Uncategorized

Come on Down to Bainbridge This Saturday

I’ll be speaking and signing books at the Georgia Literary Festival being held in Bainbridge, Georgia this weekend. My panel discussion on “Mayhem and Magnolias” will be at 3pm Saturday. Authors Glynn Marsh and Claire Matturo and I hope to cook up a fun time for all. Books will be available for sale, and most events will be on the Bainbridge College campus. So c’mon down!

Weekend Junking

I have a three-inch-thick manuscript on my desk screaming for revisions that are due back to my editor at the end of October. My house is so full of stuff for the under-construction beach house that it looks like a furniture warehouse. There is no room in my antique booth at Seaside Sisters on Tybee Island. Did that stop me from junking this weekend? NOOOOOO. On Friday I flew solo. Went to an estate sale at a ’50s brick ranch house a few miles from my own house. The sale was my favorite kind–a true estate sale of a hoarder. Even the dealers running the sale seemed overwhelmed by the volume. They told me people had started lining up outside the house at 6a.m. I myself made it over there around 11a.m. I’ve written before about my love of old linens, and this house had some goodies. I bought exquisite monogrammed banquet-sized damask napkins with entre-doux hemstitching, a dozen of ’em, for fifty cents apiece, along with six matching luncheon napkins, same price. A sweet blue cross-stitched bridge cloth for a buck. A darling organza apron, also a buck. A straw coolie hat (halloween costume for a neighbor) a buck. Also a nifty German silver bar set, with two monogrammed tumblers, matching tray and six thimble-sized shot glasses. I was going to sell these in my booth, but when I got them home and examined the monogram, it turns out to be KA–my daughter’s initials. So she got herself an early Christmas gift. Yesterday was another neighborhood-wide yard sale in Ansley Park. Ansley is another beautiful in-town Atlanta neighborhood very near the High Museum of Art. Posse members Ellen and Susie joined Katie and me. At first it looked like dreaded yard sale fare: lots of strollers, plastic kid’s toys, low-mileage exercise equipment. We resigned ourselves to just enjoying seeing how the other half lived. And then we hit a goodie: a 1920s house with an adorable carriage house in back. The home-owner was wearing yellow rubber gloves–always an interesting wardrobe accessory. She’d been hauling stuff out of an attic or basement that hadn’t seen the light of day in thirty or forty years. I scored a huge old glass jug. I think those are called carboys. It’ll look dandy with palm fronds at the beach house. She had three beautiful hand-done candlewick bedspreads, but she wanted $50 apiece for them, so we passed. A few houses later, Susie found two folding luggage racks, one for a buck, the other for two bucks. She’s been hunting them for months now, wanting to needlepoint straps for them as Christmas gifts, but they’re usually $20-$30 when we see them. One of these already even had needlepoint straps. Score! At that same sale, I found four gorgeous old oak hoop-back windsor kitchen chairs–for $40. They need re-glueing and clamping, but Mr. Mary Kay is good at that. At first I was going to put them in the booth, but now I’ve decided to keep them for the beach house. If you’re counting, I now have probably 14 kitchen chairs for the house. Something will have to go. Later, I found a charming and unusal painted watering can. That will go to Seaside Sisters. Also a matte white USA pottery vase. Favorite find of the day: Ellen found a case of cobalt blue water goblets. They were alongside other cardboard boxes full of Ritz-Carlton logo wineglasses and Delta Crown Room wineglasses. The seller told us they’d been collected by a now-deceased friend, who liked to drink, and who liked to take the old five-finger discount. He especially liked to go to the Buckhead Ritz for drinks, and every time he dined there, he’d steal his drink glass. Same thing with the Crown Room. The friend was a skinflint, so he’d take the MARTA train out to the Atlanta Airport, (this was before 9-11 security measures) and he’d happily while away the afternoon drinking for free at the Crown Room. And before he left, he’d steal himself a wine glass. The thief’s friends had kept his stuff in storage after his death, and were selling it all off. Ellen got herself great-looking glasses, and a great story, for the price of a ten-dollar bill.

Eddie Ross, Mon Amour

It started innocently enough. I was reading the Washington Post Thursday Style section online. Back in the day, when I was a features writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Style was my Bible. Even today, the Post always has great articles about interior design. They pick a blog of the week, and that week, it was Katiedid, written by a young designer in Sacramento, Cal. I checked it out, loved it, and subscribed to her blogfeed. Next, I checked out the “favorites” on her blogroll. It was like discovering a new kind of chocolate/cocaine/crack. I found Cote de Texas, written by a designer in Houston. Mrs. Blandings, who writes about her Kansas City dream home, and Vintage Rescue Squad, where a Washington DC graphic designer documents her weekly junking jaunts. VRS, by the way, is snarky and truly hilarious. Truly. And then came Eddie Ross. Oh my. He had me at helloooo. Eddie is a man with a portfolio. He’s a senior style editor at the high church: Martha Stewart Living. Currently he’s a contestant on Bravo’s Top Design. We all knew an Eddie Ross in grade school. He’s that campy cut-up in the back row of the class picture, the one whose mother dressed him a little too twee–bowties and hair gel. He’s the first kid you ever realized was gay–and you didn’t care because he was so much fun. Little Eddie grew up and eventually traded in his Easy-Bake oven for a career as a caterer before he came to Martha’s attention and became the it-boy of design blogland—and Bravo TV. I was doing all right before Eddie. Sneaking a peek at those design blogs occasionally. I was maintaining, you know? And then, I think it was Mrs. Blandings who wrote about Eddie. I checked him out. Beeg mistake. Every day I check my email to see what Eddie’s up to. And he’s up to a lot. This man has the golden touch. He takes a ratty mahogany secretary, paints it french vanilla and replaces the glass doors with mirrors. Buys deli flowers and turns them into floral masterpieces. He runs into a thrift store and comes out with 19th century French sterling cranberry servers. He finds a whole set of German Bakelite at the Knights of Columbus flea market for fifty friggin’ cents apiece. He finds silverplated trophies from 1928 at the Goodwill for crying out loud. Me? I drop into my Salvation Army and find dogeared Danielle Steele novels and Pflaltzgraf coffee mugs. The Washington Post ran a piece about Eddie and his fabulous NYC apartment last week—I practically took a magnifying glass to the photos just to take in all the details. The picture above is from that article. Now I’m hooked. I’ve watched Top Design two weeks in a row, just to see what Eddie would do. This week he mugged for the camera and declared “I never get enough of me.” Me neither, Eddie. In my sad little fantasy world, Eddie calls me up, and I fly up to New York for the weekend, and we stroll off, arm in arm, into the sunset of the Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market. And there’s homemade popovers served on vintage transferware plates. And Bakelite. And sterling silver bowling trophies.

Big Fun on a Little Island

Monsoon-like rains didn’t dampen our enjoyment of Pirate’s Fest on Tybee Island, or the joy of spending this past weekend with great friends–old and new. I got down to Tybee and Nora’s Cottage on Thursday afternoon, in time to meet friends Linda and Cliff from Ft. Lauderdale. Linda and I grew up together in St.Pete, and have been friends since 7th grade. She’s even known Mr. Mary Kay longer than me–they were in 5th grade together! We walked down to StingRay’s on Butler Avenue for dinner, and the next morning gave Cliff a tour of the island on bike. We checked on the progress of The Breeze Inn, and were thrilled to find out we’d passed our plumbing inspection. Yay for new plumbing! After a yummy lunch at The North Beach Grill, Linda and Cliff went off to do more exploring, and Mr. Mary Kay and I ran some errands. Friday night we were invited to friends Ron and Leuveda’s for a pre-pirate-fest cocktail. You may remember that I’ve spent many weeks writing at their adorable Garner Cottage over the years. Tybee is such a great place for impromtu parties. Old friend Jacky joined us, and then our friend Diane Kauffman from Mermaid Cottages arrived with a crock of her famous spinach artichoke dip, Leuveda had other goodies, and Tom and I contributed a platter of raw oysters. After drinks, we all strolled down to The Strand, where the Pirate party was in full swing. We shopped at the Thieves Market, bopped to the band, and then headed over to Doc’s Bar, which was the scene of much fun last year during our chick weekend. This time we brought the guys, and had almost as much fun. Saturday morning, the fellas went out fishing and Linda and I junked our way around town. We were rounding the corner onto Butler Avenue when we bumped into a couple who were walking…..wait. A goat? Yes. A goat, on a leash. Only on Tybee. We ran into Leuveda at a garage sale being held by a gay guy who was down-sizing. I scored some great linen placemats, napkins and napkin rings. Just love gay guy’s junk–don’t you? Later, after we’d left, the guy asked Leuveda if Linda and I were “partners.”! It was a great day for junk. At another sale I bought three wooden chairs for my beach dining room–for ten bucks apiece, and on down the road, I scored a nearly new lawnmower, brand-new weed-whacker, and most importantly, an awesome beach cruiser bike–with the all-important beer coozie wired to the handlebars. I had to escort Linda to my favorite shops downtown, including @Home Vintage General on Broughton Street. Owner Liz Demos is just one of the cleverest, most talented women I know. Please make sure you drop by this fantastic shop when you visit Savannah. And bring money. After we left Liz, we visited her friend and fellow antique dealer Charlie Brown. Charlie has just moved his shop, C.H. Brown, to a new location, in the same building as E. Shaver Booksellers, my favorite bookstore in Savannah. If you have a fondness for antique silver, porcelain or great art, Charlie Brown is the man to see in Savannah. Back at Tybee, Linda got busy making us up for the big night at Pirate’s Fest. The guys weren’t too cooperative, but Linda and I had a great time playing Pirate and wench. We even got a standing ovation when we showed up for our dinner reservation at Sundae Cafe, our favorite restaurant on the island. While we were at dinner, the heavens opened up, and the Marshall Tucker Band outdoor concert was cancelled. So we went on home, and friends Jacky and Jan came by for a visit before we called it a night. All in all, it was a great weekend, rain or not. And now it’s time for me to buckle down and get through the revisions of THE FIXER UPPER before the end of the month.

Pirate Fest @ Tybee….AAARGH Mateys!

Later today we’re off for Tybee Island and the infamous Pirate’s Fest. If you’re not doin’ anything this weekend–come on down! The Marshall Tucker Band is playing at the Friday night free street dance, and I guarantee, it’ll make you forget about elections, Wall Street woes, bungling bankers and mortgage meltdowns. Where else can thousands of middle-aged men get away with dressing up like Captain Jack Sparrow? Our friends Linda and Cliff from Ft. Lauderdale are joining us for the weekend. Linda and our other jr. high buddy Sue joined us for my first Pirate’s Fest last year, and we’re still laughing about all the crazy hi-jinks we participated in. We’re staying at another cute Mermaid Cottage house. This time it’s Nora’s Place. We’re also checking up on the progress at Breeze Inn, our in-progress beach house.
See you at Doc’s Bar?

What the hell rhymes with Mayonnaise?

My friend Jacky, who’s known me for over 30 years, sent me a link to the Duke’s Mayonnaise website because they are having a jingle-writing contest in honor of their 90th anniversary. “You love Duke’s, and you’re a writer,” she reasoned. “I bet you could write a prize-winning jingle.”

Yeah. Not so much. I do love me some Duke’s. In fact, it was the product that converted me from a life-long mayo-naysayer to a mayo-savorer. Wait! Could I use that in a jingle? Probably not. I was able to come up with a couple verses, sung to the tune of the Green Acres theme song:

Duke’s Mayo is the spread for me!
No other mayo can there be..

And then I’m stuck. The contest rules suggest that jingle writers refer to the noteworthy attributes of Duke’s Mayo, which would include adjectives like creamy, tangy, smooth, home-made, ect. Alas, they don’t allow jingles sung to the tune of copywrited material, which pretty much puts the kibosh to my Green Acres-inspired ditty. In my lengthy writing career I’ve penned newspaper and magazine articles, novels, short stories, even a couple of mystery dinner theater plays. But never a song. I don’t actually know how to write music. Sigh. I guess this means my picture won’t be turning up on the side of Duke’s jars all over the country. What a shame.
I’m still holding out hope that someday, the suits at Dukes will get how much of their mayo I’ve sold, due to the popularity of my Beyond the Grave Chicken Salad recipe, which is printed in the back of LITTLE BITTY LIES. The recipe calls for using Duke’s mayo. I get emails all the time from readers who’ve never heard of Duke’s, asking if they can substitute another brand mayo. They can, of course, but to me, nothing beats Dukes.

Duke’s Mayo is the spread for me–No other mayo can there be..

Salads, sandwiches, even Fre–en-nch fri-eyes,

Nothing but Dukes on my table will sa-tis-fy.
See? I’m sticking to writing novels. It’s lots easier.
P.S. If you’re reading this and you’re the president of the C.F. Sauer Company, which makes this fine product, let me just say that I am not opposed to free Mayo. Not at all.

Sunday Night at the Beach

I took Mr. Mary Kay to the airport at 5pm, and now, here I am, snug in my Mermaid Cottage for the week, on Sunday night. Usually, Sunday nights mean we are driving home, already fretting about the week’s work ahead of us. But this week, I get to stay at the beach on Sunday night. Coming back to Tybee, I passed a long line of cars heading off the island. But I was headed the other way. The cottage I am staying at is called Nowhere To Go, and it’s charming, as all the Mermaid Cottages always are. It’s bigger than most, with four bedrooms, a huge living room and dining room, four bedrooms and two baths. I went out on the deck to enjoy the relative cool of the evening, and peeked through the grove of palm trees in the backyard. Then I walked over to the Tybee Market and bought my groceries for dinner. Yes, I had my ritualistic spaghetti. I don’t know why I have to have spaghetti when I go away to write, except that maybe it’s because spaghetti is a no-brainer–open a jar of sauce, boil some pasta, and you have dinner. As I was driving back along the beach today, it reminded me of Sunday nights when I was a little girl. My mother worked as a waitress at a steakhouse when I was very young, and she frequently worked Sunday nights. This was Florida in the 1950s and early ’60s. We had no air conditioning, and with Mom at work, my Dad’s solution to dealing with five hot, cranky kids was to load us up into the family sedan and take us out to Pass-A-Grille Beach in the early evening, when the crowds had thinned out and the heat wasn’t as intense. Sometimes we had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a thermos of Kool-Aid for dinner. We’d swim and chase, and Daddy would let us jump off his shoulders into the water. We’d always beg him to buy us an inflatable raft. His standard reply was that rafts were very dangerous–what if the tide took us out into the Gulf? We’d end up in Mexico! It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I realized buying rafts for the five of us would have eaten up the week’s grocery money! If he was feeling flush, we’d each get a quarter to get snacks from the concession stand. A fudgesicle was a huge treat. When we were worn out, he’d wrap us all in towels and load us back into the car for the ride home. And if he was really, really flush, sometimes we’d get to stop at the A&W hotdog stand on the way home, or Biff-Burger, which made the best onion rings ever. The Biff-Burger is now a rib joint, last I heard, and I don’t know what happened to the old A&W. The last place my parents lived before Mom died four years ago was in a Gulf-front condo–directly across the street from the spot where we played as kids. They never tired of looking out at those gorgeous sunsets, or of thinking about how far they’d come from those peanut-butter and Kool-Aid days. So, Sunday nights at the beach are still special–but bittersweet.

Where were you?

Seven years ago today, I was out in my backyard office here in Atlanta, trying, as I’m trying now, to finish a book. When I have my head in a book, I deliberately try to blot out the world. No television, no lunch dates, just me and the book. I think my husband called. “Go in the house and turn on the news,” he said. So I did. And I watched–along with the rest of the world–in absolute horror. I never liked science fiction movies–too scary for me. But this was like watching a science fiction movie gone horribly, horribly, real. I didn’t write again that day. Maybe not all week. It’s impossible to write funny, flip fiction when your heart is broken. I called my editor and agent in New York, to reassure myself that they were ok. Later, I talked with other writer friends around the country. Those who lived in New York were not really ok. They couldn’t work. Certainly couldn’t write. Couldn’t laugh. Those terrorists took all that from us that day, along with all the beautiful, productive lives lost, they took our laughter, our sense that no matter what happens, something silly will come along, and we’ll forget our troubles for a little while. I remember another catastrophic day too–the day JFK was assasinated. I was out of school sick that day, and had gone with my mother to my aunt’s beauty parlor. My mom had a standing appointment every week to have her hair done–hey, it was the ’60s. Somebody turned on the radio, and we heard the news that the president had been shot in Dallas, and that he’d been rushed to a hospital. We left, and went to the A&P, and at some point, the store manager went on the loudspeaker, and announced that President Kennedy was dead. My mother was crying–and my mother never cried. She and I left the store and went to our church, where we lit candles and prayed. And cried. I was in the third grade. President Kennedy was our president. He was Irish and Catholic, like us. I still cry when I see that old photo of Jackie and Caroline and John-John–with John-John saluting his fallen father. What can we do in the face of all this evil, all the bad news we hear every morning? I don’t know about you, but I’ve decided I’ll do something good today. I’ll continue trying to finish this funny, flip book of mine, because that’s my job. Making people laugh. And when I go out to do my errands, I’ll make a mitzvah–a good deed. Just because I can.

Back to the St. Simon’s Cottage

Okay. Spent four days on Tybee doing beach house things. And re-stocking my booth at Seaside Sisters. Thank Gawd for Susan, the Seaside Sister madam. She is a retailing genius, who can always take my crazy assortment of stuff and arrange it so that it looks luscious and appealing. I would post a photo of how yummy it looks right now, except my camera is on the fritz. If you’re in the vicinity of Tybee Island, run, don’t walk, to see the wonderfulness of it all. And buy. You should buy. Because that way, I have an excuse to go out and score more great stuff. Because I’m just a servant of the people, right? I am now down at St. Simon’s Island. People, I am here to WRITE THIS FRIGGIN’ BOOK. I am not here to junk, or to rip pages from magazines of nifty beach house ideas, or to read interior design blogs like katiedid or cote’dtexas, to name two of my favorites. September is staring me in the face, and I do not want to blow this deadline. So, here is the plan. Between tonight and tomorrow, noon, I will write 15 pages of THE FIXER-UPPER. Seriously. This is my blood oath! And if I make that goal, perhaps, I might be allowed a quick little junk fix. But then, right back to work. The goal for the week is, dare I say it? Fifty pages. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll get to type THE END while I’m down here. Wouldn’t that be luvverly? Stay tuned…

The one that got away…and beach house musings

My friend Sue is a very bad influence. She read my blog about the jadeite green sink and helpfully sent me a link to an ebay auction for a jadeite green glass towel bar. Of course, I had to bid, and keep bidding, even though I didn’t even KNOW I wanted a glass towel bar until she tempted me. Apparently, somebody else wanted the towel bar more than me, because I didn’t win the auction. So that’s the one that got away. I’d almost forgotten that I have, in my junk sst tash, a very cool glass towel bar and glass bathroom shelf. I got these years and years ago from an estate sale in my neighborhood. I had them in the bathroom in Raleigh, and when we moved, they came with me. Now, all I have to do is remember where I’ve hidden them.

In other news, Mr. MK and I are down at the beach doing beach house-type things. The big news is that we officially have a building permit! You have no idea how exciting this is. Now the subs, who have finished ripping out the old plywood partitions and skanky kitchen and bath fixtures, can actually start re-building. We have piles of lumber all over the inside and outside, and stacked neatly to one side is the wonderful old solid wood panelling we’ve removed from the stairhall. This will be reinstalled once the stairway is moved. We spent yesterday musing about flooring options. The downstairs of our circa-’43 house is concrete slab, with old linoleum over it. That linoleum, which I blythely assumed I could just heat-gun and scrape up, is a big fly in our ointment. The town’s building inspector dropped by last month, and when he saw the chipped and aged linoleum had himself a big ol’ hissy fit–proclaiming that he was positive it contained the dreaded A-word. Yes. Asbestos. Which, if true, would mean a certified asbestos removal team, certified asbestos disposal, certified asbestos pain in the arse! So ixnay on the scraping. We will have to have new flooring. Carpet is out. Yuck. Tile is out. I think it looks too contemporary, too normal. Wood is good. But there are all these options. We’d considered bamboo, but it’s not cheap, and again, I just think, for this house, it looks kinda Ikea-ish. Not that there’s anything wrong with Ikea. I love me some Ikea. We looked at the pre-finished stuff. Didn’t love it. I was really lusting after re-claimed heart-pine flooring. My friends Polly and Steve just put it down in their beach house, and it looks great. But it’s pretty expensive. And as I keep saying….this is a concrete block house. Putting a lot of expensive stuff in it is like putting a tutu on a pig. So I think we’re down to good old-fashioned oak. Old school–the nail-down kind.
While we’re down here, we’re staying at another great little Mermaid Cottage. This one is called Fiddler on the Creek. It’s tiny, but it has heart-pine floors, and pecky cypress panelling, and a giant stuffed marlin over the sofa, and a little dock on the creek out back. Mr. MK went fishing today, and he caught a flounder and a trout, so we’ve baited the crabtrap with the fishheads, and we’ll see what we see. In the meantime, we’ve been talking about what we want our beach cottage to have. We’ve been renting beach houses for 30 years, and we’ve stayed in everything from the ridiculous to the sublime. So here’s what’s important to us: big, squishy sofas you can stretch out and nap on–or watch a ballgame, or cuddle. A table by every chair–to give you a place for your book or your adult beverage. Lamps on both sides of the beds–what’s worse than having to get up to turn off the light when you’ve been reading in bed? Good mattresses. Excellent bed linens. My friend Diane, who runs Mermaid Cottages, always stresses the importance of high thread count, all cotton sheets. Me, my idea of heaven is bleachy-smelling white sheets. I stayed in a tiny little cottage in Florida last month, and the sheets were laughably horrid–pilled-up, threadbare leopard print. I’ve been buying sheets on clearance, at outlets, for all the beds. Now, here’s my rant–WHO THE HELL DECIDED YOU SHOULD ONLY BUY SHEETS IN SETS??? Marshalls, TJMaxx, two of my favorite shopping spots, have almost no separate packages of flat and fitted sheets. They sell them in “sets” now. I don’t want sets. I want my separate flat and fitted sheets. Guess I’ll just have to continue looking at estate sales, which are my favorite source of wonderfulness anyway. I’ve rarely been to an estate sale that didn’t have a linen closet piled high with good quality percale sheets and pillowcases. Many times there are sheets still in store packaging. Other times, the linens have been professionally starched and laundered. My all-time favorite sale was the one where I grabbed up armloads of vintage linens, all of them washed, ironed and folded–and bound up in pink satin “garters” that snapped together with satin bows. Talk about gracious living. I still have tons of those garters in my dining room sideboard, where they bind together sets of my estate sale damask dinner napkins. Okay, back to our regular programming. Good beach house living=shelves full of tempting books. I love to peruse rental house bookshelves. Fiddler on the Creek has lots of books about sailing and boating, plus some good cookbooks in the kitchen. About the kitchen. Our beach house, we have decided, will have a foodie kitchen. When we’re at the beach, we almost always cook, and it’s so frustrating to discover you don’t have a grater, or a colander, or even a wooden spoon. Okay, it’s almost time for Olympic swimming, so I’ll continue this post tomorrow.