Charleston and Kiawah Travel Guide, Pt I.

Well HELLO! 

Didja miss me? 

I missed you!

It feels like it's been much longer than a week and also much less than a week since I've written. Let me fill you in! 

Last Christmas, my parents gave us kids a trip as our big gift. My dad planned a week long trip starting in Asheville, then moving on to Charleston, heading to Kiawah Island, and then back to Asheville. We spent about two days in each place. It was easily one of the best trips I've ever taken - not only because the scenery, accommodations, and food were MIND-BLOWLINGLY GOOD, but because my whole family was present. Laughing with my family is one of the greatest things there is. 

So - let's kick things off when our trip began in Asheville: 

MONDAY: 

• My mom and Parker's girlfriend, Emily, came to a Pure Barre class that I taught! So fun to have everyone there. 
• We met up with the guys and went to Mayfel's in downtown Asheville.

• After breakfast, we loaded up in the giant SUV my dad rented to accommodate all six of us (plus Tom Hanks, in this case) and drove to Max Patch, where it was THE MOST PERFECT DAY. 

• Though we probably should've taken naps, we came home, had a cocktail, rallied, and got ready for our fantastic dinner at Limone's. I wish I had pictures, but, tragically, I do not. Just imagine it. 

TUESDAY. 

• The next morning, we piled into the SUV and headed to Charleston. Arrived at our beautiful hotel, Zero George. If you have plans to visit Charleston anytime soon, I cannot recommend this hotel enough. It is the most charming place - everything about it is lovely. The hotel itself is beautiful - eye candy around every corner - the rooms are spacious and cozy, and the staff is incredibly attentive. I really can't say enough about it - it's a "can't miss" and is hands-down my favorite hotel of all time. 

• We traipsed around Charleston for a bit - visited Battery Park, looked at the historic homes - came back, the girls put on our robes and enjoyed our champagne and cheese boards, courtesy of the hotel. I mean...are ya kiddin' me? I was basically pretending I was Beyonce at this point. 

• Quickly dressed for dinner at Le Farfalle. Don't have any pictures from here, either, but this is a newer restaurant in Charleston (has only been open 9 weeks). It's a great, romantic setting - house-made pasta. Jordan had a squid ink dish, and I had the housemade spaghetti in butter sauce, pictured below. Both were delish. (Thanks to their website for these pics!)

• We capped the evening with cocktails on the rooftop of The Restoration Hotel. So delicious and great service. I continued drinking my new favorite - grapefruit juice, Tito's, St. Germaine, and a splash of soda. To my immense disappointment, this drink already exists and is called a Greyhound. I'm still going to pretend I made it up. 
• Arrived back at the hotel to discover turn-down service and chocolates had been deposited in our room as a late-night treat. 

WEDNESDAY.

• Enjoyed a completely picturesque breakfast at the hotel. Zero George has lovely indoor and outdoor seating along with a breakfast that makes you feel like you've been teleported to France. I'm telling you, everything about this hotel is just drool-worthy. 

• The kids decided we were up for a bike ride, so we rented bikes from the hotel and cruised around the city for about an hour. 

• Had lunch at Chez Nous, a teeny tiny restaurant in Charleston that you can totally miss if you aren't looking for it. One of the best meals I've ever eaten, and I think everyone would agree. The restaurant itself is a tiny space, well-decorated and beautifully lit, and the (handwritten) menu is traditional French cuisine. The chefs create two options per course, so the quality is just out of this world. 

• We basically staggered out, woozy with total delight, and tried to window shop. Ended up waving the white flag and returning the hotel for pre-dinner naps. 
• I have no pictures of dinner - suffice it to say it was delicious. 
• For dessert, we headed to Peninsula Grill (a famous and very old-school Charleston restaurant) for their iconic coconut cake. We had a slice for every two people - the girls drank champagne, the guys drank cognac, and we tried to act like adults but were really giddy and giggly. Dad had to keep us in line as we grew louder and louder. 
• We came back to the hotel and played what has become a staple of family game night - a game I'd like to tell you about right now: 

1. It's called Telephone Pictionary, and here's how you play. 
2. Start with a stack of small sheets of paper - there should be one sheet for every player in your group. 
3. On the top sheet of paper, you write a phrase. It can be anything - the more nonsensical, the better. For example, one of mine was, "Mom tries to wink" (we'd been trying to teach her how to wink on this trip to hilarious failure). 
4. You then pass your entire stack, not just the top sheet, to the person to your left -- the person to your right passes their entire stack to you.
5. The clock is set for one minute. You read the phrase on the top sheet, then move that sheet to the bottom of the pile. You then have one minute to draw a depiction of whatever that person's phrase was - in this case, Emily had to draw, "Mom tries to wink." You can't use words - only pictures. 
6. After a minute, the whole stack gets passed again -- only this time, the next person has to write a description of the drawing they received. 
7. And so on and so forth, until your stack makes it back to you. The best part is the end, where you get to reveal what you actually wrote and how convoluted and strange it got by the end. I can guarantee that you will die laughing every time. 

• Part II tomorrow - we head to Kiawah! 

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(This is not from my Inbox, just a dummy image I found. I don't know James Willard, I'm afraid.) 

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...did you hear me? Three hundred and fourteen. Holy. COW. That's 314 e-mails that would've been in my inbox otherwise. 

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Portrait of a Dog

Y'ALL. 

My excitement on this subject is hard to calibrate. I would put it somewhere between "I have an unlimited supply of mashed potatoes," and "Alison Krauss just called and wants to go on tour with me." 

I have the most spectacular portrait of Tom Hanks. 

But first, some background: 

When I was growing up in Decatur, I had one friend who stood out as unique right from the beginning. Emily Siek was the coolest, art-iest kid in town. In second grade, she designed our school t-shirt that everyone (including faculty members) wore to school events. She was always in art classes, always painting, always drawing. 

After high school, she broke out of the "everyone stays in Alabama to go to college" mold and went to Savannah College of Art and Design, which, if you aren't familiar, requires a prerequisite in BADASSERY. She graduated and, instead of moving home, moved to New York to continue her lifetime of awesomeness by working as a big deal store designer. She still creates beautiful work on the side.

Basically what I'm saying is that Emily is an incredible unicorn of talent and beauty with skin like a porcelain doll and a laugh like Tinkerbell. If she sounds too good to be true, that's because she is. AND her boyfriend is awesome, too. I mean, come on. 

Okay. Now you're all caught up. 

So a few months ago, I saw that Emily had done this painting of someone's dog:

Amazing, right? 

Which led to the following Facebook exchange: 

Which led to an e-mail thread in which I commissioned her to paint TH. 

I was not prepared for what was to come. I have known this person for nearly 27 years and I was STILL not prepared. 

I sent her a few pictures of TH to choose from, and she chose this one to paint: 

Yesterday, I got a package in the mail and knew immediately what it was. I, obviously, freaked out. 

We are SO FREAKIN' BLOWN AWAY. Please take a look. 

I texted Emily to tell her that because the proportions are so realistic, Tom Hanks has been sniffing at it and wagging his tail near it because he is so confused/thrilled by why this new animal in our house is two-dimensional. 

Are you dead?? I AM. How can someone capture the soul of a dog she's never met via paint and canvas?? I mean, there is literally no doubt about whose dog this is. This is Thomas G. Hanks. (I could tell you what the "G" stands for, but I'd have to kill you.) (Gary. It stands for Gary, okay?) It's just absolutely, knock-your-socks off incredible. 

To mitigate the flood of "How can I contact her??" requests, let me just go ahead and tell you! 

Visit emilysiek.com, or send her an e-mail at emilysiek@gmail.com to find out more about pricing and availability. She works in lost of mediums (pencil sketches, acrylic paintings, etc.) and with lots of subjects (people, animals, still life, etc.) - there's no limit to her talent. So proud to call her my friend. 

THANK YOU, EMILY! 

It's Not Nothing.

Up until about 6 PM yesterday, I hadn't actually seen the video of Donald Trump's comments to Billy Bush on the Access Hollywood bus. I'd only read the articles that pulled out his major talking points about how he can do whatever he wants with women because he's "a star," including that he would be allowed to "grab (women) by the pussy." 

(I typed that word out on purpose, because I think it's important to see it written out the way he said it. He didn't say it with an asterisk in place of the vowel. He said the whole word, out loud. I'm going to say it again later, so fair warning.)

But last night, I did see the video. It's a very different experience from reading the words in print. The major difference for me in watching the video vs. reading the article was that I got to actually see the woman in the purple dress - the woman who Trump and Bush were talking about. 

I don't want to talk any more about Donald Trump, aside from naming him as a player in this story. He is a disgusting person whose very presence in this race should make America hide its face. People die trying to obtain democracy in their respective countries -- we have it, and we've made it into a reality show this year. We should be ashamed of ourselves. 

But like I said -- enough about Trump.

I want to talk about the woman in the purple dress - Arianne Zucker. 

I don't know Zucker, and I can't speak for her. But I can imagine what I would've been thinking had I been in her shoes. 

I assume that she was there as a cast member of the soap opera that Trump was guest starring on. She was probably walking Trump and Bush into the facility and touring them around, so that Access Hollywood could do a spot on Trump's soap opera appearance.

Immediately upon meeting these guys, she shakes their hands and greets them. It doesn't take long for her to be prompted to hug Donald Trump, then to hug Billy Bush. 

The three of them begin walking into the studio, at which point Bush comments on Zucker's good looks. He follows up by insisting that Zucker answer the hypothetical of Which Man She'd Want To Date. She pleads the Fifth. At this point, Zucker has positioned herself between the two men and has taken their arms.  

If I had been Zucker, I don't know that I would've done any of that any differently. She's there to be a hostess, to create a package for a television show. Because of that, her personality needed to be dynamic, affable, charming. She delivered on all those counts. She even delivered in the face of two guys who literally did nothing but talk about her beauty and her availability to date them - who treated her as a beautiful accessory rather than a person. She was doing her job. She was being a professional. 

If I had been in her shoes, I would've been a little skeeved out by the way I'd been treated, but I also would've assumed that these guys were just being a bit too flirty for the sake of the cameras. I would have assumed that they, too, were trying to create an interesting package for Access Hollywood by trying to be funny and larger-than-life, even if it did mean that they were being inappropriate. 

If I'd assumed the best in them - that they were pouring it on thick for the sake of the TV audience - then I would've been able to leave that interaction a little grossed out, but unscathed. 

Imagine what it must have felt like for her to see these tapes. 

To hear a man pop Tic Tacs in case he spontaneously, and without consent, started kissing you. To hear someone who you'd treated with (relative) respect and professionalism talk about grabbing you by the pussy. 

I'm not her, and even a decade later, a feeling of disgust and alarm washes over me. The moment that those two men step off the bus, their tones change. They switch into "professional" (or at least, their best attempts at professional) mode. They leave behind their disgusting chatter and fake respect for Zucker, who had no way of knowing what was said about her mere seconds before. 

It is horrific. It is also something that happens every single day. 

Women deal with a lot of this. We are regularly objectified (in ways big and small, in ways we know and ways we don't) by the men in our lives. Many times, rather than speak up, we, too, remain dynamic, affable, and charming -- we keep our cool and choose not to rock the boat so that we can continue to go about our day. Because it's much easier to just "go with the flow;" if we spoke up at every instance of objectification, our days would be consumed with it. 

I am definitely a glass half full, rose colored glasses member of society. My impulse is to assume that people's motives are pure; that people's actions represent their true feelings. Of course, this isn't always the case. I know that. I'd just rather give people the benefit of the doubt. 

But watching a video like that one, as a woman, is terrifying to me. What that video proves is that there are men in the world - both men who are famous and men who are not - who degrade and dehumanize women behind closed doors, then feign respect for them in person. It shakes me to my core to know that men like this exist.

And it makes the concept of assuming the best in men who push the boundaries appropriateness not just naive, but dangerous. 

I've heard this behavior defended as "locker room talk." I've heard it dismissed. I've heard people say that those offended by it need to grow a thicker skin; that these men were just joking, that this is how men speak to each other. It's harmless. It's nothing. 

It's not nothing. 

Women, every day, are attempting to simply live our lives. We are stopping for gas. We are raising children. We are crossing the street. We are grocery shopping. We are leading business meetings. We are going for a run. And all the while, we have to stay mentally present - we have to consider a range of things, from "Why is he staring at my legs while I'm talking?" and "Should I address the person who just catcalled me?" to, "Should I go on a run with one headphone in and one headphone out in case someone is approaching me and I don't hear them?" and, "Did I leave my pepper spray in the car?" 

It is not safe to let down our guards unless we are with men we trust implicitly - our good friends, our brothers, our husbands, our fathers. And for some women - it chokes me up to write this - there is no safe place. 

I want to close by stating my point as clearly as I can: If you are a man, and your impulse is to defend or dismiss the comments that these men made (maybe because you've heard similar comments made by your friends or have made comments like those yourself), stop. Don't. 

We've all made mistakes and said things we shouldn't have. We're humans. We're flawed. 

But this? This is not a flaw we have time to entertain. This isn't something that you can take your time fixing. This is time-sensitive. You are making women feel unsafe. Worse, you are making it actually unsafe for us to interact with the world. You are making us fear for our PHYSICAL SAFETY by saying things like this. Can you imagine what that's like for us?? 

Men: feminism doesn't mean that you worship at the altar of Lena Dunham and that you've got a Hillary Clinton bumper sticker on your car. It doesn't make you a radical. It doesn't mean you are a flaming liberal communist. Feminism means that you believe that women should be treated, paid, and considered equally alongside men. It means that you know in your bones that women are as smart and as worthy as you are. It means that how women are treated is important to you - not because we are your wives, your daughters, your sisters, your girlfriends. No. Because we are on this planet as human beings. Because we are people. 

I haven't been objectified on national television like Arianne Zucker was; like Hillary Clinton has been. But I have been asked to a party - a party I was so flattered to get asked to - by a guy who I later found out bragged behind closed doors that he was only taking me because he thought I had a "nice ass." I have overheard someone suggest to my husband that I seemed like "a handful in the sack." I have been relentlessly catcalled and followed by cars driven by men.

And if you are a woman, I bet you have, too. 

If you are a man, find a woman in your life to talk to - not in passing, but in a real, meaningful way - about how this video made them feel. About instances in their lives when they've been made to feel unsafe by the fact that a man feels entitled to openly sexualize them. 

To close this with some hope, I'm including a text message that I got from my father last Friday. He sent it to me, my grandmother, my mom, his sister, and my brother's girlfriend, Emily. Let's use this horrible, viral video to start conversations about being better to each other.

My dad will start. 

Grease. Or, Not Washing My Hair Every Day.

Man, oh man, have I had an embarrassment of riches this week. First, Jordan took over the blog with his epic rafting/Deliverance tale, and now my precious friend Mary Frances is taking over to tell a slightly less adventurous, but equally as harrowing, tale. I bet most women who read this blog will relate: the process of training your hair to not be washed every day. 

Since the pictures of her in this blog post are...we'll say "less than flattering," I pulled some pictures from her website so you can see how adorable she is (and how adorable her dog, Porter, is. I mean, COME ON with that). 

Mary Frances is a jewelry designer whose studio is in West Asheville (visit her incredible website here). Jordan and I met she and her boyfriend, Hobbs, at church one Sunday. Since then, Fran (as she's called by the cool kids) and I have bonded through our three-times-a-week Pure Barre dates. One day a couple of weeks ago, a few of the PB girls were discussing hair care regimens. I'll let her take it from here. 

-------

I wash my hair every day, or at least every time I shower. Apparently it’s not good for your hair. At my last haircut, the stylist gave me a big “shame on you” speech about how I shouldn’t. What.Ever. Sometimes I skip a day, but honestly, it’s rare. Unless I’m camping or without access to a shower, these locks get shampooed almost every single day. I have pretty thick hair, or so I think, so you’d think it wouldn't get greasy easily - well, you’d be wrong.

For a while now (okay, like, a week), Mary Catherine and a friend at Pure Barre have been telling me that they wash their hair just a couple times a week. So, I decided to try it. I washed my hair the night before “Day 1” began.

Day 1. 

7:30 AM - Hear alarm go off. Look at the clock and realize it’s too late to get up, get dressed, pour coffee, feed the dog, take said dog to daycare, and get to Pure Barre by the 8:30 class. Look at PB app and see Mary Catherine is teaching the 9:45 class. Book it and roll back over.

9:40AM - Get to Pure Barre.

10:00AM - In the middle of plank position, remember what MC and I had talked about last week. Decide today’s the day I’m going to try it - I won't wash my hair every day this week. I figure, I’ve got nothing to do this week, so why not? I mean, let’s be real, I work for myself, usually from home - who do I have to impress?

12:00PM- Take a shower post-PB. Stand there wondering what the heck I’m supposed to do in here if I can’t wash my hair. Wash my body twice for good measure.

12:46PM - Text MC asking what she suggests I do in the shower since I can’t wash my hair. She tells me to stand there unmoving and then buy dry shampoo.

4:40PM - Feel my hair that I decided to air dry and notice that it’s still not dry. Text MC again.

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5:00PM - Pick up dog from daycare and discover that he somehow has gotten some poop on his back. Remember that Porter only shampoos his hair when he gets groomed, which is only every 6 weeks, and his hair is angel soft. Thinking more and more about how that stylist may have been right. Consider bathing Porter when we get home to remove said poop. Remember that we just moved into an apartment that is mostly carpeted and decide against it. 

5:15PM - Get home and use baby wipes leftover from my niece’s visit a few weeks ago to wipe away poop (it was just a tiny bit, I swear!). Decide beyond a doubt that Porter will not sleep in the bed with me tonight.

10:50PM - Look at hair one more time in the mirror. Decide that tomorrow, I'll dry my hair post-shower rather than air dry and see if it makes a difference.

11:00PM -Throw hair on top of my head. Snug with Porter in bed.

Day 2. Woof. 

7:30AM - Wake up raring to go. Snug the pup one last time before getting up and dressed for the 8:30 PB class.

7:45AM - Check hair in the mirror. Notice “cute” top knot from previous night has turned into a top knot mullet. Take hair down to brush + redo for PB and see large crease in hair a few inches from my forehead. Cringe. Throw hair back up in top knot.

8:45AM - Midway through plank, remember I’m not allowed to wash my hair in my post-workout shower. Cringe again.

10:00AM - Go to “Luke’s” with Mary Catherine.

11:00AM - Get home, ready to shower.

11:25AM - Lay on the floor with Porter remembering that he only washes his hair every 6 weeks. Try to convince myself that this is actually a good idea. 

11:45AM - Turn the shower on and get a little sad remembering that I’m not allowed to wash my hair again. Consider doing it anyway because #yolo.

11:47AM - Get in shower and decide against the shampoo. Stand under the water wondering, once again, how people who don’t wash their hair every day waste the appropriate amount of time in the shower.

11:52AM - Get out. Kidding - I stood, unmoving, under the hot water for at least 10 minutes.

12:15PM - Begin drying hair. Get halfway through and realize that it’s not drying. Oh, right. Grease. Throw it back up in a top knot, half dry and all.

12:17PM - Notice hat in the corner of room and decide that should I choose to go in public today, that hat will most certainly be on my head.

12:30PM - Consider buying dry shampoo. Forget and go to work.

12:45PM - Get to work and remember I forgot the hat. Hope I don’t see anyone I know today.

4:45PM - Feel face and realize that not only is my hair greasy, but somehow my face is as well. Remember I washed my face in the shower this morning. Consider if it’s possible that grease from hair has traveled.

5:30PM - Get home, see roommate, hope she doesn’t notice the greaseball on top of my head.

10:15PM - Examine hair one last time before confirming that tomorrow will be the day I stop this nonsense. Remember that dry shampoo was supposed to be a key element in this experiment. Forget about it and go to bed.

Day 3 - Shampoo Day. Holler. 

7:30AM - Wake up, look in mirror, see greasy top knot mullet, and wonder if it’s weird to shower before a workout class. Decide that yes, that would most certainly be weird.     

8:30AM - Get to Pure Barre. Sit next to a woman who tell me she just ate a donut before class. Make a mental note to be this woman’s friend.

9:15AM - In the middle of plank (when apparently I do all my serious life-contemplation) remember that today I get to wash my hair. Smile. Then fall out of plank and go back to my huffing and puffing until class ends.

10:00AM - Race home. Take a quick pic of my greasy hair for all you dear readers.

10:02AM - Jump in the shower. Wash, rinse, repeat* for approximately 20 minutes while dancing and singing aloud to Leon Bridges, confirming that this is 100% worth a second noise violation from my overly finicky downstairs neighbor.

*I understand the whole wash rinse repeat thing is a huge marketing ploy to get oblivious consumers to use up their shampoo supply quicker therefore having to buy it more often. #what.ever. I am their ideal consumer.

10:15AM - Brush hair and realize it still feels a little greasy. Understand that it may take a few days of going back to my wasteful hair-washing-every-day routine for said hair to lose all grease.

11:58AM - Finish writing blog post and come to the conclusion that washing my hair only a few times a week is not the life for me. I'll leave it to the rest of Asheville’s hippie population. Though maybe next time I’ll actually buy the dry shampoo. 

The end. 

I Went to Luke's and It Was Awesome.

In case you live under a rock or hate Gilmore Girls, you have probably seen "Luke's" take over some corners of social media in the past 24 hours. 

Some brilliant marketing genius over at Netflix had an idea: to celebrate GG turning 16 (but really, to promote the fact that it's coming back to Netflix in November), why not turn hundreds of coffee shops around the country into a Luke's? 

My friend Mary Frances and I decided we needed to take advantage of this momentous and singular opportunity to pretend we were actual Gilmore girls. Fall in Asheville has started to kick in, so amongst the blustery, blowing leaves, we sought out a participating coffee shop (Biltmore Coffee Roasters) and started to get VERY EXCITED. 

Each participating business was sent a box of swag from Netflix to give customers the Stars Hollow experience. They got a sign for the front door (pictured above), signage for inside (pictured below), hats and aprons for the employees, a special blend of coffee, and Gilmore Girls cups and coffee sleeves. 

The line at the shop was out the door, but it wasn't anything compared to more urban locations - I heard that lines were two hours long in some cities. We had to wait, but only a few minutes. However, the free first 250 cups of coffee were long gone by then - our barista (let's call her Luke) told us that they gave away those first cups in less than an hour. 

(That red thing is an arrow pointing to the "No cell phones" sign, not the number "47." Although this morning it took me about 5 minutes to figure out why I'd written what I thought was "47" across this picture. Penmanship is important, folks.) 

We stepped up and got our coffee, Luke's Blend (obviously) and then entered the drawing for a Luke's hat and apron. 

It was seriously kind of magical. Everybody in there, for the most part, was a Gilmore Girls fan and was equally as excited as we were. There was a woman behind us in line who I was positive was judging the hell out of us for being so giggly and excited, but when she stepped up to order, she actually stopped the barista and had her pose with the coffee cup for an Instagram picture. EVERYONE was about it. 

We sat outside, sipped coffee, discussed whether we'd want to be Rory or Lorelai (Fran picked Lor, I picked Rory -- we go together well!), and settled on the fact that Logan is definitively the best choice (read more about that hot take opinion here). 

Once we removed the sleeves of our coffee cups, we saw that there was a secret Snapchat code on the cups! It unlocked this adorable lil' Luke's filter that I used to take the photo below. 

All in all, it was just perfect. So happy that Fran found this place and that we got to have this real-deal Stars Hollow moment. To top it off, yesterday Netflix released a new featurette for the show. 

Like I said, marketing geniuses. 

ARE YOU EXCITED YET?!?!?!1