A Perfect Time

The steamy drip of Memphis summer weather vanished last Thursday night. The gods of the Autumn killed it off -- finally! We woke to crisp blue sky, gentle breezes and sere air. Angst and pains of the previous two weeks dissolved with the heat. I feel like a human being again who lives somewhere other than in hell.

The weather transformation greeted our Baltimore friends, Rachael and Anthony and John's daughter, Patricia, who arrived for a weekend visit. Having a house full of guests was just plain fun. We rode the trolley around town like tourists, ate like pigs, drank like fish, and hiked like mountain lions.

When we asked what everyone would like for Friday night dinner, Anthony declared "Red Meat" with a level of commitment he seldom expresses, so we treated our guests to dinner at Carpaccio's at the Peabody Hotel. On the roof we visited the evening abode of the Peabody ducks and engulfed ourselves in the sunset. After dinner, we walked down Main Street to Sauces for Mohitos. By 10:30 Rachael was falling off her bar stool, quite unlike the good party girl she's reputed to be. But we know better, for when she tires, her lights go off rather dramatically. We woke her up and we trollied home with Rachael asleep on my shoulder.

On Saturday, while John and Patricia went to tour her old mid-town neighborhood, the rest of us went to the Cooper Young neighborhood street fair, the Brooks Museum of Art and then the Memphis zoo.

The street fair had several thousand people roaming the closed off street and at least a hundred booths, but overall, it was mediocre at best. There were too many pot holders, cutesy colorful tote bags, and beaded jewelry. The best booths represented wood turners, but the work displayed was limited. After ignoring the ubiquitous Red Bull girls with their liquid filled backpacks, we found a small sushi bar that served up some excellent spicy tuna and BBQ ell rolls and dynamite Mohitos. This is good news for Cooper Young as it is a recovering neighborhood of small four-square bungalows and funky stores, kind of the east village of the mid-south.

The zoo was our "hit of the day". Anthony was unending in his enthusiasm and praise. Rachael and I followed like puppies behind Anthony as he flitted from habitat to habitat. It was feeding time when we arrived, so the animals were preforming with the monkeys (baboons?) taking the lead, hooting and hollering to each other across habitats. The butterfly exhibit astounded us as we walked among hundreds in the sun drenched enclosure. My personal favorite was the polar bear, swimming laps as we watched from our under water seats. His fur swayed around his body like seaweed undulating in a current as he lumbered through the water.

We'd gotten addicted to the Mohitos Friday night, so before going home Saturday night we went for mint, lime and rum. We found the rum and the limes, but no grocery within ten miles of our house had mint. Bummer! We survived on the little bit I had at home. John made his famous designer pizzas wearing his very own white chef's jacket. When we were done and the smoke cleared, I was too pooped to pop (as my Dad used to say), so I stayed home, cleaned the substantial mess from the dining room and kitchen, then sat with my pups. The rest trollied down to Beale Street for the ultimate tourist experience, then John walked them to our favorite place, Spindini's. I was in bed when they dragged themselves in at midnight.

We packed everyone off to the airport on Sunday afternoon, then turned around to entertain our one friend in Memphis, Judith, who is leaving for a new job in Boise, Idaho. Real estate in Memphis is dead and she's done almost all the preservation work she can in this town. Her new job is preservationist for the Idaho department of transportation. It's bridges and tunnels for her for a while. We wish her well with dinner at Encore (yes we are eating our way through Memphis -- some body's got to do it) and will definitely be visiting her next summer.

Well, it's time to get back to my laundry and my writing (yes, it is a strange combination), but I'm making progress on both. Do come visit now, y'all.