Saturday, July 26, 2008

Welcome, Y'all


For a girl from New Jersey, that's the best I can do to express my version of Southern hospitality, Southern Italian hospitality, I suppose.

Anyway, in the event that you have somehow found yourself here, I welcome you. I'd offer you something to eat but, sadly, I am the only one in my expansive family of chefs and restauranteurs who does not cook. Nor do I care to try to learn, if you must know. The truth is, if I had my druthers, I'd eat everything right out of a paper bag, save for the stuff I put ketchup on which is, you know, just about everything else. If I cannot dress my meal in a paper bag, alas, it is likely due to the fact that it is wearing a generous coating of ketchup. God, I love ketchup.

Unfortunately for me, I have had to cut back on my ketchup consumption as of late. As it turns out, agita, or heartburn, as it is so referred to in our American culture, is not something to be taken lightly. My esophagus is officially irritated from something called Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease, or GERD, which calls to mind the stench one might encounter in an old folks home, yes, but that's what it's called. So, yeah, I've got the GERD...and it officially drove me to the emergency room last summer at around 4 o'clock in the morning with my hand clutched to my chest because I was convinced I was having a heart attack.

In my mind I was imagining all the people I loathe approaching my coffin with their empty tears and inner cheers as I lay there looking super fat because someone would have had the bright idea to dress me in something other than my usual black because that someone would have thought he or she was doing my spirit a favor by outfitting my body in some flowery pastel atrocity so that I could meet the Lord without looking so dark and depressed. Needless to say, I didn't die of a heart attack.

One year and one prescription to Protonix later and I am feeling pretty darn good. If only I could gulp that lemonade the way I used to. My goodness, how I love me some lemonade, sitting and sipping on the porch on a hot summer day, singing along to Patsy Cline records.

Hmm, perhaps I'm not as far from the South as I had initially imagined.

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