Gloria Christiansen Edwards Mississippi

Ms Barbara

Crisis committee in action at the Edwards Methodist Church

Eat your heart out Delta laddies

Just an itsy bitsy part of the pewter that can be found around town.

Christiansen's Comments

Hinds county Gazette

September 3 2009

We have had the most delightful weather for August, it has been in the 80s, and low humidity. Usually in August it is humid, hot, and dry, the ground is cracked, the grass crunchy and brown and the air is so still ….not even a hint of a breeze.

I am ashamed to admit, in the past, there were some among us, (I may have been one) who actually wished for a hurricane to blow up from the gulf to give us some relief. We don’t do that anymore! Not since Katrina…What with All the suffering she caused.

Lately, it has been the kind of weather… I had been telling myself, when it comes, “I am going to get lots accomplished!” Well, I haven’t, I have just puttered around in the yard taking deep breaths and enjoying the pleasant weather.

I have had the Book, Being Dead is no excuse ..sub titled, “The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral” for along time. It was written by a pair of Mississippi delta ladies. I did not read it, I used it as an adornment, ( hoping to appear Southern.) The book has been at one time or another on every bedside table in this house…complete with a beautifully ribboned book mark. It recently came to rest on the table next to my bed. The other night I picked it up and began reading it. It is a fun book….Some of the tales they relate are similar to events that have transpired right here in Edwards.

I had not read the book because, I didn’t think we needed it…we have been performing perfectly satisfactory funerals meals, for years ,over here in Edwards, with out any advise. However, Our funeral meals are not nearly as pretentious as those in the book…What with all of homemade mayonnaise, the polished silver and crystal cut work bowls they talk about. Fact is, there just not that much silver….polished silver…left over here in Edwards.

But, we could, if called upon, without straining, simultaneously have a funeral, bridal shower, baby shower and a christening, and have each gathering served quite nicely, on the vast accumulation of the pewter…that lives on various pantry shelves in and around Edwards.

Our quintessential funeral hostess, is Barbara Pennebaker, I have worked with a lot of ladies in my time…Barbara is hands down the Best. Barbara does not under any circumstances panic…(Years ago, we had near crises conditions at one house where the meal was to be served, You all, the commode was very nearly ready to fall through the floor) Barbara, armed with only her abundant charm, soothing southern voice, and careful word choices…can take a calamity and turn it in to what feels like a grand “Southern Experience”

Recently I was going up the walk at the Methodist church’s fellowship hall …carrying a yellow fiesta ware canister full of sliced cucumbers and onions, my contribution to a funeral meal…Barbara jerked the door open, I could tell by the horror in her eyes…something BAD was wrong…and it wasn’t just the bright yellow canister I was carrying! (Perhaps on thinking it over… not best choice for serving vessel at a funeral.) Possibly the Yankees were at the back door? No…there was a dead mouse in the house…and she could not find it. Barbara was flustered …In fact far more anxious about the dead mouse, then she had been about the teetering toilet all of those years ago.

I have not read the entire book yet…so I don’t know if they have had to, on the day of a funeral, deal with a church fellowship Hall, thick with a foul odor, being emitted from a dead and decaying dead mouse.

Love to all and call if you need me

PS. Let me hasten to say this: there is absolutely nothing wrong with pretentious …some of us live and die by those great words of wisdom from Mick Jagger…“Anything worth doing, is worth over doing“….we love pretension! When we the one being pretentious…..But, it is just plain tacky when other folks are being pretentious…. Don’t you agree?
　
GloriaChristiansen@gmail.com