Just Try

Remember when you were a kid and your mom would tell you to go use the restroom and you would protest? Usually, this nagging preceded a long car trip or a visit to a place without facilities. Usually, if you were like me, you whined something akin to "But I don't have to go."

My mother would end the ordeal by commanding, "Just try." And most times I would. And behold, my mama would be proved right. I did have to go.

And on the occasions that I resisted successfully and made the trip without the old school try, my mama was also proved right. I did have to go. Only, it was too late. 

Failure to learn from natural consequences showed my age. It wasn't until my thirties, when I had children of my own to harangue, that I saw the wisdom in my mother's words, "just try." 

Now, I'm slipping deep into my forties. Per my mother's example, I frequent bathrooms, not because I feel the urge, not because of a pending road trip, but simply because the opportunity presents itself. On advice of my mama, my motto is never miss a chance to make water. 

On a recent visit to my parents' place at the beach, I got a horrifying glimpse into my future, however. I questioned whether I was blindly following my mother's admonitions.

I think it really shows a person's age when she doesn't regard an unnecessary shower chair in the bathroom as an unusual accessory. My parents are robust and spry. The superfluous shower chair resides under a layer of towels. 

Nonetheless, my mother's comfort with its presence is entirely disconcerting. I've acknowledged her indisputable wisdom about just trying and taking the opportunity to go when chance presents it, but I think I'm going to have to whine about the shower chair, if for no other reason than to re-establish boundaries and steadfast resistance. I refuse to "just try" on this one.

School's Out Just in Time

If it's not the locusts, it's a teenage boy. Teenage boys eat voraciously without discrimination. Which makes them grow like Jack's magic seeds. Pants that fit them in the morning are capris by afternoon.

It's a good thing school is out for summer, because this specimen has outgrown his thinking cap.

Fragile but Fearless

First, let me say that I think I have died and gone to summer camp . . . The luxury  kind . . . For adults. 

Second, let me tell you that my "camp counselors" are so patient with this neophyte. Last night the Wine Snob forgave me for my inability to talk vino. The golf pro didn't say a foul word that I could hear when I knocked a 3-foot putt 10 feet past the hole. 

No one freaked when I got tangled in my own fly rod line. And My horse, Anne, and I bonded  onthe trail ride. The canteen filled with lemonade, sweet tea and vodka certainly gave me warm feelings toward her.

My fantasy trip to Barnsley Gardens Resort in the foothills of North Georgia's Blue Ridge Mountains has taken me back to my childhood when I spent summers living in a cabin and honing my riflery skills. I love having a similar experience, but in an all grown up way.

Though, when our sporting clays instructor, Skip, strapped a shoulder pad on me this morning, I asked him, "You must think I'm fragile?" He hadn't harnessed any of the other lady "campers" in such a contraption. Maybe it was a compliment to my femininity. Perhaps. I couldn't be sure, however.

I channeled my presumed frailty into inspiration. Bam! Bam-bam! I broke those sporting clays fearlessly. "Whoop!" I triumphantly yelled. 

He still didn't let me take ithe protective shoulder pad off. I believe it was a chivalrous move and that's where I plan to hang my hat. On chivalry. Because I'm far too young for frailty. And hell-bent on fearless. And I know Skip gets that about me.

At leat, that's how I choose to comfort myself in this glorious retreat from reality.

Confess and Repent

As you can see, I found something that passes for business casual (at least the Barnsley Gardens Resort Wine Snob, Greg Tieague, approved of it). Unfortunately, he didn't approve of my wine tastes.

He went around to each media person present and asked her what wines she normally enjoys. Each one replied with a lot of words I didn't understand, which made me fade to the back of the classroom.

Eagle-eyed, he spied me slipping behind another guest. "And what kind of wine do you drink?" he asked me. 

Ugh! My heart fell. Everyone would know the truth about me now. They would know I was faking the business casual.

"I was trying to fade to the back of the classroom," I said, ashamed of getting caught.

"You drink Chardonnay, right?" He knowingly accused.

That's when I let the truth fall out of mouth like marbles I could no longer contain. "Yes! With an ice cube in it. Three dollar wine from Walmart!" I took a deep   breath. "I'm so sorry."

He forgave me :-)

Business Casual in the Eye of the Beholder

I am off to the lovely Barnsley Gardens Resort in North Georgia for a media event as the representative for Lake Oconee Living Magazine. With a storied past, it is the perfect place for a writer to sojourn. The 3-day itinerary includes a trail ride, sporting clays, a wine tasting, a spa visit, a lesson in casting a fly rod, dining, entertainment and serenity.

(Serenity might only be on my itinerary. It's May and the school year is drawing to a close and chaos has crept into every corner of my house. I'm glad for this fine excuse to escape the May-hem.)

But I digress from the real reason I MUST post today. Tomorrow, I make the three hour drive from here to there. Today, I pack. The coordinator kindly sent a few suggestions about what to bring. For dinner, it is advised to dress "business casual."

Being a freelance writer, I work in a home office sans coworkers and water cooler. No one meets me at the kitchen faucet to chat about how a project is going. As I write, three squirrels are running up and down the dogwood tree outside my window. This is the view from my desk:

I enjoy it in relative solitude.

My social networking for the day will include scrolling FaceBook, typing this blog and fielding whines from my progeny.

On "casual" day at my "office" when I'm doing my "business" I wear pajamas and don't answer the front door. My general wardrobe includes denim and duck boots, because I often clear my mind by retreating out to the garden to pull a few weeds. I may live a sheltered life, but I doubt this is the business casual attire to which my gracious hostess refers.

Lo, I am a professional writer without a professional wardrobe. I hide behind my computer monitor and only video skype on days that I have brushed my hair and put some color on my face. Even then, I might be lounging about in my PJs.

Panic that I own the proverbial "nothing to wear" (but pajamas and jeans) is setting in. I'm headed upstairs to remove everything from my closet, toss it about on my husband's side of the bed, and examine every piece of clothing, carefully analyzing whether the words "business" and "casual" could both be used - by someone other than myself - to describe it.

Perhaps the Barnsley Gardens Fairy Godmother might help!

Or maybe you could give me some insight into what counts for business casual?

Three Lines from My WIP

Keeping one eye open during the patriarch’s thirty minute blessing, we watch the children’s tables in the hall.  Gramps gives the annual prayer-speech about how he and “mother” started all this, mentioning each of the Lord’s blessings (big, small and questionable) and all relatives deceased, absent or unwelcome. The irreverent among us let their minds wander and arrive at a singular thought: Where’d that Wild Turkey get off to?

--Excerpted from Thanksmas, a memoir of the most wondered-at time of the year

Country Living, City Style

I've just about done all the farming local laws and space will allow me to do on my half acre. As I'm not at liberty to use all of it because I live in a neighborhood where appearances must be kept up, I'm cramming my urban oasis into a tiny plot of land.

It's almost like my house has a split personality. Porchaven in the front,

and garden plot in the rear. 

My small orchard consists of a pear tree, a plum tree, a fig tree, a pecan tree and three thornless blackberry bushes. They aren't really organized into an orchard the way one would think. They just occupy any old square footage of earth that was available on planting day. Each fights for its life.

I've slipped an herb plot right under the neighbors' noses, putting it in a corner of a front flower bed.
And because every farm needs animals in order to be a real farm, I have set up a hive for the package of bees that will arrive in about two weeks.

Bees are not the kind of animal I pictured myself herding when I started designing my urban homestead. Honestly, I think it isn't very farmer-like to fear one's flock. But a cow grazing in my front yard wouldn't go over very well with the authorities or those who own homes adjacent to mine.

So I've been talking to my husband about selling Porchaven and purchasing acreage outside of town. He seems to be warming to the idea and to help get him over the land divide, I took him out to a farm on Sunday. He petted the horses. He helped round up the donkeys that stubbornly refused to be rounded. He called to the belligerent cows and he cuddled the barn cats.

It looked certain that I was making a real breakthrough with him, thus I went in the feed room and scooped a container of cracked corn to cast to the chickens. My soul mate was taken in by the throaty coos of the delighted hens.

But suddenly something in his brain snapped. He impulsively snatched a fish net from a nail and said, "What's this for? Catching roosters?" And he went all city-kid at the petting zoo on me, chasing panicked chickens that clucked and flapped and kicked up dust and escaped via any route they could out into coyote territory.

I'm taking it as a sign that he may not be ready for the farm.