Category Archives: Big Stone Gap

Sorry for the Delay, Kinda

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I’m sorry about missing yesterday as a blog-writing day, but I had an unexpected appointment. Jack was scheduled to record radio programs at WETS, the university public radio station across the border in Tennessee. He does a month at a time ahead and Celtic Clanjamphry runs Sunday mornings at 7.

Impulsively, said, “Hey, come with me and we’ll go out after and get lunch and walk around the antique stores in Kingsport and have a general good time.”

I hesitated. “You mean, like a date?”

Jack scratched his head. “I don’t remember if that’s what you call them, but we can pretend we’re not married and just starting to like each other again?”

“Darling!” Men in general tend to have romance as a recessive gene. Jack… well, he’s very good around the house and he tells funny jokes.

In honor of the occasion I looked out a linen dress that is form flattering. Just to make sure it still fit from last summer, I slipped it on – and discovered my handy-around-the-house husband had washed it in warm water with the other white laundry. The built-in slip hung two inches below the somewhat tighter dress.

Jack cut the slip off with my crafting scissors and gave me an appreciative look; apparently the curves worked just fine.  Smirk.

The next morning he wore a good flannel shirt over a clean tee, and I knew we were going to have fun, fun, fun til Mommy took the t-shirt away. So we raced down to WETS, whipped out his three radio programs, with me a guest on one just for fun, and tripped off to lunch at Jack’s favorite Indian restaurant.

Which is closed on Mondays.

Okay, regroup and find another curry house. We did, and sat outside in the sunshine, but as Jack pushed felafel around on his plate, I could tell he was being a good sport. Asian yes; Middle East, not so much for him.

Never mind; off we went to Kingsport – where the recession had not been kind. Jack and I remembered it as a land of never-ending bargains, true antiques among kitsch, shop after shop.

Now many teeth were missing from this downtown’s smile; empty shop fronts boasted low rents; inside the antique stores, shopkeepers greeted us with hungry eyes and appraising glances. Browsers or buyers?

Browsers, it turned out. For whatever odd reason, antiques become luxuries in a recession; prices had gone up instead of down. Way up. When we saw a simple folding metal music stand like the one I use for my harp music, priced at $70 (got mine for $10) we packed it in.

But as we wandered, somewhat disappointed, out of the shops, Jack laughed and pointed. Yarn bombers had been at work. Tree trunks with knitted casings. Statues sporting shirts. Here and there a random wraparound, crochet stitches stretched to capacity.

Jack grinned. “Day’s not a total loss. You got to see yarn. I got to see you in that dress.”

Ah, such a nice date!

“Yeah, That’s a Toilet”: the bookstore’s front yard, explained

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There are things in life I don’t understand. Folding underwear and landscaping are two of them. The return on time invested just seems …. small.IMG_4242

Jack and I decided last year that we’d had it with lawn care. We scavenged a bunch of old bricks from friends,  bought some ironwork statues, and when that didn’t cover the whole space, we paid a student who needed some grad school money to dig up the rest of the grass.

Voila: our place in the annals of Colorful Local Characters was secured.

Locals observing the bricks-and-statues procession described the work as “interesting” in a tone that implied this was not a compliment. When we ripped up the yard, “kooky” came into play–mostly whispered as doors closed behind us at social gatherings.IMG_4240

Bare earth offends? I’m not the world’s greatest conformist, but I bought three packages of “Perennials” –having first ascertained that, yes, these are the ones that come up every year and take care of themselves–and shook the packets out on the ground sometime late last summer.

Gosh darn if they didn’t come up this year and make the nicest collection of flowers and leaves and stuff. Amazing thing, this gardening trick.

I come from a long line of brown thumb women. I once managed to kill a spider plant. Still, lazy landscaping has its rewards. Last year when friends and I made book planters from some old tomes here, we had a few plants leftover I couldn’t figure out what to do with. I took them outside and set them down in a rainstorm (so I wouldn’t have to water them) and kinda forgot they were out there. Next time I looked, well, I thought they were dead, so just left them there for cruel winter to wipe out the remains.

IMG_4241Now they’re growing like the weeds they aren’t, studding the yard with gorgeous deep purple.

We let the clover and the other natural ground covers grow alongside the hostas we transplanted from the back on the advice of a friend (“Line your sidewalk with them and they look spiffy without care”) and the lilac and the azalea someone gave me for my birthday, all stuck out there in various nooks and crannies where we figured they’d cover our mowing sins. My idea of gardening is less cultivation that containment: mint, chives, sorrel, ivy. Let it grow. I’d rather hack than weed.

And as Jack and I sit on our front porch, sipping summer concoctions while listening to the drone of mower motors in the distance, we clink glasses and sip.