Palm Sunday Brunch

As eager as I was to have my palm read, first I had a date with Jezebel.

I couldn't let Movieland show the Betty Davis classic (which, of course, I'd never seen) and not partake of the tale of a Southern bad girl.

Of course, it was a 1938 take on 1852-53, so while it was a highly romanticized depiction of the South, a lot of it also fed into the stereotypical images of it.

Even so, I tend to happily agree with, "Time ain't so important. The longer I live, the more there is of it."

But when a servant tells her, "The toddies are for the gentleman," or her beau says, "It's red! You can't wear that to the Olympus Ball!" I know with certainty that I would have been as talked about as Jezebel had I lived back then.

Advice on how to handle a woman when she get out of line (whip her with a switch, spread lard on her welts and then buy her a diamond brooch) was downright egregious, if period-appropriate.

But a 1938 film requires redemption so the bad girl goes off with her dying love, despite his having married someone else, so that she can save her soul.

Did I mention how miserable I would have been as an ante-bellum woman?

Give me 2012 and a meal at Ettamae's, where they were offering palm readings as a side with your brunch.

I inhaled my light as a feather silver dollar pancakes, sausage and fruit so that I could bare my palm and hear about my past, present and future.

Life line: very long, although she wouldn't go as far as 103. But close.

Intelligence line: very deep, very straight. No one can convince me I'm not smart, she said.

Heart line: showing some major trauma in the past but also showing new possibilities, especially notable because it looks to occur at a point where my head and heart lines have a new, if tenuous, connection.

She read it in my palm, so it must be true.

So I'm guessing that Jezebel's palm looked nothing like mine.

Or as a beau of hers put it, "I like my convictions undiluted, same as I do my bourbon."

Nothing wrong with a little undiluted belief.