So, a weird thing happened to me yesterday. I walked over to First Tennessee about 1 in the afternoon to withdraw some spending money for the weekend. As I filled out the withdrawal slip, I had a panic attack. Filling out the amount I wanted and my name and address was just excruciating. It took me almost 3 minutes and my handwriting was more or less unreadable. There was a security guard standing 20 feet away and I wonder if he was thinking that I was trying to work up the courage to rob the bank.
You know, I’ve never had panic attacks until the past few months, and before that when my friends would tell me about them, I would think, “Just get a hold of yourself.” The thing is, now I get it – you can’t get a hold of yourself. It’s a terrible feeling to not be in control of your own body.
I didn’t get her name, but I have to compliment the teller I went to for being so kind and understanding. My account number wasn’t very readable, so I called it out to her and she put it in the computer. I got my money and was on my way.
Choose901 is bringing back its holiday pop-up shop December 4th and 5th. This year they are going from 1500 square feet to 10,000 square feet, and vendor announcements are coming soon. The shop will be at 409 S. Main.
The Deal Cancer Out III Texas Hold’em tournament is this afternoon at Downtown Central BBQ at 2. $45 buy-in includes a BBQ buffet. First prize is a 3-day trip to Vegas and they will pay out 5 places with amounts ranging from $400 to $150.
From The Onion: Area Man Passionate Defender of What He Imagines the Constitution to Be. There sure have been a lot of Area Men in my Facebook news feed this week. However, there are also posts that make Facebook worthwhile. From the Urban Bicycle Food Ministry: “Last night the Volunteers at UBFM handed out over 250 BBQ chicken burritos, bags of candy, hot wings, packets of smoked sausage, water and most importantly love for our fellow man. We didn’t ask if they were Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Pagan. We asked them all one question…..have you had dinner tonight?”
The Memphis Union Mission is adding a Family Day on Christmas Eve Eve December 23. Families can volunteer to serve lunch or dinner to the homeless that day. There’s no need to call in advance. Just show up at 11:30 AM or 4:45 PM and they will put you to work. Excellent way to teach your kids the joy of helping others.
Give the gift of beer this holiday season. Memphis Made Brewing Co. now has gift cards for sale.
The Peabody has a graphic designer position open.
Statistics site FiveThirtyEight has a map: Here’s what your part of the country eats on Thanksgiving. Of course, turkey is more or less a staple everywhere, but side dishes vary. In my home town of Little Rock, cornbread reigns as a side dish (and I can vouch for that having grown up there). In Tennessee and the rest of the Southeast, mac & cheese is preferred.
That reminds me… hey Moody Ques pitmaster Frank, if you’re reading this… I hear smoked mac & cheese made on a BBQ grill is really good. Can we try that next May, or at one of the practice cooks?
In other Thanksgiving news, from Lifehacker: Liven up your holiday meal with spiked cranberry sauce
From High Ground News: Downtown’s rebirth crucial to talent retention. Very true. Nice quote, Kenn!
From WMC-TV: Chloe the business pug never misses a meeting at archer > malmo. She even has her own chair for meetings.
Beatboxing string trio Infinitus plays the Halloran Center for Performing Arts tonight at 7. They feature classical standards as well as original works of jazz and hip-hop.
After I had my panic attack at the bank yesterday, I walked over to Bardog, where they had Days of Our Lives on one of the TVs with captioning on. It’s been 10 years since I saw an episode of that show but am still familiar with some of the characters. I won’t post a spoiler on here because people would hate me, but let me just say this – if you’re a fan of that show and you have it DVR’d, you should watch Friday’s episode as soon as possible.
Knowing that the show is one of Michele’s “stories” that she watches, later in the day I walked down to Max’s Sports Bar to discuss it with her. Random fact she gave me: The actor who plays Bo is sixty years old. Never would have guessed that.
About 7 I hopped a Lyft out to the Southern-Goodlett area for a Friendsgiving event thrown by my friends Tony and Rahul. They invited me earlier in the week and were absolutely SHOCKED when I left Downtown and showed up. Great food, great company. Here’s a pic of Staci carving the turkey like a boss.
B-RAD snapped a photo of me wearing ’70s-style glasses while standing in front of a bedroom.
Well, blast. Normally these posts take me no more than 10 minutes, but I have been working for an hour and a half on this one. That leaves me with not enough time to make it to the final Memphis Farmers Market of the season, so I will lead off at brunch with Bloom at Bardog at 11. Blind Bear after that, about 1. Veteran Saucer/Max’s bartender Lauren is making guest appearances at Max’s today and tomorrow, so about 3 I will wander down to see her. Evening plans TBA. All right, time to jump in the shower. I’ll be back tomorrow with more news.