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 Bed List/The Dinner List
I haven’t done one of these in a while, but I got inspired (you’ll see why). Click on the “Men” link at the end of the post to see previous choices.BED LIST: ROBERT DOWNEY, JR.He always played the sleaze or the troubled bad boy (not that it was a stretch) in all those 80s movies. But Robert Downey, Jr. has grown up in the “damn, he got hot!” mode previously employed by men like George Clooney and Patrick Dempsey. We took the whole fam to see Iron Man, and whoa. Bad boy is still bad, but he’s grown up....
read moreEnd of the Dawn Patrol
Last night, our local school board–in a cost-saving measure–voted to switch the school start times for middle and high schools. So instead of reporting at 7:10 am, we high school folks will now start at 9:30. This also means that Mr. Tuba, my soon-to-be middle schooler, will be waiting for a bus to deliver him to school at 7:30. Yep, in the dark part of the year.I don’t know which is worse, worrying whether he’ll get on the bus on time in the morning if I’m not in the house, or worrying what to do with him in the...
read moreBandapalooza
Swoop home for a quick dinner, then it’s off to the middle school for Bandapalooza! We listen to the middle school band, one high school’s jazz ensemble, and the other high school’s marching band, then the kids get to try all the instruments. Too fun. I ask DS what he thinks he likes. Saxophone and trombone, he tells me. He tries everything. Turns out he likes (and is surprisingly good at) this:The instrument’s as big as he is! He doesn’t care. He says it felt good. Only eleven, and he’s already not your...
read moreYoga Meltdown
Threw a fit in yoga class today. Quietly, of course, not to disturb the others in the class, but a fit nonetheless. I sneak in and set up, and the first position off the bat is one that’s impossible for me to do. Virasana–hero’s pose.Bending the knees is no problem. It’s the thighs and calves. All those years of Highland dancing gave me calves like baseballs. They do not play well in that position. Plus, I’m short. I’d have to fold up a blanket the size of a milk crate to get my butt (and there’s...
read moreMusings: Twilight
Okay. So I finally get around to reading the one book that everyone in the world (at least, every female in the world) has read except me: Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. Students of mine have raved, friends of mine have raved. I’ve resisted. I did the same with poor Harry Potter. I ignored the siren’s song until Goblet of Fire, then cracked the cover of Sorcerer’s Stone–and got hooked. Damn books are like crack. Given all the hype, I expected to feel the same about Twilight. I cracked the cover and…Meh.Okay. I...
read moreYou Ain’t No ‘Lectric Elephant
My grandmother, Mama’s mother, was a one-woman force of nature. She was up every day at about 5:30. It seemed like half of those days, she had a pound cake baked and cooling on the counter by the time the rest of the house resurrected itself in time for breakfast. She ran the family farm from the business end, negotiating prices, handling cash, balancing the books. She kept my grandfather’s business records–he was a salesman for Lipton Tea–and even designed a tracking sheet for him that became the in-house standard....
read more10 Superstitions, Traditions, and/or Personality Quirks
I always duck my head when I drive under a railroad bridge, especially if there’s a train on it.I kiss two fingers and scratch the roof if I go through a yellow light. Okay, the visor, since Inga’s roof is usually down.I eat M&Ms and Skittles in pairs by color.Purple straw with my Slurpee, thank you.I always call out “Bread and butter!” when I split the pole with someone. They should respond with “Butter and bread,” of course.I carefully select the first song to be played through the stereo of any new...
read moreStill a Fangirl
Earlier this politicking season, I came out. I declared myself a fangirl for Elizabeth Edwards (read why here). Given her rant in the New York Times yesterday, I’m glad I’m a fangirl.Her basic argument is that this presidential campaign has been determined by a narrative outline tacitly accepted by the press. The candidates are their image, and anything that strays outside the image doesn’t get reported. That’s the reason, EE claims, that some candidacies (Biden, Brownback, Dodd, Richardson) never got any traction,...
read moreMusings: Down With Love
I tend to get a little nutty when it comes to presents for DH. Poor man never knows what’s coming when I tell him his theme for the year is something like “Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n Roll.” He wonders, of course, but never knows. He wasn’t that confused the year I told him his theme was “Ladies’ man, man’s man, man about town.” That one came straight out of Peyton Reed’s Down With Love, a 2003 Valentine celebrating 60s sex comedies.Down With Love didn’t make gazillions at the box...
read moreBirthday Boy!
DS turns 11 today. We’re on the slippery slope to middle school, puberty, and my grocery bill going through the roof (although the grocery bill is cranking up already). We present him with a checklist: how late should he sleep? What breakfast menu does he prefer? Two things he’d like to do? Dinner at home or a restaurant? And we go shopping for a new bike. Three stores, lunch in between, and of course, he picks the first bike he got on at the first store. Oh, well. Dinner’s a steak at Roadhouse. He gets lots of flat presents...
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