When your mom really knows you.

When your mom really knows you, she'll take time out of her day to send you a note like this:
 Uncle Andrew showed us a new wine, that I thought was right up your alley, maybe you saw it already its called If You See Kay, its imported from Italy and some of the stores in the US are not happy with the name especially some liquor stores in NH. 
I told Andrew that's one Linda will go out and buy for her next party. 
Look it up on line there's a whole long story that goes along with the name.


So, of course I looked it up.
 Rachel Tepper for The Huffington Post wrote about it here. She says it better than me, so go there, read it and like it and follow her posts.

 The wine's from this awesome winery in Rutherford, CA. 

 A fellow wine lover says this about it: "It's a very good Cabernet Sauvignon blend (Primitivo and Petite Verdot grapes) from Lazio, Italy that's rich in color and body. 

The bottle looks like this:

Or or closer inspection... like this.

  Hundred Acre says this about the gal on the bottle: 
kay is a creature; she is an embodiment of a lifestyle, a genre, a feeling in your gut. kay is a force of nature, a wanderer.She represents the philosophy of “Wide Open Throttle or don’t bother doing it at all”. She’s not trying to be, she just is. Always uncontrollable, She’s wanted.


And now? I'm thinking of changing my name to Kay.

Three Drafts later... and I'm not talking beer.

I do this whole start one thing, walk out of the room and start something else thing all the time. That's normal right?
 At some point during my day I will return to each location and complete the tasks... usually in reverse order, fold the laundry that I had dumped from the dryer into the basket. take the trash bag all the way to the outside can, instead of the halfway point in the garage, hang up my morning workout jacket and maybe even venture to the kids rooms to finish what they started before the school bus arrived.

I always get a feeling of pride when the tasks are done, and if I am mid multi- task.. I feel a bit panicky, like standing in a cluttered room makes it hard for me to breathe.

When I opened my blog post draft page and saw not one, but three started drafts.. 2 with similar titles, I had to wonder A. what was so important that I never finished them and B. what the heck had I planned on saying anyway.
 So, in typical, I like to clean up and clear up my debris Linda Sands style, I give you belated:


Bunco Christmas Party


It was wine tasting followed by a trolley ride through the cold to a Christmas light display synchronized to music, followed by dinner and drinks ... followed by a DD ride to another house for more drinks, followed by an impromptu trip to a bar, followed by mush dancing and singing, followed by stealing a stranger's phone, followed by somehow making it home and somehow waking up non drunk and non hungover.
 the evidence:

More books, authors and events.

Yes. There were more writer events this weekend. We went to The Eagle Eye Book Shop in Decatur.
This is my friend David Fulmer. He's a great writer. If you don't know his stuff. You should.


This is me and Kari making a Fulmer Sandwich. His request. Photo by his lady.

And the following video is of a reading of the first chapter of his new book, Lost River , by an adorable actress named Portia.

See a recent LOST RIVER review here. Buy the book and his others here.





After the reading we went out for a few Belgium beers at our favorite place, then made a pit stop closer to home to a smelly, smoky bar with many many many young kids... something the Sheriff seems to know, as two of their patrol cars were staking out the access roads to said bar.
And yes, of course, we got stopped.
No I wasn't driving.
and yes, my friend can lie very very well.

Christmas House Tour Snooping

Today I'll have another opportunity to see how the other half- or more like other 1/18 lives in suburban Atlanta, specifically upscale hoity-toity suburban Atlanta: estate homes on a golf course, behind a winery.
Yes, there will be secret, illegal picture taking, stealing of interior design ideas and yes, most likely a little imbibing of the vino afterward with my friends--but definitely not the vino from the winery itself. It's the one wine tasting I've gone to that I actually spit out the wine.
You can say this all day long:
Château Élan has developed ingenious methods of trellising, pruning and fertilization that generate excellent quality and productivity. Due to the humid climate in Georgia, Château Élan developed special protective measures, by keeping the vines high off the ground and further apart allowing for better ventilation.
But you aren't fooling my taste buds.
Chateau Elan should drop the fancy french accents and stick to spa treatments, horse shows and golf.

An open letter to recent partygoers from your hostess.

Dear Party People,
You are fabulous. All the pretty women and all the handsome men.

I mean, look at you. You dressed up and took your parts seriously. You were divas!

And gangsters!And Flappers and Molls. The Tommygun vodka was a double surprise.When you were posing, or gambling or selling cigarettes and secrets, you stayed in your role. You made my house a speakeasy. You made all the prep work worth it.
Even if someone had to die.
Good thing we had a cop and a private detective. Even if the dick took his job a little too seriously.A dick should be good at cleaning up messes, though right? Yes, there were messes, from spilled drinks to stinky anchovies and eggs to boa feathers and sequins and fake money on the floor...oh, and to the person who dropped the phone in the toilet? Don't worry, I've done it too.
We lost a few clay chips, but ended up with a few extras; one pair of reading glasses, keys to a Ferrari, a white headdress...and enough booze to make me want to throw a movie party next week. Someone needs to alert the husband, or ship him out of town.

There is something about drinking booze in a mason jar that interferes with your ability to say, "No more. I'm good."
Maybe you think you're saying that, but it comes out as, "Give me another drink. And some of those thai potato chips too."

Gambling with fake money and bad rules can be interesting, as these lovely ladies demonstrateand as always, there will be jokes about the crap table bets 'on the come'

But someone will maintain her dignity at every party. Someone- certainly not me- will come out on top.
This one? She only looks like a floosie.
She was the only one to guess the murderer. Maybe she needed a few more visits to the bar and the generous bartender. Amazing what you can do with a dining table and a bench, isn't it?


You, my party people, make me happy. You take great pictures. You tell great stories and you have class.
and that's what makes throwing a party for you such fun.

Though, throwing money is fun too.

as is stealing it...
Thank you for your efforts, for your attendance, for the happy smiling faces, for the toasts and shared dances, for the kisses and the love. For all the friends that made this party a success.
Until next time, I bow to you.

So You Think You Can Dance? I can watch. All night.

Moms take Bunko One Step Further

Our monthly Bunko meet up is more than a dice game, with this kind of booze, some of the husbands call it DRUNKO.
It's more than winning a few bucks and telling a few embarrassing stories to women who understand you. It has become an excuse for a Mom's night out for dinner or shopping- a weekend away, a trip across a draining lake...Liz and her husband are kind enough to invite us to spend the night and most of the next day with them on a lovely houseboat ( enough beds to sleep 10-- or more if you're creative).This is our third year and we now have a list of "things we do".
Liz brings these fruit creations.
Debbie sleeps on the top deck.
The snorers sleep in the smallest lower cabin.
We have a song playlist.
This year I brought a small karaoke machine.
Liz gives door prizes. (This year we scored some of her homemade creations and came up with ways she can sell her adorable cosmetic bags and jewelry online.)
And we gave her a private joke- signed cookbook.We play poker with M&M''s.. eating our winnings and stealing more whenever we can...
and we swim to a nearby island. (
It's more of a dog paddle/float with life preservers under our butts and plastic cups of wine in our teeth...and yet...)We have a wonderful time and always hate for it to end.
This year, we stole the Vegas saying- WHAT HAPPENS AT BUNKO STAYS AT BUNKO, but really, what kind of trouble can 9 women possibly get into on a houseboat beached on a deserted island of deer?

Weekend wrap up: Non Sports Edition

You have a plan which includes meeting the girls for lunch on Friday. You figure an hour of jabber, an hour to eat and you're back home checking email, finishing the bills or reading a novel for your pre-kid free time... but, since there was beer and wine and half a salad, followed by more wine and shoe shopping, the time thing kind of slipped away.
And that's fine because now you're primed for a night of Bunko with more fun ladies. So, you run home, do the family thing, set everyone up for the night and think long and hard about making it a short one. You skip dinner yourself, because heck yeah you'll eat at the bunko game. But you drink instead, maybe have a handful of this or that and then you remember you got up at 4AM and it's 11PM and you are tired. So tired you actually yawn without covering your mouth.
But then you remember this:

so you go with a carload of girls to a place that serves it- in tall glasses- all night long.

You drink and dance and meet lovely new girls- one who can sing like a real pro and just found out she's pregnant. You must drink to her success. You almost forget you are wearing a shirt that announces you love your husband- with his name. You talk to nice people wearing Ed Hardy shirts. You love Ed Hardy, too. But not their butthead friend whose excuse for his behavior is that- "Hey, I'm from NY. leave me alone." Of course, being from NY yourself you understand why he's such an asshole. and when the girl he's fighting with tells you, it's not that he doesn't like himself, or Georgia, it's that he doesn't like you. You laugh in her overly made up face and ask her where she got the spandex pants and plastic shoes. Then, even though the music is great and the people at your table are fine conversationalists evn great with percussion instruments:
there is somebody who thinks this is the best bike in the world which leads him to somehow believe he can come over to your table, take out a chair and join you. That's right. Can you say, "Uh-uh?"
You order nacho and more cocktails.
After convincing the nice guitar playing Polish dude to sing an abbreviated version of the twenty minute long Bye Bye Miss American Pie, Mr. Motorcycle hat has become enough of a problem that you have to have a husband come down and make his presence known. Which of course leads to a "letstakeitoutside" moment, which brings the cops. Glory be. You have done it again.
You being the plural you of course. Because in a few hours when you wake up little old you will be holding your head wishing you had remembered to drink water, wishing you had remembered to take your milk thistle and primrose and alpha lipoic acid or at least had eaten something all day long. You figure by noon you''ll stop sweating vodka and then can take your daughter to the mall where you and another hungover parent can commiserate as the kids try on outfit after outfit after outfit, because your remedy is starting to work and you can smell Chick Fil-A in the air.

Porchin' it rhymes with fortunate. Unless you want a Bloody Mary.

Ah. The view from this wide wraparound porch off the B&B was tough to leave.
Especially on a Sunday, when the town below doesn't start serving beer or wine until 12:30 and won't break out the hard liquor all day.
Gotta love those Baptists.
We managed to get along anyway, having drowned our potential hangovers in a four and a half foot deep hot tub at 2 AM until dark o'thirty. Girlfriends are great travel companions.

We wandered around the town seeing folk art like this
then sat in a cool stone house to hear people like thistalk about writing, books and characters. That's Karen Abbott, Joshilyn Jackson, Patti Callahan Henry and Steve Berry.
We also met Mitchell Graham for the second time-- a fabulous writer and truly a great all around guy with some pretty amazing stories.and this guy who rarely makes public appearances .. I don't know why. Maybe it's because weirdos want their picture with him.. from odd angles.Of course we had a great time sipping wine at this beautiful placeand tossing back oysters, lobster and tuna at a funky oyster bar in town where we bumped into old friends and made new ones.
All in all a fantastic way to spend the last few days before the school schedule kicked in- for me the mom and for my friend, the teacher.