Tag Archives: wine

The Empress and the Snake Bite (or “turn it to Watercolors”)

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The other day my friend, The Empress, came to stay at my lake place with me.  She should really be called the Queen, but that conjures up visions of cross-dressing men and The Empress is definitely not that.  The Empress is 130 lbs of pretty woman with a figure like Jessica Rabbit and a giant head full of brunette hair that just never ends.  The Empress has had four husbands up to bat and she’s struck them all out of the ball park, the losers.  She has a great job, a fantastic house and knows how to do anything.  I mean anything.  If I called her with a bullet wound, she would know exactly how to handle it so I didn’t scar or at least fix it so I’d get to get free liposuction out of the ordeal.  She can get anything to grow, rescues little fluffy dogs and manages the church sales.  The Empress has a beautiful house, a garage full of vintage cars, can assess a commercial property with a shrewd eye and still mix a perfect drink in kitten heels.  I adore the Empress and aspire to her level of tough. She’s my hero.

Well, I thought she was a tough girl until the other night.  We had been sitting around, tippling just a little, when we decided we were starving.  The Empress was still in condition to drive, which I was not, which only goes to her tough nature.  Halfway into town I spot a giant snake crossing the road.  I yell out “stop the car!”, which illustrates my mother was right and women become vulgar when alcohol is involved and get loud.  I really get loud but that might be another story.  The Empress slams on the brakes and I jump out, wobbling down the road in a pair of “sittin’ shoes”.  You know the kind.  I was also wearing a dress that was probably better suited to the younger generation but it is sometimes hard for me to understand that I’m not 25 anymore and the Golden Goose does a good job of hiding it from me.  Now, in my mind, I was thinking that when the Goose and my son arrived late that night they’d be proud of me for catching a snake.  Don’t know why I thought this, but that was my motivation and also why I was not driving.  I’ve dealt with lots of snakes and I really do know what I’m doing on a normal day.

This evening, I was not at the top of my game.  I did catch up with the snake, just as a truck pulled up in the other lane.  The Empress yells out “girl, you’re exposing your entire ladytown every time you bend over” and proceeds to roll up her windows and look as if she is not there.  Because she pointed this out in front of the truck full of men, I was offered two unmentionable acts accompanied by a six pack and received one insincere proposal of marriage.  Of course, the snake bites down hard, which causes great glee to the audience and by the time the truck pulls away, I’m just a silly woman in a great, if wrong, outfit, standing with a bloody finger in the middle of the road.  A snakebite has a sobering affect on a girl and so I gently laid down the evil serpent and slunk back to the car.  The Empress had locked the doors and the entire vehicle was vibrating with something that sounded suspiciously like Yanni.  I’m hollering at her to let me in and what the heck does she think she’s doing and she’s yelling back that when she’s scared, she turns the radio to “watercolors” and locks the doors.  This apparently works for her and it might be a good strategy for all of us to keep in mind, but as I was outdoors at the time, I wasn’t enjoying it.  I finally convinced her to let me and take me right away to a big wine and an even bigger dinner, which I charged to the Goose, by the way, as I consider the entire incident his fault since I was only trying to be a good wife in the first place.

I’m thinking more clearly at this point and I like to make the best of any situation.  The good thing I’m taking away from this Springer episode gone wrong is that I may have worn something inappropriate, I may misjudged my wine consumption, I may have even exposed a little too much to some men from the sewer department, but, darn it, I was tougher that day than the Empress.  In my book, that’s a win.

Annabelle and the Trophy Wife

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There’s a hillbilly saying in our house, that we really only say amongst ourselves.  Okay, all of us don’t say it.  Really, just my daughter, Cricket, and I say it.  Sometimes she doesn’t even join in.  The saying is “there’s no lovin’ like pig lovin”. From day one Cricket loved pigs.  When she was little, she looked for pigs in every book, stuffed ones in stores, pigs on signs.  We haven’t always been country people.  I grew up in Atlanta with a “True Southern Lady” (this just has to be in caps to emphasize how true a statement this is) of a mother and a “True Gentleman” of a father.   We did have one outdoor dog, the prerequisite golden retriever, but I am certainly not farm bred stock.  When I was 20, I married my husband, the Golden Goose, thus called because this is how he refers to himself.  If I ask him if he would like me to pull him on skis behind the boat, he answers, “what if the Golden Goose gets hurt?  Who will pay the bills and take care of all of you?”  If he is asked to do a zip line, we get the same response. ‘Bout the same thing with bike riding, wake boarding, jumping off the dock, shopping, trampolining, walking or jogging with me or playing Words with Friends.  Apparently, golf is the only sport he finds safe enough.  Probably because he has done it so often and has lived to tell about it.

The Golden Goose had no reason to believe the southern belle he married would become the twisted, middle-aged goddess I’ve become.  I’m sure, looking at my storybook family, he believed I was a safe bet.  I don’t know when I started to crave the critters in an obsessive way.  When our first was born, we lived on a golf course.  She got a normal start that doesn’t explain the pig craziness.  Whatever it was that flipped the switch, I soon realized that life without giving our daughter a pig wasn’t worth the living.  I felt they would frown on a pig on the golf course and began the campaign for a country house.  I spouted facts about spoiled kids and clean air and any other crap I could make up and probably brought the Golden Goose drinks in flimsy attire a few times as well.  Once moved, the assemblage began in ernest.  There are lots of animal tales, but this one is about pigs.  Our first pig, Jemima, was so magnificent as a baby that it caused two of my normal friends to immediately demand a pig baby as well.  Our pigs had dainty painted toenails, rhinestone collars and took baths with lavender scented soap.  They had floral and toile beds, were house-trained and had heated oatmeal for breakfast.  Let me explain my friend the Trophy Wife.  Gosh, she just deserves to be hated.  She is tiny, a zero, with naturally straight white blond hair that never frizzes.  And, damn it, she is nice.  Really nice, but not namby-pamby.  If I called her and told her I needed her to jump into a mud puddle with me, she’d say, okay, should I bring red or white wine?  She is the best.  Well, her pig, Annabelle, went to the ball field with her.  Her stepson was up to bat and her husband was coaching first base.  Annabelle had the bad luck to be situated behind the plate, behind a gap in the fence.  We’ve all been there, All Star game, travel team, anxious parents in Range Rovers, sure their kid in the next star, whispers… So Annabelle walks through the gap.  The Trophy Wife sees a situation in the making and immediately begins to try to operate her retractable leash.  Until you have heard a baby pig get angry about not being able to go where they want, you probably can’t imagine the sound.  Think tornado warning system.  Think dump truck being pulled on it’s side across asphalt.  Think malfunctioning rocket.  Annabelle began such a ruckus that parents and players from other fields looked up in distress.  Mothers picked up their babies out of their strollers.  Old timers checked the skies for attacks.  The more she pulled, the more Annabelle squealed.  All the Trophy Wife could think of was that Annabelle was going to slip her collar and run, willy-nilly, through the game.  When she got her back to the gap in the fence, she couldn’t fit her back through.  Kind of like taking off your heals under the table, she just wasn’t the same size going back in.  Under the scrutiny of the entire ballpark, players, two angry umpires, her husband and his glaring first wife, she finally got her through, tucked her into her purse and slunk to the car.  I know this had to be a problem when they got home, but seeing as how the Trophy Wife is more than cute, I think it all worked itself out.

…and a ‘possum in the dishwasher

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I can pull it off pretty well in public, being normal.  In my real life as a designer, I seem okay.  My big southern hair is usually in place, I often wear lipstick and matching clothes.  I like to wear shoes that cause other women to rethink their entire lives.  I like earrings sparkly enough to make Amish women sin in their hearts. All normally goes well until I’m consulting with a client, slip up and something like this tumbles out, “I LOVE dark stain on a floor with a high gloss finish.  I have that myself.  It usually looks great but yesterday, after I mopped, the stinkin’ oposum climbed up in the dishwasher, got her feet all wet, and tracked it all over the floor”. Uh huh, that awkward silence that lets me know this was outside the parameters of what my clients were expecting when they contracted for design services.  What I do in my “other life” has crept into my big girl life and I’m getting that look from a volvo driving client who is over her head at home with just her goldendoodleschnitzapoo.

Several years ago, I got my wildlife rehabilitation license from the GA DNR because people just kept bringing injured animals to me just because I have a barn, opossums among them.  And it’s true, we did have an opossum who lived in our house for years.  I retrieved her on a rehab call with her bottom jaw stuck in a fence.  She was so glad to receive my help that she snapped and growled her appreciation throughout the entire removal process.  Although I knew I should probably euthanize her, I worked on her for weeks.  She lost a good portion of her lower jaw giving her an overbite and a lisp that would have made Drew Barrymore proud.

Glamorously named Jawbone, she refused all attempts for release and found every possible way to get into the house.  Periodically, I would look up to find her reclining on my 18th century living room sofa with the $200 yard velvet, with her tail curled provocatively around her while she opened up a $6.00 truffle I refused to let my kids eat unless a special occasion rolled around.

My daughter was in high school at the time and threatened law suits, emancipation and/or dressing me polyester and not plucking my whiskers when I get old if the secret ever got out.  Once, when she brought a new boy home and he was standing in the kitchen Jawbone sauntered through the dining room behind him.  There was a moment of panicked filled eye swearing while JB continued through the kitchen, daintily plucked a treat from the cat’s dish and continued on in what I can assume was an errand of the utmost importance.  The boy never knew what happened, although I have put aside money in a special fund for epilation after age 65.

I love opossums.  I can’t understand why they are abhorred by people everywhere.  They could be the mascot for the south. They’re not rodents, they’re marsupials, just like a kangaroo, the only ones in North America.  They don’t carry disease, they’re slow and steady and eat all the garbage in the world.  I love anyone who will clean up after themselves and have yet to train anyone one or any animal in my family to do so.  They’re slow, I admit, but cause no harm and only hiss and drool because they’re afraid. They almost never bite and will occasionally do that really cool thing and get quiet and play dead, a great talent for anyone.

Great southern women have big hearts for all living things.  Southern women are not namby pamby, scardy cats who faint when a ground hog climbs up on our porch.  We don’t hesitate to get out of our cars, in our high heeled shoes and move a turtle across the road, flippin’ our hair while we save a life.

Show me a woman who is afraid of an opossum and I’ll bet she’ll be the same woman who will refuse to dress up in a prom dress after a glass or two of wine.  Give me a woman with an opossum in her house and I’ll show you a woman who will blurt out something at a party that will cause her mother to alert the prayer chain.  Now, that’s fun.