Gardening Tip

Feed it and water it and watch it grow. . .

. . . into cat-nip.

The Neighbors Are Really Talking Now

Big news today. My husband and I finally did it. We named our house and we boldly posted its new and well-deserved name on the wall of our front porch. Like most other things we do - grow weeds instead of grass, sneak laying hens into the backyard, leave bikes scattered from one end of the lawn to the other - the neighbors are talking. I see them walk by, squinting their eyes to read the words on the new plaque and whispering to each other.

Nonetheless, I know as a southerner that I've done the good and proper thing. This week I've been writing a book review of Ghosts of Grandeur: Georgia's Lost Antebellum Homes and Plantations for Lake Oconee Living Magazine, and as I've studied the tome I've come to realize that not only is giving one's home a proper name okay, it's an obligation. Look at these monikers: Fair Oaks Plantation, Calico House, Summerland, Cedar Valley, Glen Lora, Dungeness, Paradise Hill, Pomegranate Hall and Ingelside.

The one commonality that all of these names share is that they something about the people who lived in the houses or the identifying features of the landscape surrounding the houses or details of the houses themselves. In naming our home we avoided ostentatiously adding on words like hall or manor or house or plantation. We avoided using the sir names of past residents.

Our guiding principal was to find what was special about our house, that makes it home to us. Our conclusion: The front porch.


So let the neighbors banter if they must. As my husband says, "It's branding, and there's no publicity like the opinions of the public." While they're talking it up, we'll be taking it all in from the safe haven of our porch . . . from Porchaven.

Somewhere West of Sparta, GA

This is the kind of sign that makes a person ask, "Where am I?" and vaguely answers the question.

It was the hotspot for buying jumbo frog legs and collard greens.

Brown Nose Points

Though I've never ever seen football players cut the grass or re-line the field after a game, I can't say the same for baseball players. Following every home game my son and his teammates hit the field one more time to tidy it up. Mostly they rake dirt, which I don't understand and assume is some kind of coaching strategy to harden them into men.

The other night, while waiting for him to finish his maintenance duties, my daughter observed that my son was among the few who jumped to action every time the coach barked. "Why does he keep going out there?" she complained. "I'm ready to go home. Can't some of the other players do something?" Only 11 years-old, her attention span for baseball and its varied rituals isn't much longer than mine.

"He's doing what his coach wants him to do," I told her.

She responded, "Yeah, but nobody else is. He ought to go in the dugout and flop around like everyone else."

Well," I said, "he's trying to earn his brownie points."

"He's doing what?" she asked.

"He's earning his brownie points."

My daughter inhaled deeply. A huge smile spread across her face. Her eyes sparkled with enthusiasm lost by the close of the first inning. "We're having brownies for dinner tonight?" she exclaimed.

Baseball Life - Looking for the Sign

I spend my life, 7 innings at a time, watching the complicated game of baseball. Because the breaks between action are frequent and often prolonged, my mind starts to wander. I ponder deep subjects such as what I can cook for dinner, the name of the parent I've sat next to for years but can't remember, and baseball's parallels to life.

For all of its strategy and rigorous adherence to routine, the game of baseball mirrors the condition of humanity. It is a struggle against failure. Coaches keep statistics to determine how well each player is holding up in the face of forces of defeat. The numbers generally sober any player too high on himself. Failure is usually in the lead.

But one advantage baseball has over our everyday existence is the nature of the approach. When I wake up start my day, it's total guesswork as to my next move. I plot my own course with little outside input and a heap of faith. Even when I look for signs, I get too preoccupied to notice them. But baseball players, as compared to me, are darn lucky. They know what to do next. They look for the sign and they receive it pretty clearly. I wish life was like that.

Of course, coaches and life are equally punitive when they give a sign and it's missed.

Augusta Family Magazine wins five national awards | The Augusta Chronicle

Augusta Family Magazine wins five national awards | The Augusta Chronicle

I'm thrilled to have won three of the five. At the same time, though, I'm stressed out that maybe I won't write as well this year. Is that what they call 'performance anxiety'?

The Holy City

Every year, late winter, I get together with a group of friends from college. We were in the same sorority. We made a lot of the same mistakes. We share the same memories. 

 

This past weekend we ate our way through Charleston, SC like Old Testament locusts, infesting O'Hara & Flynn, Fleet Landing, The Grocery, Jestine's, Magnolias Uptown Down South, Hominy Grill and The Noisy Oyster with our inside jokes, favorite stories and bursts of laughter.

Normally, we stay out on one of the islands and drive in for just a few hours, but this year we decided to go urban. The guy with the rental company that leased us the apartment for the weekend answered an affirmative 'yes' when we asked if the place was in walking distance of the lower peninsula. Perhaps the misunderstanding was in the way we phrased the question. I don't know. But, by his interpretation, it was also in walking distance of the Vatican City. 

Add that commute to our bouts of aimless wandering (caused by all of the blood rushing to our stomachs to facilitate digestion before we piled on the next meal) then factor in the number of years that have elapsed since college and you arrive at sore feet. As we briskly hiked up Meeting Street to no particular destination, with no particular goal, one of the ladies in my party turned to me and remarked, "I feel like a Hebrew in the desert."

To which I responded, "Only we've managed to pack 40 years of wandering into one day."

Needless to say, between the food, the drink and the foot pace, we didn't exactly spring forward with the rest of the world on Sunday. The Holy City had brought us to our knees.