Mobile, Alabama: Salt-Clumping Season

 

 

COVID salt. Tucson, Arizona. March 2020. Credit: Mzuriana.

Yes, it arrived about three weeks ago, I reckon. Salt-clumping season. Which some might call the rainy season or the impending hurricane season.

When the salt crystals in my shaker decide to organize into a unified group against their customary freefall onto my waiting dish, upsetting the proper order of things.

When I must introduce a union buster to show 'em who's the boss. A cracker. Some rice grains.

Other seasons

2011: On Mangoes: The Mango Season is Here (original source in Cock and Bull Stories by Ngishili here from the Wayback Machine)

2012: Caucasus, Georgia: The Tutebi Are Here

2013: The Seven Seasons of New Mexico

2013: New Mexico: The Windy Season

2014: Lafayette, Louisiana: The Mardi Gras Season Begins

2016: Antigua, Guatemala: Ant Season is Coming

 

Mobile, Alabama: Living Rooms Present and Past

 

My living room, office, bedroom. Mobile, Alabama. Credit: Mzuriana.

My living room in Mobile is also my bedroom, office, and exercise space. What comes in through my living space windows is my art. Soothing light washes the walls and floor in the mornings and evenings.  When the afternoon sun gets belligerent, I taper the shades to gentle its attitude. I'm at eye level, so to speak, with the live oak; its arms almost touch my windows, and in histrionic storms, they tap on the glass. A mansion is my neighbor. Vivid sunsets. Theatrical clouds presage storms. Curtains of rain.

Over the 10 years of my rootlessness, the minimalism of my furnishings has maximalized. It used to be that when I landed in a new place, one of the first items on my to-do list was to visit the local thrift store. There, I'd pick out a comfy living room chair, an office chair, a floor lamp, a bedside table and a side table for the living room. Back at the very beginning, I bought a bed (even two!). 

At the end of my yearly tenure, I'd advertise the bulky items for resale or I'd donate them to Goodwill.

However, it occurred to me - in Tucson, I think - that I could get double duty from my camping gear, and that's what I did, beginning in Birmingham last year. 

• Living room chairs: Two* backpacking canvas sling chairs
• Side table: Compact, molded plastic folding table
• Bedside table: Stretched-fabric, collapsible camp table 
• Office chair: Molded plastic folding chair
• Ottoman: Camp kitchen storage bin
• Laundry basket: Repurposed styrofoam cooler
• Kitchen wastebasket with a lid that snaps firmly shut: My Luggable Loo

 

My living room, office, bedroom. Mobile, Alabama. Credit: Mzuriana.

Demanding dual duty from furniture saves me shopping time upon arrival, money, and off-loading time (selling or donating the furnishings) at departure. 

 Some past living spaces

In my rooted house circa 2005

My living room in my rooted house. Missouri, 2005. Credit: Mzuriana.

My living room in my rooted house. Missouri, 2005. Credit: Mzuriana.

In Opelousas, Louisiana in 2015

My living room in Opelousas, Louisiana. 2015. Credit: Mzuriana.

My very, very Spartan living room in Birmingham

My living room in Birmingham, Alabama. 2020. Credit: Mzuriana.

The above picture of my Birmingham living room made me laugh. That was utilitarian, indeed. But my ottoman-slash-camp kitchen bin did its job just fine! 

My office was behind me when I took the picture. Same set-up as always, from Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 2012, through today in Mobile, Alabama in 2022.

So, let's look at my El Paso living space as the final retrospective

My living space in El Paso, Texas. 2016. Credit: Mzuriana.

In revisiting the El Paso space, I see items I've released since then: 

• The good-looking hat that gave me headaches. Literally. Practicality finally overcame vanity and sentimentality. 
• The apple green bendy table lamp. 
• The tabletop radio and CD player

 

**I've had one of these chairs for quite some years. This year, one of the legs split, so for now, I just use it as an ottoman, as it can't bear the weight of an entire human. When I leave Mobile, I'll harvest the canvas sling and the velcro strap, and toss the frame.

Mobile, Alabama: Bathrooms Present and Past

 My bathroom in Mobile: 

Mobile bathroom. Alabama. July 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

I remember how joyous I felt about the light and space of my bathroom in Ferguson after a year in El Paso's coffinesque shower and converted-hall bathroom. 

 

My shower in Ferguson, Missouri. November 2017. Credit: Mzuriana.

My bathroom in Birmingham had the charm of a 1980s small-town medical clinic. No toilet paper holder. It did offer the dubious benefit of a window, street level, smack at breast-level in the shower, with the view of the boarded-up building across the street (before it was demolished), then the plowed earth after the violence of demolition, and, in time, a rather pleasant rolling green.

My Birmingham bathroom. Alabama. July 2020. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

My Birmingham bathroom. Alabama. June 2021. Credit: Mzuriana.

As my bathrooms have gone over the years, my Mobile bathroom falls in the Land of Not. Meaning, it's:

1. Not unpleasant, with the light that comes in from the west-facing window, and with the old-school, recessed wooden medicine cabinet and shelf above the sink
   
2. Not too small
3. Not surprising to have a clunky hose-and-shower-wand retro-fit kind of set-up because the building is a centenarian and showers weren't a thing back then
4. Not surprising that the new shower wand holder, affixed to the wall at a height appropriate for most tenants, fell off in short order because Mobile is the rainiest city in the entire continental U.S., and the adhesive used for said affixation was not up to the job, which meant I slid the shower wand into the former shower wand holder, which had been thoughtfully kept installed (because it was screwed into the wall), which was lower on the wall, which was 90% not terrible, because I am rather short, although the loss of the new holder left a wound on the wall where the new holder had been, resulting in rather an esthetic insult. 
5. Also not surprising that when it rains or when the humidity is high, there are moist blotches on the bathroom walls
6. Not expected at all that I have not even once had to employ the toilet plunger I bought in Birmingham, to which I granted precious real estate in my Prius during relocation, and which is a testament either to the good design of the Mobile toilet or the pipes or to the mystical power of the mere presence of the plunger in the space
7. Not pleasing that I need to flush out the iron water for a few seconds from the tub spigot before taking a shower
   

Mobile bathroom. Alabama. July 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

Related posts

2019: A wilderpee and a big bug: Tucson, Arizona: Humane Borders Water Run: July

2018: Mexico City: Toilets I Have Known, Including This One

2014: "The need to empty one's bladder can lead to unexpected encounters." In Louisiana: Broussard's Happenin' Goodwill

2012: Dubai: Eating a Camel and Sleeping on a Table

2012: An attempted wilderpee: Kazbegi, Caucasus Georgia

The Lost Summer of 2021, Part 1: An Introduction

 

Highway 1, somewhere between Galliano and Grand Isle, Louisiana. July 2021. Credit: Mzuriana.

The summer of 2021 is a blur to me. So much had happened earlier in the year, and during the summer, both to me and to people in my circles. Deaths. Disappointments. Uncertainties. Travel feats. Travel fails. So many places seen, so many places slept in. Relocation searches and decisions. Moving out of one temporary home. Moving into a new temporary home. 

COVID, of course. The bad roommate that won't pay their share of the rent, clean up their mess, and refuses to leave.

• June 30: Left Birmingham, Alabama
• July 1: Tennessee, Missouri
• July 11: Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi
• July 12-15: Mississippi, Alabama
• July 15-28: Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama again
• July 29-August 13: Mississippi, Missouri
• August 14-29: Missouri, Kansas, New Mexico, Texas
• August 30: Louisiana, Alabama

 Let's see if I can reclaim that summer via photos, scribbled notes, receipts, emails, and texts.

Mobile, Alabama: I Want to Eat Them

 

I look at them in the wild. I look at my pictures of them. 

I crave them. I want very, very much to bite into them. 

Seductive mushroom. Mobile, Alabama. July 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

I fantasize about their texture, their flavor. Surely the taste would be a limb-melting union of a warmed English muffin, buttery. Soft like the fluffiest of pancakes and yet with a bit of resistance to my teeth. The lightest feathered dusting of cornflour up top, and porous pockets within.

Seductive mushroom. Mobile, Alabama. July 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

Seductive mushroom. Mobile, Alabama. July 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

Seductive mushroom. Mobile, Alabama. July 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

Alas, I have yet to discover their name, and maybe they could kill me. 

 

My cumulative collection of mushrooms here: 

 

Mobile, Alabama: A Curiosity

 

 

A hanging fox tail. Mobile, Alabama. July 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

It wasn't there the day before.

It was there the next day.

A fox tail, it seems.

Real? 

I didn't touch it. 

Why hanging? 

Why hanging there? 

Related fox posts

2016: On the Way to Colorado: Snapshots

2017: Big Bend National Park, Texas: Poop and Circumstance

2018: Backyard Fox

 

Mobile, Alabama: Solving for X: An Inelegant Elegant Solution

 

From Luggable Loo to kitchen trash bin

 

It was a mystery. 

Something weird was happening to the plastic grocery bags that I used for my kitchen trash. 

The contents were falling through the bottom of the bags onto the floor. 

At first, I thought it was because there was an unnoticed hole in the bags, because that happens, and I shrugged my shoulders and determined to look carefully at the bags before I hung them from their customary cabinet door knob. 

But then I noticed that it seemed there were actually rips in the bottom of the bag. 

How odd. 

I did wonder about a mouse, but I had neither seen nor heard any other evidence of such. Nevertheless, most nights, I took the bag o' the day out to the trash before I went to bed.

However, the other morning, when I'd failed to take out the trash the night before, there was no doubt. Definitely some critter had a serious envie for the almost-stripped-clean corn cobs from dinner that I'd tossed in the bag. The knife-like incisions that ran perpendicular to the bag bottom were the final circumstantial evidence that an intruder was afoot. Furthermore, the two corncob halves had been rolled across the kitchen floor far afield of the bag. 

I still saw no bio evidence of a rodent, and if I've got roaches large and voracious enough to cut through the plastic bag with such surgical precision, I don't want to know about it. 

So what was this rootless minimalist to do to foil the rodent(s)? 

Well, you've got the answer from the photo. 

My luggable loo! 

It's a PERFECT solution! A easy-lift lid that also snaps shut. 

I feel so pleased.

A mouse past

I can only recall one other apartment where I had a mouse. This was in El Paso. I was in the midst of an online lesson with an ESL student when suddenly I saw a mouse skitter across the floor in front of me. I jumped in surprise, emitting an involuntary squeal. When I told my landlady that I had a mouse, she immediately proclaimed, "We do not have mice!" 

Yeah, well, the mousetrap you brought up to my apartment the next day soon captured the nonexistent creature. 

10 Years Ago: Istanbul: The Monogamous Diner

Go here for the original post in July 2012.

 

Monday, July 9, 2012

Istanbul: The Monogamous Diner

Sure, I was a restaurant slut when I first landed in Istanbul.

Every meal out I tried a new place, looking for the ideal blend of good food at a budget price with no hassles. The Turkish waiters wooed me into their lounges, promising to be my friend, to give me the best Istanbul had to offer, to give me good service. All lies. And every time I succumbed, I was betrayed. As soon as I sat down, they abandoned me, looking for new conquests.

I tried the inexpensive and generally-good bufes and their doners, but sitting on a low stool next to parked cars just didn't do it for me.    

I had to stop this promiscuous behavior and settle down.

And I found just the place, and it's only 20 steps from my hotel. Not the disappointing bistro that's attached to my hotel. No, my new place is the Trabzon Restaurant - a lokanta - that's down the alley between my hotel and the Cotton Box store.

Trabzon Restaurant, Sirkeci, Istanbul. July 2012.

It's not the kind of place you'll rave about after you get home. But the food is very good, sometimes exceptional (eggplant). It's like what you'd get at home, if you had a Turkish home, and your mom was a good cook. And the price is very reasonable. The folks there don't hassle you at all. They're friendly in a genuine way. It's quiet, too.

It's where I go to eat now.


Postscript: Two days after I made my commitment to this place, the owner brought out an immense guestbook for me to look at. The entries went back more than 20 years. There were drawings. Foreign currencies attached. Locks of hair, for God's sake! Business cards. Coolest guestbook I've ever seen.

So it looks like this place is kinda famous. I'm glad I lucked into it and had the good taste to recognize quality.  

A slideshow of some highlights, taken with the restaurant owner's permission:

   

Word of the Year: Disciplines 7: A Work Schedule

 

My corner office. Opelousas, Louisiana. March 2015. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

I have created a work schedule for myself that is completely new to my experience. 

It is new in that I have redefined "work."

"Work" now includes, in addition to income-producing activities, the creative actions I want to complete, such as:

• Twice-weekly posts in my blogs
• A written and pictorial narrative for my descendants, to tie them to our preceding generations
• That bucket list item I wrote at age 27, during a major turning point in my life: Write a book and have it published
  

Until my illuminating flash about this some weeks ago, I had viewed gaps in my income-producing activities as random free time, which my brain interpreted as sort of vacation time. Undisciplined time. Which led, too often, to wasteful, non-directed screen time. 

My windowsill office. Old Rustavi, Caucasus Georgia. September 2011. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

But recently, as I have grown older, my thoughts have gone here, and I feel a sense of urgency that is new to me. 

The past 12 years, since going rootless, have zoomed by! The next 20 years are likely to do the same. 

I don't want to waste them. I don't have time to waste. 

 

My office in Las Cruces, New Mexico. February 2019. Credit: Mzuriana.

My new work schedule (with a noon-2pm break): 

• Monday through Friday: 8:30am - 5pm
• Flex time: "Work" on Mondays and Fridays includes tourist / travel adventures 
• Flex time: Some income-producing work falls before or after these work hours
  

My office on the far left. El Paso, Texas. September 2016. Credit: Mzuriana.

Structure. Structure is good. 

 

Related posts

Word of the Year 2022: Disciplines 1: Introduction

Word of the Year 2022: Disciplines 2: Showers

Word of the Year 2022: Disciplines 6: Daily Walks