I started this post about last weekend days ago and it somehow turned into the Great (?) American Novel, plus it took me five billion years to e-mail to myself and download all of my crummy cell phone pictures from the weekend the other night. And many of you have already read everyone else’s accounts of the weekend anyway, so now by the time I’ve gotten around to posting mine, it’ll be like old news. Or it’s been so long now, you can just pretend you didn’t read about it before and it’s brand new news. Or whatever. (And by the time I get around to posting about my L.A. trip, it’ll be like ancient history before dinosaurs roamed the earth, apparently.)

So most everyone else has written about the weekend more beautifully than I ever will, but since I got home so late Sunday night and have been going like mad all week long, and haven’t really had a chance to share much other than all of our (mostly mine & Ivy’s) drunken Twitter posts, and had the crummy cell phone pics to share (most of which Ginger and Squirrelly have the same pics, only better and less blurry), here goes.

I actually started off my day with lunch at the Mothership, and arrived only to be pleasantly surprised by who all had shown up, some of whom I knew were coming (Kerry Woo, Ivy, and the famous Mrs. Katherine Coble), some of whom had been maybes (Lesley), some I had no idea were coming and was so pleased to see (Malia & David and their kids, as well as Malia’s sister and fellow Nashville blogger Emily, who I’d not had the pleasure of meeting in the past, so that was great). Mr. Ivy and all three of the kids were there as well, and I’d not met hubby nor Ivy’s eldest before so that was cool too. Then the pleasant surprise of all surprises appeared when Sarcastro showed up with baby in tow, who is just so tiny and adorable and was so very good and pleasant and darn near silent, contrary to his father’s previous reports regarding the largesse and lengthy duration of the little angel who I never heard make a peep’s noise level. I should have thought to take some pictures there, especially of the baby (and ESPECIALLY of a nervous about holding babies Kat holding the baby, but she did great). But I’m not sure they would have come out, as there was some discussion about whether or not the child might in truth be a vampire. But it was the middle of the day, so probably not.

As always, it was great to see Knuck as well, and I truly enjoyed my first ever Mothership BBQ eating experience, having had the combo plate (with the pulled pork requested Kerry Woo style - I love my BBQ a bit crispy as well), the legendary crack-n-cheese, and the also legendary pinto beans - which I don’t generally like pinto beans but just as everyone had been telling me, these were great. And a special thanks to Knuck for donating the end-of-the-day veggies for our chick thing in the country. I was also extra glad I made it for lunch this weekend as, unbeknownst to me at the time I was there, it may be closing very soon. NIT bloggers may not just be Bloggers Without Borders, but Bloggers Without BBQ soon, and that is very sad. If you’re a potential investor who might be interested in helping expand this restaurant business into a better location, get in touch with Jim at the Mothership.

I missed seeing my Sista this trip, who was unable to make it for lunch or for the festivities at Chez Mack, and also hated missing Finn again, who was planning to come but got tied up unexpectedly. Hopefully next trip we’ll make up for it, ladies. Didn’t get to meet up with Smiley this trip either, which sucks, but he was in Sewanee this weekend and I could never begrudge anyone any opportunity to spend time on my favorite Tennessee mountain. Also missed seeing Hutchmo, who was my original planned lunch partner for the occasion and opted to go see baseball in Florida instead, but that was quite all right - I know better than to attempt to separate Hutch from his baseball, and he’ll just owe me another lunch or dinner anyway, heh.

Next, after what was a rather amusing shopping adventure on Thompson Lane, we headed out to Casa Mack. Ivy and Kat rode out with me and our short little road trip was probably one of my favorite parts of the weekend. You just can’t ride in a car with BadBadIvy and Kat Coble for 45 minutes and NOT have an absolute blast, I dare you to try. I’d have been perfectly satisfied with how my weekend had gone if it had all ended there - but wait! There’s more!!!

Most of the details have been outlined many other places so I’ll not rehash every single thing, but I will say that Mack and Aunt B. just totally outdid themselves planning and providing this little soiree celebrating the female contingent of Tiny Cat Pants regulars. In fact, I hesitate to even call it a “little” soiree because it really was not - THIS WAS HUGE! Tee hee. Who knows, maybe this was a test run and Mr. Mack has evil plans of kidnapping us all for his future harem - there was some discussion of everyone going and getting tattooed (after a few more drinks, of course), and it was just a little bit suspicious that Mack had “a place down the road” where we could all go and get ‘em done “right now”, I’ll say that much. But no, we all escaped - this time.

I kid - Mack was a wonderfully gracious host, abundantly so, and I appreciate more than they’ll ever know all that he and our kind hostess B. did to put this together. I had such a great time, and I am totally in love with Mack’s cabin and want to live there, and the woods, and the creek, and everything in the vicinity. And I also want his three awesome dogs while I’m at it. And a majority of the cool stuff he has around all over the place.

But seriously, Mack’s place is exactly the kind of place that my betrothed and I hope to have some day, probably with more mountain and less farmwork, but we could totally live in that cabin and I may have to steal some building ideas if we ever have a chance to build. It is a lovely, lovely place.

The food was incredible and people had brought enough to feed a couple of armies. I hate that I was unable to fully enjoy the real honest-to-goodness tamales Mack had procured from his connection, but I am wimpy about super hot spicy food and I took one bite and almost had a stroke, but no doubt they were unbelievable if you can handle the hot stuff.

And just as with the food, the company was totally incredible and amazing. Besides oh-so-generous and gracious Mack and the awesome Aunt B. (and can I just stop right here and say B.’s new haircut is just as cute as can be and so flattering and suits her so well), there were so many wonderful folks, many of whom I have met before and know well, several who I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time. I was somewhat awed by and felt as if I were in the presence of Tiny Cat Pants royalty meeting the legendary The Professor and equally legendary and veteran commenter NM, who were both just adorable and a hoot. I have heard much good about how wonderful and hilarious SaraClark is, and those rumors were totally true. And I was especially pleased to finally meet the world’s most awesome medical librarian, Rachel, who I have had many many e-mail conversations with but had had yet to meet in person, and am happy to report she is just the most cute and adorable little thing and so pleasant and funny. Those librarian types are wild party animals, don’t let anybody tell you any different!

Then there were all those I know but was equally happy to see, like Ginger, who is always so much fun to hang out with AND makes maybe the best mac & cheese I have ever eaten in my entire life (apologies to Knuck, but Ginger’s M&C is pretty unbelievable stuff, man). Malia, who I’d seen earlier at the ‘Ship but was thrilled to see again, and is such a nice person and whose always-gorgeous hair I totally wish I had. Kate O’, who is such a sweetheart and hilarious and is just one of those wonderful kinds of people who once you’ve met her, it’s like you’ve known her for years and years. KathyT, who is always just so warm and welcoming and you just can’t help but love her to death. The aforementioned Kat Coble, who I was thrilled to finally get to spend more time with getting to know this trip (we got to talk for maybe 30 seconds last time I was in town) and is just an absolute pleasure to know, fun and funny! And the also aforementioned Ivy, who was her usual meek and mild, quiet as a mouse self (yeahsureright)… good lord, I wish Ivy lived with me ‘cos not only would I be laughing my ass off 24/7, but I would be able to get my house finally clean and in order once and for all. As you already saw, Ivy and I were doing quite a bit of Twittering Under the Influence throughout the evening. And last but never least, my fellow West Tennessee sisters, Newscoma and The Squirrel Queen, who are just the most fab and made the party complete.

Another big high point for me was meeting the lovely and friendly and pleasant Mrs. Mack - she had had to work that night, otherwise I would have loved to have been able to hang out with her ‘cos she seems really cool - and Mack’s kids, who I had met before but not really spent much time around, are just awesome and two of the nicest kids you’ll ever meet. But I’ll let Mack keep his kids when I usurp his estate for myself, I just want the dogs.

There were times it was a little hard for me to hear everything and everyone around me ‘cos it was just pretty much non-stop talking and laughter the whole time, which was great - but as near-deaf as I am after so many years of loud music, when I wind up in a group that big and it gets kind of noisy it’s really hard for me to follow everything sometimes, but there was just so much funny and hilarious stuff going on the whole time it really didn’t matter - I’m surprised I didn’t fracture a rib or three from laughing so hard and so much. And even whatever I didn’t hear or hear well, it really didn’t matter - the friendship and fellowship and the whole experience of it all was the same and wonderful.

So, the rest of y’all that were there but didn’t crash overnight missed one of the best parts of all, which was something only ‘Coma and Squirrelly and myself were treated to the next morning - Mack made us the most awesome delicious waffles for breakfast that were just divine! I think I will keep him around as a cook when I take over his estate.

I also saw a bigass Cottonmouth swimming in the creek, which was not so divine - I’m not wild about snakeage - but he was kinda cool to look at, and I was standing on the wooden bridge above him and out of harm’s way so that was okay.

If you want to see better photos (many of the same shots but with better cameras than my crummy cell phone camera), check out Ginger’s, who has the BEST pic of Aunt B. with the Campfield toilet seat (bwahahaha), and Squirrelly’s (who outdid herself with the graphics once again, that banner is so rad).

Leaving Mack’s on Sunday, I didn’t make a turn I should have and wound up in Goodlettsville, but finally found my way back to I-40 and westward and traveled to my Mom’s, where we went out for a yummy lunch and to look around at some cars. Got back to Memphis really late and the rest of the week has been a real bear, but that’s all right

Anyway, a very special and grand weekend, and much thanks to Mack & B for making it all happen. It was awesome and memorable, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute.

So I am home, but not for long. I am exhausted to the max, but in a good way. I should have just gone straight on to bed early last night, but didn’t. Now I’m up again, but that’s OK, I think (think) today is going to be a fairly easy day.

All and all, great trip. I met in person some wonderful folks I have “known” for a while and a few more, and we just had a great, great time. Other than the fact that I lost my MP3 player and some other stuff I can’t quite remember what was in the bag at O’Hare, and the fact that my foot is about to fall off, it’s all good. I almost broke my foot a few years ago but didn’t quite break it, and it has given me a ton of trouble ever since, and nowadays the other foot and ankle gives me a little trouble too because I don’t walk quite right anymore because of the bad one. Consequently, the bad foot and ankle have a habit of swelling up to Supersize with things like lots of walking in airports and stuff. I didn’t notice it until I was waiting in the St. Louis airport yesterday for my connecting flight, and then it was like, whoa! The other one was swollen too but the difference was between looking at an almost normal foot and ankle compared to a gargantuan deformed one. It really hasn’t bothered me that much (and has gone down a little), probably because when I am really tired, my feet always hurt anyway. I’ve felt better, but I’ll live.

The show, again, was fantastic and The Abbey is a pretty great place to see live music in Chicago. Other than that little idiot who made us leave the venue entirely too early and before everyone in the band had come out after the show.

I kinda hate now that I understand I could have met up with Tatiana for dinner or something Saturday night, dang it. But since it was such a last minute trip and was kind of a whirlwind one, I just wasn’t thinking much ahead of time other than all the must-do’s. Hopefully there might be a next time for Chicago later in the year, though.

But here’s the REAL scoop… remember I said I’m home, but not for long? Guess where I am going Wednesday? L.A.! Yep, I’m going to see the Hoodoo Gurus AGAIN on Wednesday night. It was another opportunity that turned up that I just couldn’t pass on, things with work are working out where I can go (and Thursday’s my day off anyway), so here I go again! It just so happens I have an old friend who is from Sydney but has been living in L.A. for several years now who also was going to the show, so hopefully things will work out there (’cos lord knows I don’t have enough $$ left for cab fare at this point, but we’ll see).

This is going to be an even more whirlwind trip ‘cos I am actually going to be there barely 12 hours, but when the opportunity presented itself, I just couldn’t pass it up. And I never get to do stuff like this or go much of anywhere anyway, so this is cool. About ten years ago, the band was playing what was then intended to be one of their last dates in Australia, and almost all the American fans went down there for the show, the band and their manager threw a big barbecue for everyone who had come in from all over the world, and all this great stuff. I wasn’t able to go and was miserable. So all of this this week almost makes up for that. I’m thrilled, really; too tired to maybe show it right now, but I am.

So this week’s going to be a super hectic one (especially because I am going BACK out of town again for a very short trip on Saturday), and I’m probably going to just collapse next week when it’s all over with, but it’s all good. For a whole bunch of last minute stuff, it’s not turned out so bad (yet - knock on wood nothing happens like my plane is severely delayed Wednesday, god, that would be awful).

If you wanna see some pictures taken of the Chicago outing, click here. Someone needs to stop me from waving every time a camera’s out, I look like a big dork. And to shut my mouth. And I seriously was not drunk until the very end of the evening, heh.

Portrait of the Blogger as a Young Girl
Originally uploaded by LynnsterZone.

Yep, that would be me, as rendered by my mother, the artist. That would also be my first dog, a black Lab mix named Snoopy (who the puppies’ mama, Satin, kind of resembled a lot, actually). Yep, I had so little hair at the time I kind of looked like a boy. Actually up to this point in my life, I pretty much had almost NO hair, so that was an improvement. Even tho I have long hair nowadays, there’s still not much of it. My mother has thick, easily stylable, formerly blonde hair. My dad had thick, wavy, jet black hair. Why I was cursed with baby-fine, thin, straight as a stick hair that won’t do anything at all, I’ll never know. I don’t get it. Obviously, I DIDN’T get it. Or at least not much of it.

I guess I am feeling a little nostalgic for my childhood today. Yesterday brought the news that one of the fellows in the Nashville blogging community’s grandmother had passed away. I lost mine a year ago today.

I guess I was pretty lucky to begin with - when I was born, two of my great-grandparents were still alive. It had almost, very narrowly, been three, because one of my great-grandmothers died a week or two before I was born. One of my great-grandfathers died a month later, and my maternal grandmother passed the month after that. But a lot of people, at least back then, didn’t have great-grandparents alive at all, so I know I was pretty lucky to have two of them. And not only that, they both lived well into my teens.

I practically lived at my paternal grandparents’ house growing up, I was there as much as I was at my own house. Being first and only grandchild for many years had its privileges, I did whatever I wanted when there and was always the star of the show. My grandfather and I would play Yahtzee at night and eat a bowl of Rice Krispies together before bed. My grandmother and I would put jigsaw puzzles together, and I taste-tested and ate the leftover batter of thousands of batches of fudge, cakes, pies, and every other dessert under the sun. And I probably ate four million of my grandmother’s grilled cheese sandwiches, which try as I might, I can’t replicate. They never taste as good when I try to make them.

My great-grandparents on my grandmother’s side might have been the only family in Henry County in the Thirties who had a movie camera. Certainly if not the only family, they were one of the few. They were kind of characters anyway; Al Capone’s men were running liquor through Northwest Tennessee during the Prohibition era, and my great-grandparents often visited one of the speakeasies that had sprung up over near Martin, no doubt also fronted by Capone family members. And they were also doing other things probably not that many people in rural Northwest Tennessee were able to do and afford at the time, like taking their daughters to the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. Which I have video footage of, as well as a fair amount of footage of my grandmother and her sister when they were teenagers, and that’s probably a relative rarity for someone my age to have.

My great-grandfather was really something. He bought this awesome purple Chevy convertible in the Forties that my dad and uncle both later drove, and my dad drove it again for a while when I was a kid. I wish we still had it, but my great-grandfather sold it in the late Seventies, purportedly so my father and uncle wouldn’t fight over it after he died. He was also frequently, and often secretly, doing things to help those less fortunate around the community; my mother found out about one of those occasions just last year when my grandmother died, over 25 years after my great-grandfather’s death. My great-grandmother was this Great Southern Lady who everyone just adored, and was quite striking in pictures and on film, before her illness which eventually took her life. I wish I had known her. I hear she was quite excited about my pending arrival, but I arrived a week or two too late.

I think the story of my grandparents’ marriage is funny as hell. My grandparents eloped, running off with another couple to New Concord, Kentucky, when my grandmother was 16; my grandfather was already in his twenties. They returned home and went back to each other’s respective homes with their parents. And stayed that way. I don’t know exactly how much time passed before the secret marriage finally came to light, but it was a fair amount of time, and no doubt my great-grandparents were less than thrilled. Instead of doing what she was probably supposed to, like her younger sister eventually did - going to a “good” all girls’ college and getting a degree, then marrying a Tennessee state senator - my grandmother was a child bride at 16. My grandfather went in the Navy during WWII, and my grandmother gave birth to my father a little over a year after she’d graduated from high school.

And she’d have had it no other way, I think. My grandfather was the love of her life, and she loved being a mother and a housewife, though she did work in the family drugstore now and again. She loved babies, and would have probably kept having them if my grandfather hadn’t put his foot down and put an end to it after #4. Ten years after that, I came along, and then later my cousins, so she had babies and kids around again and was thrilled. She would have adored being a great-grandmother, if only any of us - my cousins and I - had ever bothered to get married and have kids, so I’m kind of sorry she wound up missing out on that. But at least when she remarried, she wound up with a slew of step-great-grandchildren.

My grandfather died when I was in my twenties, and I was living in Memphis by then, but would get back home more often than I ever am able to nowadays. Spent a lot of those weekends over at my grandmother’s house too, drinking wine coolers and playing Scrabble with my mother and grandmother until nearly sunup.

My grandmother got remarried in the early Nineties and moved to her new husband’s home in Nashville, and I didn’t get to see her as often. She loved her new life, but she always missed our little hometown terribly, which was almost the only place she’d ever lived.

Her husband was quite a bit older than her, so I always expected that if he went first, she’d be back in Paris in a flash. When he passed away early last year, by the very next week she had found a house back home to move into. She had missed her life and friends back home so much over the years, and her husband had been ill for some time and had required so much constant care, so I had hoped she would be able to spend at least several years back in Henry County, having some fun and enjoying herself.

She had about two good months back home, socializing and spending time with my mom, and her two kids that were still in town, and my youngest cousin, who was in high school at the time and still at home. And had even picked out Husband #3, so I’m told. Except he got sick and died a few months after her return to her hometown.

And she was diagnosed with cancer a couple of months after her move back home last year. Shortly after Thanksgiving - a year ago today - we lost her.

I’ve lost a good number of my friends, too many, including some of my closest. And all my grandparents, great-grandparents, and a few years ago, my father. So it’s not like I don’t know how this whole thing goes - the grieving, the getting past it, the going on.

This one has not been so easy to get past. I keep telling myself I’m 40 years old, and this is ridiculous to still be missing her so much, and that I was lucky to have so many grandparents and great-grandparents in my life as long as I did. And to get over it. I’ve lost some of my best friends in some of the worst ways imaginable, and a parent. So I should, logically, be able to get past this, too.

Well, maybe someday. It won’t be today, though. Not quite there yet.

And since I can’t, I hope maybe if you still have a grandparent and/or great-grandparents around, you might pick up the phone and call them and say hi and tell them you love them. You really should. I’m just sayin’.

Detach your nose from the monitor & go do something productive, miss…
Originally uploaded by LynnsterZone.

Still recycling & moving old site pics but you know what, this is pretty much what I’ve looked like for the last 72 hours anyway with my nose permanently attached to the monitor screen. And no makeup.

Four quick things before I go take that nap I was going to take about this time yesterday afternoon…

1. I tested Blogger Beta this morning and am very disappointed. It REALLY sucks with IE 7, a lot of functions do not work at all. Needless to say I don’t think I’ll be moving anytime soon and maybe not ’til they make me. It might work just fine with IE 6 but it is HORRIBLE with IE 7. I might play with it with Firefox later but you know what, Firefox has its good points and all but it’s always run so danged slow for me. I don’t like slow.

2. I can’t remember when I last slept in my bed because I keep falling asleep this week in the chair here at the desk. First because I was working so much Monday and Tuesday and worked through the night. Then after that, just because I keep falling asleep sitting here. And I do NOT have a comfortable chair here. This all sucks and I intend to remedy all that right now - see: nap I intended to take yesterday afternoon.

3. I have four thousand things I want to get done this weekend but, most importantly, I would like to watch at least ONE of the five Netflix discs I’ve had sitting here that I haven’t had time to get to the past two weekends. Any bets on whether I watch any at all, or how many? Let’s not even talk about stuff I was supposed to do the past week that I can’t seem to make myself do. God, if there’s such a thing as Internet/online ADD, I’ve surely got it.

4. Childhood Misheard Lyric #1: “Joy to the bishops in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me…” (So, I was raised Episcopalian and “fishes” just never occurred to me for, well, years.)

Zombie Brain Eater & Happy About It
Originally uploaded by LynnsterZone.

Scary! Zombie brain eater on the loose… the last thing you see before I chomp on your head. And obviously awful damn happy about it.

Still moving old site pics and recycling a few…

Really I wish something’d eat my brain. Or like the Ramones song referenced in the title… my job(s) is (are) eating it. I am so stupid. If I’d started the work I have to do overnight soon after getting off work yesterday, I’d be through by now and could go to bed, which is what I really want to do. I’m so exhausted. But no, I do this to myself every time.

Oh well, the holiday is almost here and I will have NO work to do until next week, yay. Be back soon and after I - if I ever do - catch some much-needed zzzzz’s…

The beginning of what would become a lifelong obsession…
Originally uploaded by LynnsterZone.

I don’t have much today so here… CATS!

The beginnings of what would be a lifelong obsession leading to what would be owning five billion cats in my lifetime. Or rather, them owning me. Well, 150 or so anyway probably. Maybe more. I grew up with indoor/outdoor cats and we always had cats having kittens back then so if you count them ALL, it’s a lot.

These two are Tiger and Cuddles and they were my first cats ever. Yeah, wasn’t very creative with the names back then. Tiger grew up to be HUGE. We have video of him when grown where it looks like I am trying to hold a small lion in my arms. Once out on my own, I took to keeping the cats I had indoors, so I’ve had fewer and they’ve lived longer then all those many many we had throughout the years of my growing up did.

Anyway, the weekend kind of slipped away from me, though I did manage to squeeze in lunch with an old friend from high school and dinner with one of my former co-workers in between it all. It was an OK weekend, just didn’t get nearly as much done as I would have liked. Which is not necessarily unusual for me, but frustrating always. Weekends should be three-day weekends every weekend.

Which brings me to today, which is the start of what’s going to be a crazy week. Due to the upcoming holiday, I’ve taken on a kamikaze load of work for the early part of this week, so you won’t be seeing much of me until Wednesday, though I’ll try to come up with a thing or two to make your visits to the Zone at least not a total and complete bore. If you drop by and mutter to yourself, “What is that flaky fruitcake blonde chick up to NOW?”… then my job is done. Heh.

If you don’t know what this CD is, then we can’t be friends anymore.
Originally uploaded by LynnsterZone.

If you don’t know what this CD is, I don’t know if we can be friends anymore.

Well, OK, we can still be friends. But I reserve the right to say your taste in music sucks.

(Moving and recycling pics from the old website. I might actually start posting new ones soon - hey, what a concept…)

After Sista Smiff shared with us her prom photo the other day, that got me to reminiscing about my own. Though I think Sista and I probably didn’t have the same prom experience, being that she was a good Baptist girl and all and seeing as how I was one of those wildass Episcopalian girls. You know us Episcopalians, we like to drink and stuff.

So this was prom my junior year in 1983, which was much funner (sic) than my senior prom ‘cos junior year, none of us girls were attached and we all went together. Which was pretty much what we did that whole year, stayed unattached and hung out and went to parties all the time and got in trouble sometimes and just had a large time.

Within two or three weeks of the time this picture was taken, ALL of us had a new boyfriend apiece, and though we still did plenty of hanging out together that summer and our senior year, not so much as we did the year before. And we all went to the senior prom with boys, and while it was OK, senior prom wasn’t nearly as much fun as junior prom had been the year before. Which leads me to conclude that boys are stupid.

No offense to any regular male readers, all of whom are intelligent and have excellent taste in blogs. (ahem)

Junior prom was also more fun because the mother of one of my friends was working as a bartender there at the time. Of course, this was a school function, so she was just serving cokes and punch at the bar. And graciously ignoring the fact that there was a bottle of Seagram’s 7 hidden at the far end of the bar in a very dark corner that had not been part of the original bar stock that even