Well, hello, fellow Grits to Glitz listeners!

 

There's been a spike in my reader numbers lately and it's all Amy and Bay's fault. Hello, Amy! Hello, Bay! Thanks for the shout out!

To all my fellow G2Gers, welcome to my sandbox on the web. It's a pretty random affair, and I do encourage you to try out the Lucky Dip button to the left because the more randomly you are willing to face it, the better. Just like life.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about – and believe me, your number is legion, at least in my daily life – I'll back up and explain. There will be a test at the end, so please pay attention.

Way back in the heady days of winter 2006 (remember, I live in the upside-down hemisphere), I was in the grip of The Devil Wears Prada fever. I was scooching around the net and there was a reference to a review on a tiny, unpopulated site. Just a single entry: "Episode ONE: July 12, 2006".

Abandoning what little caution I possessed, I clicked a link. Something strange was happening with my iTunes. What? This is an audio file? (Yes, I confess was a total podcast newbie.) I hit play and within minutes, an international love affair began.

Amy and Bay are sisters. They both lived in East Tennessee until Amy moved to Las Vegas. Life in Las Vegas is not like life in East Tennessee, and the differences between the two places, an eternal compare-and-contrast conversation, was worth broadcasting.

Since then, they've covered a lot of ground in their weekly podcasts. There have been dogs and Disneyland, cocktails and Vegas shows, holidays and birds and recipes and grammar lessons and pigeon-squirting machines, three seasons of Project Runway and weeks of obsession with Tim Tams – a very funny international saga that culminated in this moment – and a big-ass Christmas wreath. Contests and scrapbooking and April Fools pranks and lots and lots of dish. And I now know what grits are and what the boonies are, too.

They might be on opposite sides of their country, and I'm so far away that it takes a whole day to fly here, but their podcast always makes me feel like the three of us are just sitting around the kitchen table, drinking coffee, having a chat. I don't get to say much, but I laugh the whole time.

It's hard to believe that a tiny bunch of pixels could lift my spirits, but when that little blue dot turns up in iTunes next to Grits to Glitz, that's exactly what happens. Like standing in front of a birthday cake, I know there's some fun to be had.

For the uninitiated, start your journey into Amy and Bay's world at the Grits to Glitz site, here. Have a look around. Download an episode or two. Subscribe in iTunes. You'll be a better person for it – trust me.

Grind up some greasy, greasy coffee beans . . .