notes on my Papa.

My Papa loved it when I wore hats. And since he felt that I didn't wear them often enough, he began buying them for me, usually at Christmas. This was often a source of frustration for my Nana, who was doggedly determined to spend EXACTLY the same amount of money on me and my sister and who did NOT appreciate it when Charles would appear at the house the afternoon of Christmas Eve, just hours before my family arrived for our traditional dinner and gift exchange, and triumphantly produce a freshly purchased beret.

It sounded strange when he referred to me as simply Katie. Most often I was addressed as either "Sugar," or "Katie Dee." It should be noted that my full name is Kathryn Jane. When my mother announced this name to her in-laws before I was born, Papa casually told her that HE was going to call me Katie Dee. Mom's pointed remark that that was NOT my name was met with a simple shrug, and Katie Dee I remained. To his credit, when I persisted in calling him Papa (instead of the Papaw he had insisted upon to my parents), he accepted it without comment.

I had a knack for getting Papa to do things when the others couldn't. Even after I moved to Oxford for college it was common to receive phone calls from family members saying things like "could you call your Papa and see if you can get him to..." The theory was that my success was because I was so much like him, that we were more or less two of a kind. Both tall, with the same hawkish ridge on our noses. Both with very loud and jarring barks that were typically much worse than our bites. Both with a penchant for nice clothing and jewelry and such. We were both often accused of "talking down" to people.

He pretended to be infuriated when I told him I was naming my new puppy Charles Glenn Tompkins the Third. "That's awful, sugar, naming a damned DOG after me, is that all you think about me?" He knew better. Our family treated dogs with a reverence that bordered on impropriety. He kept up the act, cursing grumpily as Charlie dutifully made the rounds on his patio, marking each and every plant....until I went inside to see Nana, when he'd pull an old folding chair out into the yard and watch his antics with a grin. He would pretend that having Charlie in the back yard wasn't an impediment to cutting the grass, and would then stoically ignore the barking at his feet that somehow managed to rise above the sound of the motor. He would also ignore my Nana and I as we laughed hysterically at the back door.

There are thousands of memories where these came from. Every day for the past two years I've lived with all of them swirling around me, simultaneously comforting me and adding a little bit of extra weight to my shoulders. I don't expect this to change anytime soon, but that is slowly becoming more OK than not. I suppose the important thing is to have them to begin with.

if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

My last post was about staying positive. I also mentioned that my dog was having some serious health issues. Unfortunately, Charlie passed away in early October.

To be perfectly frank, I'm still pretty heartbroken, no matter how hard I try to ignore it...and because of that, I'm not quite ready to write about it yet, or really write about anything for that matter. Right now it would just sound sad and whiny and involve a lot of me feeling sorry for myself.

So I guess this is just my excuse for being so absent as of late. Hopefully I'll be back soon...

staying positive.

It's so easy to be negative. So, so easy. That doesn't make much sense to me...it seems like it would be so much harder to be negative than to be positive, doesn't it? You always hear that cheesy saying about it requiring more muscles to frown than to smile. Yet somehow for me, especially for the last couple of years, the easy option has been stress, worry, fear, sadness, etc.

I guess this is what happens in your late 20s and early 30s...reality becomes harder to dodge. The grandfather/father figure/family patriarch dies suddenly and unexpectedly. The dream job turns out to be a nightmare. Getting ahead financially seems to be harder than advanced calculus. The relationship you thought would fix everything evolves into something you have to fix and then reveals itself as something that just isn't supposed to be and is holding you both back. Your dog/best friend develops serious health issues. It starts to feel like the one or two hard issues per year have tripled in size, and begin to continually regenerate in hardier, nastier forms as soon as you've solved them.

Those things are so heavy, and confusing, and dirty and complicated. In contrast, the good stuff, the tons and tons and tons of good stuff just seems so light and airy and easy and bright. And yet I spend so much time ignoring it, overlooking it, putting it off till later. Sometimes I get so bogged down in the dark mess that I can't even take the time to post a list of five simple good things.

I guess all of this serves as an overly wordy explanation for why I do such a bad job blogging.

So, moving on...good things...

I'm grateful for coffee and conversation with my mother this morning.

Ole Miss lost yesterday. They'll probably lose many more games this season. But here's the thing I love, love, LOVE about Ole Miss....yeah, we may not win every game and maybe we've never lost a party, but most importantly, we love life enough that a lost game isn't going to prevent us from fishing an icy Coke out of the cooler, pouring a glass of wine, fixing a tasty plate of food, clasping the shoulder of a family member or friend we love and commenting that it's going to be a long season before asking what's in this pasta salad and then telling an old funny story from college, childhood, the previous night.

That moment after getting in the bed where you find juuuust the perfect spot and position and experience a moment where your whole mind and body can process nothing but "aaaahhhhh...."

The side eye Charlie shoots me when I politely ask him to stop barking at the little dog outside, to stop pulling the stuffing out of one of his toys, to stop perusing the kitchen counter he's up on his hind legs investigating. It's genius...just the right mix of sarcasm and affection and annoyance.

Ice cream for lunch. I mean...why not.

weekend's end.

Grateful today for:

Quality time with my parents. I may be 30 years old, but I appreciate the folks coming into town for a visit just as much as I did back in college. After a morning nursing my pup yesterday (slight complications post surgery, meh) it was such a welcome break to have an afternoon/evening perusing antique stores, buying cool snacks, picking out fabrics, and eating fresh tacos at Tienda Y Taqueria.

Completed home projects. Well, at least PARTIALLY completed home projects. I'm terrible at making decisions, and even when I've MADE the decision I often still feel like I need a nod of approval from my creative genius mother. Then I usually need her to assist me executing the vision. OK, to be fair...often I wind up assisting HER, but oh well. The important thing is that the cheap lamp base with the great shape but ugly paint job that I've begrudgingly toted from house to house is now a solid glossy turquoise and will soon have a nice new fabric covered drum shade.

French fries. And...this may surprise many Oxford townies, but...Old Venice. I had lunch there with my parents today (and dinner with some friends in town who wanted to eat there last month), and both times my meal and overall experience were....honestly, kind of flawless. Today was especially good. My mom and I shared the Mad Italian panini (thinly shaved ham, salami, pepperoni, provolone, pepperoncini peppers, and marinara) and the Tuscan Roasted Vegetable Panini (not positive on the details, but I know it involved roasted portobello mushrooms, squash, zucchuni, red peppers, pesto, and maybe bleu cheese crumbles). Both were fantastic, and the best part...we thought we substituted fries on the side for salads, but discovered when our plates arrived that the salads were an AND and not an OR. Good mistake (though perhaps not from a health perspective), since these shoestring fries were amazing. Perfectly crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, with juuust the right amount of seasoning. Mmmm. Fries.

My Boys. It's a little goofy (maybe a lot goofy) but it's nice and it's fluffy and it makes me laugh. Nice way to ease into a work week.

A pup who (for the moment at least) is peacefully snoozing and not doing any number of things which tend to result in stitches breaking and blood on Mom's carpet. Sweet guy...

i love my dog.

A few months ago I noticed a strange bump on my dog Charlie's forehead, just over one eye. At first I assumed he'd run into something (he tends to do that when he's really excited, which is often). When the bump was still there a few days later, I had a vet check it out. She essentially told me to watch it for a few days and if it was still there she'd have to sedate him in order to take a needle aspirate...even though he'd quite calmly taken four different shots on his last trip there.

After being in denial about the bump for awhile, I finally took Charlie to a new vet yesterday, where I was blissfully NOT made to feel guilty for my dog being large and unruly and where it didn't seem that everything was ridiculously overpriced (that's another story). The new vet was troubled by the bump and felt it best to go ahead and remove it and have it checked out. One toenail trim (including fixing and caring for an ingrown toenail), one physical exam, one annual heartworm shot, one sedation, one needle aspirate, one mass removal, and six months worth of Heartguard and Frontline later, I was presented with my banged up but lump free dog, a full explanation in normal person guilt-free and non-salesman language from a much liked vet, and a bill that was just under the cost of a physical exam, two shots, and the same meds from previous vet. Needless to say, Charlie and I have found a better vet.

My poor pup looks like he's been in a fight with Mike Tyson AND his tiger, and it's likely that the bump contained something nasty and unhealthy (think the C word), but even if that turns out to be the case, it feels great to have him back home with the scary stuff gone. I really, really love this guy.

Today I'm grateful for:

The companionship of my best (albeit canine) friend and the knowledge that I've done what's necessary to keep him healthy.

Organized bills and recycling (two things that often tend to take over my space).

Successful attempts at new recipes.

A Coke over ice. Yeah, this doesn't sound like anything big, but I drink, on average, around 24 sodas per year...so a cold Coke to me is akin to candy.

Parents, grandparents and a sister who are always there for me with sympathy, encouragement and support.

fried chicken and smokey and the bandit.

A few things I've been grateful for over the course of the weekend:

A lazy rainy Friday night in. It's been awhile since I've been able to just sink into my couch, take a deep breath, and do...not much of anything. I truly am so grateful to serve as a bed and breakfast for an endless stream of family and good friends from out of town, but every now and then it's nice to have a few precious weekend hours to myself.

The opportunity to represent my University. You know you're in the right job when you have to come in on Saturday and you don't mind a bit, since the work load consists of hanging out in the Grove and at the Student Union talking up Ole Miss and snagging free lunch (even though I was so busy gabbing I never got around to the lunch part).

The Oxford Square. After my stint at "work," I headed up to the Square to check out the Oxford Maker's Market. There really just isn't anything like the Square...artists selling their wares on one side, small kids giddily gobbling up mountains of frozen yogurt and toppings on the other. Dogs dragging their owners along for a walk. Pretty coeds in tee shirts with messy ponytails and buns, foreign tourists snapping photos of the Courthouse, relaxed conversations between friends over coffee above it all on the Square Books balcony.

A slow morning with hot coffee in hand and rain outside the window.

Homemade fried chicken and Smokey and the Bandit. Hard not to love homemade fried chicken, but it was even better in combination with a movie that transported me a bit to another time and place and made me remember how it felt to be a young kid in the South. What a great evening...

grove recipe test number one.

Yeah. Expect to eat this if you stop by the Shoals Grove tent this football season. Heck, expect to eat this the next time you invite me over for a dinner party or come to eat at my house. I'm obsessed.

I found this recipe for Orzo with Tomatoes, Feta and Dill on Epicurious.com (click here for the full recipe) and decided to give it a spin for dinner tonight. So simple and easy! Only eight ingredients, including three you probably already have in your kitchen (olive oil, salt and pepper). Throw in a little lemon zest in addition to the title ingredients and those above, and voila...perfect hot weather pasta. I threw in some black olives just for a little something extra, but I don't think they were necessarily needed.

Now...suggestions on a good entree to go along with this?