5:35 p.m. - 2005-04-17
Hellfire, damnation and catfish
This week we went up to Florence, so Bruce could go to a conference and talk about fish, and I could wander around the town. I've never been there before, and it's supposed to be lovely and interesting. I was thinking I would walk around the town and maybe hit the library.
I just didn't get there. I wound up feeling tired and realised what I really wanted to do was sit in the car doing my embroidery and working on my leper bandage** and eventually sucuumbing to a copy of "The Bell Jar" that I left in the car for just such a lazy car-sitting sort of day.
People have told me they find The Bell Jar very depressing, but I actually got a lot of smiles out of it. Sylvia Plath may have been suicidal, but she at least had a tiny sense of humour about it.
At noon Bruce retrieved me and we went to a catfish place we had passed on the way in. I was particularly excited about this restaurant because it had Bible verses on the sign outside and it looked like a real locals-only sort of place. Nothing fancy, just good catfish with a side of John 3:16.
To my surprise, Bruce agreed to eat there. Having been raised in the South, he's usually intolerant of mixing Hellfire-and-Damnation with his food.
It was a fantastic place. I couldn't have been happier! The atmosphere was absolutely spartan, except for the Bible verses in bold lettering across the huge refrigerator cases. The only other decoration was a row of dolls across the back counter.
They were about 15 inches high, and posed and dressed to represent Jesus in various Bible scenes, like walking on water and breaking the bread. Jesus looked strikingly like Ian Andersen of Jethro Tull, and had the most lovingly sewn miniature clothing I have ever seen.
Bruce had catfish, and I had fried shrimp. It was great food, and eaten to the sound of a local nursing home having a birthday party for residents in the restaurant's function area. In the middle of our lunch they all broke out into a shakey version of "happy Birthday", with one of the nurses singing far louder than anyone else. She had a real "deep Alabama" accent and held the last note for several minutes.
"Happy Birthday to Yeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwww!!!
**If you are at all interested in charity crocheting projects I highly recommend leprosy bandages both for their ease of work and their "Wow! I really made something desperately needed! I am a fantastic person and will go straight to Heaven!" factor!
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