Scenes from a weekend

Friday night before cocktail hour, before Elizabeth Alley's lovely, sly art opening and just about the moment when the heavens opened and dumped on Musicfest (seriously, has there ever been a dry one?), Harlow and I were snacking on blueberries. She started imitating a penguin and hurling her body in the general direction of the case of berries, her usual signal for wanting more food when I asked her as much. She stopped, looked down at her hands and touched her fingers together, the American sign language motion for "more."

About five seconds later I was running through a thunderstorm to the garage to announce to Caleb that our daughter, to whom we have been signing "more" since she was born, is paying attention. It was kind of shocking really, this realization that this little creature has been watching and learning and now has the tools to express that. She wants more!

The rain slowed, revealing our backyard to be this unexpectedly verdant, lush garden. A slight pit pat on the roof, beads of water trickling down the backs of my legs, my husband all flex-y muscles with the table saw and covered in sawdust. I smiled at him. He looked good. I felt like I was in a commercial, running through the rain to discover my lover welding something in the garage to sell some perfume. He smiled back and said he'd seen her "ask" for more a couple of times now and yeah, it was totally cool. He went back to working on his project.

Oh.

I muttered something about needing to attend to our child who I had left sitting in her high chair and ran back inside.

***


Nashville plans were scrapped, so we hightailed it down to the farmers market with the rest of midtown to watch the 9 AM tamale making demonstration by the chef of McEwen's. Stupid health code wouldn't let us sample, but there wasn't any code stopping me from getting my hands all dirty with fillings and masa and rolling myself a beautiful BBQ chicken Mexican-style tamale, the likes of which inexplicably cannot be found in any Memphis restaurant. The fried beef smothered in chili kind dominates these parts, but I'm hoping my whining to the chef about this might rectify the problem.

A brief siesta at home and we went back downtown to listen to some music commemorating the 5th anniversary of the war in front of the Civil Rights Museum. Not much of a turnout as it was competing with this other concert called Music Fest, but happily it afforded me a pretty view of the arena.

weekend, originally uploaded by medusahead.

Have you checked out all those new shops on South Main? Wallet firmly in purse, we stopped into Divine Rags and Runway Boutique and Mode du Jour and found some really prettily designed shops with so-so offerings. Hey - it's a start.

Saturday night found us eating burgers on the grounds of my lovely, insanely wealthy friend's palatial estate. C is married to M. C and I go way back to my LA days, and it still amazes me to see how her path has led her from smashing beer bottles in bar fights to hosting cocktail parties for the Memphis elite. And she hasn't changed a bit. Except for the bar fight thing. Their property backs up to a golf course, so their yard fairly resembles Central Park. There was just the slightest chill in the air, so we gathered down by the fire pit to toast some smores and watch all the kids scramble around the acreage.







Saturday night. I and every 13 year old in the tri-state area convened at the Paradiso for the 9:45 Iron Man. Love me that Robert Downey Jr. Hate with all the bile in my stomach lining 13 year olds at movie theaters.

Sundays have become the church of good cookin. We invited over our favorite lawyers in love for some dinner, and mama turned it out, y'all.

Watermelon and feta salad. Individual fontina, prosciutto and mushroom pizzas with white truffle oil and homemade crust. Iced Chocolate mostoccioli for dessert. A damn sexy meal for damn sexy people. And their kids.