Gals Guzzle

Orlinda Naranjo, Patti DeNucci, me and Katie Sherrod - cocktails at Jeffrey's.

This was an extraordinary week for me because I reunited for the first time in 50 years with my childhood best friend, Katie Sherrod. Katie and I spent two days talking till we dropped, trying to catch up on decades of life. Katie and I don’t remember when we didn’t know each other. I pretty much grew up with her and her three brothers. That is until Katie was shipped off to Incarnate Word in San Antonio. I actually ran into Katie in 1987 when she was inducted into the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame. She and Molly Ivins, with whom Katie was a friend from their days together at the Fort Worth Star Telegram, were sitting together in the lobby of the Hyatt chatting when I spotted them. Our visit was brief, but it did reinforce my resolve to reunite with Katie at some point.

I always knew that Katie would be famous. She has received many awards for her advocacy of women's reproductive freedom and efforts to end family violence. She was also the creator and editor of Grace and Gumption: Stories of Fort Worth Women, and was Texas Woman of the Year in 1989.

After Katie arrived in Austin on Tuesday afternoon, we had dinner with my book club at Quattro Gatti, a raucous, rich and enriching muster that ended with my wine-induced announcement that I was going home to curl into the “fertile” position. Of course I meant fetal position, so we ended the night laughing our patooties off! Katie and I spent Wednesday morning at the Blanton Museum viewing the captivating exhibit, Recovering Beauty: The 1990s in Buenos Aires.

Later that afternoon, we happy hour’d at Jeffrey’s with Orlinda Naranjo and Patti DeNucci. Orlinda, aka The Honorable Orlinda Naranjo, Judge, 419th Judicial District Civil Court, is one of my very best friends and a very smart and fun gal! Orlinda is a recognized leader in judicial and non-profit circles. I fully expect to see her appointed to a federal judgeship by our next President - that is assuming we have a Democratic President of course!  Patti DeNucci is the super successful businesswoman/owner of DeNucci & Co., one of 40 female entrepreneurs featured in the new book Fearless Women, Fearless Wisdom by Mary Ann Halpin. Patti is also a soon to be published author, an outsourcing referral service, and a fellow over-reader and friend. She had us mesmerized with a story of her training in a spiritual and meditation discipline so complicated that I blanked out on exactly what it was, so hopefully she’ll comment and fill us in.

After drinks, Katie and I went to the Zachery Scott Theater to see the excellent play about Molly Ivins, Red Hot Patriot. After breakfast tacos the next morning, Katie headed back to Fort Worth and I crept back into my computer and my alter ego – Networker by Choice, Recluse By Need! A great two days with a great bunch of Very Smart Gals!

One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 66

Photo is of my mom, 1937. I have the hat she has on in this photo!

#66 – “Put bells on your doors so you can hear when people come and go.”

During a recent trip to New Mexico to see a good friend, I noticed that she had a string of bells on her front doorknob, and mom’s #66 jumped into my memory. When I mentioned to my friend that her bells reminded me that my mom had told me many times to hang bells on my doors as a security measure, my friend replied, “I just hung them there because I thought it looked cool. I never thought about it as a security thing.”

When I was growing up, people didn’t lock their doors in our little hometown of 1,200 people, and probably still don’t. When you arrived at someone’s house you just opened the door and walked in, hollering something like “Hello the house?” or “Woo hoo? Anybody home?” As the saying goes, we didn’t get a lot of strangers in those parts, so whoever walked into your house was going to be someone you knew. However, probably because she had a feral child (me) and lived alone, mom apparently wanted a little more information about comings and goings, and it worked like a charm, or perhaps I should say like a chime.

I remember hating those dang bells on our doorknobs because I couldn’t sneak out or into the house. Mom always knew exactly what time I got home from a date, all because of those bells! No matter how hard I tried, I could not open the front or back door without setting off the alarm bells! And it wasn’t like I could just remove them! Mom would either hear me, if she was home, or notice they were gone when she got home. It was a low-tech yet failsafe security system.

So mom was right, if you want to know when people are coming and going at your house, hang a string of bells on the doors. Besides, it’s a nice welcoming sound that reminds me of the bells on the doors of old shops! Tinkle, tinkle!

One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 65

Photo is of my brother JS's class on their senior trip to Mexico. JS is second from the top on the far left. Handsome dude!!

#65 – “Before a meal, pour the tea last so the ice won't melt and dilute the tea.”

I just assumed that iced tea was a southern thing; however (and this seems completely illogical to me), the largest consumer of ice tea in the world is Japan. It is also very popular in Austria and Canada. Go figure.

We always had iced tea when I was growing up – unsweetened ice tea. Out in our neck of the woods families were either sweetened tea drinkers or unsweetened tea drinkers.  The sweetened tea drinkers were the ones missing teeth.  

Being the youngest in a family of five and having a mom who was probably very tired by the time I came along, left me to become a relatively feral kid.  I ran loose in our little town of 1,200 people, foraging for meals at my friends’ houses. I remember sitting down at their dinner tables  (every meal was at the dinner table back then) and staring at the sweating glass of tea in front of me wondering, “Sweetened or unsweetened?” One little sip and I knew whether or not I’d be returning to that home for meals. When you’re raised drinking unsweetened tea, sweetened tea is an abomination, and vice versa.

Now Kool-Aid, that’s a different deal all together. I can’t help but snicker when I read stories about horrible mothers who let their children drink beverages with caffeine and sugar. I vividly recall standing in a circle of wide-eyed kids as one of the moms poured a cup of sugar into a pitcher of Kool-Aid. My mom didn’t believe in buying Kool-Aid or sugar (except for pies), so homes that served Kool-Aid with meals were my favorite dining places. Click on Read More Below...

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft By Stephen King

When a friend, whose opinion I value, asked if I’d read Stephen King’s book about writing (and told me she thought it was good), I knew I had to read it. Now I wish I hadn’t.

1. I started out loving On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, but the further I got into it the harder it was to finish. I finally just skipped to the end to hear about his terrible accident in 1999 (he was walking on the side the road, was hit by a van, and nearly died).

2. I listened to the audio version, read by King, whose whiny voice was so irritating that it made me want to hurt someone.

3. His brother John Elder Robison’s stories about their childhood in his book, Look Me In The Eye, were more interesting than the autobiographical stuff that King shared in the first half of his book. I should add that saying that Robison’s was better than King’s is like saying that liver tastes better than smoked oysters. Both are hard to stomach.

4. When King got into talking about the craft of writing, he turned into every bad teacher I ever knew: condescending, arrogant and mean. I’m sure there were some good lessons in there, but between the whiny voice and the attitude they were difficult to absorb.

5. It felt like Stephen King was saying that anyone who doesn’t write like Stephen King is a hack. I don’t believe there is any one way to write well anymore than there is any one way to sing well.

I liked Stephen King’s writing a lot better before I read this book.