Playing Hostess in B'ham Part I

Julie came to visit me yesterday -- hooray! She's the first friend that's been able to visit me since I moved here, so I was not only excited to see her, but also to play hostess.

It rained a lot on Monday, and it was supposed to rain again Tuesday, but God smiled upon Birmingham and it was a nice overcast day.

We had lunch at Bottletree Cafe, and it was pretty good. I had the Thunderbird sandwich with turkey, a red pepper mayo, Havarti cheese, tomato and lettuce on sourdough. This is probably my own doing, since they are known for their vegetarian items. But it sounded good! I chose the sweet potato fries as my side, and they could have been crispier. Julie had the veggie and rice burrito, and she really like it.

We headed over to What's on 2nd? which is a junk store downtown. And I don't mean junk as in trashy; it's an eclectic, overwhelming treasure store of all the things that people collect. They have an impressive collection of old postcards. I think every state in the U.S. was accounted for, and there were dozens for each one. They would be great to use for collages and decorating containers, table tops, etc.

The other items that caught my attention were the personal photos. There are several boxes of them all over the store. I found photos recording weddings, vacations, parties and just days of hanging out. It struck me as very odd that there were so many, illustrating so many intimate details of people's lives. How did those photos get into a junk shop? Did someone not want them? Wasn't there some family member who could keep them?

Afterward, I drove around and showed Julie around my neighborhood, and we spent part of the evening at the Summit. We spent some time in Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie, and I of course I wanted to buy most of each store. And then it struck me how many items I could recreate myself, or find elsewhere. Oh, brand brainwashing, you are so devious!

We had dinner at FLIP -- yum -- and went to Yogurt Mountain for dessert -- another yum. They sell frozen yogurt and your choice of toppings for 45 cents an ounce! Believe me, you get a lot, even for $3. There are 16 rotating flavors of yogurt according to the website, and a couple dozen toppings from cereal to candy to fruit.

I had a really good time Tuesday, and it was a little -- okay, very -- hard to go back to work. Taking the day off make me think it was Friday/the weekend. So, thanks Julie, for giving me a Tues-weekend-day!