Dogs and the End of Television

(Meet Emileigh Earhart, my bakery beagle.)

I have entered the world of dogs, so there will be some new posts coming up next week. In the meantime, I'm getting the house ready for my boyfriend's first visit to see me (usually I trek the five and a half hours to see him) and trying to train a kind of puppy. I've already prepared Chris for the no television-zone, which he took care of by figuring out a way to redirect his satellite to his laptop. I am amazed by how quickly men go to action to do such inane things as redirecting their television, but when it comes to screwing in a new bulb or taking the trash out, it can take months, let alone ever happen. Thankfully, I've got a guy who can do both.

Dinner Party Daresay

I'm reminded that Mississippi is the Hospitality State every time I return from a trip. Its motto is emblazoned across its welcome sign. I was once told by an Italian that when you are invited to their home for dinner, it's a sincere gesture. It's the same for Southerners. So what's the proper thing to do when you are invited to dinner and told not bring anything? Bring wine or flowers.

One friend, who was a usual guest at my dinner table, always brought either flowers or wine. It was particularly nice when he brought flowers because they were something I considered an indulgence. My roommate and I would drop them in the closest vase, or something vaguely resembling a vase, and the table was set. Another nice touch is something that Alysson often does. Buy flowers from the grocer and dress them up in nice paper. (Even newspaper can look good when tied with a pretty bow.)

Wine is a welcome treat, too, even if it is not intended to be consumed that evening. I've received many a bottle of my favorite wine or port when the table was already full of libations. The gift can be saved for another occasion. The next dinner party they invite you to perhaps.

So why bring anything? Consider the fact that your host/friend has gone out of their way to accommodate you. Even the tidiest of hosts must spend some time freshening up their place. I should know, since I always devote a few hours to cleaning before a dinner party. Meal preparation also requires substantial time (not to mention money) to ensure a scrumptious feast. And don't forget the fun afterwards. While you are crawling into your cozy bed, your host is cleaning up the equivalent of a week's worth of dirty dishes. I'm lucky enough to have friends who linger around for the dishwashing, but I never expect it.

I used to throw dinners on a regular basis, but the cost and time made the experience less than enjoyable. Downsizing and limiting my feasts to simple, managable meals (my boyfriend gets the experimental dishes), has made dinners with friends a reality once again. It would seem that throwing a dinner for friends is a burden, and for some people it is. It also explains why places like Applebees and TGIFs are still in business. If you haven't had friends over in while, invite them over. For me, it feels good to wait on other people, but home is also an intimate place for people to get to know you better.

***

For an easy gathering with friends, consider brunch. Many of the dishes can be made a day ahead of time so that you can enjoy your friends' company. Also, you can serve a signature drink like Bloody Marys or Mimosas, or be adventurous and invent your own breakfast concoction. With clean up at a minimum, you'll have the afternoon to take a nap!

Dog House

(Oscar Mills)

I'm about to foster a dog in my home, a beagle named Emileigh.

The Dog History runs deep and dysfunctional in my family. My twin sister has two Bostons. They're wild and fierce, but at night they are like any tired dog. They sleep. We had dogs growing up. There was Dukes, then Angie, and finally, Bear. All were mutts and when the kids grew tired of feeding them, my parent's surrendered all three to sympathetic friends with larger yards. (In a similar move, my older sister "got rid of" a Papillon mix that "drove her nuts." In a car ride the other day, her two-year-old proclaimed out of nowhere, "No Dogs!", to which her mother chimed in, "Or cats!" Unable to train dogs, she's at least trained her daughter.) Like my older sister, my mom has never been a fan of canines, and I suspect it was my father's persuasion that allowed any dogs to set foot, let alone stay, in our house. Today, they have a miniature Daschund, a runt named Brutus.

Brutus belonged to one of my brothers, but between his yearly sojourn to Switzerland and moves around town, Brutus relocated to my parents' house, and more specifically, my dad's lap. In Mississippi, I had my own dogs for a time. There was Bass, a gentle German Shepard, and Badger, a Lab mix whose name fit his rambunctious personality. For four years, I was a dog owner, sharing the responsibility with a boyfriend. They were clearly his dogs though. Four years later he split and took the dogs with him.

The only dog I was truly fond for the last few years is Oscar, a dog rescued from the rubble of Katrina. He belonged to my friend Alysson, who previously lived in my house. I remember the first time I saw Alysson. She was walking north on Lamar with this handsome, blond dog at the end of a leash. For a moment, I was transported to Paris. (Later I learned that Oscar responded to some commands in French.) The pair was the picture of chic in a small, north Mississippi town and I wanted to know them. We met shortly thereafter, and have remained friends, sharing recipes, glasses of wine, and stories. Oscar, I'm told, is settled into his new digs in Jackson, but when he stops by his old place at Pierce, you can tell he remembers it.

Many Homes for the Holidays

I'm still on the road and will be moving around the South until the Super Bowl. Currently, I am in Tampa, Florida, but before that I was spending time in Atlanta. However, for the last few days I was on Crystal River, just north of where I grew up on the Tampa Bay. I will be posting about another kind of manspace I found there. More later.

Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah to all.

Making Room for the Man Couch

(Humidor)

LaGrange, Georgia. – The way to a man’s heart is not through his stomach, but through a leather recliner. I spent the last two days with my best friend Jessica and her husband James at their home in LaGrange where James took a job a few years ago. Jessica says the house was bachelor pad before she moved in.

Vestigages of that life remain: beer steins and leather couches.

According to one source, a hallmark of the bachelor pad is the lack of attention to detail and cleanliness. The leather couch makes sense, he says. The cushions never have to go to the dry cleaner, which makes cleaning up easy.

A list of men who own leather couches whirls around in my head. Brother-in-laws and rockers among them. In the case of my sister, both she and her spouse decided to put a black leather set in their living room. That was four years ago. Today, she’s wondering why she didn’t recommend them for the den.

This brings me to where the man couch should live. In an earlier post, my architect cousin Beth explained the role of the den, specifically how modern design plans have thwarted this much-coveted man space. Rather than dens or sitting rooms, which were for the ladies, open floor plans force people to share spaces once deemed private for the different sexes.

So what's the big deal? My recent writing on the value of shared spaces suggests that the phasing out of the den is a good thing. It’s not. The best relationships are ones with boundaries, and in the South, where boundaries are often blurred, privacy is at a premium. The man couch in the living room (or what was once the sitting room) looks weird because it is. Where there should be a humidor, there’s a chintz vase in its place.

(Chintz Vase)

Putting the "PUH" in Pecan

As some of you know, I spend a good amount of my life in the kitchen. Today, I received this recipe from Cara Lundqvist, a former high school classmate of mine in Tampa, Florida, who now lives in Finland. (She met the man and moved there!)

A southern home is not complete without its pies. Three gold stars for Cara for keeping up the southern tradition of making pecan (puh-kahn) pie in Finland:

PECAN PIE

Filling
Ingredients
1 cup of dark brown sugar
2/3 cups of maple syrup
1 tablespoon of rum
3 eggs
2 cups of chopped pecans

Directions
In a bowl, whip the brown sugar and the syrup together until sugar has dissolved and the consistency is smooth.
Beat in 2 eggs and add 1 tablespoon of rum.
Add pecans and mix around until they get completely covered in the sticky liquid.

Crust
Ingredients
6 tablespoons of butter
24 graham crackers
2 eggs
1 teaspoon of cinnamon

Directions
Melt 6 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan or microwave.
Crush 24 graham crackers into fine pieces.
In a bowl, add the butter into the graham cracker mix. Add more butter if needed. Mix should be moist. Stir in 2 egg whites. Add a teaspoon of cinnamon.
Press graham cracker mix into pie plate.
Pre-bake pie crust for 8-10 minutes at 350F.

Pour filling into the pre-baked crust and bake until the pecans are lightly toasted on top. About 20-30 minutes.

No TV Zone

I am hooked on television. I don't own an "idiot box," so whenever I have the chance to park it in front of one, I do. For those of you who think this is strange, I couldn't agree with you more. I haven't owned a TV in years. The reason is simple. I would become an addict.

(Case in point: Last night, I watched 3/4 of the True Blood series. More on that later...)

It's unfortunate, because Barry Hannah, the acclaimed writer and hero to many, once explained the value of the TV for creativity, and especially writing. It's about stories, he said. (In reality, my friend used this argument when I made fun of how much he watched TV. It's not in the watching, it's what you do with it that counts.) Hannah's point is that too much isolation from the rest of the world is never a good thing.

(Barry Hannah)

Clarissa subscribed to cable this fall. This is my friend who grew up in the bright lights and big cities of L.A. and New York. For the first couple of years she lived in Oxford, she watched movies and a few local fuzzy channels she captured with bunny ears. I recall the day I walked into her house and noticed the screen was clear. You have cable, I announced, rather than asked. Then in her usual way of explaining things (yes, my Clarissa really does explain it all), she told me that she needed it.

All this brings me to the "blog." A few weeks ago during my meeting with Charles Wilson, the professor signing off on this project, we discussed the sudden-hit TV series True Blood. I'd heard about it from my sister in Florida who records it and watches at her convenience every week. It's good she told me, but never why. So when Dr. Wilson brought up, I was intrigued. What is he doing watching this show?

(It's like Cheers with Vampires and Sex and Southern Drawls.)

Charles Wilson has his finger on the cultural pulse of the South, that's why. The show, he explained, and I would later find out, was series of dialogues about race, sexuality, and gender in the South. What I noticed, aside from the rich amount of sex and violence, was the depictions of southern homes. Whether it's the home Jason now lives in since he parents died in a flash flood, the home Sookie inhabits by herself since her grandmother was murdered, or the shabby digs of Tara's abode she shares with her alcoholic mother, the theme is this: the south is all about the shared space. Even Will Compton, the vampire Sookie has fallen for, shares his home with transient vampires; and Sam, the owner of the bar Merlotte's, spends more time in there than in his tin can trailer. You get the sense that people move between spaces more freely in the south.

I thinking about this as I plan my own move from Pierce Avenue. Will it be easy? I hope so, and perhaps watching a little TV will help with the process.