PETULA CLARK TOLD YOU SO: “You can forget all your troubles; forget all your cares, and go downtown. Things will be great when you’re downtown. You’ll find a place for sure downtown. Everything’s waiting for you downtown.” We hummed that little ditty the whole time we were producing our annual Downtown Issue. Really. The fancy, glossy 64-page beauty is available wherever Birmingham Weekly is distributed, and the print edition of the paper includes some of the highlights from the magazine, including details on the Literacy Council Loft Tour, a progress report on the Park Place K-8 School scheduled to open this fall and revelations about the pleasure of a sunrise buzz-cut at the Tutwiler Barbershop.

Wanna be an oenophile? All’s you gotta do is sniff, sip and smile. Preferably on a Tuesday or Wednesday night at The Wine Loft. The good shit is half-price on Tuesdays and there’s a free tasting at the place every Wednesday. (Remember when radio deejays used to call Wednesday “hump day” and you thought it was so friggin’ awesome, but now when your boss does it, you throw up in your mouth a little bit because you can’t believe what a goon that suit is? You have got to get out of the insurance business, dude. Your soul is dying.)

Anyway, the inimitable Courtney Haden took the week off, but we’re anticipating his return to columny next week, right about the same time as J’Mel Davidson gets back to business too. Meanwhile, the final (for now) installment of the Covert Kids Adventure will make you want to weep with full-hearted gladness.

This weekend, you can catch folk music in Hoover, but you’re bound to catch hell if you forget that Sunday is Mother’s Day. Instead of the standard cards, chocolate or flowers, consider taking a walk with your mother, preferably a MotherWalk. A fundraiser for the Norma Livingston Ovarian Cancer Foundation (www.nlovca.org), the event starts at 9 a.m. on Sunday. Whether you walk or not, shower your ma with love on Sunday, if she’s still around. If she’s not, shower somebody else’s ma with love.