9 Clues You’ve Arrived Down South

They’re baaa-aaack! (My lists!) This week I’m giving you an inside look at what it’s like to be innately Southern. Just because you moved here from Ohio doesn’t mean that you really know what’s going on. Here’s some help:

1. I am the seventh person in my family to be named Margaret Elizabeth, though not necessarily in the same order. Also, my brother and my cousin have the same name as my grandfather, ditto for most of my other cousins and their immediate families. I pity the fool that has a baby and picks a name because they like it. Possible grounds for getting disinherited.

2. My husband prefers bow ties to neck ties. Because they’re hot. And he thinks it gives him a better chance of getting laid. (He’s not entirely wrong.) Also, neck ties are kind of passe. Down here, at least.

3. We recently joined a social club whose sole purpose is to get a group of people together for drinking, dancing and debauchery. It’s called Cotillion and it could not be more Southern if it tried. Also, it’s awesome.

4. We refer to people’s houses as “The Austin House” or “Bloom Farms” or “Mulberry Hill” with a straight face. And if we live at such a place, we add that title to our return address embossers.

5. I wouldn’t dream of calling my friends’ mothers by their first names, unless a) they have instructed me to, or b) I put Ms. in front of it (e.g. Happy Thanksgiving, Ms. Anne!).

6. I am in stiff competition with the rest of my friends and family for “The Refrigerator with the Most Party Invitations.” The more covered your fridge door – particularly with Crane’s or Caspari invites – the more popular you are. And speaking of popular, it is custom for us to sneak into our friends’ kitchens and spy on their fridge doors to see what parties we weren’t invited to, and who isn’t getting a Christmas gift from us this year.

7. When someone invites me over for a glass of wine, I dare not show up empty handed, unless otherwise indicated. Acceptable take-alongs are cheese straws, pimento cheese and crackers, a cute package of cocktail napkins or a bottle of wine. (Side note: this is the perfect opportunity to regift those ugly napkins you got last year for Christmas or to get rid of that expensive Costco cheese you thought would be delicious but which actually tastes like shoes.)

8. We kiss cheeks. Doesn’t matter if you’re married, single, man, woman or child. When I hug you, I will also kiss your cheek. Might tell you I love you, too, if I’ve had a couple drinks. But don’t worry, it isn’t a come-on, it’s just a term of endearment.

9. Every Southern woman knows where to find the perfect ham biscuits, because chances are, she can’t make them as good herself. Ham biscuits are good for breakfast, brunches, company, cocktail parties, tailgating, and the list goes on and on. Once you find that lady out in the country that makes them by the hot, buttery dozen, you can bet on keeping her in business for as long as she’ll make them.

For other Monday listers, visit Anna @ abdpbt.

Hey guess what? I joined a club.

So I started to write a list yesterday. I was calling it “9 Clues I’m Southern” until I realized that if you don’t already know I’m from North Carolina then you’re not reading between the lines very well. But then I got distracted. (Stupid work. I swear if it weren’t for the paychecks I would SO not show up here.) And then it dawned on me that my lists haven’t been very funny lately, and that you obviously are not enjoying True That? Tuesdays. What is it, Internet? My embarrassing moments aren’t good enough for you? FINE.

Today is Tuesday, and you will note that I am not telling a story today. You’re welcome. Well, actually, I am going to tell a story, but it’s true and you didn’t even have to guess that! Again, you’re welcome. This story is about – WHOA. I just remembered one of the dreams I had last night, and LBD if you’re reading this – DUDE. You came over for a visit with your little girl, Grace, and she looks JUST LIKE YOU. I mean, seriously. I’ve never met your kid, but in my dream she looked like you did when we were 10. Except she’s only 2. Or 3. I can’t remember which, but it doesn’t matter because she could talk in WHOLE sentences, which frankly is something I haven’t accomplished at 31. So good job on your kid, she’s a genius.

Anyway, back to my story.

Once upon a time there was a small town in North Carolina that prided itself on its gentility, manners, beautiful people, overall wealth and ability to throw good parties. This town – around since the 1770’s – boasted large houses and even a river. Seriously, we have a river that runs right through town. Except that Brad Pitt hasn’t ever lived here, and if he did, he probably wouldn’t wear those fly fishing outfits like he did in that movie about the river and how it runs through something. That would be really cool if he did live here, though. Anyway, so in the 60’s (the 19-ones, not the 17-ones), a bunch of people that lived in this genteel small town decided to start up a little dance club. They wanted to take lessons, become fabulous dancers, and invent more reasons to drink martinis and bourbon. So they formed a club, invited people to join them and – 40 some-odd years later – they invited BB and me, as well. It’s called Cotillion, we no longer take dance lessons, and we had our first function of the year on Friday night.

That's BB and Anne. They're drinking. We had a pre-party in case they ran out of booze at the actual party.

After our pre-party, we headed over to the country club for the dinner and the dance. There was some eating, a lot of drinking, and some really bad white people dancing. See?

That's BB dancing with my mom. It looks painful and somewhat tortuous, which is why I'm behind the camera.

After a while, we stopped caring what we looked like:

BB, HC, me and Crazy Joe pose for...something.

And we started thinking about a) our besties and b) how tired we really were:

Anne and me

Daddy-O on the couch outside the ladies room. Who says my family doesn't have class?

There are more incriminating pictures out there, but I kind of like the people in them, and I don’t want to make enemies just yet. That’s for later down the road. We won’t have another Cotillion party until the spring, which is probably a good idea, since my liver held up a white flag Saturday morning and begged for mercy.

In other news, if you haven’t been over to More Women yet, you are seriously missing out. There’s a new product review blog, where I am planning a few posts about things I use that either a) make my life a hell of a lot easier or b) should be pulled from store shelves immediately. All in my opinion, of course. Check it out, have fun, meet some new people.

Finally, I haven’t watched the Gossip Girl threesome OR the Mad Men finale, so kindly hold your horses for my TV roundup until later in the week.

PS – Did you notice that I didn’t talk NOT ONCE about anxiety?

PPS – Did you also notice that I didn’t tag this post “Anxiety?”

PPPS – You SERIOUSLY need to start paying better attention.

How I spent one Saturday in October

So in all the hubbub of this past month and it’s, um, SHIT, I have not gotten around to telling you about what we did during October – and Internet, I hope you find this as hysterical as I did. First of all, BB was on vacation (thank you Pepsi for taking him back) for 10 days. On some of the days, if he hadn’t been around, well, I don’t want to know what life would’ve been like. Other days, I’m like DUDE. MOVE YOUR FACE.

Anyway, so one Saturday morning BB got up at the crack of dawn and wanted to ride a few hours towards the coast to his hometown. His father is buried there and his grandparents’ house is still there and his high school and the Peanut Festival and his aunt and uncle and WHAT? Did I say, PEANUT FESTIVAL?

Oh yes, Internet. Yes I did.

Today’s list will introduce to you to the 34th Annual Peanut Festival Parade (and surrounding attractions), featuring tractors, Mr. Peanut, high school bands, the Peanut Queen, some horses and more people crowding the streets of Small Town USA than we thought actually lived there.

1.  Some old tractors. Seriously, the first part of the Peanut Festival Parade was just a line of old tractors, driven by mostly teenagers – I use the term loosely because they were maybe 13 – and some old men.

2. I’m not sure if this chick is Miss Chowan County, or Miss Edenton, or Miss Peanut Festival, but she was in the parade and was mighty proud of it.

3. The rest of the parade was super boring – a couple of high school bands, some old cars, a few horses. Then we get to the good part – the county, which is (out there) pronounced “cown-y” with some really round o’s. And in the county, guess what you can see?

Cotton!

4. And . . .

More cotton!

5. And . . . wait for it . . . the whole reason for the Festivus . . .

Peanuts!

Seriously y’all, those are peanuts tangled up in all those weeds. Whole clusters of them. And that dust in the background is from the peanut picking machine (I’m sure it has an official name but I haven’t bothered to learn it) that turns over the peanut plants to expose the nuts.

6. Then we went out to the river, where BB did some thinking:

7. And I played around with the camera:

Check out those mad skillz.

8. Then we caught a glimpse of the Chowan County Fair (not to be confused with the Peanut Festival, occurring simultaneously) from the car:

And then we came home, because that was a little too much fun for one day.

 

Renaming New Year’s Eve

Conversation between Kathy and me this week:

Me: Dude, this year has sucked some major balls.

Kathy: Um, yes.

Me: I mean, really. Think about all the shitty stuff that’s happened. I am SO over 2009. I should make a list.

Kathy: I don’t think we need a list to remember all the bad stuff.

Me: Maybe not. But that’s not the point. The point is, 2009 needs to be done.

Kathy: Yeah, I am with you on telling 2009 to peace the fuck out already.

And so this, Internet, is my new mission. Get through the end of the year, get through the messy holidays, the impending bad stuff, the doctor’s appointments, the final exams, the WHATEVER, and get to New Year’s Eve. This year, New Year’s Eve will be known as “Peace the fuck out already, 2009″ Night.

You think if I sent out invitations to a party celebrating “Peace the fuck out already, 2009″ people would come?

Wherefore art thou, readers?

This little spot on the Interwebs has suffered in the last month, thanks in no small part to my lack of posting some decent content. I blame this on many things, but mostly on illness, anxiety and distractions. There are so many things that have gone on that I haven’t posted about (the Peanut Festival! the All-Stars reunion! the Demise of Tonya on RW/RR Challenge!) because . . . well, I don’t really know why. In my head, the creative juices are flowing, sort of, but somewhere deep in the confines of my brain, the things I want to say are getting stuck – bottlenecked, if you will – in the traffic of my anxiety.

A couple of months ago one of my blog posts was submitted to Creative Nonfiction for consideration in its “Favorite Blog” contest. The winner will be published in the premiere issue of their redesigned magazine. Friday morning they released the 15 finalists, and Half Baked, Twice as Good was not among them. Surprised? Yeah, me neither. But that’s okay, because the blogs they did select as finalists are some really, really great ones. Anyway, all of this is to point out that there are far better places you could spend your time online, but I specifically want to thank the 8 of you that come here – you are my 8 favorite people in the whole wide world.

Also, Monday listing has been on hiatus for the month of October as my head has been too far up my ass to write anything. I was going to try to overcome that today, but instead I thought I’d wait for next Monday. It might take me a whole week to come up with a list. This is sad.

I will, however, treat you to some pictures from the 39th Annual Power Tool Pumpkin Carving party at my brother’s on Friday night. There was Funkin’ Punkin’ Ale, power tools galore, lots of Jello shots in spooky shapes, and one very rambunctious kitten. We left at a decent hour in order for BB to get up at 5am the next morning, but apparently just as he was getting ready for work, the party was winding down. Who, I ask you, can still party until 5am at 30 years old? Not I, friends.

Mmmm, jello shots in bat, ghost and pumpkin shapes

That's me with K. Cat, except that I'm not wearing a pumpkin on my head. It just looks that way.

That's my mother, the skinny movie star. She's holding Gravy, a rescue kitten whose brother is Biscuit (formerly known as Big Rig).