I didn’t intentionally take a blogging break, but that’s what happened. I don’t have all the words all the time, but I’ll try to put up some entertaining things in the moments when it gets quieter in my head.
I love this girl.
I’ve blogged about us before, here and here. Those old Michigan photos remind me that she has known me at my most tan (haha) AND my most blond (even worse!). I sort of miss the days when our wardrobes were made up entirely of cutoff jeans and little boys’ YMCA soccer shirts.
Anyway, Janelle is on staff at UK now and was able to swing through for a weekend on her way to Texas. She travels like no one else I know. I decided to retain our theme of “Keep it classy, Nashville” and take her to the flea market.
Before we get to that, here’s a representative photo of the strangeness that is our friendship. Janelle drove for five hours, got to my front door, and handed me the following items before greeting me: 1 1/2 loaves of french bread, an onion, and a giant jar of dried basil.
She was leaving the campus as it cleared out for the basketball championship and Spring Break, and someone was going to THROW THOSE THINGS AWAY. Waste is a cardinal sin in Janelle’s book, and (if memory serves me) she has been known to keep up with one empty glass bottle for an entire road trip because she couldn’t find an appropriate recycling receptacle. I think she just took that bottle back home.
She said something along the lines of, “You cook, USE THESE.”
So…the Nashville Flea Market. Dude. That flea market is NO JOKE. We were there for five hours and I’m sure we didn’t see everything. Luckily, helpful directional signage was posted throughout:
Oh, but the things we DID see made my heart happy. I’ll spare you the entire catalog and just give a sampling of the wonders we encountered.
Janelle wouldn’t let me buy this kind of thing (or sad, discarded baby photos either—she’s a spoilsport who doesn’t want me to have joy), but I sort of wanted to. It was a box full of love letters exchanged during someone’s deployment, all in perfect chronological order. I was all enamored and asked the woman at the booth for the story. Boy, did I get one! She started laughing hysterically and said, “Honey, I’m so glad you asked!” Not quite the sweet grandparents’ love story I was expecting…these letters WERE kept in perfectly preserved chronological order over the course of a war, and they WERE full of sentiments of poetic longing and despair across oceans and oceans for years and years. However, they were found in the house of the MAN who kept them, and there are about seven women represented in all those letters. With, shall we say delicately, LOTS of overlap. She said he proposed to at least four of them and three of them said yes. I can’t believe I don’t get to know how it all turned out.
See? Ask for the story behind flea market finds! I haven’t been disappointed yet.
I have no caption for this one:
Lots of cute salt and pepper shakers:
Y’all, people are so WEIRD and I love it. That’s all I can say about the other flea market interactions. If you go to the Nashville one, do NOT strike up a conversation with the Elvis-looking guy with all the antique phones. Just trust us. And if he makes one of the phones ring and tells you to answer it, just don’t! TRUST US.
And thousands of opportunities to listen to Janelle people-watch, which is a real pleasure. We played several rousing rounds of “Mother-Son or Couple—YOU DECIDE!” She has this thing where she spots a super-awkward looking couple (but those that just LOOK madly in love even though they both appear to be insane for whatever superficial reason) and says, “Oh! Look! I’m so glad they found each other!” You may have to hear that one in person to appreciate it.
Until next time!
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Later that night, we all went out for sushi. Baby Girl has to have her own tuna roll now (I’m just glad she’s eating—I don’t even care what—the girl weighs 38 pounds and has visible ribs), and Janelle got a reminder of what being with a kid (even an awesome one like the one I have) ALL THE TIME is like.
There was a problem with the blakbirdpie shortcode
I mentioned the standard house-guest rule on twitter. This is, of course, due to her hatred for any adult sleeping past sunrise. Janelle was the most recent victim because she ignored my good advice. Janelle now (after a few days with us) wants to know if you can order a “quiet one” when you get pregnant. I told her I’d look into it for her.
