>A visit from my parents is a lot like a visit from the interior decorating fairy. In some sort of reverse-nesting move, my mother can’t seem to come to my house without first cleaning out her own and hauling everything up to Nashville in shopping bags for me. Now that I’m a mom, too, I […]
June 1, 2010
>In 2007, Thomas* and Margaret’s teenage grandson, a handsome and well-liked high school graduate, was murdered during a robbery at the Nashville restaurant where he worked. Two months later, Thomas and Margaret’s house caught fire, burning so badly that the second floor collapsed into the first. Margaret wasn’t home at the time- Thomas barely escaped […]
May 27, 2010
>As a kindergartner, my daughter brings home all kinds of art projects in her backpack each week. I keep the best of her handwriting samples, the colored drawings of flowers and ants and family members, the paper plates decorated to resemble cats, and the Popsicle stick projects. Punky’s teacher claims she doesn’t have a creative […]
May 24, 2010
>This post originally appeared on HerNashville.com. It had to be a joke. A reader sent me a link to a website for a product called the Backtacular. According to the site, it was a“gluteal cleft shield” — a fancy term for a sticky piece of cloth decorated with rhinestones and designed to cover the butt […]
May 21, 2010
>This column originally appeared in the Nashville Scene. It had all the elements of a recurring nightmare, like the one where I’m starring in a play and realize only as the curtain opens that I don’t know any of my lines. In this scenario, though, I’m standing in the hallway of my daughter’s school, watching […]
May 20, 2010
If you were to live here in Bellevue, you’d find that everyone you run into has an amazing story to tell right now. 1000-year floods will do that to you. In supermarkets, mothers stand across parked buggies and recount tales of literally swimming out of their homes. Outside churches, families listen in amazement to stories […]
May 19, 2010
> This was Steve’s neighborhood two weeks ago. Steve* had lived and owned a business here in Bellevue for nearly 30 years. During that time, he’d done well enough to buy himself a modest home in the community, a place where he could eventually retire in peace and comfort. Two weeks ago, a massive flood […]
May 17, 2010
> This column originally appeared in the Nashville Scene. It’s been a week since the floodwaters finally crept out of Bellevue, and if you squint your eyes, you can almost pretend things here are back to normal. Ignore the mud still covering our parking lots and major roadways, turn away from the curbs piled high […]
May 14, 2010
>Don’t worry- I’m not going to turn this into “The Flood Blog.” But this is what I’m going through now. This is what I’m thinking about. This is what’s breaking my heart on an almost hourly basis. And like it or not, you’re all along for the ride. If you’re still having trouble wrapping your […]
May 13, 2010
>I just came across this video and had to share it with you. Since my power was out when the flood got really bad, I hadn’t even seen this coverage of what my community looked like after the rains had eneded. Well here it is- “Bellevue Island” last Monday, when about 7,000 people were trapped […]
May 12, 2010
