The Late Arrival

It was the shot heard round the bundt pan : Paula Deen admitted to uttering the n-word...repeatedly. In the past. She issued one pathetic video recant (or so I've heard because it was taken down as quickly as it was posted), then was scheduled to issue another wanna-be mea culpa on The Today Show, but instead settled for a new  Please-I-Got-Butter-In-My-Recipes-Don't-Y'all-Remember-How-Much-Y'all-Love-Butter apology video. None worked and the Food Network summarily dismissed her and her buttery goodness by not renewing her contract. Sorry, Paula. Yes, I said it: Sorry. What hapeend to you is because you reflected your upbringing in the south during the days when people living south of the Mason Dixon Line regularly referred to the Civil War as the War of Northern Aggression . Trouble is, somehow, someway, you just couldn't keep those words, that history and that slant from bubbling up out of you and into conversation. Truthfully Paula, I'm not worried...

Her head spun around once, then twice and upon the third rotation, she levitated. Her eyes, now radioactive green, met mine and she hissed “I already washed my hands for dinner!” With that, she began to happily chirp away about something funny that happened at school. It was as if the levitating, the hissing had never happened. My daughter -- my sweet, happy-go-lucky baby girl was possessed. By hormones. As frustrating as it is for me, I’m careful not to give her the kookoo-for-cocoa-puffs side-eye, or be dismissive of the venom that might escape her lips because all too often, hormonal blame is the eraser of valid thoughts and feelings. You know the excuses: “Oh, she’s just PMS-ing" or it’s “That Time of the Month” or " She’s Menopausal" or "She’s Perimenopausal.” Wink-wink, nudge-nudge. It's a diagnosis that negates whatever your complaint is no matter how valid. Which is even more frustrating, because nine times out of ten you’re having an out-o...

It was too early to head home on a much-too-rare date night when I espyed the bar a few blocks from our house that I had long been curious about. From the outside, you could tell the seating capacity inside was fifty at most, and the name spelled out in glowing blue and pink neon letters was one I couldn't pronounce. The most I knew was that it was a few blocks from the Serbian orthodox church and the Serbian meeting hall so it must have been Serbian. Didn't matter. It seemed like the kind of place where you walk in a stranger, but quickly make friends with the nieghborhood regulars and the friendly bartender who'd never forget your name or your drink after a first meeting. No frills, cheap drinks and probably a great jukebox with Patsy Cline and the Eagles in rotation. I convinced Jamie as much. We parked and went in. As expected, it was dark and cozy, and I immediately liked the place. Also as expected, it was a Serbian hangout. Handsome, dark swarthy people in soccer...