Southern Charm - The Show

Housewarming party coming up in about 2 weeks. Holla! I have never had a housewarming party and I am kind of pumped. I don't want stuff. No STUFF! I WILL NEVER WANT STUFF! CAPICHE? We have so much stuff. The move was eye-opening and I realized that I can be a bit of a pack rat (I totally just wrote "pat rack" and stared at it for 5 minutes in confusion). I am crafty at various times of the year so I keep a lot of crap for "just in case" projects. I discovered I had 15 bottles of glitter. Why? What have I glittered in recent years? I also had about 34 paint brushes. Am I a painter? No. No I am not. So I kept the essentials: glue and glue gun and paint. But tossed out bags upon bags of crap. There is still more craft stuff at the old apartment that I have to sift through but I am getting to the end. Slowly. So, if you are coming to the party, just bring your lovely selves. Maybe some booze. I will have booze but I'm not your mother and can't assess how much you like to drink at parties so have your back-up flask, just in case.

ANYWAY! I have decided that, like all parties I host, we will be having a theme. The theme is a Southern style cocktail indoor garden party. Got that? Yeah. I love all things Southern. There is something about the landscape, the architecture, the binge drinking and the accent that gets me all hyped up. My love affair with the South started when I was young and I will never forget the first time I watched Gone with the Wind. IT BLEW MY MIND. I was 12 and we had a class project to read a contemporary classic book and then watch the movie. Most likely our teacher expected that we would learn about metaphors and sentence structure and foreshadowing. Or perhaps, with a book that takes place during one of America's bleakest times, I would learn about history and perhaps this would lead to an increased interest in the Civil War and the struggle of slaves. Yeah. I was 12. I walked away with "YOU CAN MAKE A DRESS FROM CURTAINS?!?! OMG!" I'm not proud.

I was so enamored by the Antebellum clothing and the houses that I even sat through the Shannon Doherty made-for-TV film about Margaret Mitchell. That is dedication, my friends. Then we had to read To Kill a Mockingbird and I was hooked on the South. Atticus Finch was the man I was going to marry. Spoiler alert: I didn't. Then I read Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and vowed to drink bourbon when I got older. A few years later, I got hooked on Anne Rice and to this day, I will read anything that takes place in the South. Every spring, when Vienna explodes into green, I get an urge for Southern Comfort, long summer nights and the sound of a screen door closing. It is Pavlovian. And well, something in the universe recognized this and brought the show Southern Charm my way.

This show is my dirty secret (not so secret) pleasure. It only aired 7 or so episodes on Bravo but I'm just going to say it is my new favorite thing like ever. It's a (groan) reality show but it is great! It doesn't seem nearly as scripted as the other Bravo shows and it takes place in Charleston, which is absolutely gorgeous. What I like about this show is that it is more male-centric so while there is drama, there isn't screeching and drink tossing. And being male drama, they kind of all shrug it off after a couple of drinks. Another thing that made me fall in love with this show was the scenery. Hot damn! The houses are incredible, the foliage dense and you truly just want to pull up a rocking chair, with a drink in hand and sit on a porch and join them. This is a problem because a) I live in Vienna and porches don't really exist and b) I have a feeling the cast might wonder why a short and squat Canadian has trespassed onto their property. And I heard that guns are mighty popular down there and I don't need no mo' drama, yo.

The characters on this show make me feel better about my drinking on Sunday morning. Mimosas are a fruit, alright? The accents are rich and the idioms are fantastic. And because I have been hooked to this short season - that ended only a couple of weeks ago - I was inspired to host my own Southern housewarming party. So stay tuned for posts about my prep for the big day. Cocktail experimentation will start sometime next week because if you're going to be the belle at your own ball, you need a signature drink... and maybe a change of clothes. Bless my heart.