Mama Don't Play When It's Hallmark Movie Time

So I got up this morning, not much of an agenda, just a nice day ahead to enjoy. Tried to log onto Facebook. There was no internet service. That was really neat. An hour-and-a-half later, no internet service. This digital joke was no joke at this point. To top it off, I could not find my iphone 6s Plus, you know, the one with the light pink Otterbox that should be seen for miles from whatever resting place it landed during my ADD housekeeping? That phone. Then it hit me. I'm cut off from the outside world. I got nothing in the way of communication.

If you are a constant communicator, as I am, that's some deadly bidness ("business" for those of you from north of the Mason-Dixon line). At some point I found my phone and headed on out to meet someone for a book discussion. After leaving her house, I made my way to Wal-Mart. I know some of you are far too fancy to enter the place, but I went in with bargains on my mind. I wanted, most specifically, some of those seasonal mini-flags. Of course they weren't where they had been over the summer. Of course not. I gathered a few groceries and headed home, a pumpkin-pie-flavored poptart hanging out of my mouth and three bags of mini-pumpkins from the produce department in my trunk (for a table arrangement) as I peeled out of the parking lot. I was going to grab myself some fall one way or the other, despite the stuffy summer-like air.

Back in the land of "gone-out," aka my dwelling, I got on the horn (pink one) with Charter, my cable company. They couldn't figure out what was wrong with my internet service but, since right in the middle of our struggles it popped back on like magic, we aborted the mission. The woman sent me over to the cable division, since I had a  cable box I arrogantly insisted "DOES NOT WORK." Cue the sad music. Suburban housewife can't get cable to one of her four televisions. That's so sad. Look away.  I patiently explained to the nice gentleman on the other end that I am an SEC widow and that, owing to the fact that two of the televisions are in my sons' bedrooms, I only really have two for myself and my husband and that I would be edged out every weekend during football season if he did not do something, and fast, about this dead box in the upstairs den off my bedroom. We had a Hallmark channel/On Demand movie emergency on our hands and I don't play when it comes to that type of thing. He immediately understood the gravity of the situation and began to send a series of signals to this errant box. No dice. He had me turn it on and off, something he referred to in very professional terms, something along the lines of reboot or refresh. In my world it was mashing the on/off button. No dice. This very nice young man made an appointment for a technician to ring my bell between 1 and 2 pm. I was very appreciative and had timed my Wal-Mart trip very precisely to allow for me to be intellectually refreshed by a new pot of coffee when the technician arrived, just in case he needed my help with further button mashing.

He was in my upstairs den for around ten seconds when he discovered that I had plugged something into the wrong spot on my box. That television suddenly sprang to life with a force that surged through the room like sun on a summer day! I would be making Christmas cards with Hallmark Christmas movies rolling in the background JUST LIKE A BOSS this fall! I would be stamping and watercolor pencilling and cross stitching like a pro while Fox News ran rampant during the election! I would be crying and hollering my way through one sad chick flick after the next from On Demand before I knew what was happening! It was like the movie calvary had come to rescue me from my own stupidity.

As Madea would say (please don't sue me, Tyler Perry. I'm just a pudgy housewife in Knoxville) "Halleluyer"!!!!

Flip Flops and Fine China

I toured the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina yesterday. This is not just some Southern mansion with columns calling to mind women in antebellum dresses, fanning themselves under giant hats. It's a house with over 175,000 square feet designed by a New York architect in the European chateau style. When you round the bend in the bumping trolley van, if you have a heart in you at all, it skips a beat at the sight of this massive residence, front lawn spreading wider than a football field, allowing for ample imposition of the house upon the sense of sight. It's flat-out amazing. You expect the dad-blamed queen of England to come prancing out of those main doors, paparazzi shooting away and screaming her name. Instead, you'll find (if you go during Labor Day weekend like I did) the sweating hordes of visitors eager to stream through the parts of the home that are open to the public. Just appreciating the architecture and the grandeur of the home would be enough, but the place is a trove of international treasures, from rare tapestries to family portraits painted by John Singer Sargent (can you even imagine)! My favorite thing in the house is Napoleon's chess set, which is set up in the library. George Washington Vanderbilt II, the young man who built the house for himself and his even younger wife Edith, owned Napoleon Bonaparte's chess set. Let that level of wealth (and influence) sink in for a moment. As I passed through all of that opulence, mindlessly flooding Facebook with images of my tour, a tea set (see photo) caught my eye. It was a slice of elegant, refined living in minature. It had even been staged with real cookies! I wanted to yank the rope down and play house with the set! Just kidding. An upstairs room connecting Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt's room was, according to my tour booklet, the place where they met with the head housekeeper to plan the day's events. That's where my desire to have lived her life went straight out the window. I would want to be on horseback, flying though the gorgeous, forested property! Let someone else plan the dern meals! Then I could return to the library and read the night away in front of the massive fireplace after eating FAR too much in that massive dining room, where I would regale my guests with stories of my wildlife encounters while on horseback that day! I'd have them laughing!

We went back to our hotel to rest before dinner, my head spinning with all I had seen and experienced at the Biltmore Estate. The images of such refined, elegant living were so soothing! When we stepped out onto a terrace, the sweeping view of the mountains took my breath away. I could not even begin to imagine living in such a heavenly residence. How would it be possible for the massive fireplaces, the exquisite oil paintings, the hand-carved furnishings, the coffered ceilings to become commonplace over time, even invisible to the daily resident? I'm sure, on some level, they did. When their only daughter had her first crush, or cried herself to sleep, or fell ill, the Vanderbilts wouldn't have been comforted by all of that velvety excellence in decorating. They were people just like the rest of us.

Last night, as we left our hotel room for the very posh restaurant downstairs, I realized that all I had in the room with me in the way of footwear was the cushy pair of flip flops I'd toured the house in. Of course, since my car had been valet-parked, I shrugged my shoulders and flapped my way to the restaurant. I was hungry.

I guess the waiter did not notice my pool shoes, because he schmoozed for a tip, declaring with arched eyebrows that every single thing we ordered was EXCELLENT and HIS FAVORITE. I was waiting for him to come back with the water pitcher and declare that it was the best plain water he had ever heard tell of.

This story has absolutely no moral, except that I'm now considering beginning an antique tea cup collection. Seriously. I'll sit at my formal dining room table barefoot and drink coffee out of them. I sure will.

A Little Bit Southern, A Little Bit Me

So I got up this morning and stumbled into the kitchen for my coffee. After taking the little furry darling into that sauna we call an East Tennessee August morning, I re-emerged and carried my steaming cup into my study. It's a nice little room, french doors and all.

I guess it's time for you to learn about me. I was born in Raleigh, North Carolina and, excepting a brief stint among yankees in Iowa, where I spent first through third grades, I've lived in the South my whole life. Even though I have lived among these wonderful folk for decades, and I guess I'm one of them, I've never quite understood all of the social codes. I have at various times attempted to live by them, with sketchy success.

I live in a nice neighborhood bordering a golf course. My husband is a banker. My father was an industrial personnel manager and my mother was a high school principal. I have been entrenched in upper-middle-class Southern culture my whole life. I've fit in about as well as a skink at a tea party.

Before I go into all of that "not-fitting-in-ness" that colored my life until I turned forty and decided that they could all kiss my behind (the "all" being anyone who lived by an inflexible social code), I'll tell you what I love about the average Southerner. Why I'll never leave the South, unless forced.

Southerners are friendly. We are. We like to talk and we will give you directions that include the best barbecue joints on the way to your destination. We have time for such things. After all, the mind-melting heat down here slows us down in every way. (Sorry for that boring, worn-out theme.) In  the South, people will flat-out help you out. In any way they can. The average person is down-to-earth and unpretentious.  Perhaps what I love most about the South is the fact that the backbone of  our culture is a dedication to God, hard work and family. I'll never leave!

Now to the dark side....every culture has one. I was baptized into the faux Southern hospitality in a small community that boasted over two hundred physicians, a spate of high-earning lawyers and lots of wealthy business owners. Their kids ruled the public high school I attended. I learned early on that you were only as valuable as your last name-brand pair of shoes. I hardly ever owned any, so I was pretty much invisible.

As I progressed in life, becoming a wife and at-home mother, and moved to another Southern state, these  "values" continued to be impressed upon me. At various churches I attended, "What do you do for a living?" was the automatic first question asked of men. It was code for "Should I even be speaking with you?"

The thing about me is that I love people and I want to fit in....but only to a point. I really won't do a whole heck of a lot to make it happen. I love clothes, but I do not care a whit about labels. I can't make myself (I've tried). I like to have folks over, but I can't remember correct fork placement. Actually, I'd rather use paper plates. It's more efficient. I know tennis and golf are socially acceptable hobbies, and ones that will bring you into contact with the "correct" people, but the thought of them makes me so bored I literally want to die. I'd rather watch paint dry. The sight of the sun's rays reflected off of that paint would interest me more. I'd be happier staring at a white wall. So I won't do either and you can rack a shotgun behind my head and tell me to and I'll die happy.

I love garish colors. I wear a lot of hot pink and salmon when I can. I also recently discovered moccasins. I guess moving to Knoxville has me in touch with the Native American history. I don't know. I like their beaded art. I don't have a single Michael Kors purse, though my demographic is supposed to be snapping them up in droves. Heck, I can drive to an outlet mall in Sevierville and find a nice leather purse for nothing. And I'd rather. This is all crazily counter-culture.

I am different, and I am drawn to people of every background and personality type. One thing that seems pretty consistent about the Southern culture I have been entrenched in, is that different is not necessarily good. Southern women my age treat ladies without pefectly highlighted hair, manis, pedis, and head-to-toe polished attire like the absolute hired help. They'll smile patronizingly at you (maybe) but you ain't coming to dinner. And I'm talking about Southern women from lower middle-class means all of the way up to wealth. They do not play when it comes to personal appearance. It's a big, big, big deal. Chipped nail polish could be a sign you're trash. They want no part of it. They don't trust you. You might be crazy.

All of my own personal sloppiness aside, there are aspects of the pomp and circumstance of the South that I do enjoy. I interviewed a personal chef recently and doggone it, I would LOVE to have him come and cook a cajun meal at my house some time! It would be so blessedly SOUTHERN to do that! And when my husband asked me what I wanted for my birthday and anniversary this year (a week apart) I said "Take me to the Bilmore Estate" (a gigantic house in Asheville, NC)! I want to revel in that elegance for a day!

Ahhh, contradictions! That's a Southern woman's prerogative! Ciao.

I Work For A Dog. (No, seriously....)

So I got up this morning thinking I'd have myself a nice lil' ole work day. Problem is, I've got myself a six-month-old dachshund. Oh, he's cute as a bug. Yessir. And busy as a stinking bee. I cordoned off my den with pet fencing, careful not to twist an ankle in the ocean of pet toys on the hardwoods.

Now, what I'm about to relate is (mostly) true. I opened the door to the laundry room, where I expected to find him, as usual, enthroned on the red pillow I keep in his play yard. Instead, I found a play yard that had been manipulated into a question mark shape (don't ask me, I don't know how), with the beautiful red pillow soaked from being dipped in a generous water dish (I never want the little darling to get thirsty in the night.) The towel from his bath last night had been pulled a couple of inches into the enclosure, adding to the Van Gogh-esque quality of the sight. I can't even.

I took Baxter to the backyard to do his "bidness," as we call it in the South ("business" for the rest of you all.). He did half of it and jumped back on the deck. I retrieved him, carried him into the bowels of the wet yard and set him back down again. Rinse, repeat. I then gave up and we went back inside. Just about right away he set about leaving a small jewel in the formal dining room. That's right, the formal dining room. The room that I furnished this past year with pride. The over-sized table, new china cabinet, all of that. (No, we DON'T ever eat in there, but that's entirely beside the point. I would have my southern housewife card revoked if I didn't have that room.) I responded to this (all-to-frequent) event with a hail of words I would never use in Sunday school and ran outside with the little darling. He enjoyed a sniff-about, did nothing and came back in. Back into the question mark pen, which I had yanked into a nice oval by this time. Have I mentioned that I have done no work to this point in the narrative? None. Unless you count all of the exercise I'd gotten, but I didn't need a journalism degree to do that.

After a few minutes, during which time I tried to set up work supplies in the now fenced-in den, I retrieved Baxter from the question mark. Back into the backyard we went. He sniffed promisingly and then bolted for the porch. I retrieved him, placed him back into the bowels of the yard. This time he hesitated as I hung on every circle, every sniff, every step of those signature short legs. Just as my hopes soared, he flew for the porch. I retrieved him again. He finally did what we had come for.

Now we were both settled into the fenced-in family room. Just as I began to try and unscramble the work day, setting my sails in a productive direction, my fragile concentration was shattered by the unmistakable sound of teeth on wood. Seems the corner of the baseboard molding needed reshaping and Baxter was the man for the job. More non-Sunday-school words, more fluster. More frazzle.

At this point I did something that was just plain stupid. Something about as productive as spitting into a fierce wind. In Alaska. In the winter. I posted in a dachshund lover's group asking for advice for a work-at-home dachshund owner whose dog is always pooping and peeing and chewing. Now, if you know much about the internet, you know that, well, it's populated by strangers. And some of them are strange. Before I was hit with a barrage of  A) suggestions I had tried three months ago 47,000 times or B) suggestions that a person who didn't want pooping, peeing and chewing in the house should NEVER entertain the "adoption" (you CANNOT say purchase or acquisition) of a dog, or C) suggestions that I will burn in hell for not liking all of those things or D) death threats, I took the post down.

Right now my little dog is resting comfortably, while I peck away. I love him dearly but, let's face it, even if I didn't, I'd have to have a dog by my side on the screened porch in good weather, a glass of tea in my hand (alright you accuracy-sticklers, for me it's always a cup of flavored coffee). A true southerner doesn't face life without a faithful dog.