Good thing I'm suffering from total inertia...

...or I'd be bothered about some things.

This is the South. There are some things that are sacred. Two, real near the top of the list, are biscuits and chicken & dressing. I make awesome biscuits. Took me years to figure it out since my grandmother's instructions don't usually include specific amounts. Chicken and dressing? I'm still practicing. Sometimes good, sometimes not so. It happens.

You can now get frozen biscuits, in a bag, that are just as good as mine. Or my friend, Tony's, for that matter, and his are always awesome, too. But now? You can make chicken and dressing in a crockpot using...forgive me, Lord...cream of chicken soup. Out of a can. And this chicken and dressing is AMAZING. I mean, I put two tablespoons of sage in there, some cornbread, onion, celery and eggs and y'all...my grandmother would not know it wasn't her's. It is SO good that my 81-year-old cranky-ass father, who criticizes EVERYTHING I make as "not like Virgie's," literally scraped the pan last week.

It's that good ;)

The biscuits are, too. So what's the problem?

Technically, I'm not sure there is one. But something in the back of my mind is nagging at me that...we're losing something here. We're losing the hands-on artisanal aspect. We're losing the history. We're losing standing next to your grandmother in the kitchen, eating raw biscuit dough and getting to cut out the circles while she shows you how to "not twist" the cutter. It's having a biscuit cutter that is a metal Gerber orange juice can your mom started using when your little brother was born. (He'll be 48 in September ;) It's listening to your grandmother criticize your mother's dressing every Christmas. No matter what.

I think I feel this way about Kindles. I don't have one, so I have no business saying anything but there's something about carrying a book in your satchel, about turning down the corner of the page and feeling guilty, about smelling the pages of an old book and finding the occasional illicit notation or the scrap of paper stuck in for a bookmark. I have my great-grandmother's original red-and-white-checked Better Homes & Gardens cookbook...how do you hand down a cherished bit of .jpeg to a grandchild?

You don't, but at the same time I haven't read The Help. I KNOW!!! How pitiful is that? But...I either have to go buy it or go get on the list at the library and then...well, I have to go get it. And for someone fast approaching hermit-status, that's a big go-do. If I had a Kindle, I'd have read it several times by now. But...

If I'm going to be a hermit, I have to stop thinking so much. I could get busy and clean up this house. And yard. And power-wash the siding and mulch the beds.

I could ;)

Take it where you can get it... ;)

That would be...humor from wherever.

I don't have a car. Originally The Nice Kid was going to get a car for her 16th birthday. Not a NEW new car, but a new car to us. Then, she had an interesting year...$500 for a new radiator after she drove up from the farm doing about 50 mph. $1000 in new brakes when EVERY part of them had to be replaced. Apparently now, there's an armadillo waddling around Alabama with an oil pan on his head...don't have the bill for that one, yet. If you see him? Send him this way.

So she got my car. A used and abused Mama-Volvo, with a Catholic school tag on the front, a soccer magnet on one side and said Catholic school magnet on the other. No car seats any more, but dents, scrapes, old gum and fingerprints. Everywhere. She ain't cool, but she's safe ;) She could be brewing meth in the trunk and no one would look twice...boooorrriiinnng.

I haven't bought a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk in six weeks. Call and ask me to do something...come on. I DON'T HAVE A CAR!!!! I would LOVE to clean out the uniform room at school!! I was DYING to solicit funds for the upcoming fundraiser! I so WANTED to work the MG hotline!

Ooops. Can't do it. Don't have a car.

Obviously, I can only milk this for another couple of days. School starts shortly. But today???

Satisfaction is so sweet.

Since I haven't been doing the shopping, I've been sending for bare essentials. Milk. Bread. TP. Garbage bags...and they didn't get those right. So tonight, I finally had to look at the list and send for some serious shopping.

Four stores, people....FOUR stores. Aldi has cheap bread (100% whole wheat, not "Made With Whole Wheat".) Eggs. Milk. Kettle chips. Sandwich cheeses...not processed. Sandwich meats. Cleaners. Foodland is the only store that still carries whole fat buttermilk. WalMart has a quart of cream for $3. Dollar General has Yardley soap.

They thought I was being mean, for real. I've been doing this for them for YEARS, and no one had a clue. "What do you DO all day?" is taking on new meaning. FOUR STORES!!

Y'all...I'm sittin' here. Haven't moved. Four stores.

Odds are, I'll get less than half of what I requested but that's not the point.

Four stores. Four. Stores.

Four.

;)