Tables, turned November 14, 2007
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Being Southern, Cooking, Family.12 comments
For seven long years, I was semi-vegetarian. Everyday of the year, Thanksgiving included. No turkey, no dressing, no stuffing, no gravy. Despite my Grandmother’s protests and my family’s attempts to sway me to eat just one piece of turkey, I abstained from the meat.
My family is full of jokers who delighted in nothing more than talking to their turkey in my presence, nibbling it with glee, holding pieces of it up in front of my face – all in the most kind, teasing way, of course. I was the Thanksgiving Freakshow, she who ate butternut squash dumplings while the rest of the crew devoured various cuts of meat. My youngest cousins would ask me if I was crazy, right before they asked me why I didn’t have a boyfriend and looked at me like I was a 100-year-old cat lady who lived in a cave.
So you can imagine how excited my now meat-eating self is about my having a Thanksgiving turkey this year. I love to cook, so much so that I’ve been known to go help my mom cook the night before Thanksgiving just for fun. And these last few months have been a love affair with turkey sandwiches leading up to the Main Event – slow roasted turkey with all the gravy I can ladle away from my family members.
I’m making plans for the cooking already – I am typically in charge of several sides and I’ll be packing some food in a cooler, as my family is driving to visit my brother and his fiancé for the holiday.
As luck would have it, they had a very important announcement for us – they’re completely vegetarian now. Possibly even vegan.
After suffering through SEVEN vegetarian Thanksgivings with my meat devouring brother, my triumphant return to plates of turkey topped with gravy topped with more turkey topped with a side of meat (for good measure) is marred by my brother informing me that he guesses we can use his future mother-in-law’s kitchen, not his, for the baking of the “death” turkey.
And now I am just so torn about the best way to support his decision. I simply can’t decide – should I chase him around the kitchen with the drumstick or just leave the turkey bones in his bed?
To the women of the world: A note sent on behalf of everyone around you October 21, 2007
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Being Southern, Fashionable Ranting, Open Letters, Seriously!.10 comments
Attention Women:
If you look in the mirror and you have to ask yourself for even one second, “Is this a shirt or a dress?”
Then it is always a shirt.
I know you really want it to be a dress. But if it were a dress, your ass cheeks wouldn’t be hanging out. Do us all a favor and put on some pants.
Thanks,
Charming
P.S. I realize that us Southern Gals are all about dressing up for football games and tailgates. I, like you, wore a little knit dress and appropriately colored accessories (chunky beads) to celebrate on Saturday. But let me offer some friendly fashion advice. Please, for the love of all things good in this world, stop wearing four-inch stilettos to football games. You’re just going to twist an ankle. If you’re too good for a pair of flip flops, invest in ballet flats. (Seriously, it is almost November and it is still flip-flop and knit dress weather here. Cherish this blessing.)
Snippets from the weekend October 7, 2007
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Being Southern, College was Fun, Friends, Weekend Updates.7 comments
Early afternoon, Saturday, Beer One:
“What did I do before all of this technology?” I asked as leaned back in my chair-in-a-bag with a beer at a tailgate on Saturday afternoon.
I’d just typed out a couple of e-mails and text messages alerting some friends to my location and simply could not remember how we ever pulled off elaborate tailgates without cell phones and e-mail. I picked my phone off of my lap to send out one more message when The Lawyer interrupted me with an answer.
“Um, you paid attention to your surroundings?” she said, nodding to the people gathered around me.
I giggled and put down the phone, as she’d clearly made her point about my technology. (Though, I might add, she can’t be completely anti-technology, as she did run with me to watch a critical play on a nearby tailgate’s 32-inch high definition flat screen later that night.)
—
Late afternoon, Saturday, Beer Four:
“Is it weird that I feel awkward that I’ve made out with two guys at this tailgate?” The Lawyer asked me, motioning to two friends of a friend’s boyfriend.
I paused.
“Nope,” I said. “It would just remind of going out to any bar, any night years ago. Pretend we’re still in college.”
—
Late morning, Sunday, Glass of Water:
“Hah, the menu says ‘$3.99 entitles you to all of the champagne you can drink’,” said The Lawyer.
“Oh yeah?” I said, scanning the brunch section. “Well, I always feel entitled to all of the champagne I can drink, so that won’t be a problem.”
The Patron Saint of Spinsters August 12, 2007
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Advice People Give Me, Being Southern, Dating, Family, Men, My family is sure I will never marry, Single Girl Cliches, Women.38 comments
“[Charming], I have a prayer for you,” said my Grandmother, a devout Catholic and fixture on her church’s prayer line.
“What kind of prayer?” I asked, with a cautious tone I reserve for moments when I think I’m about to hear something I’d rather not, perfected over years of awkwardness at Sunday dinners.
“Well, I met this woman who worked at Wal-Mart.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, now fully convinced that this gem of advice was probably about to me wildly out of line with my life.
“And she’d had two husbands, and she asked me if I was Catholic,” my Grandmother said.
By this point, wild scenarios of how this conversation even started raced through my mind. I could picture my Grandmother asking the woman working the cash register for advice for marrying off her hopelessly single granddaughter who, “Just works all of the time, you know?”
“And the woman at Wal-Mart gave you a prayer?”
“Yes,” my Grandmother said. “She asked if I knew of the prayer to St. Anne.”
“St. Anne?” I asked. I am familiar with praying to St. Anthony when you’ve lost something or praying to St. Jude, the patron Saint of Lost Causes – and yes, I feared that my Grandmother was about to suggest a prayer to St. Jude. I was fully unaware of a Matchmaker Saint, though I’m sure that if one such saint did exist, my Grandmother would know about it.
“Yes, St. Anne. The prayer goes ‘St. Anne, St. Anne, find me a man.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but for once in a life full of sarcastic comebacks and witty quips, no words came.
“But the woman at Wal-Mart, she said she changed the words around a little because she’d been divorced twice,” my Grandmother said. “So she prays, ‘St. Anne, St. Anne, find me the right man.’”
My Grandmother was so proud of herself for finding a way to appeal to a higher power to intervene in my dating life. And the rest of my family teasingly sang, “St. Anne, St. Anne, find [Charming] a man!” for the rest of the afternoon.
