Category Archives: friends

Gifts

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One of my friends is so organized that she’s already giving her Christmas presents — and am I lucky to be on her list! I’m so impressed with the way she did her gifting that I’m going to steal share some of her ideas. First, she knows that gift bags/baskets are always fun to receive — who doesn’t like reaching in and pulling out all sorts of goodies? Second, she went with a theme — always a good idea. Having a theme provides some structure and consistency for gift buying, which is especially good for somebody like me who sort of buys little things here-and-there without any overriding goal and then ends up with five coffee mugs and three calendars and a bottle of balsamic vinegar. Plus, having a theme leads to point No. 3 — buying “in bulk.” My friend knows that we all love food, love cooking, love eating and love New Orleans, so she brought New Orleans to us here in landlocked northwest Alabama with iconic Central Grocery bags filled with such Cajun classics as hot sauce, Creole mustard and olive salad for authentic muffulettas. And, finally, she personalized our bags by adding the latest issue of magazines she knew we liked but didn’t subscribe to. I think she had as much fun putting these together as we did opening them up — the mark of successful gift giving!

Friends

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You think you can trust your girl friends, right? You think that the people who are with you through thick and thin — literally — wouldn’t turn on you. You think that the only people — besides maybe your husband – who know what you look like without makeup would not set up a trap for you. But that’s exactly what happened to me: Three friends turned on me … and forced me to learn how to play bridge, a game I had long declared to be on my list of things-I-hate-more-than-lima-beans. Go to my weekly TimesDaily newspaper column at http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20091127/ARTICLES/911275000 to find out how I was the victim of a (friendly) bridge-napping.

Travel

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Oh my goodness — the holidays really haven’t officially started yet but I bet you’re already feeling stressed. Let’s see if any of these things are on your list: Baking, cooking, cleaning, organizing, traveling, shopping, keeping everybody happy. Sound familiar? Yikes. Well, I’m going to help you out here. For just a minute, slip away to this wondrously quiet and peaceful little piece of Alabama. This past weekend some friends and I rented a house at Lake Smith — and did absolutely nothing. The only two rules were that we couldn’t move the cars once we got there (and really there’s no place to go) and that it was an official  MUFW (Makeup-Free Weekend). We pretty much hung out in our baggy PJ pants and T-shirts, talked and ate all weekend. But, look — we saved a chair for you! So in the next few days, when things get hectic and you start to wonder why those Pilgrims were so thankful anyway, hang in there and remember: Christmas is only a month away.

Food and Books

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This past week, my four-woman book club had our November meeting at my house with the book “The Space Between us” by India-native Thrity Umrigar. We had just finished “The Help,” about black maids and the white women they worked for in Jackson, Mississippi, during the 1960s Civil Rights movement, and “The Space Between Us” is much the same story — privileged upper class women and lower-class servants. However, “Space” focuses more on the relationship between two individual women and what happens when that relationship is tested. We all loved this book for the insight into Indian culture and the stories of struggle, love and loss the two women main-characters endured. Highly recommended. And because book club is just us four friends, whoever is hosting usually tries to find some favors and cook a dinner that goes along with the theme of the book we read that month. Luckily, for my turn I found three oh-so-cute enameled trinket boxes from India at the World Market in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. And for cooking, I turned to Indian chef Madhur Jaffrey’s “Easy East/West Menus for Family and Friends.” Okay, I didn’t actually cook anything from that cookbook — you know me better than that — but I did get some good quick and easy menu ideas (thank you, grocery stores!): Roasted onion and garlic jam on toasted strips of nan bread, sauteed chicken breasts in a garlic and ginger sauce, turmeric rice with onions and golden raisins, roasted asparagus, a couple ready-made heat-and-eat curry dishes (hot, hot, hot — but tasty, in a hot mouth-burning sort of way) and English tea cookies for dessert. Good friends, good books, good discussion, not-so-bad food — and my three friends don’t mind the bonus cat hair they get at my house, at all.

Random Thoughts

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Have you ever had people say things to you — and I’m talking nice things here — that made you see yourself as someone other than the person you think you are? It always amazes when I see myself from somebody else’s perspective since usually the image does not jive at all with the image I have of myself. I mean, it sort of makes you wonder if the private you — the one that mostly lives inside your head — and the public you — the one that goes to work and the grocery store and PTA meetings — have anything in common whatsoever. This past week I had three people say things to me/ask me questions that threw me for a loop: 1) The person who cuts and styles my hair told me, “You’re always so sweet and cheerful when you come in. It just makes me day,” when really I think of myself as crabby and grumpy, especially when I have to spend $$$ just to make my hair look presentable; 2) the person working in the dressing rooms at my favorite discount-clothing store asked me if I knew where to find a purse with a clasp closure for a Christmas present, when I really think of myself as someone who can barely find her own purse and get outside the door with two matching shoes; and 3) a person in local-theater circles and I were chatting at a local coffee shop about the struggles of writing and what to do when you hit a wall and I said that caffeine always helps and this person said that (insert name of illegal drug) helps, too, and then sort of paused as if waiting for me to suggest we go get some. So in the space of three days, I’ve been identified as sweet, stylish and a drug user  — when really I’m just a grouchy un-put-together coffee fiend. Sigh.

Books

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The HelpYou have got to put The Help, a debut novel by Kathryn Stockett, on your must-read list. Set in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1962, this book is about the black women who work as maids, housekeepers and nannies for the town’s well-off white families. It’s narrated by two of those women, Aibileen and Minny, as well as a Skeeter, an Ole Miss graduate who comes home to her family’s cotton farm and begins to see the injustices in the white-woman-boss and black-woman-employee system she’d previously accepted unquestioningly. As the book unfolds and we learn more about how the white female bosses treated their black employees, you’ll be surprised, shocked and stunned — and never look at a Junior-League bake sale the same way again. But this isn’t a grim or humorless book. Stockett respects her characters and allows them to gently tell their stories in their own voices as we discover and examine along with (most of) them our own feelings about race and skin color. In fact, this book led to one of the most spirited discussions my four-woman book club has ever had as we each talked about our experiences growing up Southern during the Civil Rights ’60s and how those experiences affect our relationships with those who look different from ourselves. We talked about what exactly it means to be “racist” and were so grateful we’d read a book that made us examine prejudices we maybe didn’t even realize we had. But The Help is more than a chronicle of the burgeoning Civil Rights movement. It’s a delightful and uplifting story of the power of friendship, the strength of maternal love and the power of women’s determination to make a difference. Go to a bookstore, buy this book and then pass it on. You cannot miss out on one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Family

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Ponderosa Tree FarmI know  y’all think I’m a chic and urban big-John Deere tractorscity sophisticate — isn’t that right???!!! — but the truth is that I’m just a country girl at heart. Okay, that’s a lie, too. I did not grow up anywhere near a farm, except when I went to visit my friend Debbie out in Beechgrove, Tennessee. But my dad has a nursery and tree farm and I love going out there, so I figure that’s close.  The Ponderosa Tree Farm is just a Burning bushPine treescouple miles or so from my parents’ house in Manchester, Tennessee. My dad grows and sells pines, hollies and burning bush — and has loads of fun. Well, again, that may not always be true — in the right-hand photo above, he’s trying to pull a mower out of the mud. I did not take photos of the resultant tractor pull, when the back wheel of the tractor reared up what looked to be several feet in the air and I was running through the calculations in my mind of how soon after the tractor flipped over could I call 911 and somebody would be out here or would I have to rescue my dad myself which I would, of course, although it would mean ruining my shoes in the ankle-deep mud but he’s my dad, for gosh’s sake. Luckily, everything turned out OK, although he did admit that perhaps he shouldn’t have been mowing in ankle-deep mud to start with. Farmers!

Good Manners

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I admit that I consider myself a courteous and polite person. I mean, I know to send thank-you notes and I know to say “please” and “I’m so sorry to bother you, but …” and I know it’s the right thing to do to smile and be pleasant and use good manners so that we all get along, goshdarnit. So how did I come to commit a practically unforgivable social faux pas not once but twice on the very same day??? What were those acts of misbehavior and why will two women probably never speak to me again??? I’m too ashamed to even say it here, so you’ve got to read my weekly TimesDaily newspaper column at http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20091023/ARTICLES/910235005 to find out — and please please please let me know I’m not the only one who’s disgraced herself this way. On the other hand, becoming a social pariah will sure free up lots of weekend time, so there you go: Silver lining!

Haunted Houses — and History

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Florence, AlabamaSweetwater Mansion in Florence, AlabamaI do not like scary, bloody or gory stuff. I can barely sit through a CSI or Shark Week episode. Okay, that’s a lie — I cannot sit through a CSI or Shark Week episode. This is why I stay away from the “haunted houses” that open up during October around here. Other folks love to pay good money to scream and run away from axe-wielding zombies and come-to-life mummies, but not me, thank you very much. So when a haunted house opened up in Florence, Alabama, with the promise of only slightly spooky stories and a tramp around the grounds of a historic mansion, I was in. This is the HistorySweetwater Mansion, home to Robert M. Patton, who completed the home in 1835 (his father-in-law had started it a few years earlier). Patton was Alabama’s governor from 1865 to 1868. Sweetwater was a showplace that once included 3,800 acres of land and played host to many Civil War politicians and officers. Today, it’s neglected and deteriorating and surrounded by traffic and development — there’s a convenience store practically in the front yard. Owned by Susan Smithson, a former Shoals resident now living in Atlanta, Sweetwater and its remaining 22 acres are for sale, priced at several million dollars. Volunteers have banded together  to raise money for historic repairs and renovation and are sponsoring a haunted house this month. Some friends and I bundled up, fortified ourselves with a thermos of hot coffee and paid our $20 each. Our tour guide took us to five storytelling stations around the house and grounds (including the family graveyard), where we heard creepy ghost stories that scared us just enough and got close-up views of the house, the kitchen and the repair work that was underway. One of my friends took photos that showed spooky sort of orbs floating around. I didn’t get any of those on my photos — but losing this historic gem is scary enough. Learn more about the Sweetwater mansion at http://sweetwatermansion.com/

Renaissance Faire

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Alabama Renaissance FaireThere is only one spot this weekend where you can converse with a Renaissance Fairetroll, dine on a roasted turkey leg and be presented to royalty: The Alabama Renaissance Faire in downtown Florence. And, why, you may ask, does Florence host the official Alabama Renaissance Faire? Well, for one thing, Ferdinand Sannoner, an Italian who helped surveyed the town in 1818, named it after Firenze, the beautiful Italian Renaissance city built around the River Arno just as the present-day Florence is situated on the Tennessee River. And for another, this is Ren Faire Alabama-family-style. There’s no drinking and no R-rated entertainment. You can bring both your grandmother and your grandchildren here without fear of embarrassment. In fact, education is a major part of the faire. Throughout October (and really all year long), Ren Faire volunteers visit local schools and give programs on life in Renaissance times. There are art, sonnet and chess contests for students, and high-schoolers get to help out at the faire for extra credit. Plus, the Faire is free, it’s in a small confined space — downtown’s Wilson Park, turned into the Fountain-on-the-Green for the duration — and it’s full of child-friendly crafts, food and fun. If you’ve ever shied away from a Ren Faire because you envisioned drunken pirates and way-too-buxom maidens running around, then this is the place you need to be — 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 24 and noon to 6 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 25. Go to http://www.alarenfaire.org/ for more info on the Alabama Renaissance Faire.