And Then It Was Goodbye

Incase you missed it, I've moved. I don't want any of the regular readers to email me and say "where'd you go?" I've expressed my sentiments in a little poem. Ok, part of it is stolen. We used to write this on crap in elementary school.

Sista was here, but, now she's gone
She left her name to carry on
Blogger's been sometimes good and sometimes bad
So, she's moving it on over to try TypePad

Y'all didn't know I was a poet, did you? Another side of me I haven't shown lately. A little rusty, perhaps. Maybe I'll dust off the rhyming side at my new place. Change it in your favorites and do come see me.

Blogger Can Kiss My....

I'm going to see if the grass really IS greener. I'm going to go to the other side of the fence for a bit and see if I like better over there. If I don't, then I'll reluctantly move back to the Big B.

www.sistasmiff.typepad.com

Moving On Up?

Because I'm fed up with Blogger, we might move the Whiff to a new home. Stay tuned.

We May Never Be The Same

The Teen Daughter is now the proud owner of a Pink Razr phone.

I got to looking at that thing and said "Dang...I want one of these."

Blogger Issews

Obviously, something is amiss with my blog template. Being my technical abilities are limited, I have no idea what the problem is. Until I can figure it out, I'll have to go generic. I really dig my flowers, so, hopefully we can figure this thing out.

One more picture from the IBMA Awards Thursday night...this one is courtesy Producer J. In the midst of all the chaos after the Big Win, when Mr. Smiff and them finally got around to coming to the back where we were, it was REALLY chaotic. I happened to look down and there is #2 running around with his dad's trophy...which is made out of glass. I could just see it falling to the floor in a million pieces.

Luckily, it made it home in one piece.

If You Like Your Flicks Southern Fried..

If you want a peek inside the real kitchen of Hazel Smith, don't forget to tune into CMT tonight at 7:00 central time. She will be hosting a screening of "Hooper" for your viewing pleasure and making some tasty dish in between scenese. I want to say she made Chicken and Dressing for this one, but, am not 100% sure.

Uncle Josh

Word began to filter out mid morning around the Nashville Convention Center were the IBMA festivities were still in full swing that dobro legend Burkett "Uncle Josh" Graves had passed away after many years of failing health.

Josh went to work with Flatt and Scruggs in 1955. The Tellico Plains, TN native adopted a style of dobro playing that paralelled Earl Scruggs three finger banjo style. In doing so, Joshwas the first person to use the dobro in bluegrass and he influenced just about anybody you see playing dobro today, including people like Jerry Douglas, Phil Ledbetter, Mike Auldridge, and Rob Ickes.

There's a way bluegrass people say the name "Uncle Josh" that evokes nothing but pure respect and admiration. Besides being the man credited for bringing the resonator guitar, or the dobro, into bluegrass music and into national prominence, Josh was loved and respected as a friend and more than that, a devoted family man.

In fact, one of my most vivid memories of Josh did not occur on a stage or at a picking party, but, at Centennial Hospital in Nashville in 1998. I had just given birth to #2 after a rather traumatic delivery. Mr. Smiff and I went for a walk down the hall to the nursery to look at #2 (he had some minor issues and they kept him in the nursery a lot to monitor him).

We're looking in the window and I looked up and thought I was seeing things. "Is that Josh?" I asked Mr. Smiff. Indeed it was. He had come down to the hospital to see his newest great-grandchild. Josh was not a large man in stature, but, he swelled up pretty big with pride pointing out his great-grandbaby.

Josh had had a number of health problems in recent years. In spite of a number of brushes with death, he was still working when he could and worked as recently as August at J. D. Crowe's festival in Kentucky.

Josh Graves will be missed by countless people around the world. I hope there will be tons of articles and tributes to this legendary man.

Sista's Scrapbook

Some pictures from awards night. Producer J gives a fantastic rundown of things behind the scenes so go read that. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of J that night. Way to go, Sista. I also failed to photograph my Bluegrass Blog friends.

Two Grascal Princesses: The pretty little one belongs to Jimmy Mattingly and the one in the pretty, blue dress belongs to us.

Two Hazels....Hazel Smith and the legendary Hazel Dickens. I was pretty awed to meet her.

The Cleavers aka The Smiffs. Mr. Smiff looks like he's passing gas here... And he looks as though he's aiming it at me. I wish my pretty skirt was showing here. It was a shiny, dark green and had this black, lacy stuff over it. My feet were already hurting here.

Peter Cooper is perhaps the hottest journalist in town. He writes well, but, he's also easy on the old eyes. I love to say his name like I'm British...Petah Coopah. Here, he's getting a quote from Ricky Skaggs.

Vince looks great, but, y'all...I don't know if he's taking medication, drinking or what...I hope there's not trouble in paradise. He's never had a reputation for being a drinker or drug user, but, his behavior of late makes you wonder. I hope everything's ok there. Oh...the cutie with him is the wonderful Steve Wariner. What a nice feller.

The most wonderful Kyle Cantrell interviews Mr. Smiff after the big win. "I owe it all to my wife" he was heard to say. Not really.

So, anybody who says Mr. Smiff doesn't smile, take a peek at this. True, he rarely smiles big, toothy, Guy Smiley smiles, but, I love it when he does. This was right after they won.

I'll put the rest on my Flickr and watch the Grascals website for more photos.

The Morning After

I was really hoping I could convince Mr. Smiff to carry out some trash for me this morning, but, I don't know that that's gonna happen. Mr. Smiff is not a haughty type of guy, but, I can't seem to scrape him off the ceiling this morning. I guess winning Entertainer of the Year will do that to a guy.

Some important things I forgot to do before commencing to the Opry House: I forgot to get a black bra and forgot to shave my legs. I forgot to put mascara on and we had to stop at Walgreens on the way to get some. That's so typical of me. I got a makeup smudge on my skirt before we left and on my black top. I can never go anywhere with everything intact, the way it's supposed to be.

The whole Hee Haw Gang of Smiffs had a great evening last night. We were joined by Hazel and our nephew, Adam. I am so glad our kids were able to be there and experience the whole thing. It was such a long night for them and I know at times they were bored, but, they all agreed that the longness of it all was worth it.

I was pretty bummed that the Bluegrass Blog was having server problems, but, that's live entertainment for you. Thank you to all those who attempted to follow along. I'm going to try to recap the night over there during the day today.

In spite of the snafus, I thoroughly enjoyed getting to meet and hang with the guys behind the Bluegrass Blog, John and Brance. Super guys who are so passionate about the music. Also, Tina Potter, who is with the IBMA was great to everybody. I got so tickled at Tina after the Entertainer award was announced when she said "I've been sitting on that for a week and couldn't tell anybody!"

I really enjoyed hanging with my blogging sister/XM Queen Producer J. She and Kyle Cantrell are such great friends to the Grascals and to the Smiffs. I've known Kyle since I was about 14.

I made a new girlfriend last night in Sheri Easter. I wish she lived next door to me. She is so down to earth. Not a phony bone in her body. Loved chatting with her and her adorable husband, Jeff. They participated in the grand finale with Sheri's family, The Lewis Family,who was inducted into the IBMA's Hall of Honor.

Vince Gill is very thin. I don't remember ever seeing him so thin.

The general consenus amongst the women backstage is that high heels are just plain bad. My feet hurt like hell. That's what I get for getting cheap shoes. One of these days, I will learn. It wasn't just me...just about every female I encountered was saying their feet hurt....even Sharon (Mrs. Ricky) Skaggs was carrying her shoes. Producer J has learnt her lesson and had on comfy flats. That is a smart woman. I tried to get Jimmy Mattingly's little girl, Ansley, to rub my feet. I offered her a buck. Can't imagine why she wouldn't oblige me.

I got the biggest kick out of running into my former boss, Stan Hitchcock. I was shocked to hear him say he is a regular reader here and gets whiffed often. I haven't seen Stan in about 16 years. He looks the same as he did when I answered his phone and took his messages. Seems like a lifetime ago.

It was a great night for everybody associated with The Grascals. Y'all have heard me whine about this and that being married to a traveling road musician. This year has been the hardest in all these 17 years, in terms of Mr. Smiff being gone, us not seeing him, him missing this and that, but, stuff like last night makes it worth it.

They are going to be guesting on the Grand Ole Opry tomorrow (Saturday 9/30) and will be on the televised portion on GAC so watch for them or listen live online.

I'll hopefully have pictures later today.

And The Winner Is...

It is 12:48 a.m., Friday morning. I'm not going to post the whole rundown of the evening now because it's been a long day and we're all tired. The server at the Bluegrass Blog was not real cooperative so my live blogging was kept to a minimum.

I did get to blog the very end, however, and heard Vince Gill say that Mr. Smiff and Them won Entertainer of the Year. Yep. I am about to go to bed with one of the IBMA's Entertainer of the Year. I kinda like the sound of that.

I'll give y'all a rundown tomorrow.

Coiffin' It Up

After several days of running around, trying to make sure everybody has the proper attire for this awards show this evening, all we have to do is get dressed, make-upped, get in the car and go.

Wait til you see the pictures of the Beautiful Daughter with her gorgeous hairdo. I was watching Dancing With The Stars last week and Samantha Harris' hair was fixed so pretty and I told the D she oughta get hers fixed like that for the awards. She did and it is beautiful.

Just do me a favor and don't mention to Mr. Smiff how much all this hairdo beauty we aquired today cost.

IBMA Awards Day

Two Smiffs have write ups in this morning's Tennessean: Beverly Keel, the brand new entertainment writer, tells about the Mother In Law's upcoming tv gig.

Left of the Dial pointed out that Peter Cooper does a nice little write up on Mr. Smiff and them as well.

Today is a ridiculously busy day, trying to get ready for the IBMA awards tonight. Mr. Smiff was at the Opry House til late trying to do a soundcheck, but, there were some major sound issues and they have to go back this morning to do it. Steve Wariner is performing with them and I'm kinda excited about that. When I was about 15, I had the biggest crush on Steve. There was a time, I was certain I would be Mrs. Wariner, but, Caryn beat me to it. I loooove Steve Wariner.

All of the Smiffs are going so I've spent the last few days making sure everybody has awards show worthy clothes. #2 is wearing a miniature version of what his dad and the guys wear onstage. He is something of the mascot for the Grascals. #1 has actually agreed to wear something other than a t shirt with Black Sabbath or some other heavy metal act on it and the Daughter...I never could've worn a dress like she's wearing at 13 when I was 13. When we shopped, we went round and round because she wanted to wear a dress much more sexy and I told her we had to have a compromise. It took a bit, but, we finally found something we agreed on. (Note to self: Leave #2 at home next time we shop for his sister. He finds the topless mannequins rather humorous and makes sure everyone sees them)

I will be live blogging for the Bluegrass Blog the sights and sounds of the whole thing so do check over there to see how I do.

Unemployment Fun

As I was dining in the food court of Opry Mills today, I was so wishing I had Rex L. Camino and Short and Fat with me.

The reason for this is nobody, but, nobody would've enjoyed being serenaded by the Do-It-Yourself- Recording booth and the poor soul inside who thought she could sing, screaming "Daddy's Hand's" at the top of her lungs...nobody but those two would've understood the beauty of the moment like they would've.

Life Isn't Fair

It must be a bitch to be the son of a rock and roll legend like John Lennon, but, yet, have the misfortune of inheriting your mother's singing voice.