Salad Days

Sometimes, I feel like I can never do anything right.

I walk into the pantry and wonder why. Why I am standing here in the dark? Did I need a box of gluten-free spaghetti, maybe a 40 watt light bulb, was it the last Little Debbie or just a little quiet with a whole lot of peace?

Beats me.

And what are the names of my children, pets, street address and spouse? Like the location of my car keys, I seem to forget them all the time.

“Whoever that is standing by the fridge, I need a cube of Velveeta and that  last bottle of Ramona Singer Pinot Grigio.”

I sleep on top of a sheet, do household chores in my swimsuit and sweat while I cook, pretend to iron and watch TV and STILL have a power bill that reads $673.

It’s seems the one thing I thought I was doing right, I am now doing wrong.

Yep, as Susan Rinkinus informs us in New York Magazine, salad is a total lie.

Not only is salad now considered a luxury item like a BMW, Roberto Coin and a single vanilla bean, it appears that all those healthy, leafy things that occupy all the real estate in your crisper in order to make you healthier and supposedly leaner are not what they’re cracked up to be.

Now, I know what you are thinking and I wasn’t born yesterday. I’m perfectly aware that these green, crunchy leaves are simply a watery delivery system with the word marketing written all over them, while being topped with all sorts of stuff that can eventually clog your arteries and kill you anyways. But I am still going to order my $9.95 Oriental Chicken Salad from Applebee’s. Why? Because it’s good.

1,400 empty calories?

Bring it ON.

With a side of extra dressing.

Only, caloric camouflaging aside,  salad isn’t as “green” as it used to be. It is now public enemy number one. Yes, these demure little, limp, tasteless vessels wreck all sorts of havoc on our shared fruits and plains. They cause 1 billion dollars in waste while wasting tons of energy just to refrigerate the little pieces of water that put out all sorts off unneeded gases because we have to grow so much of it to meet the demand.

And we haven’t even talked about all the gross stuff that grows on them because apparently, just being American makes us lazy, and we don’t like to cook anything because it takes time and all that other pesky stuff. Yes, it seems we would much rather just ingest raw lettuce with e coli laced all over it.

Me, I don’t like to think of these things while I am waiting in the drive-thru at Chick- Filet for my Market Salad with 4 extra packages of Ranch that costs as much as half a pair of Sperry’s. Nor do I want to reflect upon my own selfish part I’m now knowingly taking in creating the  gigantic carbon footprint that my single lunch stomped while it was carted, chilled, contained and plastic wrapped just to be handed to me through a window with cold air escaping out it.

That’s a real bummer.

I guess I will just have to stay at home at my desk and eat a # 2 pencil or a maybe a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. I think there is still some Chubby Hubby left. If I can remember the person’s name that I’m related to that’s standing in the kitchen, I might even ask them to get it for me.

There is no denying quit a few fossil fuels were burned to bring that baby home to my freezer, but at least they give back to environmentally friendly causes and are fighting the good fight against GMOs and are really nice to all of their cows, am I right?

If only it wasn’t 400 calories a spoon.

See, you really never can win.

Maybe I’ll just see y’all around the salad bar. If I can ever find my keys.

A Fisherman...Of Sorts

I’m not a fisherman, nor do I wish to be one. That doesn’t mean I have not tried, y’all. I really have.

Case in point: Key West, circa 1985, on an eight-hour deep-sea fishing charter with eight extended family members.

First off, never stop at Denny’s for a full-on pancake and sausage breakfast with a side of biscuits, coffee, O.J. and half a quart of grape jelly before stepping onto a 35-foot piece of floating fiberglass about to hit 5-foot cascading waves.

Speaking of cascades, there is a psychological phenomenon known as the cascade effect. As in, when one person tosses their cookies in a cramped space, well…it’s like dominoes…or in this case, eight pale-looking members of the walking dead knocking into each other over the sides of the boat.

Seriously. Don’t do it. At least not the Denny’s part.

My husband is not much of a fisherman, either. He has to load up on Dramamine, so his friends usually roll down the window and leave him asleep in the car because they don’t have the stamina to unload him and the 1-ton cooler filled with Bud Light onto the boat. You know, tough choices.

I do have friends who love fishing, though. This eternally amazes me. My last big vacation to Costa Rica is a good example. The four fishing friends on the trip headed out to sea one day at 5 a.m. full of energy, courage, optimism and hope. They came back at 9 p.m., crimson, crispy, cranky and gnawing at anything that didn’t move. Apparently two hours out, the engine blew, and they spent the next 15 hours floating back in. It’s remarkable how 24, 12-ounce beers don’t last very long, but the remaining 1 1/2 bottles of water and two sticks of jerky get measured out and distributed with military precision. I guess no one wants a mutiny, after all. Even a mile off the coast of a Marriott marina surrounded by palm trees and tiki bars.

Another friend of mine, Dave Snyder, rises early and enthusiastically hits the high seas before the sun is even up, “to shop for groceries,” as he puts it. With great strength but gentle fortitude, he lovingly brings them back and puts them on a plate by sundown.

Y’all, where does he find the time? When I go grocery shopping, I come back hot, tired and fit-to-be tied because someone added five Snickers, two different shades of pink lip gloss, a wand of Maybelline Great Lash and a bottle of some fruity smelling shower gel to my cart. These items all cost more than the two bottles of K.J. Chardonnay I forgot on the conveyor belt thingy that were really the only reason I went grocery shopping in the first place. Now, don’t blame me, but when I finally get home, I am in no mood to lovingly cook dinner. And don’t even get me started on my friends, the “Fishin’ Chicks.”

They make all of these deep-sea fishing ventures look posh, vogue and simply fab while placing in the top of their tarpon tourneys without breaking a sweat. Captain Mark Nobel takes the gals out — Susan, Georgia, Dana and Beth — along with coolers of Veuve and Barefoot Contessa worthy snacks. Then, they haul in fish as big as they are while the sun twinkles off their bright eyes and their sun-kissed hair. When I get off the boat, my sea legs crumble, my tresses resemble a dozen double fisherman’s knots and my complexion can only be described as chartreuse with a hint of sea foam green.

Oh, well. I guess it’s not my thing, and I am okay with that. A Santiago, I am not meant to be. But that doesn’t mean I don’t fish.

I just asked one of my teenage daughters how school was today. She just glared at me like I asked for the precise coordinates the Hindenburg went down. Then stared down at her phone.

I guess I was destined to be a fisherman, after all.

Dog Park Rules

What happens in the dog park stays in the dog park. So the saying goes.

Not so much in my neighborhood. Here, dogs are akin to the precious cows that roam the streets of India. Only, ours are on retractable leashes wearing trendy T-shirts and bright fall-colored Ralph Lauren rain coats as soon as it starts to drizzle.

Here, dogs are adored, adorned, elevated and celebrated. We may not know each other’s names, occupations or hobbies, but we can be identified by the fur, approximate age, likes, dislikes, disabilities and abilities of our fine, furry family members.

“Daisy’s dad is at the door.” Daisy is a 9-month-old black Lab who eats wasps, slurps out of the community water spout, and loves golf cart rides and deer dung.

“I just ran into Winston’s mom at the post office. She says, ‘Hi.’” Winston is a 23-pound Norfolk terrier who wears a diaper and is on a strict daily diet of half a carrot, a third cup of kibble and a shot of insulin. He absolutely loves Dateline, his monthly dental chew and scary movies — but is terriffied of thunderstorms. Go figure.

Beau’s mom wants you to call her.” Beau, short for General Beauregard Lee, is an 11-year-old, 40-pound Bichon Frise. He is large for the breed, but the vet says his BMI is a-okay. Though Beau has a tough time walking up stairs, it doesn’t stop him from stealing newspapers, flip flops, car keys and cat poo.

I can only imagine what they say about us.

There goes Atlas and Jules’ mom. I think she may be a writer. Why else would she wander around outside in her bathrobe?”

Atlas is known around the ‘hood as the Rat terrier who pees on other dogs’ heads. He struts his stuff but cowers at falling leaves. He barks at crickets, pine straw, unoccupied vehicles and sudden gusts of wind. Jules is the Jack Russell with poor social skills. She is a grass eater, a flowerbed poo-er and squirrel chaser. Chef, the Chiweenie, is one of those “designer breeds” who never wears the same thing twice in one week and has a licking problem. You can spot us strolling down the street a mile away; a cacophony of howls and growls amongst tangled leashes, swinging mutt mitts and chaos.

Back to dog parks — we actually have one. It is THE place to see, be seen, meet, greet, run, tumble, cocktail and generally hang out. So you can only imagine when a gigantic hole the size of a small meteor crater appeared under the oak tree, everyone was up in arms — as in throwing up their arms and saying it sure wasn’t their dogs because rule No. 6 clearly states no digging allowed — holes cause canine in juries; No. 12 outlines dogs with poor behavior can be banned indefinitely; and No. 44 spells out that the owner is legally and financially responsible for damages.

My friend Alicia’s Rottweiler has a bionic knee, so I know how much they cost. I don’t want to pay to replace one for a neighborhood dog who fell in a hole. I want to send my kids to college instead.

It’s been a month and no one has fessed up, though it is still a topic of discussion around the dog park at Pinot time. I don’t worry about anyone thinking one of mine could be the culprit because all three of them can fit inside of the darn hole and still have room to catch a Frisbee. We stay clear anyway because Rat terriers are bred to dig. We certainly don’t want to encourage any whispers.

There is another old saying out there that good fences make good neighbors. This may be true, but there is one thing no one can deny

Dogs make good neighbors, too.

Owning It

Oprah has one.




A declutter guru, that is. And if Oprah has one, then they must be all the rage.



It isn’t too far off to assume that if your physical space is a hot mess, so is your brain. And if you can declutter your thoughts, rooms, closets and freezer space, good things will come. And one doesn’t need a celebrity self-help healer of all things empowering to tell us what we already know.


Accumulation of crap breeds crappy feelings of failure, self-loathing and inadequacy.
It’s just like everything else in life; organizing, color-coding, filing, zoning and purging loads of said crap is way easier said than done.


Now for those of you who know me, you know I can hoard a thing or two. And according to Oprah’s go-to-guru of all things clutter, Peter Walsh, I am one of the worst kinds of “road blocking my way to happiness” accumulators. That’s right, I’m a Knowledge Clutterer.


What’s a Knowledge Clutterer you might ask? Beats me. Until I looked it up, I had no idea, and evidently we are the type of people that need to get over ourselves already.


Something is telling me Mr. Walsh and I would not be fast friends.


Those of us who are resisting the digital age of organization and stark vast wastelands of nothingness except a Plexiglas screen are really just egomaniacs who need to relax and trust in Wikipedia, Sparks Notes and e-readers. By “stockpiling” books and literary periodicals, aka having your own library, a knowledge clutterer believes “that if she owns the book, then she owns the knowledge, even if she never reads the book or takes it off the shelf,” Mr. Walsh informs us.


This is where I inform Mr. Walsh, your damn straight I own my knowledge. It took me years and years to get it, and yes, I OWN it, literally and figuratively, so I can put it on a shelf if I want to.
Other poor per perpetrators of intellectual hoarding and pretentiousness are book club members; enthusiasts of coffee table tomes on interior design; and worst of all, recent college grads wanting to show off their feminist poetry collections.


Y’all, I’m serious. You can’t make this stuff up.


Now, to make matters worse, I am also a Sentimental Clutterer-slash-Family Historian.


Me, along we all those besotted parents and ‘women of a certain age’ who have experienced loss tend to hoard all things family-centric. These items are, but not limited to, family heirlooms, grade school projects, school yearbooks, pre-school art and art projects of all kinds. Now, if you, like me can’t seem to unload grandmas’ Peruvian 1950’s cordial glasses or your kid’s 4th grade giant squid made out of paper-mache and a 7up bottle that took first prize, then it’s about time you start, according to Mr. Walsh, establishing a hierarchy of value.


This means the objects that mean the most stay, but only if they can fit in one box. I guess these means my grandfather’s samurai sword he brought back from fighting in the south Pacific during World War II must go, along with my Mama’s turn of the century glass china cabinet. Looks like grandpa’s tax return from 1982 may be the only thing left in the hierarchy to fit in the box after all.


I’m also, it seems, a behind Closed Doors (as in don’t open that closet, you may lose consciousness if something falls on your head) Clutterer, as well.


The only Clutterer I am not is a Bargain Shopper/Coupon Hoarding Clutterer. I have my Aunt Pam to thank for that one. All you have to do is stop by my house and I’ll feed you pot stickers with a side of Rotel, that she picked up as part of a year’s supply at Costco last September. This was after spotting a yellow sign that simply read: 29 cents.


Now, unlike Mr. Walsh, I’ll admit I am not a certified clutter expert. I’m not really an expert on anything for that matter, but I will tell you I feel a little foolish when I take all the declutter guru’s advice and ask my hoarded objects tough questions.


Take my plastic spatula shaped like Mickey, for example. How does it make me feel? Does it bring me happiness? I’ll tell you how it makes me feel, tired. And no, it doesn’t bring me happiness. But when the kids wake up at the crack of dawn to stare at me while I try and sleep I might need the dang thing to flip a pancake or two, seeing as my other three spatulas are either in the dishwasher dirty, stuck in a flower pot outside somewhere, or just plain missing.


But I know, I know… I could use more clear space in my home as well as in my head. I am sure it would help spur on creativity and ease problem solving like all the experts tell me. I would love to banish boxes, unload unwanted magazines, and dump a bunch of crap and call it a day. I really, really would.


I just need to find time, not a value system.


For now, I have zero problems deferring (yes, I have a load a wet wash that’s been hanging out a full day waiting to get in the dryer and a stack of dirty dishes in the sink.) I also don’t care that I’m a rebel, as in you can’t make me do anything I don’t really want to (as I step over a pile of wet towels to read one of my real books) and if I’m a perfectionist (seeing as how I can’t clean all the bathrooms why clean only one) so be it.


I’ve lived with cramped space in my head, sandy floors and tooth paste crusted sinks for 43 years, along with a library full of books and have gotten along just fine.
In fact, more than fine.


And I have no problem owning that.

Welcome to the Jungle

Where did she go?
This is the mos t pressing question in my life now, and believe me I have plenty.Of questions, that is. Where is my Stila Illuminating Tinted moisturizer?
What happened to my gold aviator sunglasses? I usually finally find them where I lost them…on top of my head.
Why can’t I locate my Coach boots, the ones with the brass side buckles, my Marc Jacobs silvery eyeliner or my favorite cuff, the one with an octopus adorned with teeny tiny orange crystals all over it? Where is any and all the loose change from the counter, in my purse and multiple old handbags stuffed in my closet? Where is my phone, iPad and coordinating chargers and the last Little Debbie and my only Coke Zero, which I thought I had cleverly hidden way back in the fridge?
I don’t seem to be missing any dirty laundry, dirty dishes, dirty looks or dust bunnies.
I do know who has “borrowed” them, of course. And therein lies the rub?
Just where did my little girl go?
My “little girl” was born 14 years and 6 months ago. She was stubborn, willful and wishy-washy from the start. She decided to come three days early– as soon as I sat down at Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Birmingham where her father and I tried to get in one last meal of peace and quiet to steel ourselves for the 18 years of drama, happiness, headaches and family fun soon to follow. Seriously, y’all. I didn’t even get my black cloth napkin stretched over my enormous belly or get to order the side of creamed spinach I was craving.
Then, she decided after 16 hours in the hospital that she didn’t want to come out after all. This is when they sent us home Christmas morning with all sorts of prescriptions to help me sleep “through” contractions even though not a single pharmacy was open. It didn’t take long before I was back in walking around and around the halls trying to coax her out. Three days, folks. Three whole days for her to decide she was ready. And she’s been at a full sprint ever since.
Now, I’m the one who’s not ready.
Actually, I take it back. The day her head spun around a full 180 and sparks flew out of her eyes with rage when I said there was no way I was running through the Starbucks drive through for a tall Caramel Ribbon Crunch Crème Frappuuccino with extra Crunch that costs as much as an ala carte side of creamed spinach from a fancy steak house, I was scared, y’all. Like, seriously frightened.
I cringe, and then secretly cry, when she says something hurtful to me…. knowing it’s hurtful…which hurts even more.
I have a silent pity party when she shuts me out, slinks off to her room or stares at her phone when I try to ask about her day.
My heart breaks just a little every time she grows a little more distant and a little farther away.
Charlie has a theory that this is all God’s plan. That just when they have stolen your heart so utterly and completely that you absolutely refuse to let them out into the big, wide world without you, they become raging, hormonal, back-talking, brooding, unpleasant teenagers who “borrow” all your stuff and are only nice when they need money. Now, you are picturing quiet Saturdays, available cash, noon time naps without slamming doors, civil conversations that don’t lead to screaming matches and a welcome lack of obscene charges for constant text overages. Don’t let the back door hit ya, right?
My mom agrees with this theory wholeheartedly, though she believes, as a devout Catholic, God has a wicked sense of humor. Evidently, we bounce right back to our agreeable, fun-loving, and family-oriented-selves just weeks before we leave for college. Then we never call home or visit.
But for me, the more and more she talks back, expresses herself, the more and more I don’t want her to grow up anymore and leave.
When she says, “You don’t understand me,” I want to be there when she says yes, “You do. You did all along.”
I don’t even mind the nasty looks or the eye rolls so much because sometimes I sneak in and watch her sleep, just like I did when she was little. And she looks just like she always has, an angel, my little angel.
Don’t get me wrong. There are days, actually multiple times a day, when I look at this 5’9” stranger in front of me and ask myself, “Who is this person and where did my little girl go?” The one who wanted to cuddle constantly, always told me she loved me before she went to sleep, craved my attention, sought my opinion, and told me what I wanted to hear…that I was the best and most wonderful mom in the world…. not that she hated me, that I was clueless, that I didn’t care or want to understand her anymore and never will.
But that’s just the point.
She’s doing what she is supposed to do. She’s questioning, stretching, making mistakes, having regrets, experiencing joy and pain…hourly, at the same time. She is squashing fear, trying to understand anger and when and how to suppress it, pondering, brooding, falling down, getting up and trying to make sense of senseless things while not losing faith in her future. She is doing what every single one of us did before her.
She’s becoming a grown-up.
And I am here, and will always be, along for the jungle ride…no matter how bumpy, quick, jagged, uneven, or rough.
I love you baby, girl.
I can’t wait to see the amazing woman you are destined to grow up to be.
And I can’t wait to see where you go.

Home

"One place understood helps us understand all places better," Eudora Welty.

(photo of author watering her grass at home in Jackson, Mississippi.)- PHOTO/Eudora Welty LLC.


I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching lately; trying to figure out how to raise children in challenging times. The way I remember it, growing up was so much simpler than it is today. And with every generation that ticks by, we lose even more of an appreciation for the smaller, quieter things in life. To me, innocence is becoming as fleeting and as fine as the white blur of the blown dandelion weed.
I have, and take with me always, the sweetest recollections of my youth. But if I am honest, I’ve let the bad memories fall to the wayside and held on tight to the good for dear life. I was thinking about the simple pleasures of small-town living the other day.
See, most of my early memories involve spending summers at my grandparents’ house in Colbert 15 miles short of Athens. Many are postcard picture-perfect: seeking shade under the leaves of a giant Magnolia tree, thick as molasses and smelling just as sweet; trapping fireflies in Mason jars at dusk; picking collards and corn straight out from the dirt of Papa’s garden.
There are some memories that are quite opposite. They’re what bad dreams are made of: my brother catching my thigh instead of a bass with a triple hook near the neighbors pond; my Mama coming at me with the angry, hot tip of a match in one hand and a pair of rusty old tweezers in the other as she extracts a tick the size of a ripe blackberry from my sunburned skin.
Mainly, I remember the unyielding heat that seemed to seep directly up from the stubborn red Georgia clay, wrap itself around me and then stick like Cling wrap all day without a hint of relief.
The only time I would find any respite was when my Mama would send me down to the basement.
This is a huge testament to how badly I wanted to escape the heat because I was deathly scared of that dark, musty hole that held up the house. It was bottomline-Hitchcock-scary down there. Mildewed, damp mattresses crept out from dark corners, and Vidalia onions swung at your head from pantyhose like gauntlets on your way to the avocado green deep freezer shoved in the way, way back.
I guess living through the Great Depression is enough to convince someone never to throw anything away. And this includes various items like heads of cabbage, bags of sheered corn, Cool-Whip containers filled with whatnots. But what I was looking for was usually located to the right and stacked up like a silver gem of a holy offering. There they were in all of their crystallized, frozen, frosty glory. Stacks upon stacks of old aluminum ice trays filled with frozen water.
I’m not sure my grandparents ever got a freezer with an ice-maker before they passed. I’d like to think it wouldn’t have mattered. I’d still take those dreaded, cautious steps down to the basement and bring up a few trays on a hazy, humid, hot day.
Now that we’re a little bit older, all of our memories, even exploring creepy family cemeteries and scary dark basements, are just as sacred as the good ones. They’ve now bled, blended and run together to form more of a feeling – an essence – that cannot be defined.
I want that for my girls.
I want a lot of things for them, actually.
I want to teach them to be kind and real.
Not hard and always right.
I want them to ask questions, not assume answers.
I want them to listen, really listen, to others and always have an open mind.
I want a lot of things for them that are increasingly more difficult in a world where bigger is better, faster is key and empathy, a true understanding of our place in the human world, takes a back seat.
It seems lately, as I try and find that delicate balance between sheltering and teaching, I have been thinking a lot about Eudora Welty. She left for NYC as a young woman – pencil in one hand, camera in the other – but didn’t stay for very long.
She came back home to Jackson when her father died and did not leave until she drew her very last breath.
I think that is how most of us think of her. A Pulitzer-winning Southern author who loved, wrote and immortalized the small town South. But what she struggled with and wrote about is still
relevant today, especially as we try and guide our children through a world that isn’t similar to the one we were nurtured in.
Can a person be daring and fulfilled living a sheltered and simple life?
She answered this best in her book, On Writing:
“I am a writer who came from a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life. For all serious daring starts from within.”
I love that. Daring comes from within.
See, Eudora Welty spent a lot of time writing about place. One quote that resonates with me is, “People give pain, are callous and insensitive, empty and cruel but place heals the hurt and soothes the outrage and fills the terrible vacuum that these human beings make.”
Seek a place, not people, not things, I will tell them when they are hurt or questioning or feeling alone in a world that is moving by them at a faster pace. Listen, observe and find peace in that place you will carve out for yourself when it’s time.
We do live in one of the most wondrous places of all.
And it's called, quite simply, home.

See Ya Later, Alligator

Warning: Might not be suitable for small children, teenage boys and/or men with weak constitutions.


Recent text exchange with one of my best girlfriends:

Me: Can I write about your uterus?
Her: Absolutely! LOL!
Me: Can I attach your name to your uterus? Or should you and your uterus remain anonymous? I can call you Jane Doe and your uterus Crazy Susan? Or I could use a combo like Florence and the Mad Machine?
Her: Whatever you want! That’s what friends are for.


Now, I certainly don’t want to brag, fluff my $19.99 Old Navy pencil skirt or toot my own rusted horn but I’m a pretty decent party planner.


I’ve planned countless princess parties with candied apples and sugared roses, scream-worthy Halloween haunts with edible cadavers, 70s pub crawls, Christmas vacation karaoke keggers, scavenger brunch booze cruises, doggie birthday bashes and even an elegant, yet casual, guinea pig wedding in a mere 10 days.


This is probably about the time you are wondering what a party has to do with my friend and her uterus; well that’s because after 32 years of hell hath no fury like a woman on her “flow,” they are finally and quite happily I might add, parting ways.


And what better way to say thank you for tightly swaddling and housing, though cramped, two
beautiful children in comfort, but not necessarily style, for a total of 18 lingering months and eight excruciating days.


An intimate gathering of friends for a proper send-off, of course.


Now, it’s not just a sad and sentimental fare-the-well to her womb, so to speak. It’s also a rockin’ celebratory “don’t let the back door hit you on your way out,” sayonara sweetheart, so long suffering and if we are honest, not so nice knowing ya once a week, every month of every blessed year.


Bye-bye bloating – and later – blinding, backbreaking cramps. Adieu annoying aches, pains and overall discomfort.


It’s hammer time.


So how to you throw a party for such a great occasions as this one? Especially seeing, thanks to modern, less-evasive medicine and insurance companies finally realizing it’s a good thing to get out when you are done helping populate the earth, that these particular shindigs are soon to be all the rage?


I thought of a back yard BBQ with ribs and a smoked butt … seemed a bit macabre; pondered a Susan Sarandon movie marathon … too sappy. Thought about cocktails and dancing the night away a Ziggy’s, but whether you are still lugging around your half-pound uterus or not … too exhausting, at least at our age.


So, it looks like it’s going to be a small gathering of good friends with Champagne and a bonfire where she can toss all of her unused Playtex boxes into a roaring pit of flames and finally be done with it all once and for all while blaring George Michael’s “Freedom.” Then, we’ll do what we usually do. Sit on Alicia’s back porch, order Locos, sip on some wine, visit, laugh, chat, probably cry but we’ll always be merry because we have each other. Through thick and thin, surgeries and successes, pain and loss, trials and tribulations, we will always be friends.


It’s interesting to note that even today some people feel if they lose a part of themselves that makes them “female” it makes them less of a woman. There is always this judgy-ness about what is more female and what is less and sadly, it comes mainly from other females. If you don’t breastfeed, you’re less of a woman. If you choose a career over child rearing … less of a woman. If you have a C-section instead of a natural birth … you’re less of a woman. But we all know, deep down, boobs and uteruses and ovaries do not a woman make. A woman is a real woman because of her character and depth not her parts.


My friend Jennifer is a real woman because:


She raised two smart, beautiful kids all on her own with hardly any help and never, ever complains.


She is a real woman because even when suffering she is engaged; an active seeker and nurturer of life and all the good that’s in it.


She is a real woman because she is loyal, a steadfast friend to the end.


She is true and good and just so very lovely.


So here’s to Jennifer and all the other women out there celebrating letting go, moving on and living large.


See you around the bonfire.

Rearview Mirror of Motherhood

Hindsight, they say, is 20/20.


Yes, you can really only see clearly once everything is behind you and you’ve had time to reflect.

Only, I like a little realism with my reality if you know what I’m saying. As in, hindsight should be called plain old mean, inevitable, a big “I told you so,” or even a “nanny nanny boo boo” in this game called life. For me, hindsight is akin to age spots, frown lines, laugh lines and wild hairs. If you live long enough, they sprout out of nowhere and slap you in the face without even saying I’m sorry.


I was thinking about this the other morning after my kids stopped fighting over the phone charger long enough to notice that I did indeed exist. They do this from time to time like when they desperately need more milk for their cereal because they forget where the fridge is located or a towel because they don’t remember what a linen closet looks like.


“Hey, mom. What do want for Mother’s Day this year?” one of them asks while trying to untangle the cord from her sister’s neck. I pretend not to notice because let’s face it, I’m too tired and she’s still breathing.


“Peace of mind.” I say this firmly, on autopilot, without even thinking. But it stops me in my tracks.


My girls, however, roll their eyes, mouth something to each other in pig Latin and commence to wrestle.


See, growing up, every single time my mom was asked what she wanted she always said, and I mean every single time, those same three words: Peace of Mind.


And my brother and I would roll our eyes, snicker and continue to beat each other over the head with the Atari console because one of us was hogging Pac Man.


It seems these days, praying for peace of mind now that I have a few years under the belt as mom has become a daily occurrence: When I step over three soppy wet towels to find my fancy conditioner bottle empty and my missing flat iron flung on the back of the toilet seat next to my favorite layering sweater: Please, bring me Peace of Mind.


Having my moral compass questioned as someone who “always goes back on her word” in a busy
department store dressing room when, by promising to buy new bath suit, I did not mean a $178 Lilly Pulitzer one: Peace of Mind. (I’ll even take just five minutes worth.)


Listening to a barrage of “you never get me,” “why are you so mean,” and “how did I get so unlucky,” when I’m only trying to band-aid, clothe, feed, discipline and parent. Come on Peace of Mind. Where are you when I need you?


So, as I look at hindsight in my own mirror, I just want to take a little time and do something I should have done long ago. I’m sorry mom and I love you.


Mom, I am sorry I said you were the meanest mother ever and I hated you because my curfew was an hour earlier than my friends. I love you.


I feel awful for glaring daggers and huffing off when you made me do the dishes, feed/bath/walk the dog, clean my room, babysit to help pay for designer jeans, get a summer job because when I just wanted to hang out with my friends while all you were trying to do was teach me responsibility. I love you.


I’m sorry I yelled, talked back and slammed doors and told you “you don’t know anything” when all you were doing was trying to teach me right from wrong. I love you.


And I’m sorry for all the times I rolled my eyes, ignored you or took you for granted when you tried to help me parent my own children because I stubbornly and willfully disregarded the fact that you had been there, done that years before and were only trying to help me because you love me. I love you, too.


I think this Mother’s Day, as we look in the rearview mirror of our own motherhood, and yes, fatherhood, when we call, lunch, brunch or visit with our moms (those of us who are still so very lucky), we should remember how unbelievably hard all of this living life stuff truly is.


Mom, I appreciate you. I love you. Always have. Always will.


And for those of us, who are now living in the thick of it all, knee deep screaming and kicking our way through, let us remember some of the hardest parts will all be over, though sadly, soon enough.
And even then, Peace of Mind may not be so easily found because, as our own mother’s remind us, even when our children are grown and flown, we will still worry about them, cry when they cry, hurt when they hurt, want to fix everything even though we know we can’t.


So keep on keeping on by celebrating the big moments, find humor and grace in the little ones and lean on your mom when it’s tough. No one said it would be easy. No one told us it would be this hard, either. (Maybe they did, but we were too busy being right to listen.) But as our moms tell us over and over again, it’s definitely all worth it.


Happy Mother’s Day, y’all!

A Southern Yard Sale Story

I am here to tell you I survived, but just barely, one of America's most treasured innovations; the good old-fashioned yard sale.


Some folks may argue that a yard (or attic or garage) sale is simply a way to dump unwanted crap and call it a day.


True, but let's be honest here, because whatever you decide to call a private transaction of gently used goods from one fine citizen to another, the sale is not really a sale at all; it's a blood sport.


Why would I openly invite hostility into  my otherwise serene surroundings, anyway, you may be wondering right about now? Well, the reason is two-fold. One Charlie wanted to put our old side-by-side fridge on Craigslist so he could park in the garage. I hear Craigslist, and people, I think MURDER. I dare you, Google it. It's frightening. However, my husband argues that giving our address out in the paper isn't any different. But if you like to gamble and I really, really do but not with my life., your local paper with an audience of 18,000 is less likely to catch the eye of a serial killer than sending it out there to the entire 7 billion who roam the earth.


The second reason is my Aunt Pam. She is my relative who can slug down her morning Metamucil, enjoy a good 2-hour discourse on bowel functioning, while draining two pots of coffee before noon when she finally decides to get dressed. She is a hoot and a half, and as I've described her before, sweeter than molasses but tougher than a $2 dollar steak in the scratch and dent bin in the Piggly Wiggly. I just adore her.


Any-hoo, she loves herself a good yard sale, I mean LOVES it. As she puts it, "It's the most exciting, legal thing you can do."


And I know this because I have seen her in action at my grandmother's estate sale in Athens all those years ago right after she passed:


"Norma would have wanted me to have those art deco dishes," the not-so-friendly neighbor lady told Pam.


"Yes, of course, she would. But only if you paid $10 for them."


When two ladies grabbed grandma's black, cordless telephone at the same time and commenced to wrestle, Aunt Pam walked up to the dynamic duo all the while yelling, "Hold the phone! Hold the phone!" (Get it, hold the phone? Gosh, I love puns, especially when they are unintentional.)


"Ladies, look. You can stroll on down to the Wal-Mart and get one for $19.99. I know because I bought it there for mama. Now, I don't think losing a limb nor life is worth a cheap old piece of plastic and wires. Figure it out and don't forget to pay the lady at the door."


Now granted this was an estate sale, which as Aunt Pam explains, "Is the catnip these people live for."


So, therefore, I can only assume a little yard sale is akin to the "dingle-berries" she has to snip off when she grooms her beloved kitty, Busy.


Charlie whole heartedly agrees. The last yard sale he helped with was after our Columbia move in 2001.


He still can't talk about it.


So Pam said she'd step up and down she came f rom Raleigh.


Now, before we could even talk about pricing, she held a back porch bourbon and Coke meeting, where we discussed 'the ten rules to a successful yard sale':


1. No checks, that's what the ATM is for.
2. Holding is for infants. If you hold an item, you gotta give me ten.
3. If you're rude, you hit the streets.
4. If something is heavy, this girl is not heftin' the end outta here. Best go back and get a buddy.
5. Hold your pricing notebook close to the vest, I have known people to walk around and stare over your shoulder.
6. Never accept a "bundle." I never bundle anything unless the show's almost over or you are too cute for words.
7. If someone insults your stuff and tells you it's not worth anything, then you explain to them that it just came out of your house. "Would I insult your stuff? I don't think so."
8. Again, if someone is rude, you ask them to hit the street.
9. Always have a lot of change with you and lock the doors to the house. People will try and find their way in. Trust me.
10. Last but not least, staging is key. You must make it look as good as possible -as in...damn; I want that........used litter box., broken tennis racket or whatever.


Charlie had already said he'd be a no-show, but he did put in his two-cents on rule #9 and asked Pam not to store "the change" in her bra seeing as it was 110 degrees outside and all that. See, he knows too well that's how Pam gets away with not paying for dinner.


"I'll throw in a twenty," she'll tell him, tucking into her shirt.
"Uh-that's okay. We got it."
She stuffs it back in.


But to make a short story long, I guess right about now, y'all are wondering how the yard sale went.


Well, it was actually a pretty big bust. After paying for the ad, we walked away with $51.50 and 95% of our stuff still lying around where we left it. We did donate it all to the Boys and Girls Club thrift shop, and it ends up our stuff will help out it some small way.


As Aunt Pam also wisely reminded us, "If you are not in the mood for a side-by-side refrigerator, you are not in the mood for a side-by-side refrigerator."


But I will tell you one thing; it was a lot of fun hanging out watching my aunt in her element.


If we'd never had the sale, I never would have been privileged to watch the showdown Aunt Pam and an (insert Pam's air quotes) antique dealer had while they haggled for 35 minutes over a circa 1997 leather jacket I think Charlie picked up at an airport:


"You're tough," antiques dealer tells her.
"It's not my first rodeo," she says back.
"Mine, either."
"I know."


That, my friends, is why family, not stuff, is worth its weight in gold.

To Boobs and Back Again: A Story on Personal Growth

 

Email exchange with the editor of Coastal Illustrated:

“Hey Bob!  Hope this finds you well and somewhat warm.  I can’t feel my left pinkie toe but what the hay…because you will be happy to know it’s my birthday next Tuesday!  You may or may not be excited about my birthday (have one every year, so nothing new) or particularly concerned about my toe (seeing as it will eventually thaw and does anyone really need a pinkie toe anyway) but more specifically because I fly out early, early Wednesday AM to Costa Rica which means …drum roll please… I will get my article to you by Monday (writers note: early for me never, ever happens).  Oh, and can I write about boobs?  In a tasteful way, of course :)  As if, there is any other way, right? La”

“I’m sure it will be tasteful.  Be careful sending pictures though.  Happy Birthday, La.  Your toe should thaw in Costa Rica.”

                That’s why Bob makes the big bucks; he’s totally right.  About the pictures.  Oh, and curse words but that’s another story.

                But for me, what’s important here isn’t the vaca, the weather or the word that begins with “b”, rhymes with tubes and makes grown men giggle.  It’s my annual “woe is me”, “oh holy, crap”, I’m getting another year older so I’ll keep waxing philosophical while getting up every hour on the hour to pee column.

                It seems my birthday always coincides with the first of the year- or rather… the symbolic start of new beginnings, fresh (not stale) do-over s and over-the-top promises, props and pathways to all sorts of untapped potential.   So you’ll have to just bear with me.

                Almost ten years ago, at 32, I was in the same, questioning place.  Only ten times more woeful.

                The difference was I had just had my second baby.  Gosh, she was gorgeous.  She had freckles like fairy dust, baby blues as crisp as a fresh fall sky and dimples as deep as a canyon.  I WAS IN LOVE. 

                But the awful, scary truth was I absolutely could not, no matter how hard or how fiercely I tried breastfeed that precious baby.

                And let me tell you I tried everything.  But nothing worked.

                What did happen was I developed a really bad infection in my left mammary gland that would burn so bad I could feel it shoot through my chest, all around my brain and straight down my back all the while I was nursing. 

                 I would weep, y’all.  Seriously.  Three weeks in and they would bring my happy, pudgy, everyone sneaking her formula-fed baby into to see me, and I’d crumple in a big, bad puddle of failure.  It got to be so I would cry at the sight of that gorgeous baby-not because I didn’t love her- but because I Was THE WORST MOTHER EVER.   I was depriving her of something she so desperately needed.

                “Breast is best.”

“Breast is best.”

Even though my pediatrician kept telling me she will still go to college without all that colostrum.  I still figured I screwed it all up.

Finally, I friend sat me down and gave me a talking to.

“Look, if you’re going to cry every time you see her because it hurts so much just to feed her then get over yourself already and enjoy your baby.  Here’s the bottle.  You’re welcome. Plus, Publix is slap out of cabbage leaves and were defrosting your freezer.”

Flash forward two years later.

The baby is healthy and happy, but mom is not.  She-I-can’t get over how much everything has changed.  It’s not just the sleepless nights and the spit up; the soiled sheets and the contaminated diaper genies.  It’s the fact and very real truth that slaps me the face every day when I get out of the one minute shower with my other toddler strap to my knee.  My boobs- that were nothing to brag about to begin with- were now sliding their merry way down to the equator near the Galapagos Islands looking to board Charles Darwin’s ship.   

Y’all.  I had never seen anything like it.  And in my post-partum, unequally sized shaped, dimpled and destroyed girls seemed to be telling me:

“Breast is best.”

“Breast is best.”

So I went in.

I can’t say getting implants was the worst decision I ever made almost eight years ago.  After all, I have sadly but happily been making many, many mistakes ever since.

I guess I just put a value on my body and my role in my life that said- “wait… not so fast.  I don’t’ want to get older, look older, not quite yet.”

See, in my 30’s, I felt that if I looked good, I’d feel good.

In my 30’s, if I wanted people to like me, I had to present “me” in a certain neat, pretty-packaged, likable way.

Now, in my 40’s, I really don’t give a damn. (Sorry, Bob.)

Turns out growing older is a pretty good gig after all. As long as you get it.

I removed my implants this past summer.  I can tell you it was one of the wiser decisions I have ever made.  I feel lighter…….. in so many ways.

Though my boobs still do point straight down South to the equator.  But who cares…I’m heading there now as we speak.

Are breasts really best?

Nah’.  Life is.