Lexington, KY

Okay, a week later I'm finally getting around to posting because it has taken me this long to realize the USB charger that came with my phone lets me get pictures directly from my phone without having to email them to myself. I feel smart.

I will now prove to you that Lexington is cuter than Providence and clearly cuter than Columbus:

First stop, Magee's Bakery for the world's most delicious cake. It's like bathing in a sea of vanilla frosting in there. Had we not been on a mission, I could easily have sat down and eaten every cupcake in the place.

This mural has been there since I was in elementary school and my dad would take us to get a doughnut on the way to school on Fridays. I did not include a picture of my elementary school, which is right around the corner, because it is probably the world's ugliest building and they've changed the playground about 15 times since I went there, and isn't that really the only part that matters?

Next stop: Kroger's on Romany (That's what the sign reads in the same burgundy that it was when it used to be called Randall's... they don't like change in my Grandmother's old neighborhood).

Benedictine!!! The most delicious substance known to man. It's cream cheese, cucumber and onion flavor with a little green food coloring to make it look inedible to people from other states. We got some for sandwiches and I got some to take home because for some reason Ohio doesn't understand the appeal of squishy green cream on white bread.

I included this picture partly because I miss that sandwich and partly to show that everything in my Grandmother's tiny retirement home apartment (of course still much bigger than mine) is cute. She hired a decorator when she first moved. I would have taken a picture of the adorable chair I was sitting in, but she had already seen me take a picture of my lunch and I didn't want to further the impression that I have compulsive picture-taking issues (which I do).

I helped her transfer photos from an old album to a new one, so I got to look at some great family photos. Photos always come with stories, so I heard some good old ones and a couple of crazy new ones. My favorite was learning that my Great Great Grandfather, who was a very well-respected judge in Frankfort completed school only to 2nd or 3rd grade and learned law by reading books in the office of a lawyer he worked for. Keep in mind that my grandmother is 92, so that happened in the mid 1800s. I'm pretty sure Kentucky's educational standards for public figures have since been raised.

This is Old Glenary, the mansion my Grandmother's family owned in Frankfort. It's only called "old" because it burned completely to the ground and has since been rebuilt. Now that I know that I come from the kind of family who names their houses, I have to think of a good name for my apartment. What makes a semi-basement almost studio apartment sound stately? Side note: I found out that the country estate, Lemon Hill, owned by my Grandmother's cousin Ed's family before he died, was purchased by Kevin of the Backstreet Boys... I've been in a Backstreet Boy's house. WHOA! Are they officially NKOTBSB now or was that only for their tour with New Kids on the Block? Not important.

This is the house my momma grew up in. She lived on the most beautiful street in Lexington. The woman who bought this house from my Grandmother when she moved in the 1970s let us come once to see it. People are so polite there. My Grandmother still calls to check up on her now and then. It is enormous on the inside. I think there might have been a fireplace in my mom's bedroom. She told me that when she was a baby, there was a maid who dressed her twice a day because her mother wanted to see her in "two pretty dresses every day" (if you can imagine that being said in an old timey southern baby voice, you'll get the idea). I'm not sure they were always new dresses, but this gives some idea of the difference in living standards from one generation to the next.

We walked around the UK arboretum to see the tree my uncle donated in my Grandmother's name. It was all decorated for fall with scare crows made by different schools, churches and whatnot scattered along the path. I got lots of gravel in the shoes I bought the day before to wear to lunch with my Grandmother so as not to look like a bum in front of all the retirement home residents and took way too many pictures. I shared this one because his old-timey mustache is so very current.

I took this picture on our way out of town. This is the enormous house where we stay whenever we visit. My mom's cousin and his wife own it. That stuff on the lawn is blankets covering my aunt's more delicate plants because she was worried it would frost overnight and kill them, so don't go thinking that even classy Kentuckians leave crap all over their lawns. You can imagine how small my apartment felt when I got home.
What I learned from this post: I am a big fan of run-on sentences that stop making sense halfway through and have to be reread for clarity.