"Letters to my brother...in jail"

This is our new pea patch blog site. Our own happy little forum to "cus and discuss." It will hopefully (eventually) include group participation -- thoughts, pictures, recipes -- and whatever else we can drum up. It's not exclusively for Pea Patchers, as so many of us have friends we share vacation stories with; those who would appreciate living vicariously through our adventures and misadventures...events and thoroughly charming non-events.

Intro aside...I have finally hit upon a great way to prepare a Pea Patch newbie (our daughter, for example) for the riveting anual event. It goes something like this. "In order to get full enjoyment and benefit from your Pea Patch experience, you must understand and embrace our itinerary: absolutely nothing. Sorry, no refunds.

That being said, please stand by...

Ahhmm.... Didn't I say that I would do this?! Now what? Let me just start out by saying that our annual 4th of July jaunt to the "Pea Patch" just keeps gettin' betta' an' betta'. Pardon the attempt to sound "South Louisianaian". Can't help myself. You'd just have to be there to understand that urge. After arriving home safely back to "our real world", my son's amusement quickly turned to irritation over my slightly overboard and out-of-place "coon-assisms." He commented that if I made another impersonation, he would have to get "all tore up" and do something about it. I got the point. However I think James was enjoying it, as I realized that I was bridging over from sounding coon-assy to just downright burlesque', so I had to reel myself in. "Simma!!"

There is that fine line -- and Kim, Jeanie and Erica walk it with great style and dignity. I'll just leave the awesome South LA brogue to those beauties. They do it so well!

What will we accomplish in this forum? Hopefully nothing stressful, frustrating or time-consuming. Pea Patch Rule No. 1: If it ain't fun, we ain't doin' it.

My scattered little brain is hoping to cobble together this weekend some more reflections, comments, pics, pea patch memories and day-in-the-life stuff from our real world. Nothing too heavy -- unless someone dies or gives birth, but obviously we'll start beating the war drums (picking up the phones) in an event like that.
In other words, this is our chance to enhance our wonderful relationships, even though we are not floating on a tube and liberally tossing back assorted Lite beers.

The site should not be viewed annually; it should be used liberally, as hopefully we are all going to keep in touch here. As I said, occasional or everyday postings, shared jokes, recipes -- anything you want to put up here. But not pressure.

Who can see this blog site besides us? I actually used up quite a chunk of my morning, reading the "disclaimer page" so that I could get a good understanding on that. It is my good understanding that you will all have to register as users in order to enter the Virtual Pea Patch. Don't be shy. Come on in. Alas... Is it too early for a Lite beer?

"Blogger" is brand-spanking new to me, so "please stand by." (another pea-patchism) I think anyone on the internet could theoretically hack into our little piece of virtual heaven, so let's not give specific locations or last names, okay?

Eh...more later. As we go along, we will figure this blogging thing out together.


(Second post of the day)

Okay. I can't help myself. I'm like a child with a new toy. An overly ambitious project manager. A pea-patcher with an unopened can of Miller Lite. Somebody slap me. Nuf!!

This year I started really paying attention to the bizarre ritual of supper at the pea patch. This is when all of the men miraculously appear from "somewhere" in order to "supervise" the grillin'. I never quite caught on to when or what we were eating until the last minute -- other than a certain critter was designated to be smoked, and everybody brought along sides, booze and mosquito repellant to the supper gathering. Every night I was pleasantly surprised at how things came together. Like, how did people know what to contribute? The process totally flabbergasted me. For instance, instead of ending up with an awkward situation (i.e, pork ribs, eight bowls of corn, one loaf of French bread and eighty white plastic spoons) there is this sort of unintentional underground collaboration, which goes something like this: Aunt Don meets up with Bridgette at the riva', they decide one will go to Bill's garden and pick fresh squash, the other will try to meet up with her homemade ice cream cohort in order to get that process started (I refuse to elaborate here) . In the pasture, on her way to Bill's farm, Aunt Don meets up with Gigi, who is on the four-wheeler, hauling Rudy the cow dog and a huge, replenished cooler of beer. Gigi is assigned to gather eight or so fresh tomatoes -- Gigi agrees, then four-wheels herself down to the smll cabin on stilts by the river, where Doug and Jeanie are staying, Jeanie agrees to make her kick-butt potato salad. In the meantime, Ms. Tony and Mr. John, who are just wrapping up canoeing, decide to pick up a couple dozen ears of fresh corn on the cob from a mountain roadstand, while on the other side of the mountain, mom and her best new friend Ms. Joan pick up a 50-lb. back of fresh peas, haul-butt back to the pavillion in order to round up pea-shelling volunteers (or hostages) Somehow the guys, who are playing golf, suddenly get an epiphany and decide they need to contribute something for the evening meal so they decide to load up with Topher and stop off at the liquor store for on their way back to the Patch. Priceless. On and on it goes, until we end up with a spread resembling something like a Thanksgiving/Fat Tuesday feast. Every...single...damn...night. I'm serious.

While this culinary account is loosely based upon what actually happened, what actually does happen is very factually based upon the actions in the example given above... or something like that. Heh-heh. My lawyer made me add in that part.

Please stand by...