Author: Ashley Trice

Last Friday night, the streets of downtown were alive, and Mobilians were celebrating like we were born to do. Laissez les bon temps rouler! Yes, even in August! Mayor Sandy Stimpson and his wife, Jean, led a marching band, Joe Cain and some of his foot marchers, and even a few Mardi Gras Indians from New Orleans in a second line procession from Cathedral Square to Bienville Square during the “Celebrate the City” event. And what a city we have to celebrate indeed! There was so much positive energy in the air as a diverse group of Mobilians of...

On Tuesday, Alabamians will head to the polls to choose who will be our next United States senator. The field is so crowded most of us couldn’t name more than three or four contenders.  The three who have emerged as front-runners are former Alabama attorney general and current Bentley-appointed U.S. Sen. Luther Strange, U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks and former Alabama chief justice Roy Moore.  Without question, I am going to have to take a long, hot shower after casting my vote, no matter who it’s for. And I will probably still feel dirty. Strange would have been the easy...

I’ll admit it. I’m not the best driver. I think I used to be pretty decent. But after years of only really having to drive a mile or so to work every day, coupled with my husband taking care of the family road trip piloting, I lost my mad driving skills. I hate to drive on the boulevard of death known as the interstate, where some morons drive 130 mph, weaving in and out of traffic like they are Dale Earnhardt Jr. (or whoever is a good NASCAR driver these days), and other morons drive 90 mph with unsecured...

Back when we were in our 20s and dating, my friends and I used to call it “the slow fade.” You would meet someone and think you really like him. You would call your friends up and giggle and tell them how smart and wonderful he was. The first few dates or even months were great. You were totally smitten. But then slowly, a combination of actions, comments and/or certain behaviors from your new beloved began to take the luster off the relationship and him. Soon, seemingly out of nowhere, you just couldn’t take the way he chewed his...

Each year as we are celebrating the winners of the Nappie Awards, Lagniappe is also celebrating a birthday. This year we turn 15. We’re not babies anymore, and thankfully we have our braces off and our acne under control (mostly). We’ve certainly grown up a lot, but like any 15-year-old we still have a lot to learn. When I look back over the very first Nappie Awards issue, I am amazed we made it to the second one. The font sizes were ginormous because we didn’t have enough advertising to fill the pages. We had zero news coverage —...

It was like the heavens opened up and shone down upon her, as a choir of angels sang “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” She was as smooth as a baby’s butt and as slick as Mobile Bay on the calmest day of the year. Though she had been neglected and abused as long as I can remember, she bounced right back and was as beautiful as the day she was first born (I guess). Oh, Ann Street, how you have waited, how we have all waited for your caretakers to pour the money and the asphalt into you we know you have...

Summertime is glorious. Sand and surf. Watermelon and popsicles. Peaches and tomatoes. Fishin’ and swimmin’. Homemade ice cream. Weekends spent at the pool, on the beach or sittin’ on the dock of Mobile Bay. It is definitely one of my favorite times of year — at least on the weekends. But it is also one of the times I feel the guiltiest as a working mother. My poor kids have put in 40-hour weeks at day care, school and after care since they were six weeks old. During the school year, I don’t feel too bad about this. After...

To the casual observer, the Mobile mayoral race must seem pretty tame so far. While we get to see Big Luther making sweet, sweet love to a gun every 60 to 90 seconds on his numerous television ads for his run for U.S. Senate, we haven’t seen much of anything on the race between former Mayor Sam Jones against the man who ousted him, current Mayor Sandy Stimpson. Jones has not raised much money as of yet, so we most likely won’t see him fighting Big Lu for advertising space on the airwaves. As such, we haven’t seen much...