Come on-a My House

Hey y'all! How has your weekend been? I hope that things are just as you'd like them to be!

Things here have been really fun. Mister Kitsch and I were fortunate enough to be able to get together with some good friends. Friends who make me feel very fortunate AND who make me laugh until I gasp for air. We decided to put down the hammers and dust masks and throw our first dinner party at the house - and it was easy for me to pick a theme: Grandma Meal.

For quite some time now, I have been wanting to make an enormous Southern, smothered-in-butter meal. I think that it's something that's ingrained in a lot of Southern ladies. My Mom does it. My Grandmothers did it. And every woman before them did it. There is something about seeing all of those casserole dishes and platters lined up and ready for guests that does our hearts good. Something about nurturing and showing our love with food. A Sunday never comes that I don't feel like something is undone - like there is a longing for something in my soul. Yep, Grandma meal.

When I first started dating Mr. Kitsch, I took him home for his first Christmas at my Mom's house. There, he saw that the food stretched across the room and that there were at least a dozen dishes and no less than four desserts. He's from the Midwest and not used to "the spread". Upon witnessing the great wall of food, he asked me if there were a lot of people coming and I looked at him and replied, "No. It's the South." I'll never forget how sick he got by the end of that trip. He lay in the hotel bed on our way home, groaning in agony. Honestly, we both did..but I'm used to it. You've got to pay to play and if you don't eat that third helping of coconut cake, someone else will.

At the supermarket as we were buying groceries for our dinner party, I told him to grab another box of butter. After he replied that we already have lots of butter at home, I answered again with those three words: "It's the South" and he knew that there was no need to argue. Ditto on the huge jug of whole milk and my argument of, "There are NEVER too many dinner rolls!"

So, I got to cook that big meal full of grandma dishes and everyone ate lots which made me quite happy. It all happened so quickly that I didn't even take any photos. Just know that there were a lot of foods that our cardiologists wouldn't approve of. And banana pudding in a robin's egg blue, snowflake pattern Pyrex dish. Have mercy. I may not have walked through Heaven's gates but I think I may have swung from them. (And I'm not too shy to admit that I had that same banana pudding for breakfast this morning too.)


Here are some shots from the rest of the party. After my previous post about wanting to hoard Penny, the feline aerobics instructor piñata, you might be surprised that I brought her out for the party. She met her fate there....and I hate to admit it, but it was lots of fun hitting my first piñata. Admittedly, it was nerve-wracking being blindfolded and spun around and around. I mean, I'm pretty accident prone on the average day when I'm NOT blindfolded and spun around - but other than that, a good time!

Everyone got to take some turns before she was finally taken down:




Whoa, mama.




The carnage.

Bless her.


On a bright note, piñatas hold a LOT of candy. Chocolate, just like promised.





And I got to keep her head (try to type THAT without feeling like a serial killer):



I also didn't know that her legs would contain "It's A Boy!" balloons. Thankfully, nobody at the party got excited and thought that it was our way of telling them that we were expecting a little baby Kitsch from Mr. Stork. Of course, it WOULD be an easy way to explain away why I eat enough for two.

For the dinner, I set the table with some of my favorite stuff, including some old tree squirrels and flower arrangements of rosemary and crape myrtle from the yard:






We listened to some tunes including the late, great Eartha Kitt. Purrrrrr....




Before the movie, we watched a short video by the also late and great Dixie Carter showing us how to feel better by relaxing with an exercise called "The Lion".



It worked too because laughter is the best medicine and this video is hilarious!



I miss that Dixie Carter. She was a Southern gem. I also think she'd be all up for a grandma meal and a piñata beat-down in the back yard. In a lady-like fashion, of course. Believe it or not, there IS a genteel way to take down a piñata.

The feature film for the night was an amazing documentary called "Off The Charts: The Song Poem Story".




It's about people who send their original songs in to small recording companies (you know the kind that you see advertised in the backs of magazines?) in the hopes of having them hit it big. Of course, they never do. The film also shows the people whose business it is to produce and record the songs. It's an amazing little film and it has some really hilarious moments in it as well as some heartbreaking and mesmerizing stories. I wish that I could adopt most of the songwriters in this film and have them come live with me. They are THAT earnest and good-hearted.



This guy is my favorite. His name is Caglar Juan Singletary and he has the BEST song about bicycles, Jehovah, Priscilla Presley and of course, Taekwondo:




I LOVE him!

The documentary was originally shown on PBS's "Independent Lens" and is on YouTube in it's entire form of about an hour. I'd highly recommend watching it if you haven't seen it already. I think I've already seen it four times and never get tired of it.

We ended out the night with funny stories, drinks, dessert, and gift bags:



Does anyone lose it for gift bags like I do? And aren't these bags cute?? They were given to me by my friend, Averyl who has mad taste for cute stuff. The gift bags included scads of hard candy (back to that whole "grandma" theme), George Jones playing cards (because "The Possum" is the stuff), and copies of some of the best songs from the documentary.

And once again, Marlene Deertrich was dressed to the nines:



Lordy. That deer has more outfits than I do!

I'll leave you with a little Dixie and "The Lion". Come on...try it. Even if the baby is sleeping. It really does lift the spirits.




Until next time...
x's and o's,
Eartha