My dance card has been very full lately. Saturday night, i was invited out to Winston & Ann Groom's house to meet some of their friends. Ann's mama was there. i loved her name -- Millicent Wren -- She goes by Wren. "Just like the bird," she said. Joining us was an elegant  sculptor from South America and a lovely gal who had been married to Winston's cousin. And the family dog -- a furry little thing that layed at the edge of the pool and watched the golfers just beyond it. i didn't have time to visit with everyone. Winston did share a bit about his time in Vietnam, but I had a 1,000 more questions to ask about that time. He also divulged his fertilizer secret -- cricket poop. i'm serious. He has bags of it in the garage. His daughter swears it chirps.

Today was hectic. We had a photo shoot out at Water Hole Branch for a magazine spread. Doug Crandall and the lovely Nancy drove in from Atlanta for it. Tito Perdue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tito_Perdue) and his wife Judy  came from Montgomery area. The Mayor, Everett Capps, was there. Along with Suzie and Joe, and Frank Turner Hallon, whose book (April Pains) is being made into a movie starring Cybil Shepherd, and gosh who all else? Oh, yeah, Sonny Brewer, the fella behind Southern Writers Reading.

okay, forget this. joe and suzie's dog jumped on my laptop and knocked off the shift key to trying to capitalize just is slowing me down, so you'll have to deal with this lower case stuff.

like i was saying, it was hectic. there was this beautifully restored ford truck that we all climbed into to shoot the magazine spread, only i can't show you those pictures for fear of incurring the wrath of the magazine and the fire-spitting miz shari who orchestrated the entire affair. she's good at it but boy i'm telling you what, she could led marines into battle with a whistle.

today is also the year anniversary date of gordon wofford's brain bled. he called me this morning. i told him it was really remarkable how fer he's come in the past year. we weren't sure he'd ever leave the hospital and today he was out messing in that beloved garden of his. he doesn't remember most of what happened that day or the subsquent weeks he spent in the hospital. but we both agreed that we were thankful he's doing as well as he is today. he can't recall all the words he used to know, but he hasn't forgotten any of his stories. it's just more difficult to draw them out now. gordon ought to be made the mascot for the manchus. he really knows how to keep up the fire.

miz shelby asked me this morning how i got to be such a celebrity -- hob-nobbing with authors and artists and posing for photo shoots. i explained to her that it's a lot less glamorous than it sounds. and to prove my point, on tuesday nights a writers group meets at the center to critique one another's work. i sat in the first time but have been too busy to join them since. i did visit with the lot at the close of tonight's gathering. i was standing in the doorway, chatting with a couple of the fellas when another reached up from where he was sitting on the stoop and handed me his wine glass. i looked at him cockeyed, like what am i supposed to do with this, thinking of course that he would get the message that hey buddy i ain't the maid around this joint. but instead he continued to hold the glass out to me until he finally said hey this is your wine glass. i took it while the other two men stood by, mortified as me.

yeah. like i said being a celebrity ain't my thing. i look more like the hired help than i do a writer of merit. you can take the girl out of the trailer park but you can't take the trailer park out of the girl, i reckon.

Doug and Nancy at the photo shoot.

tito perdue, doug crandall, joe formichella

hillbilly feet. doug crandall cradles joe's right foot, deformed by a bad bunion. joe cuts the sides of his shoes to accomodate the bone growth. he won't have it removed, however, because he says it doesn't hurt.

the mayor of water hole branch's dirt devil.