If there’s one thing Southern gals know how to do, it’s gab. Silly or serious, all it takes is a glass of iced tea and time. Pull up a chair, kick off your shoes, and make yourself comfy…get ready to dish!
The Evergreen Sweetness of the Magnolia Mother
Over at a far more serious website, the Wall Street Journal has posted an opinion piece entitled “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior” by Amy Chua, the Yale Law professor whose paen to Chinese-style parenting, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, has set off a depth charge of angst among the mom population. Chua posits that Western moms are far too permissive and don’t demand enough of their darling offspring, and that’s why parents who are hardcore (think Louis Gossett Jr. in An Officer and a Gentleman or R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket hardcore)...
read moreTrickle, Trickle
Remember that old Woody Allen quip, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans”? We’re living that at Chez mimi right now. Here we are, all excited about the new year, ready to remake our entire financial and creative selves, when we realize that there’s water on the floor of our den. Not much water, but enough. We can’t find the source. The sinks aren’t leaking. The cabinets are dry. It’s not raining. As Florida residents, we know what that means…the two most dreaded words in home ownership: slab leak.Out comes a plumber to...
read moreFather Time, Baby New Year, and Mother Nature
If you survived the holidays intact, you’re probably in full resolution mode right now. Santa Claus has stepped aside for Father Time and Baby New Year. These two figures have more impact on our writers’ lives than we imagine.Take Father Time, for instance. Bowed and bearded, this old man reminds us of all the time we’ve spent the last year banging our heads over writer’s block, suffering through rejections, enduring stinging (yet helpful!) critiques, and wasting time playing Angry Birds when we could have been writing. Father Time is regret...
read moreMerry Christmas!
For today, a little taste of wonderful, courtesy of Charles Dickens. This is Mr. Man’s favorite Christmas story ever. Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in! “I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!” Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. “The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this. I say it on my knees, old Jacob, on...
read moreThe Bed List
Dear Santa,mimi has been very good this year. May I please have one of these in my Christmas stocking?
read moreHappy Hours
One of the more unfortunate clichés brought on by the chick lit wave was that of the Girls’ Night Out–a raucous group of females pounding down the cosmos or lemon drops until one, or several of them, ended up either hooking up with Mr. Right Now or, more likely, throwing up into a bush, on their expensive shoes, or onto Mr. Right. Or some combination thereof. I can’t say I miss those days or plot moments.I think what chick lit missed was the whole point of happy hour–to be happy. That’s what Chez mimi is going to do this evening....
read moreDeck the Halls
Alas, mimi is not one of those women who has the holiday decorating gene. You know, the ones who have color-coded boxes of everything for every season: shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day, Easter egg trees and adorable bunnies and chicks, flag bunting for the Fourth, and a veritable witches’ brew of jack o’lanterns, bats, and spiderwebs for Halloween. Nope, mimi considers it a good year if she can find the Christmas tree skirt and both Frick’s and Frack’s stockings without a meltdown. So expecting a Christmas tree to sprout the day after...
read moreHappy Thanksgiving!
It’s lovely here in the NC mountains despite the clouds and occasional rain. A fresh breeze is blowing off my parents’ deck, and the Blue Valley below is its usual mercurial self, revealing shades of Prussian blue and smoky grey as the sun flirts with the cloud cover. Inside, the hum of voices and laughter blends with the smells of roasting turkey and favorite dishes wafting from the kitchen. Frack has created the folk art turkey from a gourd rescued from the porch display, while Frick and his father are discussing musical tastes and their...
read moreThe Dinner List
I’ve been laughing with Steve Martin since I was in junior high school. That would be during the arrow-through-the-head years. Turns out there’s a lot more to the funny man than “King Tut.” He’s a writer with a wry look at the world (if you haven’t read Shopgirl, please do), a playwright, an art collector, and a Grammy-winning banjo player. Steve Martin lines about everything from Googlephonics (“the highest number of speakers next to infinity”) to McDonald’s (“sluuuurp…hamburger…sluuuurp…malt…”) to dentistry (“You’ll...
read moreFence Sitting
This year, baby sister has been brave enough to take the NaNoWriMo plunge, and I am happily cheering her on. From the sidelines, it seems. Although I have ideas in abundance, I have revising to do. I have no business trying to write my own headlong draft when I have other responsibilities. No reason to start playing around with the YA story ideas. No…dammit, I have plenty of reasons, but perhaps I lack the will. We’ll see. At any rate, I’m already in the hole a week with no production. Madness to start? Perhaps. Then again, I did win...
read more
