I go to collage

So I have this seven-foot-long bulky pine trestle table in my front room, and it's covered with a Ralph Lauren vintage floral tablecloth bought at TJ Maxx, and a heavy piece of glass.

I use it as my craft table and gift wrapping table and miscellaneous table. You might say it's the desk in my fourth office.

We used this as a dining table many years ago when we lived in a massive old house in Ohio, but never in our current house, except once when we had company.

See, it has no matching chairs or any chairs at all. They would only get in my way.

For Christmas dinner this year I decided this table will hold our mouth-watering buffet. We'll be a total of fourteen for festivities on December twenty-third.

So my table needed decorating and I don't know how this came to me except when I first acquired the table, I covered the entire surface beneath the glass with an intricate word-and-picture collage.

That collage was disassembled ages ago and never re-created.

I love collage. It's one of my favorite projects because the un-crafty (which would be me) can accomplish it without sewing or building anything, and with no special tools or skills.

Basically if you can use a pair of scissors and are willing to randomly arrange pieces of paper on a surface, you've got yourself a collage. When it's going under glass on a table, you don't even need glue.

The other night as I was decoupaging pictures printed out from my computer onto glass vases that will hold candles, I got the idea to stop the runny-glue madness and take a different tack.

So I printed out lots more pictures, all different sizes, and made a family-faces collage to put beneath the glass on my table.

It only took a few hours, and I love it. I can't stop looking at it because, well, these are my favorite faces in the whole world.

And then I added some greenery and snowflake lights and few red accents, and I do believe we're there.

What say you to that?

Merry Christmas from one who is more stubborn than smart, more goofy than good, and more crazy than crafty!

In which I poach my palate on a pickle at The Penguin

Saw it on Triple D: The Penguin Drive-In in Charlotte, North Carolina.

It's been there since time out of mind.

They had me at fried pickles, which Guy Fieri sampled on the show. One of The Penguin's signature Off The Chain Appetizers.

TG and I were passing through Charlotte last Saturday and it was lunchtime.

Yes, we planned it that way.

The place was jammed. There are only about a dozen tables and maybe a half-dozen booths to begin with.

All full up. So we sat at the counter and it was fun because you could see everything that was going on. Plus there was a big-screen TV and TG got to watch a football game.

We ordered the pickles and our beverages. While the pickles were being prepared we got our Cokes, which came in souvenir cups.

The pickles were set before us and I dove right in, immediately suffering a first-degree burn to the roof of my mouth.

I'm not sure if it was me who wouldn't let go of the pickle or the pickle that wouldn't let go of me.

Hurts so good.

The best pickles were the smaller ones that had been cut a bit thicker. I dragged them through the ranch dip and, well, I am still dreaming about the tartangy hotness of those crunchy creamy morsels.

Although they serve barbecue, I ordered chicken tenders. One of my favorite things in the world is chicken tenders with French fries.

This is what fried bliss tastes like.

TG had a burger and he seemed to enjoy it very much. At any rate there was only a crumpled napkin left in his basket. He ate part of one of my chicken tenders too.

Replete, we headed for the hills.

And that is all for now.

Merry Christmas!

Trust me, he's not the bad seed

You don't want to let certain children near piers when others are playing on them.

Just ask little Rhoda.

But Andrew meant no harm when he began mocking imitating some folks doing yoga exercises on a pier at Lake Murray on the day after Thanksgiving.

His form is awful and his heart was in the wrong place too.

I was laughing so hard I could barely hold the camera.

I've created a monstah!

><><><><>++++<><><><><

Happy Weekend!

Gentlemen, start your horses. I mean, your engines.

OK so like I told you before, a couple of weeks ago when we were in Georgia to visit Erica, we made it to the Auchumpkee Creek Covered Bridge about ten miles outside of congested Thomaston.

I've seen flashier bridges but this one was interesting enough.

Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood were nowhere to be seen, but then we weren't in Iowa.

Come to think of it, we weren't in a movie. And if you had nothing else for which to be grateful, there was that.

The peace and quiet was lovely. Nary a leaf rustled while we were there and that is the truth.

Cars aren't allowed over the bridge and no horses were waiting to get on either. So no worries.

There was however, the added (and unexpected, though I'm not sure why) blessing of verbiage.

Y'all know how I love words, and what a kick I get out of the inventive ways folks use them.

This was nice: truth in bridge graffiti.

Yes He does. And He loves me too.

I hope the writer of this next bit gets a couple of H's for Christmas. Or maybe a spelling primer.

In exchange for the H's we'll have to take away an E. Because I do believe he meant to express this worthy sentiment: Southern Born And Southern Bred.

(To which I would have added, along with an amen: And When I Die I'll Be Southern Dead.)

Way to enforce the stereotype of Southerners as brain trusts, dude. We do so appreciate it.

Then there was this complicated bit of business:

I do believe I'll reserve commentary except to say I sure hope Mary, Steve, and Elaine have a very merry and love-filled Christmas.

Affairs of the heart and all that. Sticky wicket.

Garaging the snarkmobile as we speak.

Guess where we went next?

Atlanta Motor Speedway. In Hampton, Georgia.

We're not NASCAR enthusiasts but we passed the racetrack on the way back to McDonough and it's very impressive.

Actually I couldn't get pictures of anything until a nice gentleman in a big red truck came alongside our car and escorted us to higher ground.

LSU fan. Good man. Originally from Slidell, Louisiana, where resides one of my beloved uncles (not Deauxdie Dodie Dody; the other one).

Our kind friend was there to turn on the Christmas light display. Soon, at dark, carloads of families would arrive to cruise around the immense property, ooohing and aaaahing.

After schmoozing for awhile we went to the gift shop, which was open for the evening due to the Christmas-light lookers.

Outside the shop there was the Petty Garden.

Again I'm not a NASCAR fan, but I recognized the name Richard Petty.

I loved the bronze sculpture of RP with a little girl asking for his autograph.

You would have too.

The folks in the gift shop, a man and a lady, were real nice and we bought a present for one of our kids.

The lady, a lifelong stock car racing enthusiast, told us she cries every time the gentlemen start their engines.

Powerful stuff.

Even so, we couldn't get back to McDonough fast enough.

And that is all for now.

Merry Christmas!

Whispers of love

Papaw, you're scratching me with your whispers!

That's what she was saying between gasps and giggles.