um. hotty toddy anyone?

a quiet evening with charlie.

Charlie is currently stretched out on the carpet and looking out the window. He has this thing he does, where he quietly whines while watching me out of the corner of his eye. He wants me to believe that there is something out there, something that requires his immediate attention. Unfortunately for Charlie, I know him. Charlie is bored. But to his credit, I think he always believes, with his entire furry being, that there is surely something just out of his field of vision to investigate or bark at. When I turn my head toward him he quickly focuses his gaze back to the window and stares intently through the glass. He thinks he's a master manipulator. I think he's adorable, if sometimes exasperating.

Sometimes I trick myself into thinking that Charlie will live just as long as I will, possibly longer. He's entirely too large to be just another dog, and not just physically. Everything about Charlie is expansive...his bark, his showy gait, his sixteen syllable yawn, and especially his sense of humor. Charlie hates closed doors, and should you accidentally leave one open that is normally latched against him, there will be consequences. He recently backed up to the hearth in the normally off-limits basement at my parents' house, and quite deliberately took a dump there, just to mess with my Dad. Right there, dead centered in front of the fireplace. He also has the weirdly human capacity to understand when he looks funny. A couple of months ago he shook his head so violently that his chain collar landed asymmetrically across his face with the ring firmly placed over one eye and then walked around with it, pretending not to notice anything was amiss as we all collapsed in laughter. This has become one of his favorite recurring gags. And I swear that sometimes, when I open the door into the tiled hallway of my apartment, that he has seen me park my car and run to the opposite end of the hall, poised to take a running start at precisely the correct moment to slide gleefully into me the very second the door has swung open and away from his trajectory.

I'd rather he be doing one of the above things (which I can say safely since I personally don't have a hearth) than slowly wearing me down until I drag myself off the couch to take him outside...again...but what the hell, I love him anyway. So...here we go. Come on Charlie, let's go outside.

get it together, ole miss.

Apparently while it used to be true that "we may not win every game, but we ain't never lost a party," the opposite is now becoming factual as our football team grows in stature. Come on, Ole Miss. Strive for perfection!

Ole Miss Slips in Party School Rankings

cakes gone horribly wrong.

Need a pick-me-up on this lovely morning? Check out some truly tragic cakes, courtesy of one of the Sugar websites, which are a favorite of mine.

i promise this isn't becoming a sports blog.

At least not entirely. But as we continue to creep excitedly toward football season at an excruciatingly slow pace, I just find myself more and more with SEC football on the brain, and with all the tradition, memories, fun, and fanfare that accompany it.

So, this is coming from an EXTREMELY biased viewpoint, but I really do find it laughable that the SEC is almost never given the credit it is due, at least from the other conferences or from the gussied up, often pompous pretty boys behind the desk at ESPN. Perhaps they should read this article pretty closely and try reeeally hard to remember it.

These Aren't Tough Times For SEC Football

i can't help but think my Papa had something to do with this.

My Papa didn't start playing golf until later in life. The story, as I remember it, is that my Dad and some friends were playing when Papa arrived. He scoffed at the sport, but they convinced him to swing a club. He declared it "easy." Papa had a gift for dry humor. He may have had a bit of a natural gift for golf too, but regardless, after that day I think he was hooked. He played constantly, right up until the golf course accident that would claim his life. I wish that we'd been able to discuss it, but I don't know that it would really be necessary for him to actually tell me that he wouldn't want to go any other way. I can't say I can really even imagine any other way.

When he wasn't on the golf course, it was common to find him in his favorite armchair watching golf tournaments on television. When our hometown boy, Stewart Cink, began to slowly rise to the top of the game, Papa fiercely cheered on the young guy that played at our country club. To me it was just cool that my elementary school librarian's son was on TV, but to Papa, I think it just made him all the more proud of the sport he loved. He never stopped cheering for Cink, through all of the near misses and frustrating last minute collapses. So today...I know that my Papa is still very much alive somewhere, and while I do not presume to be certain of what he knows and sees and is able to do from there...part of me very much wonders if he's smirking happily over a certain golf course in Scotland today.

seriously.

"When is a Starbucks not a Starbucks?"

So begins the baffling article I read a few minutes ago from the Seattle Times. The basic gist is as follows: given Starbuck's recent slump in sales, the chain is looking for any way to drum up foot traffic, and apparently they think they've found a potentially successful one. I think it's stupid.

Starbucks is currently in the process of re-branding three of it's Seattle stores to give each "a community personality." Each store, starting with the first, "15th Avenue Coffee and Tea," will have it's own independent name and "feel." They will also feature wine and beer on the menu and more local entertainment events. The problem is that each will still have a Starbucks menu. Same coffee, just with a different name on the cup.

"Those who can capture a sense of community and offer consumers a compelling experience will win in the long run, said Michelle Barry, senior vice president of the market-research firm Hartman Group in Bellevue." Um. OK. On one hand, as a girl who has spent the past several years with a family in the independent restaurant business, I completely agree. Part of what has kept Dales around for so long is the fact that it is intrinsically tied to life in Florence. It's where you go to celebrate graduations, birthdays, anniversaries. People get engaged there, and many have their rehearsal dinners or receptions there. It's just simply tradition for so many Florence families. And it's unlike anywhere else. Even when Dales had multiple locations in its earlier years, each of those restaurants retained an individual sense of identity. One felt more like a jazz cellar that just happened to serve a great steak, while Florence was more of a family place.

But here's the thing...Dales evolved that way. Those locations were allowed to develop their own identity from their inception, in spite of the common brand they shared. And they certainly didn't have a marketing firm advising them on HOW to "capture" a sense of community and artificially recreate it. In today's world, I'm not even sure that Dales would develop the way it did. So to me, what Starbucks is doing sounds preposterous, and a little insulting. Sure, the name might refer to my neighborhood. The person playing music in the corner might live a few blocks away. But the coffee in my cup will still be Starbucks, and they'll still ultimately own the establishment I'm sitting in.

Look, I like Starbucks. I've been a patron there before and I will be again. I'm quite happy, during a long road trip, to discover a drive through Starbucks on my route, because it means I know I can get some good coffee. But should a re-branded Starbucks ever pop up in either of the two towns I consider home...no thanks. I'll stick to Bottletree or Rivertown.