Last Night

It's gray and breezy here in Mobile this evening and we're sitting out on the veranda of this beautiful hotel. I went to Travelocity to perhaps post a good review of the place but everyone who had posted their own reviews said the same thing I would have said which was basically- why would anyone stay anywhere else in Mobile?
Besides the fact that the inn is in a perfect location and besides the fact that it is charming and real with no hint of the chain or the conforming, besides the pool and the courtyard and the understated and perfect decoration and huge rooms and besides the balconies and DAMN GOOD WATER PRESSURE, there is the staff which are as helpful and kind as can possibly be.
So.
The Malaga Inn. Mobile, Alabama.
I think it would make a lovely low-cost honeymoon of a first or second or fifty-first kind. It is that kind of place.
Romantic and easy and comfortable and the fountain chatters and the birds swoop and chitter and there are no fluorescent lights forcing their way into your room at night from a hallway through the ugly "light-proof" curtains.

I imagine what it would be like in a storm, staying in this inn. Not a big hurricane storm, but a regular southern summer rain-lashing storm with thunder and lightening outside the old, large windows and how cozy it would be to be inside one of these rooms for that, snuggled down in the bed, how safe I would feel in these walls which have protected people for almost a hundred and fifty years.

So. That is my review.

And it is our last evening here. Not sure what we're going to do. Get some supper for sure. I am a little low tonight. We drove down to the rich-people part of the coast and had some lunch and went for a stroll out on a dock into the bay but it was hot and sweaty and then we stopped and went into a few shops but there was absolutely nothing I wanted in any of them and the wealth of ugly (to my eyes) and ridiculous goods there only depressed me and we came home and slept for awhile.

Here's a funny thing- when we went to see Ziggy last night, a friend of his from Mobile sat at the table with us and he manages a blues bar here in town and by golly, our old friend Bill Wharton, the Sauce Boss, is playing there tonight. I've known Bill and his wife since 1974. No lie. Bill was the second person I met in Tallahassee. It's such a small world, isn't it?

So we may go see Bill or we may tuck it in early. Bill is one of the most stellar performers in this entire world and I am not kidding you. I always say that he is the snake charmer AND the snake. And it would be fun to surprise him.
But. We are old. We may skip it and deal with the regret at a later date.

I miss my grandbabies. I miss them awful bad. It's weird how much I miss them. Lily sends me pictures and I just want to grab them up and kiss them. She sent us a video of Gibson "talking" and I've found my husband playing it more than once, and smiling.
She sent me an e-mail last night asking if maybe I could watch Owen on Monday for awhile and nothing in this world could have made me happier.

I do not miss the chickens. Sadly. I don't.

Or the dogs.

Or the laundry or the bed making or the sweeping or the eternal what-to-make for supper question.

No. Not one bit.

So I guess I will have a little toddy with my husband and take a shower and paint my eyes one last time and go out on these beautiful oak-lined streets with that man and find our way to a restaurant and sit down at a table and be served whatever it is that I choose on the menu to eat (talk about rich- we are SO rich in being able to do this and I know it) and then we'll make up our minds about whether or not to drive the three miles to the bar where Bill is playing.

I almost wish it would storm and let our decision be made up for us.
Then again, I think of the magical full moon which has been promised for tonight and I am not so sure. I would love to see that moon.

Well. Whatever.

It has been a very, very fine little journey to this city where I had never been before which is on a bay, which is filled with people of every color and race and ethnicity and where people are kind and where we have been welcomed and taken care of most graciously.