Why has it been so long?!

Ok, I have been busier than a Wal Mart Shift manager with a discount sticker gun.  I have been racing around this dang world helping people with their food storage solutions and I just seem to have neglected my blogging and story telling completely and for those kind souls who follow me, I owe you more than this.

I have a big new adventure happening so I will be blogging much more in the next few weeks, I promise.  I will have plenty to write about as I begin my journey with a whole new show to Australia.  Hopefully the kind folk down there will enjoy it, and I have every intention of blogging a hell of a lot more and telling y’all about the stories and craziness that is happening down under.

Wish me luck everyone!

Pub Pub Goose

I can’t exactly figure out why there is so much hate in the world today, so much fighting, so much negativity.  I got this great email that showed various pictures of people doing heroic deeds that were completely unrelated and happened to be caught on cameras and then someone assembled them all into one email and sent it around.  It was meant to inspire hope and show that people are still good at their core, but then you turn on the TV or just look at any string of comments on any YouTube post and you wonder when people became so snarky and vicious.  At some point, we learned all of this stuff.   And somewhere, in a bunch of people’s minds, they linked up that all of this awful behavior is somehow appropriate.

Do you ever stop and think how we all got like that?  Do you ever yearn for a simpler time?  Do you ever look at a bunch of kids playing in a park and just see pure and total joy?

Before prejudice is taught, there is happiness.  Before our differences are pointed out, we are grateful to all be the same.  Perhaps it is just a basic need to have someone to play with during recess, but there is a simple truth in watching kids get along.

Some adults will say, “well, they just don’t know any better.”  I actually think they know a lot better than us.  How is it that when people start to be taught to judge and turn against one another that it can possibly be called “knowing better?”  That is pretty awful when you think about it.

I think sometimes we should all take the example of kids on a playground and try to live with that kind of excitement and that kind of laughter and that kind of joy.  Think back to when the worst thing that ever happened was you fell down and skinned your knee because you were actually having too much fun.  Remember those days?

Sometimes I wish the world leaders would take 15 minutes from their Summits and just play Kick Ball.   How about we tie the Senate and the Congress together and make them do 3-legged Races all over Capital Hill.  Instead of giving people parking tickets, let’s give them sidewalk chalk and encourage them to draw what makes them happiest.

 

Kids sometimes just have it so right.

 

So I’d like to propose something.  July 4^th is coming up: a day of pride and pomp and booze.  People died for our independence.  They died in the pursuit of our happiness, so let’s honor them for that by actually being happy.  Let’s go back to being a kid but give it that adult twist.  I find that any time as an adult I do something that I did as a kid, I enjoy it even more.

Since many of us will be at picnics and barbeques, and I know I will end up at a bar or two, I propose we play a new game that I call “Pub Pub Goose.”  The rules are simple.  Go into a bar, start walking around smiling at people, and then tap them on the head.

“Duck.”

Walk to the next person, slowly, and make your move.

“Duck.”

And again to the person beside her.

“Duck.”

You can skip a couple of people if you want to mix it up a bit.

“Duck.”

Definitely go to the person sitting on their own.

“Duck.”

Continue

“Duck.”

And when you think you have a straight open path to get all the way around the bar or back to the Juke Box or to the DJ booth (please be careful of the dart board), then make your move.

“GOOSE!” and Run like hell.

If they don’t follow you the first time, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play full out.  You should still run like hell.  Don’t look back.  Keep focused.  Navigate that path to freedom.  Stick your tongue out to one side if it makes you think better. Get back to the starting point.  And when you do, jump up and down and enjoy your success.  You made it.  You have won.  Phew!

Some people might be looking at you strangely.  Why?  What’s wrong with THEM?  They know the rules.  This isn’t the first time they have played this game.  So begin again with the same person.  They’ll catch on.

 

“Duck.”

This is fun.

“Duck.”

I can outrun her.  She’s wearing heels.

“Duck.”

He’s handsome. Maybe if I run slowly, he’ll catch me and I can get his number.

“Duck.”

Why is he alone at the bar?  Maybe he needs a friend.

“GOOSE!”

Run and run and really mean it as you dash as fast as you can, being mindful of the pool table and the peanut shells on the floor.

 

Did you beat him?  Since people are still dusting off their old “play mode” you might want to acquiesce for this first round and buy that guy who didn’t catch you but actually attempted a shot.  Nothing lethal.  This game might go on for a while.  Just something nice and delicious with a sugar rim that will start the ball rolling.

Now they know.   The loser has to buy a shot for the winner.  Nice reward.  Who wouldn’t want to play that game?

Buy him the shot and give the game over to him.  It is now his turn.  You take your place next to the cigarette machine and watch as the afternoon changes.  Let people play for a while and just see how the smiles start to reappear on people’s faces.  These are the smiles that people honestly forgot were inside of them.   These are the kids that got locked away sometime around 5^th grade and told never to come out again because we were learning how to judge and how to look tough and how to buck the system instead of realizing that we were just shutting down part of our capacity to have fun.

If the game falls short, start another round.  If people don’t catch on, keep playing it yourself.  And if they keep staring at you like a freak, remember, you are the one having a great time playing a game.  It just sucks for them that they are getting in their own way and preventing themselves from having a blast.  They are stopping themselves from actually being Free.  And isn’t that what July 4^th is all about, Freedom?

So be free this July 4^th.  If it makes you feel better, get some friends to play it with you at the bar.  Enlist people to help it grow.  Make it a regular thing.  Go from bar to bar and just make people smile.  Leave all of the judgment and crisis outside in the parking lot.  If you are worried about making a fool of yourself, rest assured that several people at the bar are way ahead of you judging by the empty beer bottles sitting in front of them so just figure that you are getting the party started early.

Go back to that time when you couldn’t wait for recess.  Think back to when playing jacks was actually interesting and you dared to eat that awful stick of gum that came with your trading cards. Go back to the time of “not knowing any better.”

 

And I bet skinning your knee won’t seem like such a big deal this go around.

Adrenaline

You know that feeling after your second round of shots when you start to feel that little tingle?  You are not always sure if that tingle is in your gut or in your mind, but either way, you sort of feel invincible.   You get that feeling that you could take on anything or anybody and come out victorious.   It’s some sort of adrenaline I guess.   It’s that part of you that gets a taste for the crazy and wants more.

I was at my favorite place about 10 miles from the Police Station that makes this drink called a Mustang Sally that will peel the lead paint off of about anything that is Chinese-made.  Two friends of mine had flown in from points west to meet up for a Girl’s Weekend of craziness; southern style.  Mary lives in Denver and has shown me all the ways to have fun in the Mile-High City when I have visited.  She’s opinionated, smart, funny, loves her Soaps, and is one hell of a grill master.   And then there is Adele.  Outside of being a spy for a living, she has the coolest job title in the world, Parts Modeling.  She’s one of those people whose hands you see in a magazine opening a box of cereal or grabbing a bottle of Pepto.  She’s the only person I know that can turn down an offer of staying out all night because, as she puts it, “I’ve got to be up at 8 AM for a hand job.”  And she’s being serious!

At this outing though, the three of us ended up staying for the better part of the afternoon eating fried foods and playing darts.  As the night came on, we decided that shots were in order.  Adele was telling us all about her bumpy flight and admitted that the knocking about got her so jumpy that she had started drinking about 5 hours earlier.  Amen, Jesus!  She got to talking about the adrenaline rush she had while she was on the plane.   On the one hand it scared the stuffin’ right out of her, but on the other, she kind of liked that sensation.   We started talking about what really gets our blood pumping.   Well, she has kind of a fun life, so she said things like traveling and seeing new places gets her excited.  You can read about hers on her blog thing here.   Also, Mary took the challenge and wrote down a list of hers here.   I won’t go into them cause you can read them yourself, damn it!  Here is Mary’s and here is Adele’s craziness.

Then came my turn.   What gets my heart pumping?  What butters my biscuit?  What makes me want to throw on my superhero heels and scoot my ass across the old dirty floor of a Honky Tonk?

Skinny-dipping.  Lord, have I made some of the best memories of my life in 10 feet of water with my clothes a few dozen yards away on a dock.  There is that thrill of throwing my bra on the ground and slinking out of my shorts and racing off the end of the platform landing with a cannonball splash that rivals any of the Stevenson boys.   And when I am lucky enough to come up to the surface and find that someone with a handsome smile has jumped in right after me who I may or may not have just met, that is what keeps me coming back again and again.

Mechanical Bulls.  When Ruby’s Diner in Magnolia Springs took out its mechanical bull named Winston in favor of one of them stuffed animal machines with the claw arm inside, I about had myself a come apart.  Nothing helps finish off one of them Super Stack Pancake breakfasts breakfast combos like 8 seconds on a bucking bronco between the bathrooms and the soda station.  And I found that if I was real nice to the waitress, she would turn it up a notch so that I really had to hold on if I didn’t want to end up thrown into someone’s lap when they were enjoying their all-you-can-eat brunch after the 11:00 Sunday Service.

I stopped visiting Ruby’s when they took him out.

Storms.  If you know anything about the map of the US, you know that Mobile, Alabama, my hometown, is on the Gulf Coast.   While the rest of the US has the regular 4 seasons, we get an extra season that lasts way too long called “Hurricane Season.”  It runs from about June till about the Thanksgiving and by then has really outstayed its welcome.  Some seasons we get the crap beaten out of us.  Although the news don’t much care any longer, we in the south are still recovering from Katrina.  That level of storm isn’t all that common, but even the little storms pee buckets of rain and toss our homes around quite often.  It is the little ones, the Tropical depressions as they call them, that I really enjoy.   The winds’ll sting you but they wont blow you over.   The rains will splash you, but you wont see anything larger than an old Big Gulp mug get swept up in them.  The storms are enough to get your blood pumping, but they don’t leave behind anything but a rainbow when they’re done.

I could’ve easily come up with 100 more, but Adele caught the waitress’ attention, and sometimes what gets my adrenaline up the most is one more round.

Of course that leads me to ask what gets your adrenaline racing?

A few more smiles

I was running this afternoon.  Not from the law, like usual, but just running in general.  It is one of the carry overs from my New Year’s Resolutions that I made mid-February since I was so damn busy for the first few weeks of 2011.

As I was running, I passed dozens of people.  Most of them ignored me (if you can imagine) some glanced at me, then looked away quickly.  Seems that all this prettiness sometimes makes people not want to look me in the eye.  I had a few kind looks and a man or 2 rubbernecked me as I darted past them, hoping, I presume, for a little bit of post-work out cardio.  I passed an eager dog that was all tongue-wagging and tail fluttering.

And then I came up to this lady at a traffic light.  We were both standing next to one another for a few seconds waiting for the light to change.  There was this moment that we looked at one another.  And then she did something that almost startled me since I am in the north of the US right now, and not back home where being neighborly is just par for the course.   She looked at me and say “Hello there.”

Well, how can I not smile at that.  A warm rush of home came over me.  The crisp temperature of the late-afternoon seemed to shoot up to a warm 78 degrees and everything was still.

“Well, hello to you, gorgeous.”  I said.   “How are you today?”

And with a content smile on her face that seemed to be the cause for the sudden lift in temperature as well as mood on that particular street corner, she answered with one single word.

“Blessed.”

For the next mile, I had the biggest grin on my face as I let my mind apply that word to my own situation.   “Blessed.”  What a word.  Of course it means that someone is looking down on you and making sure that you are not only being taken care of, but moreover, that you are aware that you are being taken care of.  You fell it.  You see it in everything and experience it in every moment.  The standard has been raised.  The run-of-the-mill has transformed into the exciting.  The “damn, that’s irritating” has become the “wow, that is magical.”  And it doesn’t even have to be something divine that inspires it.
I think that is what stood out to me so much today.  She was “blessed.”  Maybe it wasn’t by someone upstairs.  Maybe it wasn’t related to a Sunday morning prayer session or a piece of good fortune in her life that had given her bragging rights for a week.  Maybe it was just because someone on the street that she never met before asked her how she was doing and shared a smile with her.  Maybe, just maybe, if every so often, I paused at more street corners and asked “how are you?”, I could find more people who are blessed just because I took a second to reach out and say “I hope you are ok,” and share a smile for no other reason than it beats the alternative of looking uncomfortably away from someone that I know is standing right beside me.

I think that is a great resolution to add to my pile this year.   “Hello gorgeous, how are you today?”

“Blessed”

Holy Crap, the snow is a’fallin’

You know the hard thing about having teeth in the winter?  They chatter like the Dickens when you go outside and it is snowing and cold and you are wearing just the slightest suggestion of a jacket or shawl because you have to scramble out of someone else’s place in the wee hours of the morning because you hear that faint sound of keys in the door and that voice that says, “Hey Honi, I’m back from my trip early…”

CRAP!  Why does he have to live on the 3rd floor?!

And then when you successfully navigate the fire escape, you  have to move the overflowing trash cans with your bare feet – no time to put on the shoes yet.  Plus, a 5-month-old white summer wedge doesn’t always go well with rusty metal ladders and regret, now does it?

But even with all that unexpected cardio, I have to admit, there is something kind of gorgeous about that first snow fall, even if it is accompanied by the harsh clacking of chattering teeth.  (At least I’ve got more than most of the rest of my neighbors.)  And there is something kind of pure about the snow too.  It sort of wipes the slate clean and lets you start fresh again.   It is like seeing an old friend for the first time;  An old friend that will only leave the tale-tell signs of your footprints on that guy’s balcony and fire escape for as long it takes to disappear in the blinding blanket of it drifting down from the sky.

And then, under its cover, you disappear completely…victory.

Thank you, first snowfall.  That was a close one.

I know. I know. I swear more is coming

Do you ever get so busy running around the country, talking to people, helping everyone meet their food storage needs and then realize, “Holy Crap!  I haven’t said hello to anyone that isn’t either right in my party or right beside me in bed for a really long time.”

Guilty!

I promise, I am going to post some great little stories and stuff very quickly. 

I have been in Cleveland for 5 weeks now and damn, and they aren’t kidding when they say Cleveland Rocks!  The people at my parties have been wonderful and fun and drunk and sassy and I am so overjoyed that I could be here to play with y’all. 

Buffalo, NY is next and then Denver, Colorado where I am quite sure that I will be experiencing nose bleeds from the altitude. 

But I want to thank y’all for your kind words, wonderful comments, and ever-lasting lines of people who want to make pictures with me.  It has done my heart a whole mess of good. 

xoxoxox

Dixie

Jubilee is a-comin’

Well, everyone, I cant tell you how grateful I am for a good first year on the road with the show. I have had such a blast running all over the place and telling people about food storage.
Some people have been a little ticked off, but the vast majority of people have been downright neighborly.
I really have enjoyed getting a taste of this great nation. And it has only just begun!!

But now, down the business. The Jubilee Convention is Orlando, Florida is only 2 months away, and June marks the final month for getting all my sales in to qualify for the big awards night in Personal Sales.
Right now, I am quite a ways behind the Top seller. In fact, I am hovering around #12. Oh, that just scared the liver out of me when I heard it.
So I need everyone’s help to at least get me to be part of the Top 5!
If you go to my website and click on “Buy stuff, hookers.” It will take you to a whole world of Goodness. You can get some Tupperware right there. Click on it, order it, and get it in the mail, and then do a fantastic little dance when the Fed Ex guys shows up at the door.
In fact, there is a BBQ Set that is perfect for Father’s Day which is an absolutely unbelievable deal.
$65 for literally tons of wonderful crap.
If I just sell 1000 of those, I am IN!!

Now you may laugh, but you dont know how hard of a worker I am.

I will be tracking my progress here so you can keep up with me if you want. I am determined to dazzle that stage when I walk out in my ball gown for the Jubilee!

Send the info to your friends if you are feeling inspired to help a sister out.

And check back in mid-July as we start to post the schedule for next season’s performances of “Dixie’s Tupperware Party”.

For now, just go to the site and click around.

http://www.DixieLongate.com
And thanks for your generous support both with this and throughout the year as I have been blessed enough to come to your town

Smooches
Dixie

Sometimes I have to do 2 or 3 parties per day

 

Eating squirrel between shows in the dressing room

And that is when I really start to hate people.  They keep talking and asking questions and hogging my wine.  But finally, when they all leave me to be, I get to go backstage and eat food.  

I was in the middle of stitching myself a new dress and I had to take a break to eat some food and someone who was stalking me in the dressing room suddenly snuck out and took this photo.

I had to wrestle her to the ground, but then when I saw the photo, I was so pretty and dewy fresh, I decided to show everyone my little back stage home away from home.

My first Theater on the tour.

 

Working the street corner outside the Invisible Theater

This is me standing out front of the Invisible Theatre in Tucson, Arizona, which is only 3 miles from the sun.  
I had a blast talking about food storage with people that had actually been to Tupperware Parties way back in the 50’s.  Hell, one gal even went to a Tupperware Party in 1949.  That is like the very first Tupperware Party ever.  It might even be the first PARTY ever.  

I think if you read the bible, they even talk about 1949 in Epsicalopolous Versus 1-14.  That is about a week after God created the earth and the dinosaurs from that Movie, Jurassic Park.

Welcome to Des Moines, Iowa

Hey Hookers,

I am more exhausted than a Mall Santa Claus after a visit from 75 kids from Juvenille Hall on December 24th.  And probably just as sticky.  I have been doing back to back shows and traveling and packing and unpacking.  Lordy, sometimes I miss prison cause it was just easier to stay in one place for awhile.

But I dont want you to think that I am not having fun!!!  Now that my first stop of Tucson, AZ is under my belt, I am starting to get used to this all.  I had a blast in beuatiful Tucson.  Hotter than the inner thighs of a Russian sprinter in the 2008 Games, I was happy for any air conditioning I could get.

Well all of that has changed now as I come to the great MidWest and experince what a real October is like.  It is cold and a bit rainy and filled with Pumpkins as the next big Holiday draws closer. 

And tonight marks my big opening here at the Civic Center’s Temple Theatre.  I have 2 glorious weeks here and I am ready to enjoy every single second of it.

And as I now have a little more time, you can rest assured that I am going to be here much more often updating this blog with my adventures.

Today was a day filled with Press interviews, and kind of a really fun milestone for me.  I was in the car going from radio interveiw to TV interview and I heard the ad for the show on the radio.  Well, I had to move my hand back into the passenger seat and squeal a little when I heard it.  The driver was a little sad at that moment, but it was his job to pay attention to the road anyway.  But here I was listening to people talk about the show on the radio. I felt like Carrie Underwood must have felt the first time she heard her single, “Jesus take the wheel, cause I am way too drunk to drive” on the radio.  It was a truly speical moment for me. 

And it happened right here in Des Moines.