Sleeping Positions

These pictures are too dang cute not to post. It makes me want another kitten. Yeah right. I would love one and it would be nice for Banks to have a friend, but Jason would freak ;-) Every once in a while, he'll say, "You know we have a live animal in this house with us?" yup. They're buds, but Jason won't admit it. Banks and Jason like to play tag around the house, but without quite tagging each other. He'll chase her, then she'll turn around and chase him...I think the neigbors downstairs love it. At least we don't live above crazy-cat-woman anymore. I do have to brag on Banks for a minute though. She is well on her way of earning her keep around the house. This morning as I was heading to the kitchen and passed through the dining area, I saw a silverfish on the wall. Now for those of us from Seattle, we don't have those back home, but they look like a centipede with long antennae - nasty and fast. So I see this nasty critter and I point at it calling for Banks. She now knows that when I point, there's a bug and she's to look frantically for it. So she's looking all over and still doesn't see it, until I lift her up and set her directly in front of it. Not a second later she pounces on this thing and tore it into 4 pieces!!! Yeah!!! GO BANKS! Man, I love my cat. :-) She's also very good at killing spiders and catching flies. Spiders give her an upset tummy, so she'll squash them and then watch it for a while, but she loves eating the flies she catches -though I'm not such of a fan when it crunches in her mouth. Sick.

Fun Fun Fun

This last week has been crazy!

Wednesday night my law firm Adams & Reese, hosted a party for the National Legistlative Conference at Roberts Bar on Broadway, one of the many honkeytonks downtown. It was an open bar, with a live band (of course) and catered with traditional southern food. Jason was working that night, but I decided to dress up and hit the town. The party didn't start till 9pm! For a company party! Now that's a change going from 7pm company parties at the Westin to 9-11pm parties during the week at the honkey-tonks downtown. We were all in our boots, jeans and haltar-tops, it was so much fun. They even had these ceramic cowboy boot vases' in various colors sitting on the bar holding wildflowers and Adams & Reese blue bandanas. I had a great time.

Thursday night, Jason was off and we found ourselves back downtown. Our friend Cheryl Johnston was performing that night at another local honkey-tonk, the Full Moon Saloon, which is owned by our friend Robert Lee (who just got a recording contract with Broken Bow Records & sings on some of Jason's demo tracks). Cheryl was doing a four hr set, so we first stopped at Roberts Bar (yes, the very place I was at just the night before) and had the best burgers for dinner!! Seriously yummy! Then we walked over to see Cheryl and Danny for a bit as she performed. She sounded great too.

But unfortunately we couldn't stay long, because my friend Brooke from work had hooked us up with free passes to see LeeAnn Rimes performing on the State Capitol steps. So off we went trudging up the hill toward the capitol in 85 degree heat with 100% humidity. It was so hot that night! But wow, was LeeAnn worth it! We were within feet of her singing. There was free food provided (I'm talking BBQ ribs, grits, everything), an open bar and outdoor seating. Had Brooke not been with us, I wouldn't have recognized her husband Dean who kept walking by us literally brushing shoulders with us. She sounded incredible too. It was so much fun!!


By Friday, I was dragging. Being out two nights in a row was already wearing me out! I didn't get to bed before midnight once this last week! So that night I stayed home and finished my book - which was fabulous by the way. My Sisters Keeper by Jodi Picoult is the story of a child whose sole reason for existence is to assure a genetic match for her terminally ill sibling. 13-year-old Anna Fitzgerald, was conceived in vitro and has decided to sue her parents to stop them from using her as "spare parts" for her older sister, Kate, who suffers from leukemia. After years of having her body be used to keep Kate alive, Anna now refuses to donate a kidney and strives for her own personal freedom. Anna hires lawyer Campbell Alexander to represent her, even as her own mother, a former civil defense attorney, fights her in court. It was such a good read and I finished it within maybe two weeks. I highly recommend it!

Jason came home after work on Friday and we stayed up till 4am!! I must have gotten a second wind, or maybe I was just super excited to watch the recorded season finale of So You Think You Can Dance with Jason, since he hadn't seen it yet. And you guessed it, Benji won!! Yeah! It was such a great show, I may have to watch it again... I know, I'm a nerd.

The weekend was also great. Even though Jason had to work both nights, we spent some much needed quality time sleeping in and relaxing in our home. We lounged in our PJ's and watched Benchwarmers, which was so funny and I made him a big ol breakfast. Then Sunday we went to church with our friend Kelly Skiles at the Vineyard in Nashville. It was a lot smaller than we expected, but still a great time. The guest speaker was the bass player from SonicFlood.

So that's basically it for our crazy week! Love you all!!

Dead Day

Today, Tennessean's pay thier respects to Elvis Presley, by celebrating Dead Day, known by the rest of us just as the anniversary of his death.

And I'm totally serious.
(the first picture of Elvis with the ladies, are some girls I work with. Starting from the far left, Rose is in the suit, she's a lobbyist here. Then next to her is Grace, then Elvis of course and Leslie our Marketing Director and finally Brooke, my cube-neighbor and also a legal assistant.)

In celebration of this day, the law offices where I work hosted an all company breakfast this morning with life size cut-outs of Elvis around the boardroom, Elvis plates, Elvis stickers on the windows, Elvis playing on the tv.... I love Elvis, but this was a bit strange. Apparantly Nashville gets somewhat into it, but in Memphis it gets downright crazy. After we filled our plates with bicuits, bacon, eggs and donuts and of course Elvis' favorite - peanut butter & banana filled sandwhiches...eww, we sat around the conference room chit chatting until one of the attorneys took control of the meeting. Finally, we're going to get down to business. But no. One of the attorneys, Gif, starts to quiz everyone on facts of Elvis' death and call to reference tidbits of information on our fellow co-workers. At one point during the meeting, Gif asks for those who weren't born yet to raise thier hands...dangit. So up mine goes, along with two others. It's been 29 years since the death of Elvis Presley, the king of rock and roll. So what was my claim to fame to share with others? That my husbands late great uncle Billy Walker, gave Elvis Presley his first gig in the business. He was the first musician to give Elvis a chance.

One woman I work with, Joy Dorn, was recognized for having a small role in Viva Las Vegas with Elvis Presley. She said she was able to see him and Ann Margaret in person during the shooting of the film.

Grace, who you see in the first picture, went to his house and met his former cook. She was such a huge fan, that she went around to the neighbors behind his house and climbed atop a dog house to peek into his back yard in hopes of catching a glimpse of the King on his horses.

And finally, Rose Cox (also in the picture above) knows a man who is now in goverment that used to be a paramedic back when Elvis died. He happened to be one of the two paramedics that was in the back of that aid car and worked on Elvis until his death. Apparently this man still to this day will not talk about it. Interesting.
(this picture is of the two attorney's I support, Larry Stewart on the left and Paul Krivacka on the right - I love these guys, they are the best bosses)

There's was lots of reminiscing by everyone...where were you when his death was announced 29 years ago? I was but an egg in my mothers womb, a twinkle in my father's eye :-)

So now, in tribute to Elvis, please comment by saying which Elvis movie was your favorite! And don't tell me you haven't seen one of his 33 movies, cause I believe I have seen every single one! My favorites are Harum Scarum and Follow That Dream.

But before I go - one last thing!! Tonight is the finale for...(drumroll please)... So You Think You Can Dance!!!













Both mine and Jason's prediction is that Benji is going to win, that's who we're rooting for!! And if Benji doesn't take it, then our second choice is Heidi.

Go Benji!

The Things You Learn In The South

So I've discovered some things living in the South that are quite different from back home.

1. Never ask for a pop. They won't know what you're talking about - here everything is Coke. Even Pepsi is still Coke. Soda is North and Pop is West - but Coke is the South. I learned this when I asked someone in the office for a pop and the whole office bust out laughing.








2. Tennessee must go through a lot of toilet paper - cause you can't find a paper toilet seat cover unless you find a nearby Starbucks (thank you Seattle). It seriously grosses me out that you can never find them in a public restroom of any kind. You should have seen how excited I got when I discovered they were in TJ Max - yessss!!!




3. Move Over Law - did you know that in Tennessee, when you pass a police car on the side of the road, you have to leave one lane between you and the officer's car or you will get a ticket? Years ago, this law was established when an officer was killed by a car as he was giving someone a ticket and ever since, you cannot drive in the lane next to a pulled over police car.





4. No Bingo! - The other day I asked one of the girls at work if she knew of any nearby Bingo halls and she said they're illegal in Tennessee. What.... Apparently, some government officials got caught taking kickbacks off bingo halls and were caught in the act and two of them committed suicide. Thereby outlawing bingo. Gambling has always been illegal, so you can forget about Casinos. Which I think is great, less temptation for people to throw their money away. Just until a few years ago, Tennessee allowed a state lottery.



5. Sonic - Sonic is the place to be for cold drinks and affordable food. It's a late night drive in, that reminds me when A&W used to serve food to us in our cars. But you won't find a Dicks in the South (man I miss those burgers!!) Jason's favorite is the cheese chili dogs and Diet Coke Cherry Limeades, my favorites are the fries, soft serve ice cream and Blue Coconut CreamSlush!



6. Rain - Is NOTHING like rain back home. Seattle is known for how much rain it gets, but in all reality, Nashville gets just as much rainfall a year as we did back home. BUT the difference is...it falls completely different! In Seattle the rain pittles down throughout the whole day...but in Nashville, people will leave the office early if its threatening rain, cause it will pour down to where you will be absolutely drenched in less than 2 minutes, along with crazy lightning and then the flash flood warnings are issued. Where I work downtown, I have to walk from the parking garage to the office and one morning it was raining. I couldn't figure out why everyone else was standing in the foyer of the garage. So thinking I knew rain, I walked outside with my little umbrella and by the time I got to the office, my light gray pants were now black and I was leaving a water trail in the elevators. Nice. I looked like I had jumped in a pool from the waist down and gone to work - I kid you not! If you wait it out 10 minutes, the rain & lightning will stop and the sun will come back out. It's strange. So lesson learned...NEVER get caught without a golf size umbrella in Nashville.

Those are some of my findings in Nasville :-)

Kim

Things You Don't See Everyday

Check out these hilarious pics Sherry sent me!!