Prescribed or Proscribed?
We will be taking a trip soon, and, thanks be to God, our travel companions alerted us in time that there is a new requirement for Yellow Fever Shots, malarial precautions are now strongly recommended, AND medications we buy over the counter are prescription medications in Zambia, and you can be arrested for carrying them into country; they would be contraband.
Horrors! I’ve always taken Benedryl for my allergies, and because I am also a mosquito magnet, I use Benedryl gel to survive the mosquitos, and the tse-tse flies. Our doctor is a gem; he wrote prescriptions and today we got them filled so we can take our OTC medications into Zambia with us. The pharmacists didn’t bat an eye. They see it all the time.
“You heading out on a mission?” another customer asked.
“Not a religious mission,” I laughed. AdventureMan has a mission to get some spectacular photographs. Pensacola has several churches that sponsor major missions throughout the world, and missionaries are found in Pensacola pharmacies stocking up on a couple years worth of prescription medications – as well as the medications proscribed by host countries. I also suspect that having all these people that travel and live throughout the world contributes to the variety of cuisines available and sought after in Pensacola restaurants. I just wish we’d get some Ethiopians!
A Sucker Born Every Minute . . . Best Buy $1000 Win
While I was on vacation, I got a message on my iPhone from Best Buy telling me I had won their monthly drawing for $1000. Since I had made a purchase from Best Buy and filled out a survey, it was possible.
So, first thing on getting home, AdventureMan and I hit BestBuy to find out if I was indeed a winner. I will confess, I believed I was. I wanted to give the $1000 to AdventureMan to buy a new laptop.
“Oh! You got the message that you had won a thousand dollars?” the Customer Service representative laughed! “It’s a SCAM! If you go to the website, it looks like Best Buy, but it’s not. They ask you to enter all kinds of information so they can send you your gift card, but they use that information to establish a credit card for someone who is not you!”
I am glad I did not go to that website. I wish I had won a thousand dollars. 😦
It was also a good lesson. I really wanted to believe I was a winner, and that disposed me to believe that the message was true. It was only that inner cynic, deep within, that warned me to check it out with Best Buy first.
Fredericksburg, TX; an Unexpected Pleasure
We are headed west, and our friends suggest we take a route which will take us through Fredericksburg, TX. From the time we get on the road, we are surprised – good fast roads, even the backroads, wildflowers along the highway, and, soon, a wonderful store where we found Mayhew Jelly:
Continuing on, we arrive in Fredericksburg just about noon, after driving past countless tempting wineries and farms, all with great old German names. We find a place to park and look for a place to eat, finding the Lindenbaum and oh – they have Zigeunerschnitzle, schnitzel Gypsy style, which we love. Actually, when we lived in Germany, we sort of stopped eating schnitzle because it is meat and then deep friend meat, with fattening sauces, but it’s been years, and we couldn’t resist.
Oh! It was so good!
We decided we need to stay the night in Fredericksburg; there is the Nimitz Museum which is calling my husband’s name, and there are little shops calling mine. As we are eating lunch, we find a place in a Fredericksburg Magazine, The Austin Street Retreat, but to book there, you have to go to a place called the Gastehaus where they have a bunch of B & B’s and you get the reservation through them and then go to the place, which is a really good thing because some of them are a little hard to find.
We book Annie’s cottage – and when we get there, we are delighted. It is very French, a cottage all to ourselves, quiet, private, a great retreat:
And then AdventureMan heads off is his direction, and I in mine, both of us finishing up about the same time and heading back to the cottage to rest and plan our next day’s travels.
Dinner was at Mamacita’s, a very popular place with both local people and tourists, and reminded me of Chevy’s Fresh Mex – they made their own chips, and our server was very polished and attentive; we really liked the way Jason took care of us:
This is the schnitzle from Lindenbaum, but I can’t figure out how to get it in the right place.
Florida Ranks #1 in the Nation for Identity Theft and Fraud; Pensacola #10 Beauty-Obsessed City in US
Just yesterday, I gasped when I learned that Time Magazine ranked Pensacola of all the cities in the USA, #10 in “Obsession with Beauty” as measured by internet access to sites for buying make-up and cosmetics at sites like Sephora and Ulta. New York and Miami didn’t make the list.
Then I understood. We don’t have a Sephora in Pensacola. We don’t have an Ulta. To get specialized make-ups like Urban Decay, you go online, to Sephora. Yep. Guilty. But it must take a lot of Pensacolians buying a lot of make-up online to make us #10 of all the beauty-obsessed cities in the USA.
The East Hill Market
We’ve driven by this market a hundred times, at least a hundred times, but when I came back from Seattle, AdventureMan had eaten there, and had a surprise for me.
Muhammara. Fresh, home-made Muhammara, and it tastes just like the real thing. It IS the real thing!
I am thrilled, and eager to visit the East Hill Market for myself.
We go for lunch the next day, and I order the three salad special – and oh my. No, that is not potato salad at the bottom, it is a curried chicken, with pecans and cranberries – oh yummm. I also got the broccoli and the bean salad, again and again, oh yummm!
AdventureMan had a sandwich, but we’ve been back so many times, I’ve forgotten which sandwich this is:
This is where you can see the salads, and . . . the desserts. Watch out. The desserts are irresistable. If you look . . . you lose all resistance.
The East Hill Market is not undiscovered. It teems with life; people eating in, people taking out. The food is all prepared on-site, none of this pre-processed stuff. There soups are delicious. Their salads are tasty. Their rosemary bread is lovely. It is a total WOW.
They also have shelves full of wines, condiments and delicious extras. 🙂
Fairhope and Panini Pete’s
‘What are we up to today?” one of the Doha reunion visitors asked as we sat around the breakfast table at the Shiny Diner.
“I was thinking a drive into Alabama,” I threw out, “Or is there anything you have heard of you would like to visit, or re-visit?”
“I’ve never been in Alabama before!” one guest enthused. “I could cross it off my list!”
We dropped one friend off at the airport, said our farewells, and headed into Alabama. For those of you who are thinking it might be a long trip, Pensacola is close to the border; 20 minutes later we were in Alabama.
“Where are we going?” the remaining two visitors asked.
“I’m thinking Fairhope,” I responded, “it’s cute, and there are walks, and shopping, and cute restaurants.”
While we are not world-class shoppers, Fairhope is enticing, with it’s small boutiques and specialty shops. It’s not like the same-old same-old in every mall and strip-mall.
As we walked along the Fairhope Pier, we guessed how long it was. We saw several people doing laps of the pier – what a great place to walk, all that fresh air, the view of the Mobile skyline, the wind and the water. One of the walkers strolled along with us and told us the pier was exactly 1/4 mile, so if you walk out and back, you have walked 1/2 mile. She also gave us a recommendation for a place to eat, in Fairhope’s French Quarter, Panini Pete’s. “Be sure to eat outside,” she counseled us.
We found Panini Pete’s, and snagged a place in the gazebo, which I thought was ‘outside’.
It was a lovely location. My friends had the Reuben sandwiches with special homemade chips:
I had the house salad with grilled chicken:
We spent a lovely time dining, only to discover that we were not outside; this is what ‘outside’ is:
I did not take a photo of dessert – we shared an order of beignet. These were the big round fluffy beignets, covered with powdered sugar. So yummy!
It was a great visit, even though we never found an Alabama Starbucks cup for our visiting friend, she did get to spend time in Alabama. Next reunion, maybe we will check off Louisiana and Mississippi, the only other states she has not visited.
A and E Drugstore in Pensacola
When I got here, the only quilt shop had closed, leaving me with JoAnn Fabrics as my only alternative. I’d been here about 10 months when one of my bible-study buddies asked me if I had ever heard of A & E? Well, yes, I had heard people mentioning they were running there, but I’d never been there. My friend took me there – took me to heaven for a quilter. You would never guess this place had bolts and bolts of just-what-you-never-knew-you-needed.
I went back yesterday looking for something exotic and out of the ordinary, and I found it – of course. As I went in, I had to laugh. I had been telling my friends what I really needed was the Kuwait or Qatar souks, where shiny fabrics are everywhere, and I needed some specific shiny fabric. I grinned because I realized this is the Pensacola souk, where you can find just about anything, especially if it sparkles. This is just a small part of the selection for Mardi Gras:
If you’ve ever watched Treme’, you will understand that there were a lot of people in A and E buying sparkle – sparkly masks, sparkly fabric, sparkly everything. As I was checking out, I even saw a separate section where you could buy beads in bulk, a really good thing in a town with a lot of parades where beads are thrown to the crowd.
But it isn’t called A and E Fabrics . . . it’s called A & E Drugstore! There is a pharmacy there, and a whole lot of home health care supplies. Just all part of the serendipity and quirkiness that is Pensacola. 🙂
Qwon Chi Sushi
I was on a mission. This wasn’t one of those leisurely trips through the supermarket, this was one of those four-things-on-the-list trips – grab, pay and go.
But I had to pass the sushi section en route to the chicken section, and they were offering free samples. I took one; it looked interesting.
“New sushi” he said with a grin.
“What kind is it?” I asked
“Qwon Chi Roll” he said confidently.
“”Qwon Chi?” I asked.
“No, Qwon Chi Roll” he said, but this time the accent was on the first syllable.
“Qwon’-Chi” I repeated, trying to figure out what it was.
He kept smiling but he was not happy; I wasn’t getting it. He reached behind him and pulled out a sign:
CRUNCHY ROLL
I thought of all my “Woh is der bahnhof” moments, when I have spoken to people in their own language and they couldn’t understand me, and I just had to laugh. What goes around truly comes around, doesn’t it?
Shopping Bust
Most of the time, thanks be to God, I am not much of a shopper. Amazon.com saves me; often I wait too long and rather than run from store to store for what I am looking for, I go to Amazon and with just a few clicks, there it is. I may see it later, for less – or maybe not – but Amazon has saved me the frustration of trying to find it and failing. Like there is this particular filter my refrigerator needs; I can run from store to store looking for it (and failing) or I can order it from Amazon.com, and have it in a couple days. Same with printer ink. If I happen to find that filter or that ink on sale, I buy a bunch, so I don’t have to shop again.
Today, I had a list of six items. I plotted my course. These are not items that are of critical importance, just things I am watching for at the right price, and one item was on sale, a really good sale, with a coupon.
What would those things be? A floor lamp, strong enough to read by at night, and a mirror like the one my daughter-in-law has that makes me look 25 again. A table and chair for Happy Toddler’s room. Some shiny fabric like fingernails, and some that evokes a snake. Hair stuff.
I came home with one thing, actually part of one thing. They were two for $12, but there was only one. I got a rain check, but I went from store to store, and felt increasingly frustrated at not finding exactly what I wanted. I am not often a happy shopper who likes to just roam and look, no, I know what I want and I am trying not to take it personally that I didn’t find it.
Our New Year came in sweetly. We had the Happy Toddler staying overnight with us. He is so calm and so sweet, and it was just easy. We took him to church in the morning, and dropped him off late morning at his parents, who we think enjoyed sleeping in even more than the movie. Lunch with good friends, great conversation, great meal, home for a snooze and a quiet evening. Life is good.
Today we had a really good work out at the water aerobics class, hit Tudos for lunch, and were delighted to see them doing huge business, full of families and large groups still celebrating the holidays. I worked on a quilting project most of the afternoon, except for the shopping fiasco.
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