Buenos Aires First Day

Finally getting around to posting photos from Buenos Aires - a gift to ourselves for our 30th anniversary. I'll give you plenty of time to enjoy each installment - I wrote out a little narrative that roughly corresponds to each day or so we spent there. One down and four to go! Enjoy.

Arggghhh...You're Under Arrest

A recent Savannah Morning News article about our local police department was so unintentionally hilarious and puzzling at the same time that I had to share.

The Savannah Chatham Metropolitan Police Department announced a redesign of the departmental insignia displayed on uniforms and vehicles. One of the reasons for the change? Get ready for this... The iconic image on the old badge (of Savannah's founder, James Edward Oglethorpe) was often mistaken for Captain Morgan. The rum bottle Captain Morgan. I swear. Here's the quote: "As for the removal of Oglethorpe's image, (Chief) Berkow said visitors unfamiliar with Savannah's history regularly equate the picture of the colonial Georgia founder with the mascot of Captain Morgan rum."

Berkow went on to say the new insignia - so generic it appears to have been selected from a movie prop department - is supposed to be "a cleaner, more professional look." No matter that the old insignia was designed in 2004 by a committee of officers from the formerly-separate Savannah and Chatham County PDs to signify the departments' merger. Only five years later it's being thrown out.

So...What did the department accomplish besides spending unnecessary money and disappointing their own officers who designed the previous badge? Having to give mini-history lessons to drunken idiots on River Street must have been enough of a burden to justify the change.

Makes you go, hmmmmm.

Good Buys!

I was intently browsing my favorite shop when a friend called; I told her I was at the “crack store.”  Which is the way I really feel about Two Women and a Warehouse - totally addictive. My old friend Kathy Kanis and her partner have put together a constantly-changing wonderland of new and second hand furnishings for home and garden – at terrific prices!

Here are a couple of items I recently snagged from TW&AW:(There are more, but my camera cord has gone missing so they’re temporarily trapped inside my Sony DSLR….)

	Great big baker’s rack for the porch. The finials make it a perfect match – and possibly a companion piece - to my very first furniture purchase in 1977, a wrought iron patio table & chairs. Score!
What a beautiful patina on this copper washtub!  Big white hydrangeas are going in it.

Promotion without shame – I borrowed this photo montage from Cherry's...In The Garden and More, a fellow crack store fan and blogger:

And I Said I Wouldn’t

We recently got a pair of chickens from our friend Rob who was movin’ on up – actually from suburbia to a darling garden apartment downtown. His two hens needed a home and Mr. C jumped at the chance. He’d raised chickens as a youngster and I knew he secretly wished to tend a flock again. He happily worked to convert the girls’ old jungle gym to a deluxe chicken condo. The fresh eggs each day are great, and the chickens are fun to watch. I resisted naming them at first, figuring I wouldn’t get attached that way. Then the perfect names came to me: Henrietta (get it? HENrietta?) for the little one, and Marietta for the big chicken…and if you’ve ever been to Marietta, Georgia you know why that’s so darned clever.

	Henrietta and Marietta sharing a dish of yogurt (good for the shell, you know)
	The payoff

Finally....Spring! A few photos from the yard.

After days of rain, everything’s popping up – even the hostas I thought I had killed last winter! The azaleas and camellias are blooming together – always a nice overlap. Tiny purple flowers are everywhere - delicate wild violets and clover. Amaryllis are dominating their space, as they always will. The seeds in the greenhouse have popped up, the herbs and lettuces are thriving and even the tiny limes are starting to take shape. Glorious!

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I'm Back...With a Rant. (What Else?)

I swear, the following actually appeared as the lead sentence of a food section article in last week's Savannah Morning News:

"In the South, when you're hungry but don't have much in the kitchen, you fry up something."

No surprise here, this line was NOT written by a Southerner - but by a woman with the Chicago Tribune. It went on to describe a hot mess called, "Potato and Onion Fry-Up" - an unimaginative dish that's typical breakfast fare in diners everywhere. The ol' Southern stereotype is glaring - the writer probably pictured Granny fryin' up a mess o' greens in possum fat for Jed and the rest of the Clampetts - and then congratulated herself for dreaming up such a clever lead.

This is what happens when your local newspaper can't afford to pay a full-time food editor or staff writers...you rely on this garbage plucked from syndication to fill what's left of your food section. Our food section used to be stellar - but no more. The sole saving grace is the occasional contribution from the wonderful Savannah food historian and writer Damon Lee Fowler. But those have dwindled from weekly to twice a month, the victim of budget cuts. And just today I learned that our very popular local restaurant reviewer was let go.

Like many dailies across the U.S., the Savannah Morning News is in trouble. Big notes due after multiple extensions...staff layoffs after drastically declining ad sales...and now, salary cuts for existing staff. I feel for them - I do. But I still think someone needs to read this stuff before they put it out there.

PS - This is the same paper that recently ran a photo cutline describing a traffic accident caused by a "wreckless" driver.

I rest my case.

Sorry to be gone so long - it's great to be blogging again. Stay tuned, more fun entries ahead - lots to talk about!

100 Things About Me X

Must...blog....more.....often.

At last, and by popular demand - further entries in the fascinating "100 things" series.

87. Years ago in a long-forgotten restaurant , Mr. C. ordered something that he called "remulon sauce." When the waiter left, I made the Vulcan salute and solemnly said, "Live long and prosper." To this day we can't order remoulade sauce without laughing.

88. My dog Blossom has an orthopedist and an opthalmologist.

89. My high school and college jobs included working as a clerk for US government agencies - two summers at the Centers for Disease Control, and then Christmas vacation at the newly-formed Federal Energy Office during the 1973 oil crisis - pretty interesting except I was going for donuts and ordering pencils.

90. My supersonic hearing allows me to hear Mr. C's cell phone ringing from upstairs and it drives him mad.

91. I love that one of my children wrote this in my closet. If we ever move, this shelf goes with us.