Don’t Go North…

I went to a dinner party in the mountains a while ago.  It was one of those affairs where you sit in a log “cabin” with rough hewn bannisters and decorative moose antlers, using grand-mama’s china and silver.  You sit next to someone you don’t know, with a plate of the local fare in front of you and make stilted conversation.  I have found that alcohol helps in these situations – not only is a crystal glass in hand something to DO, but the wine reduces inhibitions and loosens the tongue.

As I reread the above, it sounds like an outdated etiquette book passage, or the setting for an Agatha Christie murder.  It reminds me of the halcyon days of my marriage when we spent a lot of time in Scotland.  My husband went on shooting holidays billed as “live like a laird,” and we stayed in manor houses and drank port and suffered dinner parties with strangers.  There was always a stilton cheese the size of a human head passed around for desert (the entire week the thing seemed to stay the same size) and a guy in a kilt would play the bagpipe while the servants made a big show of bringing in the haggis – a pudding made of the blood and toenails of sheep*…

I always got drunk.  And garrulous – the favored dinner partner to Lords from London and heart surgeons from Tennessee who had in common, the penchant for blasting birds out of the sky.  These guys worked up a powerful hunger drinking scotch from flasks, riding around in Land Rovers and standing in line wearing nickers, while beaters flushed birds from the estate bushes with sticks.

I was the well dressed blonde using the correct fork, but quietly pointing a finger to her wine glass over and over during dinner. I say I was a favorite dinner companion, but I think I was regarded as a loose cannon (to use an appropriate term – in fact one year our host piled us into a vintage Rollo and took us to his home, where he shot off an authentic WW1 cannon into his neighbor’s back garden… Good show, what?).

In those days I wasn’t an alcoholic, but I did get drunk enough to do inappropriate things. For example, one time I took the antique, copper jello molds off the wall and wore them into the parlor like Madonna’s bra during the Gaultier period…

And I might have been rude.  I hope I wasn’t considered “brash” like the Americans in British murder mysteries…

Back to the Georgia woods – I was sitting next to a charming young man who knew a lot about the area and after several drinks he turned to me and said, “If you get lost in the woods, whatever you do – don’t go north.”  In the old, drunken days I would have probably had something witty to say to that.  I would have dangled a spoon from my nose or made an announcement to the group – a play on the phrase “Go West young man.”

These days I just took a sip of gassy water and said, “Okay.”

I don’t feel as cocky as used to.  And I’m thinking it’s as good a marching order as any.

Don’t go north…

*To be fair, haggis is a national dish of Scotland. A haggis is actually a large spherical sausage made of the liver, heart, and lungs of a sheep, all chopped and mixed with beef or mutton suet and oatmeal and seasoned with onion, cayenne pepper, and other spices. The mixture is packed into a sheep’s stomach and boiled.  Yum…