2 Blondes and a Ginger

2 Blondes and a Ginger

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Uhh....That's Vern Yip!


Yesterday I spent the day shopping in downtown Franklin, TN with my mom, my sister, and of course Graham! The downtown area is filled with boutique stores and quaint cafes. As we were about to step foot in The Iron Gate, out walks Vern Yip. We were stunned. Abbey and I looked at each other and said,"Uh...that's Vern Yip!" About as soon as we finished the sentence, he hopped into his bimmer and drove off (I just learned that it's bimmer, not beamer). Abbey got a little over excited. She was trying to talk to a friend on the phone, trying to deal with the fact that she had just seen Vern Yip, and trying to open the door to the Iron Gate. It was inevitable that something would go wrong, and she suddenly slung the door open, pounding it against my mom's hand. My mom yelps and starts shaking her hand frantically while telling Abbey she has done permanent nerve damage to her hand. By the way, no one in my family ever exaggerates. We enter the store with my injured mom and Abbey and I kicking ourselves for not saying hi to Vern. (Don't you love it when people only use the first name of a famous person. It's like they're best friends, huh?) I then go up to one of the employees and ask if Vern Yip just bought something.

"Uhh...who's Vern Yip?"

"You know, Vern Yip from HGTV. He used to do Trading Spaces and now does Deserving Design. Vern Yip, the designer, he was just in here!"

"Oh...well that's cool. I still don't know who he is, but that's cool."

Come on! I mean I know I watched HGTV all day long for the 6 weeks I was in the hospital, but I still knew who Vern Yip was before that. Even my husband, who is the last person in the world to know about designers, recognized the name and knew who he was after I told him, "the guy on HGTV." Oh well. The rest of the afternoon was fun, but not nearly as exciting as our encounter with Vern. We went to a beautiful stationery store and bought pretty sheets of paper to frame as artwork. We had lunch at the Franklin Mercantile and went to Ivey Cakes for one of the most delicious cupcakes in Nashville. We also browsed a few antique shops. For dinner, we went to my parents' place and had grilled lamb chops, pyramid potatoes, and asparagus sauteed in a butter/balsamic vinegar sauce. Yum! For dessert we got popsicles from Las Paletas. How fun is that! The locals tell us that this little popsicle shop is a secret. They have amazing flavors. These are some of the ones we got: chocolate chili pepper, pistachio, and blueberry chocolate chip. I bet Vern would have loved them.

I was thinking that I may send Vern this letter. What do you think?

Dear Vern,

I think that my mother would be an excellent candidate for the show Deserving Design. On a hot summer's day in Franklin, Tennessee, my mother, sister and I were running some errands. We were about to go into a store when we suddenly saw you exiting the store. My sister got so excited about seeing the great Vern Yip, that she threw the door open causing it to slam against two left metacarpals on my mother's hand. There has been permanent nerve damage and my mother is no longer able to decorate her house. Since you, in a sense, caused this great injury to her hand, I think it would be a great injustice if you did not choose her for a Deserving Design Episode.


Sincerely,

Jennifer Straka

3 comments:

natalie vaughan said...

hope that letter is in the mail!!!!!!......i definitely have permanent nerve damage!!

Lydia said...

i'm TOTALLY cracking up at this!!! AND, also the bimmer info,...james didn't even believe it was a bimmer and I had to tell him the BMW blog said it was a bimmer, not a beemer or a beamer. hahaha. so funny. james then asked why in the world i was talking about bimmers and where i was getting this and THEN, after telling him you were writing about it, asked, why is she talking about beamers?! haha. SO funny! hope mama vaughan's hand feels better!!!

Beth and Brad said...

i love it!!!

that letter is hilarious!!