Pictures

Reporting In

Good morning! I know I just posted but that was from last night.
I got up today at the Crack of Nine, Lis already gone off to school. The Kava Bar's internet seems to be vaguely working for me and I feel guilty as hell about stealing their juice but I'll go back for happy hour this afternoon and drink another bowl of Kava. Jeez. I hope that stuff isn't addictive. Frankly, I'd go in there just for the ambiance. It's a beautiful little place and you feel calmer and more serene just walking in the door. The Kava buzz is just a plus. I really enjoyed talking to the beautiful lady who was working there, too.

It's funny but when you're traveling, you can sort of be whoever you want or let whoever it is inside of you who wants to come out emerge from her hiding place. It's sort of liberating, in a way. A good way. Oh, the "real" me is still very much in attendance. Believe me.
Hank and I went to the grocery store yesterday and I got stressed out for no apparent reason but I had a good time, too. We looked at all the groovy international foods and spent an inordinately long time trying to figure out what we needed versus what we wanted and so forth but we had fun. And they have a Starbucks right there in the grocery store and that's where I got my pre-Kava coffee to add to my jitters to test out the Kava affect.
Although really? I just wanted some coffee.

Yesterday we all met up at the Civic Center downtown where a huge arts and craft show was going on and where Vergil's mama and sister were playing a set of music. It was so much fun! The other two people in the band are Vergil's mother's best friend and HER daughter and it's heartwarming to see a family so close and loving and talented making music together. I bought the CD, as you can see above. The Virgin of Guadalupe incense came from the grocery store. Those are my two big purchases so far. I would have loved to buy something at the show but everything was high-pricey and deservedly so, so I just came away with images in my head of beautiful textiles and pottery and glasswork and some very fine leather bags. It was hard to walk away from the leather bags.

Asheville is just a damn happening town. Music venues, shopping, cafes, restaurants, bars, bookstores, you name it, it's here. All local. Hardly any chain stuff downtown. Lovely parks, people out listening to music, eating, shopping, walking, biking, polite, trim, good-looking, young folks, old folks, children.
Yesterday as I was leaving the Kava Bar I saw four adults and two children walk by and I heard one of the guys talking on the phone. He was saying this: "Man, we've been bar-hopping with a four-year old and a one-year old and it's been a blast!"
Then..."No! Really! It has been!"

So here I am perched on the edge of it, Jessie and Vergil's house just a little over a mile down the road which is all downtown and I feel no need for a car at this point but just my two strong legs and we had so much fun last night when they all came over and we cooked frozen pizzas and drank beer and were silly. I'm getting to spend time with Hank that I would never have gotten to do otherwise and that feels really good too.

Today I think that Hank and Jessie and I are just going to walk around downtown, go where our legs take us, do whatever appeals to us. I could spend fortunes here but luckily, I'm not really that type of woman.
Hell, I could spend fortunes on organic vegetarian meals alone. The food is SO good.
But now I'm going to go eat some cereal and fruit and then I'm going to meet up with Hank and Jessie.

I'm just so glad to be here. To see how much progress Vergil and Jessie have made with their little home. Their garden is beautiful, the little kitties they are fostering making it a merry circus. It's cheerful and light and colorful and Vergil and Jessie have made curtains and hung them up. Vergil's mother made them some beautiful shelves for the food in their kitchen. They have a washer and a clothesline.
It's all so good.
And Lis was up playing guitar when I left and this morning she's in a class with Janis Ian and I am sure that SOME of you are impressed with this fact.

I've talked to Mr. Moon and Owen, too, this morning. Owen told me he loves me. I told him I want to smush him with my love. I miss my home, my husband, my grandson and my May and Lily and I wish they were here too. I would smush all of them with my love. The dogs I would just smush.

So that's it from Asheville this morning where I am happy and content and have fresh peaches and blueberries in the refrigerator and where the mountains are hazy and beautiful in the background like soft bosoms and there is life and living going on all around me and I will be meeting up with two of my children and I am staying here in this beautiful place with my darling Lis.

Oh my.

Please forgive me if I don't get around to your places. Know I love you and am thinking of you and will try to read what I can because I know you are living your lives as I am living mine and somehow, we are all in this together and that makes me happier than you can know.

Ah-lah.

Ms. Moon

Can't Judge A Book By Its Cover

So the painters finished up this afternoon and we all cleaned up a little and headed across the river to the auction. Man, I totally could have worn my overalls there. I would not have been the only one wearing them. Take my word for this.
It was a big old barn of a place and they sold hot dogs and coffee and cokes and you could walk around and look at all the stuff up for auction and there was a tiny table that I really wanted but it had already been sold. It was raining hard. The lightening had come in and cracked and the thunder had shot through the valleys and it was cool and wet and beautiful.
We hung out for awhile but there wasn't anything that any of us really had an eye for and so we got in the truck and headed off for supper. Vergil wanted to take us to this place that he'd heard had the best food in Asheville and it wasn't in the cool, downtown, East area but in the newly arising West area of town and we pulled up to see this place.


Good Lord, Vegril, I said. Who told you they have good food here?
A guy I know who bakes bread, he said.

Okay. We parked across the street at a place where during the day they sell bio-diesel and we walked up to the patio of the cement block hole-in-the-wall and there was a crowd, sipping cocktails and waiting.
Hmmmm.
Maybe.
And we went in to put our names on the list and if you don't have a reservation you have to sit at the bar and that is a very, very good sign when it comes to a dining establishment.
We got our cocktails and went out on the patio, to wait our place at the bar.

You know, sometimes there is just nothing better in this world than sitting with people you love, waiting for a seat at a restaurant where you know the food is going to be everything you want food to be. This was one of those times.


The best thing about coming to Asheville to help Jessie and Vergil move in is that we have a mental picture of where they are going to be living and the faces of Vergil's family who are going to be such a big part of Jessie's life now. And, as Mr. Moon said, the fact that we've gotten to help tuck them in.
Tuck them in.
Yes.
And we've had a good time too.

We finally got seated and dinner was splendid. As wonderful as the entrees were, my favorite was the arugula salad with grated apples and cheese and walnuts. I just never get tired of arugula.
The martinis didn't suck either.

We all shared food back and forth, we laughed, and yes, we cried a little. We're leaving tomorrow and I told Jessie that she's in a wonderful place with a good man and his precious family and that all is going to be well.
She knows it.
I do too.
Doesn't mean it's easy. Does not mean that at all.
But it's right.
It's true.

So. Time for bed. Time for bed. Tomorrow we'll get up and pack up and have breakfast with those two sweet souls and say good-bye. It's not going to be easy but hell's bells, Martha! Jessie will be home in a week to celebrate May's birthday and go to a music festival and there you are- all that lays between us is eight hours of white-lined asphalt winding through little towns where there are little pink houses for you and me.

At one end lies Asheville and the mountains and a house with a new-painted living room where Jessie and Vergil live nearby some mighty sweet, loving people and at the other end lies Lloyd and Tallahassee where the giant oaks offer shade and protection to some other sweet, loving people and there are chickens at both ends.

It's been a good journey and I'm ready to go home, as hard as it's going to be to leave my daughter. She has a new life here and it's going to be a good one and my world is just going to have to stretch a little farther.

Which it has, which it will.

Sweet dreams, y'all; safe journeys.

As long as there is love at both ends of the trip, it's going to be a good one.

I promise.


Just leave the light on to guide the travelers home. That's all I can say. I don't think there's a hell of a lot more than that.