Trailer fire

At 2:45 AM, our dogs all stood straight up and started howling. Soon we humans could hear the sirens, too. It wasn't just a cop pulling someone over in our driveway (which they're fond of doing in the middle of the night, for some reason). It was a convergence of several types of sirens. Some of them we recognized from the s.o.'s days as a volunteer fireman.

"Are you getting up to look?" the s.o. asked me groggily. He had returned from a poker game only an hour before, and had probably only just descended into REM sleep when the noise commenced.

"Mm," I replied. I fumbled for my glasses, clapped them onto my face, and shuffled across the room to the front window. I crouched down and stared through the leaves of our umbrella plant at the flashing lights across the street.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, and then suddenly I exclaimed, "Holy shit, the old trailer next to Eddie Lee's is on fire! I mean REALLY on fire!" The flames reached 20 feet in the air, bright as daylight.

Today I went over to look at the remains of the trailer. I wasn't the only gawker; a man and his son had pulled up their pickup truck to peer at the shell of the structure. This is what we saw:



Probably an arson. Or so you'd suspect when an uninhabited trailer with no power suddenly goes up like a flare in the middle of the night.

Exciting autumn plans

We're opting out of our usual Athens Locally Grown sales this week so that we can drive up to the mountains on Thursday and get our apples and pumpkins. I'm so excited I can barely contain myself--I was so worried we wouldn't manage to do it this year.

We will be buying a few extra pumpkins to sell off the front porch, I think...if for no other reason than to irritate a local lady who last night ruined a meeting of an organization I belong to by quoting Deut. 18:9-12 in full and announcing that Halloween-ish things were an abomination in the eyes of God. "Stricken" doesn't begin to describe the look on the face of the hostess, who had filled her home with beautiful holiday decorations. All religious questions aside, the whole thing was just unspeakably rude.

I am thinking of making a Dr. Who jack-o'-lantern. I would make the Torchwood one, but I don't think Captain Jack looks like Captain Jack.

Doppelganger

The other day I drove into the next town to go to the print shop. As I left our little village, I noted a police cruiser driving in the other direction. Then, a mile or two down the road, I was startled to see the same cruiser in my rear view mirror.

I looked at my speedometer: Not bad. 57 in a 55 zone. Should be no problem. I slowed to 55 as a formality.

The cruiser followed me for another half mile, then turned on its lights and pulled me over.

A beefy, freckly young officer approached my window. I kept my hands on the steering wheel and tried to look harmless. (I watch a lot of crimefighting shows on TV.)

"Ma'am, do you have your driver's license on you?" he asked.

"Sure, just a second." I rummaged in my purse's credit card pocket until I found it, then handed it to him. He read it slowly, thoroughly.

Then he handed it back to me and assumed a cheerful demeanor.

"You're not in any trouble, Miz ______," he said. I experienced two emotions: First, relief; second, astonishment that he'd pronounced my last name correctly. It's not the sort of last name people have around here, and most locals mangle it or fade into embarrassed silence when they try to decipher it.

He continued: "The reason I turned around is that we have a warrant out on a woman who bears a striking resemblance to you. I just had to check to make sure you weren't her. Have a nice day." He waved and smiled, then returned to his car.

I edged my battered Camry back out onto the road and continued on my way. As I drove, my mind raced: a person who looks like me! And ooh, is she ever in trouble! I wonder what she did? (I told you, I watch a lot of crimefighting shows on TV.)

At the print shop, I told the story to the front desk lady and to the Better Hometown Manager, who happened to be waiting for a fax to go through. Neither of them knew anyone else in the county who looked like me. Very mysterious indeed.

Now I keep my eyes peeled for the Bad Jamie. Is she a Britney-style flouter of traffic laws? Does she deal meth? Did she hire someone to go after her ex-husband with an aluminum baseball bat? We may never know.

This, er, rocks

We woke up the other day to find this. One of our best friends in town is the water meter reader, and he had left us a message!

A weekend in pictures

The weather has turned absolutely gorgeous--a little hot, even. It's like the Mediterranean. I am basking in it, even though somewhere inside the logical part of my brain, I know it needs to rain a LOT more than it has been.

Friday was L2's birthday, so while I was in the kitchen knocking out pies and cookies for the farmers' market, I made her this:



It's a plain spongecake roll (from the recipe in Fanny Farmer) filled with a mixture of whipped cream and Meyer lemon curd. I gather from the phone calls we got later that it tasted good!

Saturday morning was all about fun and friends and springiness. While I was at the opening day of the Oconee Farmers' Market, the s.o. went fishing with his friend B and B's son. The white bass are spawning, and apparently male fish are like all of us: when they are occupied by matters of the heart and loins, they lose their mental edge. There are now 18 fish in our fridge!



So we are going to B's house this evening to grill some fish. Excellent.

We then attended the Saturday night auction. Most of the recent auctions haven't proven very interesting, but last night was back on form. I got an honest-to-gosh Bedazzler (careful clicking that link; annoying celebrity testimonials will ensue) for $4 and a Bundt-shaped unglazed earthenware oven dish for $3 (any ideas what I should do with it, fellow foodies? my first thought is an Italian cheese bread ring). The s.o. got a couple of items, too. And unrelated to the actual auctioning that was going on, I bought this:



Stew, J, and my mom will recognize this as one of the many pieces of inexplicable folk art that decorates the walls of the auction hall. We've loved this one for months; it certainly poses an interesting question, but it is a question that I cannot for the life of me imagine anyone around here posing. So while I was talking to the cashier last night, I finally asked how much it was. The answer, my friends, was $5.75. How could I say no to that?

Party lights

Starting at about 7:45 yesterday evening, I was occupied with the task of keeping our dogs calm. I fed them pieces of kibble, told them "Good Quiet," and basically tried to reassure them that, contrary to their belief, the world was not ending. Why were they so frantic? Because the town's entire volunteer fire department was on our lawn, pulling hoses, shouting, and whistling.

No, our house was not on fire (knock on wood). We were hosting a firefighting drill. The s.o. and I knew about it ahead of time, but it was a surprise for all the other firefighters--and definitely for the townsfolk.

The pump truck, with its lights flashing, parked in the southbound lane of the highway we live on. The other fire truck stationed itself across the street, lighting our neighbor's yard up like a Christmas tree. The sheriff's car and a few other department vehicles parked nearby. Several members of the force directed traffic back and forth through the one open lane of the highway. (My favorite part: Hearing our firefighting female neighbor-across-the-street bawling "SLOW DOWN!" at an overeager driver. We need someone out there 24/7 to do that!)

The firefighters unrolled hoses all over the yard, somehow hooked everything up to the fire hydrant and the pump truck (I have no idea how it all works), and started watering our lawn, er, putting out the imaginary fire. I had just gotten the dogs calmed down when they started baying like a pack of crazed wolves; a quick peek out the front door revealed that several of the firefighters had mounted the front porch and were aiming a hose directly at the door, spraying (luckily) imaginary water up our central staircase. I smiled and waved.

Every window I looked out revealed another pair or trio of firemen wielding a hose. I don't know how many hoses the truck has, but I can tell you it took twice as long to roll them all up and put them away properly as it did for them to fight the "fire." There are a lot of detail-oriented maintenance routines in firefighting--things like stowing suits and hoses that absolutely must be done properly or the items won't be easy to access the next time they are needed.

I had hoped to watch all our firefighting friends in action, but unsurprisingly, everyone looks pretty much exactly alike in a full fire suit. I had to try to guess people's identities by their voices. Even the s.o. was difficult to pick out.

Have I mentioned lately that I am really proud of the s.o. for being on the fire department? I am. And now I have the extra comfort of knowing that if, heaven forbid, anything should ever happen, the fire department knows exactly how to fight a fire on our property.

If they ever do a drill here again, though, the s.o. has suggested to the fire chief that the "fire" be in our garden. It's a shame for all that water to go to waste!

Announcement

I've kept schtum about this until now because I wasn't sure I would be allowed to do it. But I've just returned from a city council meeting (the word "city" being used somewhat loosely, since our town has only 400-some residents) and I have most excellent news:

I have been given permission to operate a Wednesday drive-time farmers' market in our town! It'll be in the town park at the crossroads, along our busy little rural highway. It will operate from approximately mid-March through October every year. And the city councilpeople are so enthusiastic about it that they waived the cost of my business license!

Can I get a collective "woo hoo"?

I decided to try to do this for a variety of reasons. One is obviously self-serving; for us, it will be a supplement to the Saturday morning farmers' market in Oconee County, which we will continue to attend. But the other reasons are more community-minded. I've noticed, more and more, that this area is losing its backyard growing tradition. The people who have big plots of rutabagas and collards, or who grow rows and rows of muscadines, are all 70-plus years old. Meanwhile, the young people eat at McDonald's and can't identify an okra pod when they see one.

As a recent transplant to this area, I'm particularly sensitive to cultural signifiers. So I ask: In the absence of pecans and peaches and collards, what's so special about being a southerner? I want to keep those things alive, and to help make them new again--because they really are special.

I suspect this thing will start out tiny. There may be weeks when it's only us and our friend L2. But I want it to grow large and prosperous. I've already been asked whether the oldest lady in town can bring her crochet work and her cracked pecans (yes), whether the owner of the meat-and-three can sell banana pudding (yes), whether a church can have a booth (yes), and whether a person with an accidental surplus of tomatoes can set up a table (yes, please!). I almost don't care what people sell, as long as they come together in the name of the community.

And maybe along the way, I can get them to try kudzu jelly or purple sprouting broccoli...

Places we go, things we do

It hasn't escaped my notice that I haven't done much writing on my blog lately. I've put stuff up, sure, but there hasn't been much text. I apologize for that. Part of it is that... (pauses for dramatic effect) ...I have been working on a book. All I will say is that it is sort of a cookbook and sort of not. I have a lot of friends cheering me on and offering help, so I have high hopes that I will finish it someday. But anyway, lately it has been sucking up what few creative juices I've been able to produce.

Nevertheless, here's an update, because we've been doing fun and interesting things. Someone started an auction house in the next town down the road, and the Saturday evening auction has become "date night" for the s.o. and me. The items up for bid are mostly overstock merchandise, and they're extremely random in nature. We've accumulated a few bargain-priced things (a small canister vacuum, a rug, a couple of holiday presents, etc.), but most of the fun is in the people-watching and the festive atmosphere. We try not to buy anything we don't need--which is more than I can say for a lot of the people there!

A lot of times there are cases and cases of whatever thing they're auctioning off, so the entire crowd will pile on as soon as the high bidder gets his or her item. This has led to the whole town owning the same stuff. So now I guess everyone in our area will have citrus Listerine breath, will carry a pink psychedelic handbag, will eat Lindt white chocolate truffles, will decorate their house with a holographic light wreath, will cover their spare bed with a Dean Miller surf-themed comforter, and will be giving their children a small beginner's guitar and a talking Spongebob for Christmas. Heh.

Meanwhile, I have continued going to yoga with J. Sometimes she is not able to come, though, so I have popped in on the Kundalini yoga class instead of our usual Hatha yoga class. Anyone else done Kundalini? I have racked my brains and finally decided it's the weirdest thing I've ever done. Maybe it's our class in particular, taught by a bearded Sikh convert who wears a turban and all-white clothes and sits on a little animal-skin rug. There is a lot of chanting and a lot of very dramatic breathing--hooting and whistling and puffing.

I have a little bit of a love-hate relationship with the Kundalini class. Some of the kriyas are horribly uncomfortable for me to do, and I suspect one in particular was responsible for a two-week bout of "numb tailbone" I had a while ago. On the other hand, all that super-oxygenation does produce a nice glow afterward. Still, I think the class I went to last night might be the last of its kind for a while. I like the instructor much better when I'm talking with him after class (his family owns a farm southeast of our place) than when he's yelling "FIRE BREATH! KEEP UP!"

The s.o. has, predictably, been putting up Christmas lights. He loves doing it, and although we know it's a waste of energy (I hope someday we'll put the lights on a solar-powered battery so it's a little less egregious), it is so festive. We live right on the highway, so everyone gets to see our decorations. Anyway, he's about halfway done with this year's display, and it's both ridiculous and beautiful. I'll post a picture when it's complete. Wear your sunglasses.

The s.o. has also done something big--something that has made me really proud. He has joined our town's volunteer fire department! Once or twice a week, he has been attending meetings and going to First Responder class. He has learned to work the hoses on the truck and to find everything in the ambulance in case the paramedics need help. He has gotten re-certified in CPR and has learned how to assess an accident scene and proceed safely. I can tell he regards it with extreme seriousness, but at the same time he has made a bunch of new friends and finds the training really interesting and fun. I could not be more thrilled. I want to tell the world how great he is...and I guess I just did.