Tag: Susan Wilson

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Opinion The Last Word

A Very Memphis Meal

CREDIT: Catherine Laurin | Dreamstime.com

I had one of those Very Memphis Moments last week. First of all, it was hot, and it was raining. It was that kind of wet, hot mess we get here this time of year. It’s like when you take a towel out of the dryer, only it really needs about 10 more minutes. That’s what it felt like we were walking into. We were going with some friends to a relatively famous barbecue place that’s known more for its really good food than for being famous.

We settled in to do some people watching. One of the things I dearly love about Memphis is people watching, especially in a good restaurant. I think the better the restaurant, the better the people watching, because good food will generally bring in a diverse group of people.

The family next to us was young and hip. Hip in that way of being hip that would look homeless if one’s jeans weren’t a brand that can only be bought in boutiques that swath one’s purchases in tissue paper and matte black shopping bags. The child was, I believe, named either Carol or Chlamydia. I couldn’t tell. Either is a possibility, as one is ironic and one is just stupid. Anyway, I held out a soft spot for them because they were sucking back pork ribs like their name was Flintstone, and had I seen them on the street, I’d have pegged them as the parents of the kid who doesn’t get invited to birthday parties anymore because there is literally nothing she can eat but kale and lentil non-dairy ice cream.

Catherine Laurin | Dreamstime.com

They were discussing the best place to get a hamburger. The consensus was they liked old-school diner burgers rather than anything containing the words “Angus” or “jam” in the description. I get it. I recently chose a hotel specifically because there was a Whataburger across the street. I’ve also been known to suck back a Tennessee Grass Fed farms burger with Bonnie Blue Farm goat cheese and pickled green Ripley tomato jam on a brioche bun. The point was that when you want a burger, you want a burger. Not an experience. They named several places in town they liked, talked about some that weren’t what they used to be, and all agreed that stuffed burgers always promise and never deliver.

There was a party of about 10 on the other side. The table was multi-generational, with the youngest not yet walking and the oldest not still walking. It was hard to catch up with what was being said because there were several conversations going on. I kept my eye on the lady who I’d put money down was called Nona. She didn’t talk. I don’t think she was hard of hearing or disinterested. I think she was just amazingly focused on her ribs. Although, now I think on it, maybe she was deaf because there was some discussion about tomato gravy in which she did not participate, and I’ve not known any grandmother not to put her two cents in about a tomato gravy.

As we were served our food, a middle-aged couple came in. They were clearly tourists. The first clue was they wore those matching sandals I think are like German comfort shoes. The second was the lady wanted white wine, but was good natured when told such a beast did not exist. The waitress walked them through the menu, pointing out the difference between pulled and chopped meat and the pros and cons of dry vs. wet rub. I watched the couple excitedly tuck into their meals, request boxes for leftovers, and have another discussion about how they’d found out about the place from a Food Network show. They were in and gone before we’d ordered our third round of drafts.

That was when I realized that every conversation in that room was about food — including ours. Not just what we were eating that night or what we almost ordered. It was about how a waitress told us the other day she loved that my husband and I shared our plates with each other. It was about charcoal or hickory. It was about the best gas station meal in town. It was about a certain restaurant we love that recently redecorated and painted over Guy Fieri’s signature on its wall from when he’d done a segment there. We had a very involved conversation with our waitress about the best ways to season cast iron skillets and if you should bake biscuits close together or two inches apart. It was one of those Memphis nights that made me remember why after 16 years here, I still choose it every day.

I hope when people ask that couple how Memphis was, they say they loved it, but geez! All they do is talk about food.

Susan Wilson also writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband Chuck have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.

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Opinion The Last Word

Body Parts

CREDIT: Pontus Edenberg | Dreamstime.com

Last weekend my honey and I went to a bar in town we love for people watching. As soon as we sat down, he pointed out a woman with a shirt proclaiming, “I DO MY OWN STUNTS!”

“I’m getting that for you,” he said. I might or might not have been regaling him with the tale of how I fell UP some stairs when going to lunch with some coworkers. Or it could have been how I took my wedge sandals off to walk out to the mailbox, replaced them with Sensible Shoes, and still managed to turn my ankle by stepping into a sewer grate. Wait, no. We were most definitely talking about how I tried to turn my pillow over to the cool side the night before and punched myself in the face. Which is NOT the same story as the time I was having a dream I was cornered by a beaver and decided what the hell, I’ll just punch him, and punched the headboard in my sleep.

I am not a delicate flower. I’m tall and always on the chubby side. But the recent additions of a desk job, a severe vitamin D deficiency, and treatments for a yet-to-be-diagnosed brand of arthritis have created a delightful pile of manure in which full-on obesity has blossomed. Being in my mid-40s has something to do with it. As do tacos. I have been taking one particular medicine that makes it seem sensible to eat an entire box of oatmeal cream pies because it’s either that or, you know, punch walls.

Pontus Edenberg | Dreamstime.com

Have you seen my center of gravity?

But the thing is that I don’t move the way I used to because my center of gravity has shifted. To Cleveland, apparently. It’s rather like how, when you’re pregnant, you have to have someone you trust to tell you whether you’re wearing matching shoes because you just have to slip into whatever you feel on the floor. If you bend over to look yourself, you’ll end up rolling head-first into the back wall of your closet.

Now that we totally bypass spring in favor of summer, this issue presents some wardrobe challenges. Slim ankle pants are a good look on most people except those with no bones where their ankles should be. My never-slight ankles have now been replaced by fat deposits the same consistency as perfect brioche dough. Ankle pants now make me look like a human Go-Gurt tube busted on both ends.

I check out plus-size catalogs which have become almost fashionable in the last couple of years. I say “almost” because what, at first glance, seems to be a perfectly innocuous peasant shirt ends up being a style called a “cocoon blouse,” which involves elastic at neck, elbows, and hem. Also things called “elegant embellishments” — lace, trim, and ruffles, the likes of which I have only seen on the christening gowns of Victorian-era babies. Printed denim jeans with matching jackets is apparently a thing again. Which is great. Because I genuinely enjoy going calf roping on the weekends just like millions of other women do. I guess. I mean, that is the only legitimate reason I can think of to wear a Canadian tuxedo.

Office looks are scarce. Unless you work at an office where an off-the-shoulder ruffled tunic worn with a pencil skirt is the height of professionalism. I know those jobs exist, but I don’t know anyone with one. Except for my friend Pernilla, who is awesome and wears skull-print leggings to work. No, an off-the-shoulder blouse requires the kind of undergarment sacrifices I am not willing to make. And the pencil skirt is a no-go now that we’re out of black tights season.

There are only two solutions to this issue. One is win the lottery and hire someone to custom-make my clothes. I’m working on that one two bucks at a time. The other is, you know, don’t be fat. That right there is tough, too because it’s not necessarily based on luck, but on the idea that one exercises and does not keep Pringles in one’s desk for a snack during conference calls. I have a great ballet workout video with this beautiful ballerina from North Carolina. She’s got the most soothing manner, and if I ever meet her, I’m going to rip her adorable ponytail off her head and beat her with it. She has no mercy. She’s like a really cute dominatrix.

It’s just that I have to take a break from Mistress Toe Shoes because the last time I did the workout I fell over during an unsuccessful arabesque and knocked myself out when I hit the corner of the coffee table. I didn’t know one literally saw stars when one got knocked out. The things you learn from good, clean living.

Susan Wilson also writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband, Chuck, have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.

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Opinion The Last Word

Knowing Jack: A Dog Worth Saving

This time last year, I was driving home from seeing my parents in Laurel, Mississippi. I’d been talking to my dad about my grandparents’ dogs. Other than Cuz — who had her own platinum dog-tag with a diamond in it — they were usually named Cindy. I think there were three generations of Cindys. Granddaddy chose this name for reasons unknown to me but kept it because he’d always get at least one dog to come when he called. The Cindys I knew were black Labs. They were hunting dogs who were, despite what my grandparents might have said about my father and aunt, the real children of the house. Dad told me the first Cindy wasn’t actually a Lab. She was, he said, part dog. The other part was undetermined, but most likely dust mop.

About the time I got to Grenada, I got a series of texts from my husband. He and my stepson had taken possession of what he called “the dirtiest poodle in Memphis.” He was filthy, tiny, scared, but friendly. He’d been wandering around their office near I-240 on Getwell. He had no microchip and no tag.

Jack

My husband asked if I could take him by a vet the next day to get him checked out. It was at that point I realized we were getting a poodle.

He was, like Cindy the First, more mop than dog. He was so furry we couldn’t even tell if he’d been neutered. His tail was festooned with dreadlocks, and if we’d taken out all the mats, he’d have been hairless. But he danced. He spun in circles, tap danced on his hind legs, and his ears moved with every sound. We were certain the vet would say there was no saving him. We figured he was only held together by knots and dirt. He was just over seven pounds, mostly poodle with some unidentified terrier somewhere in his past. It turned out he had hookworms, but other than that he was healthy.

Within a couple of days, many sessions with the scissors, and the realization he was housetrained, he became Colonel Jackson Humphrey Hoover Dog.

Jack is now almost 11 pounds, belly-up about 20 hours of the day, and loves nothing so much as spending the weekend at Shelby Farms sniffing butts and playing in mud.

He gets underestimated. He’s small enough to straddle the line between teacup and miniature poodle. When my husband walks him, people tend to assume “the wife” makes him walk her dog. They ask about his Napoleon complex. For the record, Jack doesn’t think he’s a big dog. He just doesn’t know he’s not. He has a bit of a fetish for German shepherds. Maybe he recognizes his own Bavarian ancestry in them. Maybe it’s just easier to sniff taller butts.

He grumbles. A lot. I like to think Jack is a very gruntled dog. He rarely seems disgruntled, anyway. Well, except when he doesn’t get any of our steak. Then he’s very disgruntled.

It’s taken a commitment on our part for Jack to become a part of the family. He hasn’t been cheap, and if he gets off his routine, he could do horrible things to a rug. We talked about his finances — medical bills, food, housing. Our hearts told us to keep him because he was cute and novel and his antics make a great Twitter feed. But he isn’t human. He can’t hold a job, so he mooches off us. He can’t open doors or not chase squirrels. It would have been easy to take him in without committing to his well-being. He’d have ended up back on Getwell if he made it that far. He’s a perpetual toddler in a lot of ways. He doesn’t speak the language, doesn’t have a nickel to his name, always goes nude, and has been known to eat deer poop.

I read once that Dalmatians have a high rate of abandonment. They’re high on both novelty and maintenance, and lots of times people don’t really understand what they’re getting into. People just want something different. They get tired of spaniels and labs. They want a little something with some zing. They don’t think about having to calm them down during thunderstorms or constantly taking them to the vet for urinary tract infections. We’re all guilty of wanting the cute little puppy but not thinking about what happens when we get it home and it eats the sofa. We blame the dog, not the fact we don’t want to take responsibility for it.

That’s to say, I don’t want Jack guarding my smokehouse. I really don’t trust him around bacon. I don’t ask him to do things he’s incapable of. Just because he can fetch a ball doesn’t mean he can play centerfield for the Cubs.

Susan Wilson also writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com.

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Opinion The Last Word

Going Postal on Mendenhall

CREDIT: Erica Schroeder | Dreamstime.com

I had to go to not one, but two post offices.

See, I wasn’t wearing pants, and I was on the phone with my bank. I couldn’t get to the door in time and didn’t get my package. My lovely postman rang several times because he’s obviously been there before and knows I’m often wiping Nutella off my face before I answer the door.

Now, my friend Desi was a bit stumped at this, because don’t all Southern ladies have bathrobes? Well, yeah, I reckon. But that never occurred to me, honestly. Probably because my bank was calling to verify two very legitimate charges, which I appreciated since last year I had THREE different debit cards due to security breaches.

Note to self, find another bank.

Anyway, I was so stunned that they were actually monitoring that all I could do was kind of freeze in place, my phone in one hand, watching my precious cargo being loaded back up and taken away.

Taken away to the depths of the Mendenhall Post Office. Where it could not be found. That should have been a sign, BUT OH NO! Did I heed said sign? No, for I am an idiot of the highest caliber. For various reasons, I needed a mailbox. So I’d gotten one online at a post office location that I preferred. I printed out everything the site told me, got all my IDs (strangely, no one accepts one’s belly button as proof of birth), and trekked onward. BIG mistake. Let me just cut to the chase. By the time I got back in my car, I had no post office box, and I was in tears.

Erica Schroeder | Dreamstime.com

This is why EVERYTHING at the post office should be done by machines. Machines do not tell you things like they do not have to do what the website says. Machines do not tell you, “Y’all just don’t know. Y’all don’t know how to fill out a form. Y’all can’t come in here with stuff ain’t doing you no good.”

This woman was the most heinous individual I have ever encountered, and I once got stuck in a KKK rally in Brandon, Mississippi. Truth. So I went and finished my errands, got home, canceled my mailbox online, and wrote a complaint that was pointed yet poignant. I know USPS doesn’t care.  I know nothing will be said to this woman, and even if it were, it wouldn’t matter. Some people are just toxic.

A smooth transaction can change a person’s day. You can be having the worst day ever. Run in your hose. There’s a black fly in your chardonnay. But one joke from the woman at Fred’s about how those select-a-size towels probably have a Napoleon complex, and it looks a lot better.

A terrible transaction can change a person’s day. You can be having the best day ever. You don’t have to wear pants. Black Sabbath decide to play your favorite neighborhood bar. Someone gives you something besides chardonnay. But one “I don’t have to do ANYTHING the website says,” and you are suspended between hopelessness and rage to the extent you clutch your pearls, say screw everything, go to Taco Bell, and go home and binge on Netflix and remorse the rest of the day. Because …

PEOPLE SUCK.

I know there isn’t anything nearly as trite as complaining about a government agency, but clichés are clichés because they’ve happened enough to be cliché. People with absolutely no power anywhere else in life will always try to create a superpower at work. When there are no consequences for actions, people do what we do. We act like jerks. I did cancel my order, I did write a complaint, and I know that nothing will change because I am the only one in this situation who was inconvenienced. No one else has a stake. It’s the post office, where else am I going to go? What the woman wanted, she got. She wanted to tell someone no. She wanted to know — or act as if she knew — more than someone else because she has absolutely no power. People who throw fits and fall in them are no different from a toddler. And when we do that, we’re telling the other person, “YOU are responsible for my behavior,” rather than taking responsibility ourselves. Unfortunately, this woman exercised her “No” power with me. I don’t show emotion with this kind of deal. I don’t get loud. In fact, I get like Alec Baldwin quiet. I speak very distinctly. I ask how we’re going to fix this. Most of the time, it works, and we all move on. This time? Not so much. Not only did we not fix the problem, she didn’t get to see me get upset. So we both lost.

Susan Wilson also writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband, Chuck, have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

You Can’t Gift Me; I’m Already Gifted.

There’s an episode of 30 Rock where Jack talks about how his product integration sets a new standard in upward revenue-stream dynamics. It’s word salad, but yet somehow you get the drift, don’t you? It’s a saddle of charred corporate buzzword garnished with a foam of pretentiousness and a coulis of self-importance. We all know someone who talks like this. Usually it’s someone who makes a big deal of telling you he went to the Wharton School and that he works hard to play hard. He’s also been known to pound a few Bud Heavies because he is That Guy. He’s Buzzword Guy.

Every few years, I like to take stock of some of the stupidest corporate buzzwords. Wait. I say that like there are some buzzwords that aren’t stupid. Ahem. Every few years I like to sit back and make fun of some of the stupidest of the stupid buzzwords out there. I try not to do it any more than that because then all this column would become is me ranting about why you can’t just call someone. Why do you have to “reach out”? Are you a member of the Four Tops? Doubtful. My husband already hears me complain about people “gifting” each other, and I don’t think he wants to read about it too.

Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock’s Jack

One of my several side gigs is as a researcher. I get a lot of really interesting questions, but I’ve noticed recently I’ve gotten a lot of questions involving “industry disruption.” What are disruptive trends in software as a service? Who are the top merchant services aggregator disrupters? How is the pet industry being disrupted?

I want to start every answer with, dude. First? Just because you have some innovation or some startup with a stupid name doesn’t mean you’re disruptive. Or, wait, maybe it does because I’m not entirely sure what it means to be disruptive anymore. I thought it meant an innovation that changes an industry. Netflix was a disrupter to the video-rental industry even though it wasn’t immediately successful. Now it’s being used for any new rowdy startup wanting to change the game. Uber isn’t disrupting the taxi industry, according to Clayton Christensen, who coined “disruption” in 1995, and he’s a mite pissed off that you youngsters are corrupting his buzzword. Get off his lawn!

I’ve been gnashing my teeth over “ecosystem” applied to business for a few years. It replaced “global,” I think. A company can have an ecosystem when it comes to culture, but Apple has an ecosystem when it comes to devices. If you ask me to “circle back,” I will. But only long enough to pop your jaw. Are you a “wantrepreneur” interested in amplifying insight-as-a-service or “recrutainment”? Well, then you totally need OTTS (over the top service) because you have to look at your ROR (return on relationship) to really max your influencer marketing.

Normal people do this crap too. It isn’t just media mavens. I was talking to my very dear friend of 30 years about underwear. I bought TEN NEW PAIRS OF DRAWERS ALL AT ONCE! I was so excited. I mean, I’m in my 40s, so I’ve already been through the excitement of discovering a new band or finding out you won’t need antibiotics for that thing. New underwear is a Very. Big. Deal. So I said to her, why is it we ever thought getting underwear was the worst gift ever? It’s awesome! And she, lovely woman she is, replied with, “Who gifted you underwear?”

We were on the phone, so she couldn’t see the look I was giving her, but she heard it. Oh, she heard it. She knows how I feel about being gifted. Being gifted means you can play a piece of music after hearing it only one time or that you can do long division in your head without using your fingers. Gifting makes it all about you. It takes the giver out of the equation. Plus it just sounds stupid.

Mommy bloggers in Utah are always talking about being gifted. They’re usually gifted an old chair and some PVC pipe that they turn into a 16-piece “Anthro knockoff” dinner set. I’m not sure what it is ladies in Utah see in Anthropologie that the rest of the country doesn’t. I mean, here in Tennessee, we love a good wacky Anthropologie cardboard deer head as much as they do in Atlanta, but dang. Utah lady bloggers devote entire websites to knocking off the “Anthro look.” But I digress.

Core competency, swim lane, buy-in, deep dive, downstream, and what I might hate even more than disruption: biased algorithms. Incentivize your team! Future-proof your alpha deployment! Grow your playing field organically! Want to dialog your consumer space? Do it without me, because I have no idea what that means.

Susan Wilson writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband Chuck have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Resolved: No Resolutions

CREDIT: Sebastian Czapnik | Dreamstime.com

I love this time of year. I always think THIS is the year I’m going to make those curtains/win the lottery/paint the shutters/wear pants every day. It never is, but somehow this never bothers me that it’s not. I keep reading these articles about how Pinterest makes us horrible slatterns who never feel adequate because we haven’t actually made our own laundry detergent or have a perfectly labeled basket for every pair of socks. Well, I have made my own laundry detergent, and it sucked the color out of my clothes. I think if you’re the kind of person who must decant all dried spices into handmade Egyptian mud canisters decorated by service dogs, you’re pretty much going to feel inadequate without Pinterest and Martha Stewart.

Sebastian Czapnik | Dreamstime.com

My home style can best be described as “there appears to have been a struggle.” I love our home, despite the fact I still haven’t committed to rugs that didn’t come from Big Lots, and, for some reason, each room has approximately three desks. What I need is to find a pin that tells me how to turn desks into comfy chairs. Seriously, let me know if that exists.

We have recently acquired a dog solely for licking plates before they go into the dishwasher. We have a new washer that is the worst. Super Poodle is in charge of prewash because the new dishwasher doesn’t have enough water pressure to rinse broth out of a bowl. Plus it runs for like four hours. What is that? Four hours to run a wash, and I still have Cheetos dust on everything.

We have a corner of our den dedicated to junk to be burned in the fire pit. Every now and then I think we should have a better system than a pile, but then I get distracted by the new issue of Living and consider making my own leather purse with gold foil accents. Then I laugh hysterically at myself and turn clothesline into a “gallery wall” for my photos because I’m “too lazy” to go get frames. It’s a style I like to call Rustic Sloth.

If our homes are a reflection of ourselves, you can see from mine why my therapist sends me thank-you notes. Sometimes I want antique Swedish furniture and whitewashed walls. Other days, Danish modern makes sense. Early American is always nice, but I do love a good Chippendale sofa. The period I gravitate to most is Found in My In-Laws’ Basement. This look starts as soon as you walk in the front door and see where I have painted swatches of four different shades of coral I thought I wanted for the living room three years ago before I decided maybe blue would be better. I guess I could build a frame around the swatches and call it modern art.

This time of year I also always think I’m going to cook really interesting meals on Sundays and use the leftovers different ways the rest of the week. I love reading how these thrifty homesteading mommy bloggers in Utah buy one chicken and use it for a month. The reason I love it so much is that I get so tired from reading about all the prep, planning, and couponing that goes into the process, I get a really good nap in afterwards. Look, I love to cook for the most part, and I’m pretty good at it. But seriously? I don’t really need to take the fat from my pot roast and turn it into candles.

Speaking of reuse, I saw — no kidding — how to make a greenhouse out of plastic water bottles. The one thing I am not inspired to do this time of year is to make mirror frames from toilet paper rolls. I have seen how to make animals from dryer lint, turn old Converse high-tops into fingerless gloves, create a chandelier from plastic spoons, and turn old toothbrushes into bracelets.

No, I don’t ever get depressed because my house doesn’t belong in House Beautiful. It doesn’t bother me that I can’t make a single hamburger patty last 12 meals. I’m not even worried my pantry doesn’t hold an emergency stash of Greek brined anchovy eyeballs, magnolia-infused peppermint onion bitters, or Parmesan-crusted chocolate blue cheese wafers for spur-of-the-moment cocktail parties. I’m not even depressed because I never have spur-of-the-moment cocktail parties. Reading about insane Type A’s who drain their own salt-water backyard pond to source their own salt and recycle hair dryers into robot car ice melters makes me feel downright grounded and, dare I say, sane.

Now, you must excuse me. I’ve just found a recipe to turn cauliflower into beef Wellington and need to get it cooked and into labeled, single-serving containers in the freezer I made from old laundry baskets and dust bunnies.

Susan Wilson also writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com.