My happy place

One would think that applying for a job I desperately wanted and not getting it would have been the low point of last week. Not at my workplace.

So, time to go to my happy place, which turns out, surprisingly to be in Tennessee. This will annoy Arrested Development (the band, not the show) if they ever read this.

Unlikely.

Anyway, the point of this post is to celebrate the return to Australia of my lovely parents, who arrived home yesterday, after seven long years of living in Nashville, Tennessee.

We visited them for Christmas 2002 and spent three very pleasant weeks sitting around reading books by the open fire and drinking eggnog, and occasionally getting out and seeing stuff during the day.

So, here are a few of my other favourite memories of Nashville and the surrounding area…

Donuts
The Krispy Kreme donuts were cheap, fresh and plentiful

Pop Tarts
Pop Tarts may be the least healthy breakfast food in the world. Not only is the pastry mostly made of sugar, the apple filling must be made of toffee apples.

In Nashville, they took it one step further. We discovered that Pop Tarts also come in “Brown Sugar and cinnamon” flavour. Yes, they take the sweetest pastry in the world, and then stuff it full of sugar. They also have frosting on top. It was wonderfully wrong.

Other pastry related matters
I actually got to see The Nun Bun, at Bongo Java, a student café near the university. Somehow, I managed not to buy a T-shirt.

I was also impressed by the sign on the counter, next to the tip jar. It said “Support counter intelligence”.

And then there’s coffee
Speaking of cafes, Rembrants café in Chattanooga is still the absolutely best café I have been to anywhere in the world. It’s in a beautiful old sandstone building in the art district of the town, surrounded by excellent galleries. Inside, the tables and floorboards are made from beautiful rich dark wood. The coffee is filtered rather than espressoed but they have an excellent variety of fine beans from all over the world. The baked cheescake is exquisite, the open fire is roaring, and best of all I get to say that I have actually been to Chattanooga.

The people are wonderful
While we were there, one of my parents’ neighbours got a dog. She named him “Rupert” and invited us around to meet him. We went and spent a pleasant hour patting him.
She rang the next day to say “ I just want to tell you this, because I know it’s been on y’all’s mind” before explaining that she was concerned because “Rupert” sounded too much like “Rufus” and “Rufus” is a very “common” sounding name, so she had changed the dog’s name to “Clifford Cavalier” and therefore we were invited around to come and meet him again.

We went. It was fun.

And yes, she really said “Y’all’s minds”

The people are also mad
We had lunch at a cafeteria which served fine traditional southern food. Over a very pleasant meal of really really deep-fried chicken, mashed potato, cornbread and turnip greens, we were introduced to possible the most likeable guy in Tennessee, or possible the world. He was probably in his mid forties and he was in every respect the personification of old fashioned southern charm.

This wonderful gentleman was telling us about some problems with his irrational and quite violent neighbour who had a large gun collection and a nasty temper, and particularly a recent occasion when this neighbour had confronted him and he’d had to stand up to the guy. The conversation went something like this:

Nicest guy in the world: …and then he just got in his car and drove away

I’m not Craig’s father: Weren’t you worried that he was going to go and get his gun?

Nicest guy in the world: Hell, we’ve all got guns.

[Slight pause while I’m not Craig, Honey Bear I’m not Craig’s parents all try to think of what exactly to say to that]

Nicest guy in the world (barely pausing for breath): I don’t care if he gets his gun. He’s got a gun, I’ve got a gun. We’ve all got guns etc etc

But they’re mad in a good way
Another of my parents’ neighbours told us that she had stopped for petrol and the cashier guy at the servo had been less than chipper when serving her. In fact, he was unnecessarily grumpy.

Her solution? She went home, baked a batch of cookies, put them in a tin, went back to the servo and gave them to the cashier as a gift, saying “maybe that will sweeten you up a bit”, and then went home again.

You have to admire the effort involved there.




Welcome home, Mum & Dad. We missed you terribly and we're thrilled that you're back.