Greetings from Paris!

We had a fun and adventuresome trip to Tennessee that involved a tornado, Pat Robertson, a dry Thanksgiving sandwiched between bouts of drinking, an amazing Vols University of Tennessee football win and a family visit to a nice gay bar.

This visit was going to accomplish a number of family obligations. I was finally going to meet E’s father and brother. It was not easy for them to accept E’s divorce and coming out. Now, five years later they were ready to meet his partner. The trip was also an opportunity for two of E’s three sons to spend time with Tennessee side of the family. (The youngest son did not go because he had work obligations.)

The four of us had no delays or problems traveling from San Francisco to Nashville. We arrived Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. We took E’s mother out to dinner to a sports bar/restaurant that was located in small shopping mall across from the evil Walmart. Just as we were finishing our meal, the waitress comes over in an agitated manner and informs us that a tornado has been spotted in the area and we need to move to the back of the restaurant near the bathrooms. We all huddled there for about a half an hour drinking beer and watching the rain and lighting flash through the front windows of the place. We chatted with another group of patrons visiting from Southern California whose house had just escaped the wild fires. The all clear came when Walmart reopened across the parking lot.

Later that night I met E’s conservative father and his second wife. We sat around talking and drinking with them for a couple of hours. The large flatscreen TV was on but muted. When I noticed religious extremist, Pat Robertson, on the screen, I loudly blurted out “that man hates me”. One son started kicking my leg to hush me up while the second wife quickly reached from the remote to change the channel. Controversy was swiftly quelled.

Thanksgiving dinner at the brother’s house went well considering nobody was sure until mid-morning who was invited or was going to attend. But it all worked out and there were no family issues.

Because our flight back was first thing Sunday morning, we headed back to Nashville on Saturday afternoon. We had a couple of rooms at the Holiday Inn Express downtown. We finished our holiday by taking our two (straight) sons to our favorite gay music video bar, Tribe, and restaurant, Red. We had a nice time.

We didn't attend any theatre but we did see two good movies: Enchanted and American Gangster.