I had been trying to get to the Pied Piper Creamery in Nashville for a couple of years now, but always seemed to be in a rush to return home or to get somewhere else in Nashville, which, BTW, has topped Atlanta as my least-favorite city to drive around in. We never seemed to make it to the right part of town, which is a shame because East Nashville’s Five Points District is really awesome, and possibly my favorite part of Nashville given its lack of the touristy junk that pervades downtown.

Back to ice cream. After a quick lunch at the 3 Crow Bar (which turned a simple BLT into an unforgettable BLTEA with the addition of sliced boiled eggs and avocado), we took a detour before heading back to the car. Half a block down, I spotted the Pied Piper Creamery and I’m pretty sure I stopped, gasped and pointed. I was a little full for ice cream, but I WAS NOT about to miss out on this surprise discovery.

The husband agreed to split a small cup with me. This upped the pressure, since I could choose only ONE flavor.

I passed up the ever-famous Trailer Trash (vanilla with Oreo, Twix, Butterfinger, Nestle Crunch, Snickers, M&Ms, and Reese’s Pieces). I managed to avoid the siren call of the weird flavors, such as We Can Pickle That (dill pickle sorbet). I didn’t want to go too pedestrian, however, and I had been craving banana pudding since reading about Miss Lily’s Banana Pudding last week, so I chose the Banana Fanna Fo Fudding (banana pudding ice cream with vanilla wafers).

It was exquisitely creamy, filled with just the right ratio of bananas to vanilla wafers. Both the bananas and wafers held their textures well, especially considering the tendency of bananas to get slimy and wafers to get soggy when immersed in pudding. The banana flavor was distinct, but it was definitely not the overwhelming artificial banana flavor found in so many fruit-flavored foods.

The small cup was about $2.50, and it would have been enough for one person had that one person not just eaten a BLTEA wrap and a small bag of kettle chips all by herself.

I’m already planning my return trip, because sometimes the Pied Piper Creamery has a flavor called Ziggy Starcrunch (chocolate with Little Debbie Star Crunch pieces and a caramel swirl), and if you talk with me about food for more than 15 minutes you’ll probably find out why I call myself the Forrest Gump of Little Debbie products and you’ll also know why I simply have to try this flavor.

On Sunday, I posted this photo to Facebook, noting that I had owned this book since I was 2 1/2 years old.

It took a friend approximately three minutes to name two of the kittens (Paddy Paws and Toddly) featured in the tale. He also quickly found a link to the series, titled Books for Young Explorers, on LibraryThing.

Looking at the inscription date — December 1974 — and considering the fact that the book was from a branch of the family with whom we did not usually exchange Christmas gifts, I can only reason that this book was offered to me as a consolation prize after my little brother was born.

A kitten would have been more appreciated.

My real question is how I didn’t manage to obtain this entire series. Because a quick look at some of the titles (Amazing Otters, Animals of the High Mountains, Animals that Build their Homes) tells me that this series was written specifically for me and my kind.

It’s made it through a lot of moves and book purges, I think because I love the title so much: Little Tigers in Your Home. I also must admit, however, that flipping through page after page of kitten photos never gets old.

Katie is the only tiger that Tigers for Tomorrow has purchased (the group always has to raise money for the transport and care of each animal, but usually doesn't pay a fee for the animals). Katie was bound for an exotic animal auction, and some of the bidders were rumored to be buying animals for canned exotic animal hunts.

Several months after I moved to Huntsville, I cut out a picture of a woman holding a tiger cub and secured it to my refrigerator. The accompanying newspaper article described a relatively new exotic animal preserve called Tigers for Tomorrow, which rescued animals from private owners, carnivals and canned hunts.

Five years later, I finally got around to visiting the rescue preserve, located in Attalla, Ala. — a mere two-hour drive from Huntsville. The husband and I spotted an announcement about special spring break educational tours and planned a quick day trip.

Wilbur McCauley, Director Of Animal Care and Operations, led a couple dozen visitors around the preserve the day we arrived, sharing information on the characteristics, instincts and natural habitats (or, more likely, the shrinking natural habitats) of several animals.

Tigers for Tomorrow houses more than just tigers — you’ll find lions, bears, cougars and wolves in addition to smaller animals such as goats, miniature horses, emus and even a zebra.

McCauley explained that each animal has its own unique personality, and none of them illustrated this better than Yonah, a grizzly bear that arrived at the rescue when he was 6 months old. When Yonah realized that McCauley wouldn’t be coming into the enclosure with him, the young grizzly started making a growling/purring noise that McCauley identified as a self-comforting behavior. A self-comforting behavior that sounded like a two-stroke engine.

Yonah was used for promotions in North Carolina until he got too big (he'll eventually weigh up to 800 pounds). Yonah, which is Cherokee for "bear," doesn't know how to socialize with other grizzlies because he was raised alone as a pet before he was rescued.

Make no mistake: This is an educational tour, not a zoo visit. You’re going to learn about the histories of several of the rescued animals. These are not happy stories, but they have happy endings.

A friend asked me if Tigers for Tomorrow was sad. My reply was that it’s sad that a place like this has to exist, but the preserve itself isn’t sad at all. The animals enjoy large enclosures, an appropriate diet and loving caretakers. There’s no evidence that the animals are uncomfortable or unhappy; one black wolf circled the perimeter of its enclosure almost obsessively while we were nearby, but McCauley assured me that this behavior was the temporary result of encountering such a large crowd of people.

Tigers for Tomorrow is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with a board of directors that guides the rescue’s decisions. This rescue is not in danger of becoming what I would call a “hoarding” or “collecting” rescue; the group only adopts a new animal after sufficient funds are raised for the transport, housing and care of that animal.

Kazuma was the group's most expensive rescue. He was part of a circus near Antigua, Guatemala, when CONAP (the same as our U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) informed the owner he had to improve the lion's conditions (he was living in a small cage). The owner ran away with the lion, but CONAP eventually found him and moved Kazuma to La Aurora Zoo to await rescue.

One of the factors that prompted me to take advantage of the spring break tour promotion was the knowledge that I would be able to take photographs. McCauley explained that visitors on regular “walkabout” tours of the reserve are no longer allowed to take photographs because some people were tossing items at the fences to get the animals’ attention for better pictures.

Seriously? People visit a wildlife preserve and aggravate the wildlife? I’m not shocked, but I am disappointed.

Spring break tours are running through April 12 (I know, short notice). Gates open at 1 p.m., and the tour begins at 2. Children can feed the animals in the animal contact area (goats, calves, emus, etc.) before the tour. Tour admission is $10 for ages 3-11 and $15 for ages 12 and older. (Tours are usually $25 a person).

Head to the Tigers for Tomorrow website for the most up-to-date information on hours, tours and prices (hours are limited, and the preserve isn’t open every day). And GO. You won’t be disappointed.

Tigers for Tomorrow raised the money to fly Kazuma from Guatemala to Atlanta, then drove him to the rescue facility. He's still working to develop his leg muscles, which had atrophied after living in a small cage when he was part of the circus in Guatemala.

At some point, the husband started calling the organization Tigers from Tomorrow, as in tigers from the future. Because who wouldn’t want to meet tigers from the future? That would mean that there are tigers IN the future, after all.

But some of our Facebook friends are making us cringe when we see that we have comments to review. Here are the top 5 Facebook commenting blunders that I’ve noticed seem to be on the rise:

1. Adding needless drama and stress in the form of one-upmanship. Your FB friend may complain of recurring back pain, but YOUR brother had long-term back pain that was finally so disabling that he couldn’t walk anymore. Yeah, your FB friend’s headache is PROBABLY related to allergies, but that’s what your uncle thought before he died of a neuroblastoma three weeks after diagnosis. You’re not only asking your friend to worry needlessly, you’re managing to focus the attention on YOU. Way to go, Narcissa.
2. Offering unsolicited advice. Your FB friend announces that he’s found a diet and exercise plan that works for him? No better time to tell him how much you love this OTHER diet plan and how it has ALWAYS worked for you. Your friend has made the painful decision to have his dog put to sleep? Why not tell him he should TOTALLY reconsider because your cousin’s dog was misdiagnosed and got better after a few weeks with another vet. If someone has thought long and hard about a tough decision or lifestyle change and you insist on offering unwanted, contradictory information, they’ll remember that more than any helpful advice you’ve ever given them.
3. Ignoring other comments and repeating useless, damaging information (see Nos. 1 and 2). If someone has already said exactly what you’re going to say in a comment, and your FB friend has responded with a “thanks but no thanks” reply, you’re going to look like the biggest idiot in the village when you make the same comment. If you just can’t bring yourself to read all the previous comments to ensure that you’re offering unique and/or reassuring information, then you’re just adding white noise to the conversation anyway.
4. Saying something unforgivably filthy. As a former newspaper copy editor, I admit that my tolerance for inappropriate humor is a bit higher than normal. And I realize that Internet discourse is a little rougher than interoffice email, depending on the office. But when you say something so obscene that I have to drop whatever I’m doing at the moment to log in and delete your comment from my timeline, you’ll never see anything I post again.
5. Starting arguments with other commenters just for the sheer egotistical joy of outmaneuvering someone intellectually. This leaves the “losing” commenter with much less of an inclination to ever comment on your mutual FB friend’s wall again. Unless this commenter is someone with whom you engage in intellectual horseplay on a regular basis, save the academic arguments for your own posts.

Zenni Optical may be the most important company I’ve discovered in a long time.

The three pairs of prescription glasses pictured above? They cost me a total of $28.75, including shipping.

Utterly ridiculous, right? The prescriptions must be wrong, or the frames must be ready to fall apart, or the lenses must be overly susceptible to scratches.

Nope. Every pair is comparable, in every way, to the last pair of glasses I purchased for $300-plus. A pair of glasses, I might add, that never quite fit correctly, despite numerous follow-up visits for adjustments, and featured lenses with a disorienting flare effect despite the addition of a recommended coating.

Zenni ships its products direct from China to California, then to customers. If the price difference were less dramatic, say, $250 for glasses I would pay $300 for locally, I probably wouldn’t bother ordering from Zenni. But the site lists perfectly fashionable and functional frames starting at $6.95 a pair (the price of each pair of frames pictured above, in fact).

I can only assume that this means I have been paying ENTIRELY too much for frames, even the supposedly inexpensive models sporting no name brand. I would hazard a guess that some of the same frames that Zenni carries probably get stamped with a designer label before being marked up in price some 2000 percent and going on sale here.

The one thing that I’ve always hated about glasses (and the thing that has prompted me to wear contact lenses, no matter how uncomfortable they can be at times) has been the one-pair-at-a-time problem. Glasses are so expensive that you feel like you only get to have one good pair, with maybe an old pair as backup.

Even the cheapest frames and lenses are going to set you back $200, an amount that isn’t prohibitive, necessarily, but has always made me hesitate to purchase more than one pair at a time.

I’ve always wished that glasses were like earrings: I want a selection to match moods and outfits.

Zenni has made this wish come true, turning glasses into fun, affordable accessories.

Wait until you see me in the blue pair.

This loaf of cinnamon sugar bread almost never came to be, which would have been quite unfortunate, because it was a thing of perfection, with a crunchy top and soft interior laced with more than a mere hint of cinnamon sugar.

The first time I tried the recipe, the top wasn’t crunchy, and the interior was a wet, soupy messy of cinnamon sugar and raw batter. It fell apart coming out of the loaf pan, and I had to cut it into pieces before bringing it to the office to save myself the embarrassment of co-workers trying to cut/scoop servings for themselves.

The concoction’s only saving grace? It was, beneath the disfigured clumps and raw batter, utterly delicious.

The original recipe called for all of the cinnamon sugar mixture (a full 1/3 cup of sugar and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon) to be sprinkled in one layer on top of half of the batter, then topped with the rest of the batter. The cinnamon sugar mixture seems to have liquefied and prevented the batter immediately surrounding it from baking completely.

I decided to give the recipe one more chance, figuring that if I could make smaller layers of cinnamon sugar, maybe the batter would have a chance to cook more evenly.

I didn’t get the chance until this weekend, when I babysat my nieces while my sister-in-law had a much-deserved girls weekend out. Given my ineffective Barbie doll skills (the girls got pretty upset when I couldn’t remember the names of the dozen dolls NOT named Barbie) and the cold weather preventing us from easily pursuing outdoor, more tomboyish activities, I decided that a baking project was in order.

Part of the reason I wanted this recipe to work was its ease of preparation: You literally stir seven ingredients together for the batter and then layer it in the loaf pan with cinnamon sugar. No mixer. No sifting. No melting.

After having my charges stir the batter and shake the cinnamon sugar mixture together thoroughly, I poured what I figured to be about a third of the batter into the bottom of the greased and floured pan. I then had my nieces spoon about a third of the cinnamon sugar over the batter. I added another layer of batter, then almost all of the cinnamon sugar save for about 2 tablespoons. I added the rest of the batter, then sprinkled on the rest of the cinnamon sugar.

50 minutes in the oven plus 10 minutes on the wire rack and the loaf slid right out of the pan. After allowing the bread to cool for about 20 more minutes while watching Scooby-Doo (the 2002 live-action version), we had cinnamon bread and hot chocolate out of my childhood Tupperware tea set (now theirs).

Babysitting perfection.

The original recipe came from A Whisk and a Prayer via Pinterest.

Cinnamon Sugar Bread

Adapted from A Whisk and a Prayer

• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9×5-inch inch loaf pan (I also cut a piece of parchment paper to fit on the bottom for extra non-stick protection). Stir the cinnamon and 1/3 cup sugar together.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and 1 cup sugar. Add the egg, milk and oil. Stir until just moistened.

Pour approximately a third of the batter into the loaf pan. Sprinkle with about a third of the cinnamon sugar. Top with another third of the batter, then almost all of the remaining cinnamon sugar. Pour the rest of the batter in the pan and sprinkle the rest of the cinnamon sugar on top.

Bake in preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let the bread cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing it to a wire rack to cool completely.

The original recipe advises you to wrap the loaf in foil and let it sit overnight before slicing. If you can endure the scent of freshly baked cinnamon bread wafting through your home without cutting a piece off until the next day, then go for it. If not, enjoy your snack today AND tomorrow.

Photo courtesy of blinc

My Birchbox subscription has taught me a lot about the cosmetics industry.

For example, a lot of women will apparently pay $18 an ounce for a “molecular mist” purported to do everything from keeping skin hydrated to protecting it from “ionizing radiation” emitted from the sun and cellphones.

I thought it smelled like that one perfume that every lady over 75 is contractually obligated to wear, so I tossed it.

Come at me, ionizing radiation.

I’ve also learned that oil-based moisturizers, even those containing lavender-scented unicorn tears of happiness, make my eyes swell, which I guess puffs the tiny wrinkles right out.

Overall, the Birchbox experiment has been loads of fun, especially when the $10-a-month box of samples includes makeup. My first box held a full-size container of Laura Geller Baked Blush N’ Brighten blusher/highlighter, and this month I received stila’s Smudge Stick liner in Lionfish (that’s a coppery brown for those of you unfamiliar with hilarious names for cosmetics shades).

The Birchbox item that’s changed my makeup routine, however, is blinc mascara (and no, the cosmetics industry absolutely CANNOT afford to purchase uppercase letters for their company names).

I had been having trouble with mascara for a while. L’Oreal either stopped making or stopped distributing my favorite mascara, FeatherLash, a few years ago, and while other varieties were certainly waterproof, they weren’t anywhere NEAR smudgeproof or flakeproof. By midday, especially in the summer, I was almost guaranteed to have light black smudges under my eyes. Of course, I couldn’t remove waterproof smudges without removing any foundation or concealer that I might be wearing, so sometimes I would just skip mascara in the morning, especially if I was planning on wearing makeup on an evening outing and didn’t want to start over.

The blinc sample promised to form smudgeproof tubes of color around my lashes instead of painting them. It also pointed out a DUH factoid about waterproof mascara: Your skin’s oil makes it smudge because it’s waterproof, not oilproof (oil is a central ingredient in many of the very products that REMOVE waterproof mascara, after all).

So how DO you remove mascara that’s waterproof AND oilproof? It turns out that blinc is actually water-resistant rather than waterproof. Sweat, rain and tears shouldn’t affect it, however, since it requires a combination of water AND pressure for removal. I’ve found that a few concentrated splashes of warm water, followed by gentle tugging with my fingertips, takes it right off. This method actually results in fewer lashes getting tugged out, too.

So, yeah, I totally spent $25 on a tube of mascara for the first time ever. Wonders never cease.

This was never what I would call a nightmare, since Dream Me would just sort of sigh and start picking her way through snakes, but it always occurred during stressful times.

After Hurricane Katrina flooded my home, my hometown and a boggling number of other places I loved, my subconscious traded snakes for water as an expression of anxiety.

Again, these dreams aren’t nightmares. The problems encountered — usually water rising where it shouldn’t be rising, or me somehow falling into a deep body of water — aren’t so much scary as they are irritating.

During one particularly active dream sequence a couple of weeks ago, I found myself seated at a table that was really part of a boat that plunged over the side of the dock when the driver gunned the engine (I never said my dreams obeyed the laws of mechanics or physics). I swam back up to the dock and climbed into a dockside restaurant, which immediately began to turn sideways since it turned out to be a huge boat that was rolling over. As I kicked my way out of a window into the water, Dream Me really couldn’t believe she had to swim all the way up from the bottom of the ocean AGAIN.

I mean COME ON.

I totally get it. My subconscious gets overwhelmed with anxiety and takes it out on my dreams. It takes what I’m apparently scared of deep down and releases it at 2 a.m.

My everyday way to cope with anxiety is to constantly analyze how to fix problems. I’m on to Plan C before most people even realize that Plan A is done for and Plan B is just ludicrous.

It’s the same in my dreams. Instead of waking up in a cold sweat when the boat plunges beneath the surface of the water, Dream Me is concentrating on swimming horizontally before trying to head up to the surface in case the sinking boat creates a whirlpool (apparently my subconscious thinks it just might, no matter what the Mythbusters say).

Healthy? You’ll have to ask my theoretical psychotherapist. But it makes sense to me that working through dream anxieties rather than simply having them scare you half out of your pajamas has to be pretty good self-therapy.

Cashiers at the two grocery stores where I shop at regularly have begun the holiday charity spiel early this year. The script literally says, “Would you like to give a dollar to help a family have a turkey for the holidays this year?”

Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes, if I thought that dollar actually went toward the purchase of a turkey. But I’m afraid that only 40 cents of that dollar goes toward a turkey. Possibly less.

And, you see, I know and trust several local organizations to take that dollar and do something awesome with it. Your unknown organization, not so much.

You might say that I won’t miss a dollar here and there. And you’re probably right. But at some point I WILL miss the sum of those dollars, and my own pet charities may get shortchanged.

So stop it. Stop delivering your spiel in a manner that makes me feel like a cheap jerk for saying no.

Stop hooking up with organizations that I’m not familiar with. Would it be so bad to sponsor a LOCAL organization? Ask me to donate a dollar to Manna House, or Friends of Huntsville Animal Services, and see how quickly I say yes.

Until then, the answer is still no.

In four weeks, I’ll wrap up my master’s degree in English. I never intended to pursue this degree, but it has been one of the more awesome things I’ve ever done.

I think everybody should go back to school for something in their mid-30s. It remaps your brain and reenergizes your thinking process. Or at least that’s what it’s done for me.

It apparently has not, however, transformed my ability to do three things at once into the ability to do five things at once, so I better get back to writing for work, writing for class and cogitating about this Friday’s master’s exam.

I promise to return to cooking and decorating and writing about the whole glorious mess sooner rather than later.