LauraCatoe.com

Leslie started a Flickr group for antique photos, which inspired me to scan some old family pics.

When I got home from work yesterday, I smelled a gas leak in the front yard. Nobody else at the ‘plex was home, so I called Dad and Patsy in for nose recruits. They smelled it, too.

After the Alagasco dude got there, we spent 45 min. trying to find where the leak was coming from. To no avail. Then I went inside and caught the last half of Idol. I realize that I like Katharine because she reminds of Joan of Arcadia.

The gas company was back this morning and as I left for work, they had decided the leak was in the road in front of the house next door. What? Something went wrong and we don’t have to pay for it? Rejoice!

As I flipped through the recent issue of Southern Living and all its “day trip” and “local flavor” articles, I wondered what I would recommend to someone visiting Gadsden. I assume that the criteria excludes chain restaurants and stores and anything readily available elsewhere. What does this leave?

Noccalula Falls, most obviously. My pitch for the falls: “There may not be much water, but there are a couple of trails. Only don’t walk under the falls, cause you could drown.”

While I think the James D. Martin Wildlife Park is nice to have – a naturey place to get a good walk – I admit that I never actually go over and use it. I live a few blocks away. I go maybe twice a year. It’s a nice thing for locals, I think. Take a stroll on a date. But go out of your way to see it if you don’t live here? Nah.

Drive down Broad Street and the historic district trifecta (Turrentine, Haralson, Argyle) to see the retro architecture.

Really, if a visitor doesn’t plan to shop or eat, I just hope they like walking around small town stuff.

So let’s tell them where to eat.

Um.

Well, Mater’s, I guess, since it made that book about local pizza places. (I couldn’t find the link within two Amazon searches, so I gave up.)

Top o’ the River goes over well with a lot of folk, but if you don’t love hushpuppies and coleslaw (like me), then it’s kind of a bust. How about The Fisherman in Southside?

Some BBQ is needed, and I’m gonna go with Pruett’s cause it’s on Hwy. 411. I sometimes wonder about what I would think of Gadsden if I were on a road trip that just drove me through town. Gadsden seems like a depressing, nasty town if you only drive through the part that’s on Hwy. 431 (which is where Hungry Hut and BBQ Bob’s are). It doesn’t seem so bad if you pass through on 411, so Pruett’s it is. (Or Uncle Sam’s BBQ, but I’d tell ‘em to get the cheeseburger.)

The Courtyard Cafe and the Downtown Tavern for the quaint feel. Jitters for quaint + tasty.

As for shopping? Well, I’d point them to Attalla and tell them that if they go on Sunday afternoon, the antique stores may or may not be open.

And if it wasn’t Monday (cause like salons, both these close on Monday), I would say Sonny Buck’s Dish Barn (also Attalla) and Plum Pudding (Hwy. 77 between Attalla and Rainbow City) are worth looking at.

What do you other locals recommend?

Led worship for the first time yesterday since the 10:30 and 4:00 services combined. I decided long ago that I had absolutely no mojo for the afternoon service, but this is a new animal. Then I had a dream both Friday and Saturday night that it would suck, so I took that to mean everything would be okay.

Other newness was that LeNola’s nephew Landon (he’s like, nine, I think) would be playing drums with us and Rachel would be singing. They were the awesome. We got together to jam on Thursday because this was going to be Landon’s first time on a worship team. I wanted Rachel to get to come, too, cause you never know what songs somebody knows and it’s so much easier to sing along if you’ve actually, y’know, heard the song before. (But it turns out we own a lot of the same cds, so she was in familiar territory.)

Kris and I knew since January that we would be leading Sunday, so for about a month, if I sat down and played the guitar any song that I felt “had something on it” went into the Possibles stack. Usually, if I start picking songs out that far in advance, when the time comes, most of the Possibles are out.

But there was one song that stayed, and it was one Kris picked out. He saw that Natalie Merchant’s “Kind and Generous” was in my music book.

During sound check yesterday, we kept having trouble with the song. It has like four full stops and that’s tricky for a drummer who has never gotten to hear the original. After awhile, we asked “are we trying too hard to make this song fit?”

It’s like something one of my art professors warned us about: don’t get too attached to an element you started with because you can ruin the whole design trying to keep this one part you’re so attached to.

In the end, we got to keep the song. But I think we had to be able to let it go, because none of it belongs to us anyway.

If I show up to lead worship but my motive is really to put on a good performance, I am gonna bomb. If I show up to worship and am too heavy laden with my own baggage to enter in, it ain’t gonna happen.

So the thing for me is to go, willing and able, to offer praise. Still I gotta wait and see what God’s agenda is.

I am thankful that yesterday, all the elements God drew together made a beautiful design.

Y’know, it didn’t really seem like there was that much to do to 322 Locust to make it the Moxie. But the grand opening is 2 weeks away and we are not done.

Mantra: (say it with me now) Everything is harder, takes longer and costs more than you expect.

Kris is in utter disbelief that we are not done painting. I mean, when you see the size of this place, you too will wonder “why did it take you so very long to repaint in here?”

Some of the delays were just things we didn’t anticipate, like recovering the chairs for the waiting area. Kris had these zebra-striped chairs when he was the youth pastor at the Cullman Vineyard, but the time they have spent lounging at 417 Broad Street has funkified them to the max. We thought a good Febreezing would do the trick. Ahhhh… no.

The same goes for the expenses. Thought we could use the chrome rack we already own to put the products on. Too big.

But some things continue to go really well, like our meeting with the downtown design review board. Our signage was approved painlessly. (Word from our signmaker, though, is that we might have to change the color. C’est la vie.)

So, scribble on your calendars: Moxie Grand Opening Friday, March 3. Drop by for a look-see. Snicky-snacks will be provided.

(Liz/Chris - any suggestions what kind of cheese goes best with a meat log?)

*sniff*

Makes me all nostalgic seeing her* like that. I wonder if she knows when I go to work tomorrow that I won’t be sitting in there anymore.

*Are rooms feminine or masculine?