An Unremarkable Walk

Nothing exciting has been happening around here lately, so I decided to regale you with a tale of my morning walk.

It's a really nice day in Memphis. At 9:00am, the temperature was 70 degrees. That is cool, literally! Also it was hardly humid. So I decided I needed to get a refreshing iced coffee to start the morning right. We only have one car which Das Fenster drives to work. This means I must rely on my own 2 feet to get around town. (Before all the bike fanatics start telling me to get a bike, yes, I recognize that the bicycle is a convenient form of transportation. But we have nowhere to store a bike here. Someday when we have a garage, or a shed, or space to hang up a bike hook, I'll look into it.)

The closest Starbucks is 1.3 miles away. The prospect of a 2.6 mile round trip walk for coffee seemed daunting. Instead, I decided to head down to the closest main road near our apartment and see what I could find. What did I come across? McDonalds. Since I'm trying not to be snob here, I opted to give it a chance.

Have you ever had iced coffee from McDonalds? This was my first time trying it. The cashier asked if I wanted to add a flavor. Assuming the coffee might be gross, I added vanilla to be on the safe side. The resulting beverage tastes like watery vanilla syrup with a hint of coffee flavoring. It also has a strange fruity aftertaste. Bizarre. At least it looks nice sitting on my window sill.

With the Monopoly promo going on, I upgraded to a medium beverage, hoping that the extra 20 cents would result in me winning an awesome prize. It did not. However I do have St. Charles Place and New York Avenue tickets now. If you need these ones and want to split a prize, we may be able to come to an agreement :)

Being Friendly

I think I lived in Seattle for too long. I don't know how to make friends anymore. Did I catch the Seattle Freeze? Maybe I did, because I think I project feelings of disinterest onto others. Like, I feel like other people probably aren't really interested in being my friend because they've already got plenty going on in their lives and were perfectly content here before I came along. At the same time, sometimes people here genuinely are trying to be friendly and welcoming, but I'm not sure how to respond.

Example: we went to a church on Sunday where an older lady wrote down her name and phone number, plus the neighborhood where she lives. She gave me the slip of paper and said, "Here - now you know someone in Memphis!" But I was confused. What, exactly, should my next move be? Do I call her up and say, "Hello, friendly grandmother-type, this is Salmonista, the newcomer with whom you discussed the beauty of the Seattle waterfront as viewed from your Alaskan cruise ship. Would you like to invite us over for dinner now?"

Then again, we've only been here for 2 months. I should probably adjust my expectations. Friendships might take a little longer to form. For now, I'll be content to have a few acquaintances.

What a deal!

We discovered a cheap movie theater option here - Palace Cinema. They have current movies, not like 3 month old shows, and they've got a great deal called "Econo Hour." Every day, movies with a start time between 5-6pm are $4 each. Wow, it's like the good ol' days of matinee prices!

We saw Pacific Rim yesterday. My synopsis: it's like Transformers, except in the ocean, and they're fighting aliens instead of Decepticons. The movie was not exactly my cup of tea, but it was cheap so who cares :)

Liquor Laws

Every state seems to have their own unique approach to alcohol sales. Growing up in the Northwest, I wasn't aware that some states allow hard alcohol to be sold in grocery stores until I was surprised to see a whole aisle of booze in a California Von's. When I first moved to DC, I spent a good 20 minutes wandering my neighborhood Safeway to find the non-existent beer section. Actually, I never really did figure our the rules there - some stores carried beer/wine, but others didn't. I think they required a special permit or something.

Here in Memphis, our local Kroger has a full refrigerator case of thoroughly unappealing beer choices. (I settled for Fat Tire for post-move-in refreshment.) But there is definitely no wine to be found. We only brought 2 bottles with us from Seattle and they are the good ones that we're saving for a nice dinner party. So today I finally made it over to the liquor store, the place where one must go for all wine and hard alcohol purchases. The store itself was huge and had a wide selection of overpriced mediocre wine. I mean, we're talking $12 for a bottle of Columbia Crest Two Vines that would be like $5 on sale at Safeway in Seattle. There were hardly any options under $10.

I guess I got spoiled living close to a Trader Joe's before...

I did eventually make a selection (Bacardi Pineapple Fusion, if you must know) and went to the register. The two employees asked if I'd found any wines I liked - when I came in, I had asked about the Pacific Northwest section. Not wanting to tell them that their prices were totally ridiculous, I said I was just checking our their selection because I recently moved from Washington. I told them I'd been surprised that grocery stores didn't sell wine here. I also mentioned the "Costco law" that allows regular stores to sell liquor now in WA. Apparently that was the wrong thing to say as this started a monologue by who I'm guessing was the owner about Memphis liquor laws. Here were his main complaints:

• A person can only own one liquor store
• Liquor stores must be located at least 2,000 feet away from all schools and churches
• Some people want to change the law to allow grocery stores to sell wine, which would negatively affect his business and all the other small business owners

I tried to explain that liquor stores in WA were previously government-run, so the changed law actually opened the industry up to new businesses. But I'm not sure he was listening to me then.

Tennessee liquor laws

US map of "wet" and "dry" counties

In conclusion, I don't know why this stores prices were so much higher than what I'm used to. Perhaps they have higher taxes on alcohol in TN. Or, maybe since there isn't very much competition in the alcohol market, the few stores that are open can jack up their prices. Is it time for me to get into the moonshine business??

Volunteer Circuit Rider

Someday I may have a week (or more) off work here. If that happens, here's what I think I'll do:

Volunteer Odyssey

Volunteer Odyssey is a 7-day volunteering/blogging tour of the Memphis non-profit scene. While open to everyone, this program is specifically geared for those between jobs who are on the hunt for their next great opportunity and looking for a way to give back in the process. The program is time intensive, requiring 6-8 hours daily during the Odyssey Week. It’s our hope that those who complete the program will become more involved with the Memphis non-profit scene, sharpen their job skills, and “pay it forward” within Volunteer Odyssey by mentoring the upcoming participants during their own Odyssey Week.

Myths about Memphis

This city is a complex creature. The more I learn, the more I want to know. For more on the story, read the latest from Smart City Memphis and find out why the author believes Memphis is not a "backwater city," among other things.

Walking in Memphis

People keep telling us the weather is "unseasonably cool" here for July, so we took advantage of it to have an outdoor adventure yesterday. We decided to check out some of the tourist attractions right here in our new city.

We went to Mud Island River Park, located right on the Mississippi River. The park itself is free, but to get there, you either have to walk over the 1/3 mile bridge (free) or ride the monorail ($4 round trip). Also there is a museum that requires tickets. We had a coupon (of course) so we got two-for-one admission that covered the train and museum.

After our *exciting* 3 minute monorail ride, we disembarked to a nice view of the river.

We checked out the Mississippi River Museum, which I found moderately interesting. The best parts were the two full-sized boats inside that you could walk through. One was a passenger steamboat, and the other was a gun boat from the civil war. In my opinion, though, the museum lost focus somewhere in the middle with too many non-river-related Civil War displays, and then a whole section devoted to music in Memphis. I mean yes, music is a big deal here, but they didn't explain what Elvis had to do with the river...

Next, it was time to stroll along the scale model of the river!

The model is .5 miles long and represents the lower Mississippi from where it joins up with the Ohio River in Cairo, IL to the Gulf of Mexico.  

This is the delta in New Orleans.

And here's the model of where it empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

I feel much more educated about the river after visiting this park!

So, next stop was dinner at Rendezvous BBQ, a Memphis classic. It's a really big restaurant compared to most other BBQ places we've been to. I think the baked beans might be my favorite in the city so far! The brisket was good. The ribs could've been more tender. The slaw was grosser than normal. It tasted like mustard and was rather sour. In the interest of fairness, I should mention that I don't like coleslaw in general. And the rolls were bland and not homemade. So, it was about 3.5 stars for us, out of 5.  

After licking our fingers clean, we walked over to the Peabody Hotel. I believe it's the fanciest hotel in town. The lobby is ornate! They do this thing every day where a parade of ducks walk through the lobby to swim in the fountain, and then they parade out of the fountain and back to their home on the roof. Our visit didn't coincide with the duck march, but that's ok. 

The famous fountain.

View from the rooftop deck.

The last stop for the evening was a free concert at the Levitt Shell amphitheater. It was the last concert of the season, which we didn't know until we got there. It was a lovely night to be outside enjoying some "water ice" from Parker's.

The show was a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Memphis chapter of the Recording Academy. I think these people vote on who is going to win Grammy awards. Or they nominate them. Or both. I was rather confused. There were a lot of "in-group" references during the show to supposedly famous people that I'd never heard of. The music varied from toe-tapping rock and folk to sleep-inducing ballads. People made speeches, showed videos, and generally patted themselves on the back for such projects as helping musicians displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

So, there's a sampling of the fun stuff there is to do in Memphis! Now when y'all come visit, we're ready to play tour guide :)