Much To Say About Nothing

Yesterday evening it poured down raining. This morning the wind is blowing hard with bits of rain. Even thou it is not a nice day to play outside, so far, I feel thankful we have not just been covered with another blanket of snow, like some other parts of the country.

I think Winter is trying to make one last Hurrah to scatter
the seeds and pollen and stuff.

Out our den window yesterday were two rabbit. Both of them being rather still – each was probably wondering who is “going to make the next move?”

As mentioned in a recent blog Anna’s late cousin’s wife died. She had a son, daughter, and three grandkids.

This is how small of a world it is: The late husband’s mother (who is still alive) is from the mountains of north Georgia. My mother also grew up in the north Georgia, but a different part. My mother and this lady moved to Marietta about the same time to work and they met, became good friends, and double dated. That was in the late 1930s.

A week or so ago we decided to try out a new barbecue place in Woodstock. We like unfranchised-hole-in-the-wall barbecue joints. As I said earlier, our previous BBQ hole in the wall, Slopes closed down. We thought of a place we had eaten at a year or so before called Beetles Barbecue. They have several VW’s in the parking lot and one VW van inside… get it? Beetle? Yuk yuk. When we went the last time we didn’t like it for some forgotten reason, but decided to give them another chance. This time it wasn’t bad.

At the next table were about 6 or 8 elderly women. They were having a good time talking. I think they just left of some kind of get-together. The more they talked, they more I realized some didn’t know each other.

We ordered bbq salads and two of the women said they would have what we were having.

The women were talking about Paula Dean. One of them said that at a bookstore in Roswell that afternoon Paula Dean’s two boys were to be there signing her latest cookbook. A couple of the women said they were going.

Is that okay? To send your sons, instead of yourself to a book signing event at a bookstore? It might be, since they share the TV lights with her.

Speaking of food and restaurants, our local paper has a restaurant review on Thursday. I think they time that just right just right for us. Anna is normally off on Fridays, so the review is fresh on our minds.

The latest review was of a place in Mableton, which is in south Cobb County. We went. It has the shape of an old Waffle House that has seen its better days. We thought we read it opens daily at 11:00, so we wanted to beat the crowds, so we were there at 11:00. A sign on the door said they open at 11:30. We pulled over to the side parking lot and waited. Interesting, the help arrived and parked in the best premium places. I thought employers of retail encourage their employees to park in the places that are not close to the entrance… no sir! Not here!

The place had, as the review said, very diverse diners; from the workmen that had paint and red mud on their overalls, to well dressed people. I thought the food was good. The food kept its heat, which is always good. The only bad part, I think, they give you too much.

The reviewer called it home cooking, which I suppose it is and I think it can also be called Soul Food. Soul food items were regulars on the menu.

The name of the restaurant has a woman’s name. But I think a young hyper black man was the proprietor. You get in line and to the front. For lunch you get two veggies and a meat and cornbread. He talks you into an ordering frenzy, much like athletes talk up among themselves to increase the energy level. I noticed he was give each person a name and he put thought into each name.

Elderly women were called mostly “young lady”; big brutes were ordained “Big Fellow”; women from 20 to 65 were called “Sweety”; and I and a few more were christened “Young Man.”

The cashier poured your ice tea and rang up the cost. I think it would be the same for everybody’s lunch plate. She seemed to be a motherly black lady. When she parked up front in the best parking spot I saw the had some kind of realtor magnetic sign on her car door, saying something like, “Let me sale your home.” I imagine Mama might be pretty aggressive if she needed to be.

Once the line was worked down to nobody and then the young guy who ran the show made a quick visit table to table asking people how they liked their food. He made quick hip-like comments when asking. One table, behind me, when he walked up to it, apparently somebody had their head down near the plate pigging out. He said, “You got your head down eating, that’s what I like to see!”

Soon they are moving across the street to a bigger location in a shopping center and the name Bistro will be added to the name of the restaurant. I hope they are not out growing themselves.

Joe’s baby Rebecca I suppose is safely home now. I think he and his mating companion are living under his Mama’s roof, I don’t he has a job to support them.

I remember when our sons were born, my parents and in-laws were there a lot. I don’t think Joe’s mate’s parents have visited at all. Did they disown her?

The other day the man at the end of the street had a bunch of tall pine trees cut down. They also had a grinder that was pulled by a truck. Apparently, Joe’s mother requested for them to bring a load of pine chips up to their back yard. I guess she has some landscaping plans that included pine chips. They pulled the machine full of pine chips to the back yard. In doing so, they had to do a lot of big truck maneuvering and knocked down the “It’s A Girl” sign. It is still down. It did not occur to anyone to put it back up, or at least pick it up.

Later I stepped out to see how the progress was coming with the Pine trees and I saw Joe out in street in front of the work being done. She had her arms folded and Joe was looking rather helpless and unsure of himself. In his hand was a pair of work gloves. I think probably the owner of the tree cutting operation offered him some quick non-taxed money to help them. It is a very busy operation, one man up in the tree cutting segments, another man cutting the segment into smaller segments to be transported and sold for pulp wood, and the crew of men using the debris grinder and stump grinder. Joe is a big strong looking kid… the owner probably figured him for a good worker.

Which apparently, it sounded good to Joe’s mate, but Joe himself wasn’t too sure. But it looked like she was insisting.

Later, I was outside and looked down the street and men were working in their well organized way of not a wasted motion – very good precision work was being done in a very efficient way. I saw men moving about but didn’t see Joe.

Finally, I saw him. The reason I had trouble seeing him was the others were moving about. Joe was standing still talking on his cell phone.

I thought his mother took his cell phone away when he ran up over a $1000 bill. Maybe Joe pitched a fit and got it back.