I live in a smaller city by most conventional standards.  Knoxville, Tennessee to be exact. While we’re famous for our University of Tennessee sports (Vols Football, Basketball and the Lady Vols), unfortunately our up-and-coming (culturally), college-town has made national headlines for reasons that are somewhat disheartening.  We’re making the front page of CNN and the New York Times for gun violence.

I understand that gun violence happens every day; typically on an individual or lesser scale.  However, over the past two years, Knoxville has made the headlines for the locations and intentions of its gun-violence: a church, a middle school, an elementary school, and now a hospital.  While it may seem to anyone living in a mass-market that these things just “happen” because of random acts of violence and vitriol perpetrated by the random whackadoo, when you live in a smaller city the effects often reverberate. Sadly, they sometimes feel too close to home.

Before anyone gets on me about their constitutional rights, I want to make myself perfectly clear. I come from a long line of hunters and a longer line of marksmen (militarily speaking).  I have always known about guns and gun safety.  I feel that any citizen should be able to own a gun, if they can do so responsibly and with the understanding of the powerful weapon of destruction and potential protection they hold in their hands.  So, I am not making a case here for doing away with guns.  In fact, as Eddie Izzard pointed out “Guns don’t kill people…people do; but the guns help.” I am writing this mostly to get it out of my head, because now it is doing nothing but adding toxic waste in my psyche.

What truly affects me deeply is knowing that someone who’s not from Knoxville and has only called Knoxville home for 8 years…I am connected to 3 of the above incidents in a “six degree of separation” way.  The church incident occurred when a man decided he was tired of liberals and their agenda and wanted to cause havoc in one of their sanctuaries; so in the summer of 2008 he entered into Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church and opened fire during a children’s play.  That day a good man died.  His name was Greg.  I attended TVUUC and I learned more about Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace from the course that Greg taught. More importantly, Greg filled a void where my husband and I could not.  He and his lovely wife, who are sadly now both departed, fostered the same child that my husband and I tried to foster. They were connected to us through this youth and they tried to be the stability that we could not give.  That stability was shattered by a man with a gun.

The middle-school incident is a farther degree but still potent.  A young man decided to settle an issue with a classmate by taking a gun to school.  He was a relative of one of the youth that myself and a program I was working with, was helping at the time.  A program designed to help others make positive connections with adults.  Was there anyone helping this youth?  I don’t know.  I do know the effect it had on his relative.

Now, yesterday  a man went to Parkwest Hospital and shot three people.  The motives are still unclear (UPDATE: reportedly he was paranoid and mentally ill and believed a physician there implanted a monitoring device in him years ago when he had his appendix removed).  I have to admit with much disappointment in myself, that when I first heard about the shooting I dismissed it with a “Good Lord, here we go again.”  I assumed I would not know anyone connected to this incident so it was easier to be desensitized and disconnected at the time.  Until later that evening, the one victim who died on the spot turned out to be the best friend and roommate of one of my dear friends.  A woman who I had the pleasure to meet once, and someone who’s holiday dish towel I had yet to return.  Immediately I broke down realizing how deeply this incident affected someone I cared about deeply.  My friend had to return to their apartment knowing that she was gone.  Her name was Rachel and she was dearly loved by her family and friends.  The gravity of these situations is so crushing.

What can we do other than be there for those left behind?  Other than try very hard to stop the amount of negativity and scathing hatred that some people in the media seem to incite or encourage?  I understand that everyone will not always agree with someone else’s point of view; but why do we have to kill people to make that known on an atomic level?  Likewise, when do we stop stigmatizing mental illness and make mental health part of health care fully?  I know there are many who will send positive energy, vibes, and prayers to those affected by senseless violence…and I encourage us all to be reverent when we hear about people lost to that violence.  I also hope that people try to change things and help others more often.  I hope that people don’t close their eyes and that sometimes we consider the realities of living in connection with one another as family, community, country and world.  The degrees of separation are smaller than you think.

I have decided to keep it simple and really only blog in one spot…so I am going to be gradually moving over my weight loss blog to the Retro-Modern’s site.  It’s about time.  I own what I’m doing to lose weight and feel better and the Jim is a big, huge part of the journey too.  So just be ready…it’s back on folks!

So today was one of those days were I truly felt like I did what seems a “long” time ago (December 2009), I had a stressful day and I wanted to eat something truly horrible.  Best news of the day is that I didn’t. The Jim just ran out to get us some…

“Five.”

“Five Dollar.”

“Five Dollar Foot Longs.”

(Sorry for the song now that’s stuck in your head).

Truth is that it’s been a very rough day. Nobody died in my family or friends (thankfully); but I got some rough news at work which now makes me have to re-think and re-frame everything.  There was yet another Knoxville shooting, this time at a hospital.  Really?  One good friend had to serve on jury duty and she didn’t say enough incriminating things to make her ineligible.  I saw a car accident right next to me after lunch. One friend was heading to dance class tonight and her son threw up everywhere. One friend was told her boss – whom she likes – is quitting.  Two dear friends are having to see one of their sweet pups get older and in pain.  One way or another, there’s a lot of not so happy stuff going on lately.

Another dear friend brought to my attention that Mercury and Pluto are apparently in “retrograde”.  Honestly I don’t 100% know what that means ramification wise, but it doesn’t sound good.  On the plus side…I have my health and an amazing husband.  I have two sweet doggies who love me even though I don’t do nearly enough for them.  I’ve lost 31 pounds and I’m not giving in to the life suck.  No matter what happens, I will focus on my blessings.   No matter what I lose there has to be a silver lining…somewhere.

So I’ve noticed that it has been a very long time since I wrote for this blog.

Now, it wasn’t an intentional slight, it’s really a matter of living life.  We’re doing a lot these days, and keeping busy.

However, I met a good/new friend today who said that people (women specifically), should write…every day.  So here I am.

Back again.

So, I noticed that the last time I posted was at the end of August…they whole of September has come and gone, like a long commercial break.  Now, we return you to your regularly scheduled random crap.

September was a whirlwind to say the least – I’ll hit the highlights so I can move on:

August 31: Anna takes first cooking class at Glass Bazaar (will post about this in sorts later).

Sept 3: We help celebrate the phenomenal Lady Dotson’s birthday in fine form at Bravo!

Sept 5: My Mom’s birthday, always a melancholy day for me and only makes me miss her more!

Sept 10 – 13: We took an AMAZING trip to Chicago, Illinois (will dedicate a post to that later).

Sept 15-18: A business trip to South Carolina ends with a bang (not exactly – will explain that soon too).

Sept 19-27: Anna spends her time trying to become mobile again, and Jim wins super husband of all time award.

Sept 28: Back to work finally!  I take another Culinary Class – Knife Skills at University of Tennessee, Knoxville.  One of our best friends of all times loses a family member (sudden and heartbreaking).  Renews my belief in actually letting others “in” and keeping them aware of how much you love them.

Oct 1: Friends rally in support of friend mentioned above; we love our friends.  We really can’t believe we know such good people.  Anna relaunched a former business with a super classy company!

Oct 3: We celebrate the beautiful and sweet wedding of Rob & Sally at the surprisingly gorgeous Bleak House on Kingston Pike (to blog soon).

Oct 4: We see Zombieland…we laugh…A LOT.

Oct 5: Anna takes Sauteing class at UTK; and LOVES IT!  Realizes that she’s a budding home chef, no doubt.

That’s the short version, some of the above will warrant a better telling; so, dearest reader, stay tuned.  Hope you’ve been fine during this short break.

The Jim and I DVR Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and then usually watch it when we’re eating dinner, or there’s nothing better on and we happen to be upstairs (we have 2 TVs with 2 DVRs…yeah, stupid, I know).  Growing up, I was a huge fan of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.  I ABSOLUTELY loved that show, and he was the reason why.  I actually have some of my best childhood memories of watching the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson with my Grandmother whom I loved more than I could ever tell you.  He was funny, and hysterical at times.  Just good comedy without a lot of blue humor since it’s TV mind you.  So, I’ve never really got into the Tonight Show since Jay Leno took it over.  In fact, if I did watch a late-night show, it was probably David Letterman (which I never watched religiously).  I will say that the 60 minutes that Jimmy Fallon fills, however, is often pretty funny, highly entertaining and silly…things I enjoy wholeheartedly.

If you haven’t watched Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, let me give you a few reasons why we like it so much.

1) Jimmy isn’t pretentious at all.  He likes to have fun with his guests, and often gets them to do silly things with him (like drive go-carts through the studio, or the clips that I’m putting right here…it’s a hysterical skit to me because it’s so “out there” and bizarre that it strikes me funny and the Jim and I can’t get the damn song out of our head for days!)

LET US PLAY WITH YOUR LOOK 1

LET US PLAY WITH YOUR LOOK 2

2) Jimmy really interacts with his audience, which I love.  He has games like hot dog in the hole (it sounds worse than it is), cell phone shoot-out, and he’s pretty generous.  I especially love when a joke is off, or doesn’t hit the right note he’ll hand out the cue cards to audience members.  It’s just a funny touch that I like.

3) The BEST BAND in the business is his house band.  HE somehow managed to get the legendary ROOTS crew as his house band.  I LOVE THE ROOTS!  Plus he has Questlove (Ahmir) and Black Thought (Tariq) acting in their ongoing series “7th Floor West”, as well as I love when they have Tariq sing back up when they “Slow Jam the News”.  It’s amazing.  I mean, I love getting to see The Roots every night and they so deserve this spotlight.

4) Jimmy has some memorable recurring items like “Head Swap” and “7th Floor West” (which is their take off on “The Hills” which blessedly, I have never watched).

It’s just good wholesome and very silly stuff, and adds a nice little point to our day.  If you get a chance, check him out or better yet, add him to your DVR and watch him when you get a chance.