who was familiar(ish) with the area advised Danny to go to one of the Marriotts in Southaven, Mississippi, about 15 minutes away.

We did. We packed up, checked out, and fled.

The room at the Marriott was magical. By magical, I mean clean.

We spent the weekend looking at other extended-stay hotels. We made preliminary efforts to move to one on Monday that appeared to be safe and clean (better smell, no garbage or syringes to be seen), but were dissuaded from that when we learned that the company had sent employees to that one before, who had reported that there were prostitutes roaming the hallways. In what capacity, we didn't know, but just the same we elected to move to another hotel farther east, bordering Germantown.

It's been better. The hallways are still stale and the toilet burps sometimes when others flush, which apparently means something's wrong with the plumbing somewhere in a very bad way...but nothing bad's happened yet, so here's hoping. Visited Target and TJ Maxx and picked up things to make it a bit homier.

So far? Memphis is very different from Oregon. Everyone sounds like Paula Dean. I've yet to be able to get a spring greens salad at a restaurant (though the Macaroni Grill had a romaine salad with a bit of frisee on top), but we've been able to find things we were expecting to do without, such as Oregon Chai tea concentrate and Odwalla juices. We had wonderful Thai Iced Teas at dinner the other night (though the Pad Thai was not the best. Danny's dish was good, though). There's a Whole Foods close by with lots of options - I'm hoping (hoping!!) that I might be able to find Tillamook cheese...

Recycling? Not so much.

Oh, and another thing? In Oregon, if the speed limit is 55 - especially if it's in-town driving - at most people are traveling at 62 or so. Memphis? It averages around 70 to 75, with some people in the end lanes traveling around 85-90.

On our drive from the Marriott to our extended stay hotel, my hands were so tight on the steering wheel I had wrist pain afterwards.

Our plans? Find good barbeque. Our first venture out sent us to a well-recommended and much-loved restaurant that no longer existed, and in its place was okay barbeque and depressing sides (green beans from a can. An old can). But everyone's telling Danny to go to Central Barbeque, so that's our destination after we see Dawn Treader. Looking forward to a night out together!