Christmas In Dixie - Alabama

My little piece of beach paradise that I've been ramblin' around in for the last three weeks will soon be full to bursting. My children are on the way down -- and I can't wait to see them.

In case I don't make it back here before Christmas let me say -- MERRY CHRISTMAS from Louisiana and Alabama (Dixie's heart)! Be safe, happy, and content.

IT'S CHRISTMASTIME IN LOUISIANA / JOHNNIE ALLAN

Joyeux Noël et une nouvelle année bénie!

Indigo Skies......

While finishing our Christmas shopping Friday, J. and I came across an odd little shop tucked behind one of the most popular rows of beach shops in Orange Beach. I don't know why I've never noticed it before. It was as if it was trying not to be noticed. One step in and I realized why it was so low key.

It was mostly filled with items that many probably call New Age. I know that a shop of that sort can cause some tsk, tsk-ing in these parts. I saw some lovely clay figurines that I wish I could describe -- from an artist colony in Oregon. I came so close to buying one for son #3, but (after considering the price) thought other things were higher on his list. Maybe for his birthday. I did pick him up a print -- sort of medieval art with a lot going on and in the middle (almost hidden) is a knight and his lady. It's cool. I had decided to give the kids each a beach print for Christmas as a memory of spending the holiday here but thought son #3would like this print better.

In a corner of a back room I spyied another box of prints and started looking through them. They were NOLA/French Quarter themed. Just the thing for son #2, I thought -- much of his teen years were spent learning his way around the Quater (I was amazed to learn this after-the-fact. Scared the shi%% out of me.) Before Katrina the majority of his work was in New Orleans. After Katrina he had lost his work and two friends. Like many people I know, I don't think he's been back since the storm.

I started out sorting through the New Orleans prints with a smile, thinking about some of the adventures son #2 has shared with me of how he and his frinds would sneak down the road to NOLA for a night of ....I don't even want to think about it. Before finishing looking through the prints, I was surprised by the tears that had sprung to my eyes and the realization that I didn't know what memories the print would bring son #2. "Better stick with a beach print," I said to J. with a catch in my voice. "I don't know if son #2 is ready for this."

As we turned to leave the room we were surprised to see an older man sitting on a couch. He was turned with his face away from us as if he was attempting to be invisible. I swear neither J. nor I noticed him when we walked into the small room. We felt as if we were intruding. But, before I could walk out of the room, the man was standing in front of me. He gave me a tender hug, and said, "Thank you for not forgetting."

Looking back, I think the shop owner reads fortunes, and maybe the man was there for that and wasn't eager to be seen. I don't know, but it was odd. What I do know is that it reminded me of how so many are still suffering. Many have become quite good at hiding it -- maybe even from themselves -- but they are still hurting. And there is so little help available. I heard today that more housing (for all income levels) is becoming available in NOLA. I hope this is true. Of course, the source was FEMA, so -- take it for what it's worth....

Have you ever stood in a rainbow?

I have! Before I forget, last week a funky weather front was moving through and fog had been rolling in off and on all afternoon. A couple of times I couldn't see across the street to the Gulf. I went to the back balcony overlooking the lagoon and -- voila! A rainbow right smack dab over the balcony.

I stepped outside and found myself standing right in it. !!!! I stood there -- in it -- for several minutes, calling everyone I could get in touch with to tell them. Some were more impressed than others. Maybe some were just busier than others.

Anywho....it stayed there for quite a while. I was sort of glad when it dissipated because I felt obligated to acknowledge it as long as it was around....

Ballad of Nick Saban

Too good not to share, but.... ooooOOOOoooohhhhHHHHhhhh it hurts!

To my LSU friends -- hehehe

To my BAMA friends -- so sorry!

Not a fit night for man or beast......

Being on the 12th floor with a front blowing through is interesting (and noisy) -- to say the least. Saturday was an on again, off again day at the beach. Sun, clouds, rain, clouds, rain, sun.... J. and I managed to walk the beach and get caught in a downpour (first time that's happened in a long time), laze in the hot tub and sauna, then walk along the road -- stopping to look at all the beach front houses for sale. Nothing like looking at beach front property to make you realize how pitifully poor you are compared to some people. Oh, well.

Saturday night we popped the latest Netflix -- The Bourne Ultimatum -- in the DVD. Not a stellar movie IMHO. During one of the pauses (for me to go to the bathroom), J. asked if I'd heard the loud noise. I hadn't. But....I soon heard what he was talking about. It sounded like a jet engine backing off the power.

We soon realized what it really was -- wind. Yes, ma'am. The wind was whipping around the back corner of the unit and wanted everyone to know it had arrived. It was that way on and off all night and most of Sunday morning. At one point I was convinced if I went outside it might try to blow me off. I went outside. It (obviously) didn't....

We interrupt this vacation to......

talk politics. It still surprises me how different states can be -- even parts of the same state. When I'm in Alabama it's all about football and it's easy to forget how much politics dominates life in Louisiana. However, friends and WWL bring me up to speed quickly -- even when I'm away. Take this week for instance....

New Orleans is finally tearing down one of the projects. This was scheduled before Katrina -- the residents of the project voted for it. A multi-purpose, multi-income development will take the place of the horrid conditions people once lived in. Even so.... activists (mostly from out-of-state, it seems) are trying to stop it from being torn down. A demonstration in front of HUD in D.C. is supposedly planned for today.

Here's the question no one seems to be able to answer. Who are these activists? And to go even further, what's their agenda? Maybe they think they are saving homes for the underprivileged? Maybe they think NOLA has an agenda to tear down the projects so the poor will have no place to come back to? Maybe they think NOLA is attempting to socially engineer the city? Maybe they're right -- to a point.

I don't know if there's anyone in this country who doesn't know that New Orleans failed many of its citizens. The projects were hell holes -- for the most part. People were stuck. People were being used for political advantage. You hear people tell their stories of how their ancestors came over from Italy, moved into the projects to get a start, and then moved out and up. They wonder why the group of people who've called the projects home for generations can't (or haven't) done the same.

I think some forget the circumstances under which the ancestors of many who now call the projects home, were brought to America. It wasn't a choice for them. They didn't have the freedoms to make a new life as easily as some. This is a problem that has been generations in the making and it won't be easily solved.

I don't know the answer. I know change is hard. I don't know the motives of any of the people involved. I just hope that good intentions win out and the people who have called New Orleans home for so many generations, who have helped the city function, who have contributed so much to the culture that many of us love, are able to move back into a better situation that will enable them to live better lives than before. I hope we get it right this time.

I admit that this post is not well thought out. I was writing as I thought (usually not a good idea). I present you with today's ramblilngs -- for what it's worth....

Fairhope, Alabama

There is no other place I've been that compares to this small, quaint, eccentric -- just down right odd and lovely little city on the bluffs overlooking Mobile Bay.

Can you imagine, in a small south Alabama city I met a French shop owner, a British shop owner, and an Irish bar owner -- all in one day? I guess I shouldn't be surprised because Sunday, the maintenance man who stopped by the condo, once owned the #1 restaurant in Nashville. He came to Gulf Shores on vacation, said "This is where I'm meant to be." Went home, sold everything, and moved down here. From our windows high above the Gulf, he pointed out the gulf-front homes of a former record label owner, and the home of one of the Everly brothers, and the homes of a couple of other entertainers.

When this odd little part of Alabama starts working its magic on you -- you'd better watch out!

All By Myself......

J. left last night to go back to work and I'm......All By Myself. Yep! All by myself in my little piece of heaven. What did I do the moment he left, you ask? Well....I immediately plugged in the vacuum and vacuumed the entire condo. ....And let me tell ya, this place is quite large -- because the kids will be headed down in a week and a half or so. All the sand (imagined or not) and crumbs (J. is as bad as an 18 month old) was wearing on my nerves, so now it's nice and clean. Except for the dusting. That's the problem with staying somewhere for a month. You need to do some cleaning up at some point.

After my quick pass to suck up the sand, I switched back into normal vacation mode --took the top off a gallon of Mayfield Bama Blast ice cream, got a big 'ol spoon, plopped down in front of a tv and watched The Amazing Race. After that I torn open some of the candy I'd brought down for the Christmas stockings and munched Reese's Peanut Butter Christmas Trees and Hershey's Santas. Guess I'll be doing lots of beach walking in the frickin' 76 degree temps today! And maybe 30 minutes in the sauna. Oh, and there's a maintenance man scheduled to drop by.

This place has five toilets. With only two of us here at first, it took a while getting around to trying them all out. !! We noticed one is very slow when flushing so we reported it. They'll have someone stop by, they said -- four days ago. Beach time takes some getting used to....

Say hello to the window washers......

Call me naive, but....you'd think that if you were living in a high-rise and window washers were scheduled to be working -- someone would warn you ahead of time. Especially if you have floor to ceiling windows all around the unit you're staying in. And....a bathroom with a jacuzzi and shower stall with a sight line to the beach. Which means, of course, that as you're sitting in the tub, or standing in the shower you can gaze at the gulf, and....if by chance anyone is outside your window -- 12 floors up -- they can gaze at you!

"Who in the hell is gonna be up this high looking in these windows," J. asked me during an, ummmm, intimate moment (in broad daylight, I might add) a couple of days ago as I was mentioning we maybe should close the blinds. Well, no one was hanging outside our windows that particular day, but if it had happened today it would have been a different matter. A very different matter.

After J. (who was on the balcony lying in the sun) finished his conversation with the nice window washer who was cleaning our front windows, I poked my head out the door to smugly say, "That's who could be up this high looking in these windows." I love having the last word. Not that it's going to make any difference....

Blue angels with my morning coffee......

So, we're at the beach. (Deep sigh of relaxation!) And this morning as I was standing at the kitchen window pouring my first cup of coffee and preparing to slice some yummy Burris yeast bread for toast, something in the sky caught my eye. It was the Blue Angles. They practice every day this month just down from where we're staying, someone told me. So....for the next hour J. and I stood on the balcony and oohhhh-ed and ahhhhh-ed at their marvelous acrobatics.

There was one unsettling moment when four of the planes climbed high into the sky, turned upside down (allowing the sun to reflect patches of yellow from the planes), positioned themselves nose down as they headed straight toward the water, and then straightened out before climbing once again. As they were leveling off from their dive -- preparing to fly parallel to the ground until they started climbing again , from our 12th floor balcony it looked to me as if they were going to be headed straight toward us! We are staying in the last tower on the west end of the beach.

As it turned out, they flew off in the oposite direction. But for one instant, I wondered if that was how all those many people felt on 9/11 seeing the planes headed for them.

Well, apparently it's true......

I heard the news Sunday. Couldn't believe it. Went to sleep. Woke up -- and.... it's still true.

LSU's going to play for the national title!

How they backed into that is a scenario fitting this wacky football season. And.... our coach says he's staying. I'll believe that when (and if) Michigan announces a new coach -- that isn't our guy.

Life's good. I'm at the beach until after New Year's. My Tigers are gonna be playing in Nawlins January 7th. It's all good.