Hall of Fame Induction + Mobile

With our St. Paul's  embossed invitations in hand Jonathan, Sandy, Carolyn and I made our way to Jonathan's hall of fame induction at St. Paul's E.E. Delany Field.  Brian met up with us before we headed inside the gates and while Jonathan joined his fellow inductees before the ceremony, the rest of us found a well positioned place to sit and observe the ceremony. The ceremony recognized athletic and academic excellence achieved throughout high school continuing into college, and also recognized current day professional success.  Check out the video for Jonathan's announcement.   Achievements in all of the sports were recognized with some students participating in multiple spots during their high school career. 

 We departed the field just prior to the start of the game, but not before I could make a few crowed observations. Most of the high-school-going-on-30-year-old girls were dressed in their heals and skimpy little dresses, while the boys, yes I said "boys" donned their classy blue blazers and slacks.  Oh the south, how you continue to amaze. Certainly not the image of a crowd you would find at one of my home town high school football games. My gawking at their tradition, most likely matches their gawking at my tattoos.

Boiled peanuts, a southern thing for sure.

                                             

Not sure why I'm looking so smug, but everyone else looks great!

The next day Jonathan got up at dark-o-clock, some time around 5 AM or before, to head out on a fishing adventure with his dad and his fishing buddy, Steve. I, on the other hand,  took the excuse of being so far from home to break routine and sleep in. After enjoying some coffee as well as a lovely chat with Carolyn, we took care of a few errands, attempting to avoid the occasional downpour without much luck.  When we returned home, we sat down for lunch and heard all about the day's fish catching, lake touring adventures from Sandy and Jonathan.  Later on Carolyn made a scrumptious sweet potato cheese cake complete with a home made pound cake crust, as well as some tasty stuffed eggplants for the dinner we had planned with Sandy's fishing buddy and his wife.  Jonathan and I joined the post catch routine and enjoyed a feast of fried fish, crab, fried okra, veggies, pearl couscous, and of course that delightful sweet potato cheese cake.  Delicious!

Sunday turned out to be quite the gray and rainy day, which as desert dwellers, Jonathan and I appreciated.  Sometimes its just plain refreshing to see so much moisture!  We made the best of our day by hitting up few antique shops before breaking for a tasty pizza lunch, then continuing on our antique/vintage shopping adventure.  We did a pretty good job of stimulating the economy with each person finding a few items to bring home.  I made out with some jewelry, a vintage bag that Jonathan found for me, as well as some cookware/glassware.  Jonathan found an art deco fixture for our guest bath that would have been about 4 times the Mobile price had he found it in PHX.  He also found a fantastic sprinkler, I don't know the specifics but it was a solid piece of machinery, to which I vetoed, seeing that we don't have a lawn.  Sandy, no doubt delighted by my veto, purchased the sprinkler, touting its sprinkler glory to the point of displaying its sprinkler prowess amid the continuing rain. I'll admit it was a very nice sprinkler and I do have a twinge of guilt for my veto, but again... we do not have a single lawn to sprinkle!

George vs iPhone4s 

Hello George.

Sunday night we went out with Brian and I experienced my usual dose of "you're not from around here" southern charm.  Thanks to living with Jonathan and visiting Mobile, I've been introduced to food/meals I had never known about growing up in California. With that said, I know what turnips are, and I know what turnip greens are, so when we were checking out the menu at the fish restaurant on the bay I was a little thrown by the menu item "turnips". Not wanting to assume anything I thought, just maybe, they prepared the starchy turnip instead of the greens.  The not so stone face look of disgust at my "how do you prepare the turnips" let me know right away the menu was simply missing the "greens". I laughed before mentioning my California upbringing, which only dug the hole deeper, and tried to express that I knew what turnip greens were, but the menu says... Her entertaining mockery ended with a sample serving of greens that very much met the approval of everyone at the table. After she brought us our food I joked that at least I hadn't ordered a salad with the dressing on the said to which she recounted a recent group of women asking to find out the "light" dressing options.  Her response to these ladies, "we got Ranch, Blue Cheese, Thousand island..." Funny waitress lady.   I can honestly say that each trip to Mobile has included at least one instance of getting a menu item wrong, or being mocked for not being from the south, or getting dirty looks for mispronouncing the word "pecan".  A lovely place to visit, but they might run me out on a rail if I tried to live there.

Charlie

Our trip home was thankfully on time and uneventful.  Both Jackson and the kitties were very delighted to see us, despite their kitty judgements of the other cats we'd obviously spent time with while in Mobile.