I am a single mother. Not permanently, I hasten to add. AH has flown to a conference in the Beer Capital of the USA, WI for the rest of the week and I am nervous. I am in charge of all aspects of feeding, sleeping, driving, caring, and just generally being A Parent. It just occurred to me that AH locks the doors every night, checks them twice. Guess I'll be doing that, and the garbage and lord, the driving. The driving is what I dread the most. I made him go to the airport via cab today, so much did I not want to tackle I-40 alone during rush hour. Also, calling all bugs, please abscond until Friday, thank you and peace out. On the other hand, I just spent a glorious hour on my porch with beers and a good book as my daughter napped and sweet jesus, it was as ecstatically close as I have gotten to being alone in quite some time. So sweet. Also, I have checked out a number of lady-films and my Netflix-queue is decidedly estrogen heavy this week. I shall snack, drink beer and think and then not think. Yahoo. But the single mother thing - scary. People do this their whole lives? Insane.

We spent the weekend - on a whim - in Savannah, GA. There was the hotel special on Expedia, here were we 5 hours away, and here I was needing a summer escape. Damn, we had a good time. The weather was Summer Southern perfect and the town was charming, big sidewalks, shady trees, beautiful houses. We ate at a crab shack with paper plates and cold lemony beer. I enjoyed buttered grits for the first time in my life. I spent time in the most beautiful cemetery ever and even met and conversed with two kindred souls in the parking lot - a Library school student and his love, a sex educator for PP. I stumbled into a museum retrospective of William Christenberry who is the very first Southern artist I saw the very first day I visited the library that I currently work at - ain't life strange. I'm composing a fan letter to him as we speak. Anyway, we had an excellent time, a life-before-baby-time - only with the baby. She held up very well, including our long rambling ride home through SC on HWY 15 which should you care to know, has more independent businesses and BBQ shacks than you can shake a stick at. Including the fabulous Summerton Diner in Summerton, SC, with the kind of fried chicken, three-sides and banana pudding you can only dream of for under $7. As I figure out a way to cook okra, order grits, choose my favourite 3 sides (mac n' cheese, squash casserole and the beans of the moment, thank you), my favourite Southern city which is currently Savannah, my perma-6monthsoftheyear wardrobe of cotton a-line skirts and mary-janes to deal with the heat - in a world of Sameness and Chainess, it is nice to know that there is a reason this part of the country is really different and unique and kinda special. Some of the reasons I like, some are not so great, but at least it is different. Until we drove over the state line into NC and suddenly chains and strip malls were all we could see. Looks like money is the mitigating factor, not necessarily Southerness. I would show you all my pictures of rusty signs and mossy gravestones on Flickr but hell damnation I hate Flickr and how it uses the Yahoo ID I can never ever ever remember and puzzle over and finally give up on. Maybe a link later when I can remember what the hell password I was using 6 years ago. Time for dinner, which will be a single woman feast of blueberries and beer.