The Ides of January (bet you didn't know there were ides in January, did ya? It's the 13th.)

I am aware of the fact that I am in The South. Primarily because lots of streets are named after Confederate generals, the Hermitage is close by, and the Belle Meade Plantation in less than a mile from my house. I still don't know if it is a place I could visit without getting emotional. And my hormones are all jacked up these days anyway. But I digress...
          It has been COLD here in the 615. Not Southerner's cold, e.g., 45 degrees, but for real cold, like Cincinnati cold, 19 degrees in the morning, highs of 36 degrees. If this is supposed to make me feel more at home, it has not succeeded. It has just made me feel duped. There was even FROST on the ground the past three mornings. I could have stayed North of the Mason-Dixon line for this.
          This afternoon I was supposed to take the dogs to the vet for their annual comprehensive exam. Plus, Roadie has that congestive heart failure thing, which we have been managing pretty well, and he's just as happy and puppy like as he's ever been. In any event, I get the dogs in the car, which is in the garage, and the car...won't...start. WTF. I text Mark, he sends me a picture of his AAA card, I call AAA, but I'm not on the account so I can't request a service call. I forward this information to Mark, and 20 minutes later I am the latest addition to his AAA membership. Excellent. However, the drama of this has worn me out, though I did take the time to learn how to remove the battery cover from my car battery. I used ratchet tools and a flashlight. I felt empowered. I'll call AAA in the am. Time for a cocktail now. 
 

The New Year in Nashville...so far

Today is the 6th of January, the 12th day of Christmas, the Epiphany. This week marks the beginning of my third month here in Nashville. This is how it's gone so far:

• I have visited two different synagogues. Synagogue A looked and sounded promising, but after services, during Oneg Shabbat, no one seemed interested in speakig with me, or introducing themselves to me, as a new (and the only African-American) congregant. I ate a few pieces of melon, and left. Synagogue B had a much better vibe. Very welcoming, younger, more contemporary. And I learned that one of my favorite Rabbis, Ken Kanter, was the original Rabbi. Met one of the head rabbis, she was very engaging. Was going to join this congregation, and will begin attending services there, but...

• Mark got a new job which requires him to move to Ft. Lauderdale. So, I guess that's where I'll be going next. When will this happen? In the next two or three months.

To fill in everything else,  my job search has pretty much been put on hold knowing that I will be leaving soon. When I arrived to Nashville, I was hoping to continue to work for the company I had been with for the last 15 years, as they have two smaller locations here in Nashville. Both locations turned me down for jobs. I continued to research and submit resumes and applications to other companies, but I was quickly running out of cash as I had no flow, so I chose to take a seasonal job in the mall working for a store that rhymes with "Hey, You!". I worked retail for almost 16 years back in the day so I wasn't unfamiliar with the holiday craziness, and people were behaving, so it was OK. The drawback is that I am seasonal, and now that the holidays are over, my hours are down to less than 10 a week. OUCH. 
No friends outside of the few people at work that I chat with. The mall where I am working is a busy, upscale mall, and so it's always crowded and parking is frustrating every time I go to work. 
There are not many brown people, and I need a haircut badly. Mark and I were at the DMV earlier this week and I saw many brown people there. I looked for a woman with natural hair (there aren't many African American women here who have chosen to wear their hair that way), found one and politely asked her for the name and number of her hair stylist. The stylist isn't close to me, so I may have to find a barber shop soon. 
I am getting more and more disappointed with the people in this city. They are rude, and I was hoping for, and expecting, more Southern hospitality. They are also slow drivers, and they do not seem to know about driving etiquette. 
So at this moment I am less than impressed with Nashville. I had such high expectations. I will take advice from my friend, and try not to generalize. I would like to believe that not everyone here is rude, entitled, and drives slowly.

I said it was going to happen...

This summer my significant other was getting pretty worn out from traveling. He travels all week and comes home on weekends. Every other week he would drive to Nashville from Cincinnati OH to visit his teen aged daughter, and then drive back to Cincinnati on Sunday. Then fly out on Monday.
At one point I said to him, "You should really just move to Nashville." Long story short, the ex-wife isn't very nice and there were quite a few missed visits with the daughter because of mom's shenanigans. He thought about it and decided to move to Nashville (he'd lived there before).
The next question I was asked was if I would go with him.
Hmm.
That was a tough question.
I'm a native of Cincinnati, and it's the only place I've ever lived. All of my family and friends are there. I was very active in the theatrical community and I had an agent to represent me for TV and film. I also had a good job, fifteen years at a good company, a house, and two dogs to uproot. And I was being asked to leave all of that for...something better? What?
I am not a big fan of change, but I have come to realize that it is inevitable and it's best to embrace it when it is right behind you and moving in fast. 
Finally, one night my significant other asked me what it would take to get me to move. We are committed to each other, but both of us have been married twice before and his last marriage was a long, drawn out, bitter and nasty event. I am also in no hurry to get married again, so the promise of matrimony wasn't part of the plan. But other than just moving myself and all my crap, and leaving family and friends behind without knowing anyone else in "The South", all I could do was tell him what it would really take to get this Black Jewish woman to move south of the Mason-Dixon line was this:


He said that he could do that, so I now have this ring. People ask me what it means. It's a promise ring, the promise being to be with me forever. Does it sound naive and/or romantic? So what if it does? The next thing I would like to do, besides get a job, is find a good synagogue. And yes, Virginia, there are Jews in Nashville.