williamson county snow day

NEWSFLASH: school opening delayed for 2 hours

But you can't even play in this stuff!

what is it about frozen water that is so nostalgic?

It is snowing all around Nashville tonight! AOL news described it as "Rare Snowfall Blankets South." Now I feel like Tennessee is home, or at least my home away from home.

I have every intention of playing in the snow with my kids in the morning before it all melts away. In Tennessee, you cannot count on keeping something like this around for more than a half day, so you need to act quickly.

I'm just so thankful that I have children to share it with. During my college days in Illinois, I used to take my sled to a small hill tucked away within the forest preserve, where I wouldn't easily be spotted by passing cars, and traipse up and down until either my legs gave out or my toes went numb. My oldest daughter was in early elementary school at the time, and she still doesn't know about my winter excursions. It is one of my silly secrets.

I'm wondering what I will do when my two youngest are grown. I very well cannot go out into my front yard and make snow angels alone. I guess that gives me one good reason to look forward to becoming a grandmother someday.

August Heat Wave and the Cheese Drought

The heat has finally broken in Middle Tennessee, at least during the morning hours. With highs in the mid-80's and lows in the 60's at night, we can finally sleep without the air conditioning on. The sky has been overcast at sunrise over the past few days, but I don't think we've had anything more than teasingly scattered raindrops in over a month. Still, my lawn remains green. Our first year in this house and we've let the crabgrass run wild, much to my retired next-door neighbor's chagrin. But crabgrass is a beautiful thing when there's a stretch of dry days, because it lives on while everyone else is pumping water from the Harpeth river to save their fescue.

At work the other night, I asked around to see if anyone liked pierogies. I was unable to find anyone from the South that had ever even heard of them! You know, similar to potstickers, but with potato filling. The responses went something like "Potstickers, what are those?" and "Polish people, they have their own food?"

In their defense, though, Nashville nurses at my hospital who work the nightshift full-time typically have diets which consist of Taco Bell, Chinese take-out, and pizza. So they are really only exposed to Mexican, Asian and Italian cuisines, along with the occasional American burger joint such as Sonic. Oh, and Starbucks. Columbian.

So I went grocery shopping at Kroger to look for farmer's cheese to fill my pierogies, which when mixed with sugar makes a sweet cheese that reminds me of crepe filling. Anyways, I found one little 8 ounce package hidden away for $4.99. I was dismayed. Being from the North and having spent much time in Wisconsin, farmer's cheese was as easy to obtain up there as grits and salt-cured ham bodies are here. The package said "Made in Wisconsin." I've seen cows grazing in fields near my home. Surely some of them are used to make dairy products.

I guess I will have to settle for potato and cheddar cheese (from Ohio) pierogies until I find a good cow willing to donate to my cause.

I am November in Tennessee

I just returned from spending the Thanksgiving holiday in Illinois. I could not wait to drive south, counting the hours. Tennessee is becoming my home.

November is an ambivalent month here. Not sure whether to hang onto the last throes of the summer, or to let it all go in hopes for what is waiting in the turn of the year.

Many of the fall colors are still bright, and an abundance of green remains below the tree line amongst the shrubs. Tennessee does not want to relinquish itself to the chill of winter, resisting fiercely as the night temperatures fall into the 20's and 30's, still pulling itself up by the bootstraps into the 50's when the sun is high.

Chicago, however, has given herself over to the voice of the wind whistling through a field of corn cut down to its roots. She lets out a dignified sigh as the leafblowers and fires hum and burn the last signs of summer away. There is no turning back now. She can only move forward, braving the months ahead, closing her eyes until the moss periscopes rise up in the spring.

I am November in Tennessee. Taking each day slowly, cautiously, wincingly, timidly. Searching frantically for the green that will inevitably take its leave. Planting flowers in the cold, yet still separable, soil.

I envy Illinois for her courage to ride with the wind and keep it at her back.

November in Franklin

Burgundy maples
Lemon oaks
Hills of confetti
Pansies alone and blooming--will they make it through the winter?
Temperature fluctuations--51-->79-->autumn monsoon-->40-->65-->23 and frost
Good thing that the "going out in the cold with wet hair causes pneumonia" warning is a myth
My winter coat remains in a box in storage. It is having an identity crisis.

106 degrees

In all my life (short or long, depending on which end of the spectrum you're viewing 35 years from), I have never been engulfed by such heat while ambulatory. I say "ambulatory" because I have experienced 106 degrees or more during a 15 minute jaunt in the sauna, and while lying recumbent in the covered bed of a truck. But those were both enjoyable activities. The soft breeze was burning my eyeballs.

The Weather Channel people slapped an orange "HOT" right in the middle of Tennessee on the U.S. map. They're from Florida, so something must be really wrong. As I was leaving work today I noticed that the air smelled like BBQ. While this type of cuisine is highly sought after in the South, I was nowhere near a restaurant. I told my husband that it must be the skin of the construction workers frying off. He laughed, safe in an air conditioned building.

My house received 2 offers on Monday, and the closing may be at the end of this month. So I get to go back home to Illinois for the weekend, moving as unprofessionally as possible by pulling the boxes down from the top of the garage that were placed up there when we originally moved in. Only now the boxes have warped from the heat and will need to be stacked by matching crooked oblong sides rather than neat rectangle piles.

Maybe I should pack jeans and a sweatshirt--it's only going to be 90 degrees! I never thought I'd be thankful for the gift of a 90-degree relief from the heat, but my whole internal thermometer has reset itself in the 2 months I've lived here. If only that were so easy for other things, like my heavy foot on the gas pedal and my tolerance (or lack thereof) for country music.

Just like in Chicago, this heat wave will most certainly produce a number of deaths, but the morticians here are all over it. On my way to work this morning (when it was only in the high 80's) I passed a rather large hearse (or to be politically correct, a "funeral coach"). It was a black pick-up truck with a cover adorned by the typical decorative landau bars. Pretty classy for Nashville. Two for the price of one, and as a bonus, environmentally friendly. After all, you know how those Ozone Alert days can be killers.