My Mom came to my house yesterday and last night, she took us to dinner at S&S. If you don’t know what S&S is, it is just like Morrison’s, except they don’t have the same lemon pie that Morrison’s had every Sunday after church when I was growing up. I got the usual, a veggie plate. It is awesome, and when you go at 6 pm, it is you and all the blue hairs, which i love. Sure enough, I saw my neighbors there. It love that where i live, I often run into my neighbors – makes me feel like I live in a small town in the city.
Afterwards I drove over to the liquor store, because darn it, my basement flooded and Mama needed a beer. Since Mom was there, I was able to leave her and the kids in the car while I went in. This is good, because nothing says classy like dragging your three and six-year-old into the liquor store with you, except maybe doing so with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of your mouth.
When i got back to the car, my mom was cracking up. I asked her what she was laughing at, and she proceeded to tell me about the discussion she and the kids had while I was inside.
Tiller: “What is Mama getting?”
Rollie: “She’s buying beer. And Wine. And Spirits.”
Yes, Rollie can read now and had read the signs on the buildings. Luckily, I was at a nice liquor store, otherwise, it would have been, “Mama’s buying beer, wine, nails, pagers, wings, lottery tickets.”
Hmm. I say “Liquor Store.” What do you call it? “Package Store?”
I am pretty sure that Facebook is slowly eating my blog. . . .
However, here I am. I have been scanning more old photos, and came across a great set of pics from college.
They are mostly from my college graduation. Here is the whole set on Flickr.
A few things that initially struck me about these:
I hated my hair.
We all smoked too much.
I was a stick, but i remember thinking i was fat.
Who, and i mean WHO, let me wear that ugly blue striped dress?
Girls wore a lot of long floral dresses back then.
The day of graduation is really fuzzy to me. I think Scott and I met some guy at the guy’s apartment for pre-grad festivities, which may have involved mimosas. It was nice and sunny. I have lost a great picture of me, Scott, and Katie sitting in the stadium. I loved it, and I cannot find that one. We all look very “The Future’s so Bright, We gotta Wear Shades” and i have lost it.
Some of the pictures are from post-graduation, waiting in traffic with my mom, dad, and sister. We were parked right across from Stedman (?), right near the dorms where I lived as a Freshman. (Give it up for Church!) Again, we smoked too much (except for Lisa, who never did.) I love that mom and dad look more proud of me graduating than i look. Now that i have children of my own, i can understand this.
The other pictures are from a graduation party that night at Scott and Zach’s house. I like that many of the folks in these pictures are still really good friends of mine.
The party itself is all a blur, but i know my family was there, which is strange. Honey came into town just to go to my graduation party (she had already graduated) and I love her for stuff like that. Later in the night, there were a lot of people up on the roof. Zach was my boyfriend at the time, and I made out with a completely different guy on the roof. Classy, i know. I still feel sick admitting that, but i guess maybe there is a ten year statute of limitations on cheating-on-your-boyfriend-on-his-own-roof-while-he-is-home-and-throwing-a-party-for-you situations*.
And this is me the next day:
It is me, with Honey’s boyfriend at the time, Luka, in front of my house off Milledge. I loved those red-tinted glasses i am wearing. I still have those Doc Martens and still wear them sometimes. I loved that little house. I was v. hung over in that picture, and my whole future loomed in front of me. I remember everything at that time seeming bigger than life.
It was like sitting on that front stoop on the day I moved away from Athens was just like sitting on the edge of my future.
I think it was Tessa at Drive a Faster Car that first alerted me to The Atlanta Beer Guide. If you follow them on Twitter, they send out cool tweets, such as where the beer specials are that very day. Why did they not do this before I had kids?
Anyway, today they delivered just about the bestest news ever, other than maybe “World Peace Achieved.”
New Belgium will be distributing Fat Tire in North Carolina in March, and in Georgia in May.
[Happy Dogwood Girl Dance.]
Road trip to North Carolina in March? Who’s in?
Oh, and according to New Belgium’s distribution map, they are already in Tennessee. Why did I not know this? Mama might need a trip to Rock City this weekend.
All joking about reading addictions aside, Evan’s wedding was a blast. Can you say Tiki bar? How about Shrimp and Grits? Not just seeing old friends, but getting to see them, without kids, for two days straight? My belly laughed like it hadn’t laughed in years – I was sore afterwards. (Or maybe that was all the waterlogged Flying Burritos I got in the pool at 1 a.m.)
Best of all? Nightswimming in a calm ocean under a full moon. What hurricane?
Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the weekend, along with a link to the whole set on flickr.
Evan getting last minute lovin’ from the ladies on Friday night.
Fran the Cougar with her prey, Dan.
Me and Jason, friends since 10th grade biology.
Me and the Creeker boys.
Dan and Wendy at the Reception, which was extremely hot. I think you can actually smell Dan from this picture.
Jason and Laura
My nemesis for the weekend, Kyle, a.k.a. Corey Haim.
Me and the ole ball and chain, all spiffied up.
Me and D, who is no longer a delinquent teen, but an upstanding husband and father, with some damn cute kids and a hot wife.
Rush to get work done. Kiss chilluns and husband goodbye. Finish more work. Decide against shower. Make up for no shower with makeup. Rush to pick up Ness. Speed demon over to Thinking Man’s. Miss first trivia questions. Suck at first round. Do better at second, while stuffing face and trying to watch UGA baseball game a mile away. Come in . . . Not last.
Make other girls move over closer to television so can view UGA get their asses handed to them by Fresno St. Drink more beer. Be left by two members of party. Third member of party agrees to sit at bar if I will have another drink. (Twist arm here.) Third member of party reads Tennessee Williams while I watch UGA suck ass. UGA loses 2nd game. Nessie goes outside to discuss Eminent domain with dork. I remain at bar, order last beer, and get quarters for pinball. Nessie still sitting outside debating politics. Nessie’s friend tries to get a rise out of me re: eminent domain. I say i have a pinball game to play. Run out of quarters. Find a crumpled five in purse. Ask bartender if he will be annoyed if i play five dollars worth of jukebox songs. Spend ten minutes admiring awesome randomness of Thinking Man jukebox. Return to bar to talk to random guy and bartender. Nessie comes in and we leave. Nessie requests Taco Bell drive through (high point of evening!). Crank up The Hold Steady and open sunroof. Admire Half Moon. Taco Bell not open. Turn Hold Steady up higher and debate doing donuts in Lavista Rd. parking lot. Return Nessie to home and then clock land speed record to home from her house. (six minutes!)
Come inside, kiss dog, let him out, and blog. Sleep. Late. No kids. Call me if you want to go to the pool tomorrow. No kids allowed.
Ahhhhhhhh. . . summer.
Did i mention no kids? Who wants to go watch UGA with me at 7 pm?
With goats. Todd makes fun of me, because I just love goats. I mean, first of all, they taste good. Second of all, they keep down weeds. I have loved them since I was a little girl, with their wispy, eccentric-looking beards. Those spindly legs. That funny, angry noise they make. They come in all colors.
I always tell Todd I want goats when we finally buy our big property (or what my friends James and Dana refer to as “the compound.” Yes, we were saddened when the Putnam County, Georgia Nuwaubian property was demolished and sold off to developers; We had our eyes on its faux-Egyptian majesty for a while.)
I think, though, that Todd secretly finds my goat amour cute. This belief was cemented when he sent me the following link. I mean, how could a man who wanted to dissuade me from goat ownership ever expect to achieve his goal by sending me this cuteness?
Get out the smelling salts. Fainting goats. I am so going to have fainting goats on my estate and then I’ll get rip-roaring drunk on tequila, and I will do goat fainting party tricks. It will be a dream come true. You are all invited.
I’m the kind of girl who has a leftover dinner of mac and cheese, okra and blackeyed peas, green beans, one can artichoke hearts, and a glass of Chardonnay.
Dessert? One bigass heaping spoon of crunchy peanut butter in a bowl, drizzled with honey and a splash of Kahlua, and a squirt of canned whipped cream, and another glass of Chardonnay.
All of this is of course consumed during one episode of Masterpiece Theatre’s Complete Jane Austen’s series‘ Northanger Abbey, followed by the season premiere of Rock of Love 2. That one’s on VH1, which means not only am i cheesy, but I am old and cheesy.
I am so tired. Todd and I went to the EARL last night after his book club at Flatiron. Anna Kramer opened, and I loved her! Got this video of a new Band of Horses song they say they hadn’t played before. Me likey. Their whole show was really great – I was impressed. I think they were much better than I thought they would be.
Must go to bed now – stayed up till 2:30 and woke up with kids at 7:30. I don’t know what their problem is, always wanting me to get up and feed them and stuff like that. They are so needy.
Spent the weekend in NYC with Camille. For those of you who know me, you know about me being the Goatman. See the link for info on the real Goat Man. I never actually saw the Goat Man myself, but my Grandma Palmer always told Pop, when he came in the kitchen door with muddy shoes, or filthy from working in the yard, “Hoooooooooo-Weeeeeeee! You look like the Goat Man!” My family has always referred to someone dressed like crap or dirty or smelly as the Goat Man. (Possibly from dumpster diving with their Grandfather? Not that I would know anything about that.) Pop is the Goatman. I am Goatman Junior.
It is funny how families have inside jokes that become part of their own language, and I often forget that not everyone knows what it is to be The Goat Man. Just like only a select few know what is to have a hair “shark” or “whermp,” “accordion stomach,” or for a dog to have “salmon.” Wet paper is anathema to us. As are Band-Aids stuck to the side of a pool. Suffice it to say that we as a family are all quirkily insane (insanely quirky?) But I digress – Camille and I decided that we would call this trip Goat Man Takes New York.
While I tend to avoid the mob scene at all costs, it was pretty fun to just give in to all the touristy Christmas stuff happening up there, and I have to admit it gave me a little of the Christmas spirit. I had never been to NY during Christmas before, and they do not mess around. They even decorate the scaffolding on buildings under construction. I wonder how anyone with kids manages to keep the Santa secret, because at any given time, you can be walking the city sidewalks in a throng of Santas. The usual street musicians play Christmas carols (my favorite was the steel drum version), and I have never seen so many tourists wearing Christmas sweaters, Santa Claus hats, and bells around their necks in my life. I did wonder how more of them didn’t get splatted by taxis, because I don’t think one single person within a mile radius of Rockefeller Center was doing anything but looking up. The whole scene is fun, and pretty contagious. That being said, I was completely annoyed by the mass material consumption. I am not a shopping lover by nature, and it baffled me how throngs of people wanted to do nothing but buy!buy!buy! when they could be enjoying all the city has to offer. By Sunday morning, I was ready to shove into oncoming traffic the next threesome of midwesterners who pulled up short in front of me right in the middle sidewalk (wearing Christmas vests and Uggs, no less).
On Friday, we checked into the Intercontinental, then headed over for the Empire State Building. The view is great, and the I am glad I did it, but I will probably never subject myself to it again. I felt just a little too much like cattle. Here is my video from the line. (What can I say? I got bored. I had to mock with mooing. It had to be done.)
Camille and I kept a running list of the New York jobs that seemed to suck the most. I personally detest any job where a person is forced to hawk their wares, or anything that involves a song and dance. With that in mind, the guy in the above video has a crappy job. The guys who dance on the piano at FAO Schwartz have a crappy job. But the crappiest job EVER has to be the poor bastards who get to MC the Barbie Catwalk at FAO Schwartz. My absolute worst nightmare. On the other hand, employees get to hang out in the Leaky Cauldron and around a life-size Iorek, so it is not all bad.
Friday night, we had burgers at some Irish(ish) pub and then had beers with Harris and Anne. They live in Brooklyn and get big props for coming in to meet us despite Anne being a little under the weather and Harris leaving the next day for Tokyo. (For those who know Reese, he’s started blogging again – ShiftyEye, we hardly knew ye! – and is documenting his time in Tokyo. Anne is also supposed to be contributing to their blog, but she has yet to appear. Hopefully, she will rectify this soon.)
After they left, we walked around to look at Christmas decorations and enjoy our buzz, strolling along, taking in the Santas galore, and seeing the Rockefeller tree at night. Walked all over to find a place to get another beer, then had one more at the hotel. Got to bed at a reasonable one-ish.
Woke up the next day with a bit of a sinus headache, but headed out to find a bagel and coffee. I love the food choices in the city. I guess I could have called my trip Goat Man Eats New York. Although i am surprised how little I ate while i was there. There is so much to do I just kind of forget to eat.
Saturday was fun. Lots of walking around, and we saw Grease at the Brooks Atkinson Theater. I am not a big fan of musicals, but if there was one I would want to see, this was it. It was good, but not great, although I was really impressed at how much work must go into each production, and i thought the sets and props were way cool. Camille had been planning and looking forward to it for months, so her excitement was contagious. Afterwards, we went to Rockefeller Center for the NBC Studio tour (more feeling like a cow in a cattle chute) and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the tour. Seeing the studios themselves (for Conan and SNL) was pretty eye-opening about how much they trick the audience into thinking they are seeing things that they aren’t. No, there were no famous people there. I was v. impressed with my knowledge of production, though, when the snooty Canadian hipsters didn’t know what Silver Cup was, and I did. Take that, Canadians! My man’s in the biz!
After that we cooled our heels in the room, then changed and headed out to meet my friend Jonathon in . . . the E. Village, i think? (I don’t really know my way around NY that well.) Camille and I decided to do the subway, since we hadn’t used it yet for the trip. Glad we did, as the walk was awesome after getting off and we saw more on foot and subway than we would have in a cab. (Plus, I just love the subway. There is such a sense of accomplishment for me in finding my way around a different city.) We started at Grand Central (which was right by our hotel) and made sure to check out the weird echo in the basement of the station next to the oyster bar. Harris, I’ll be honest – I thought you were fucking with us about that. It was v. cool.
Went to meet Jonathon and his roommate Chris, at Euzkadi. Very cool place, laid back, with great servers. It had perfect lighting. Camille had a salad and it was tasty. I had beer. There is nothing better than drinking beer in a nice warm bar while the snow is coming down. We stayed there for a while, then went back to J. and C.’s apartment (very nice and huge!) for more beer. It was a perfect end to a v. long day – My feet were thanking me for sitting on a couch, drinking beer, and talking music. Oh, yeah, and Chris’ dog, Norman Bates, was cute as all get-out. I mean, I say that about all dogs, but this one was beautiful.
We caught a cab back to the hotel a little after one. It took a while to catch the cab, and we were being pelted with sleet, but it really doesn’t hurt that much if you drink enough beforehand.
Drank the perfect amount on Saturday, because Camille and I both felt great on Sunday. We headed out into the bitter, windy cold and rain. It had been coming down all night, and the sidewalks were icy and there were huge, ice cold puddles at every crosswalk. Of course, I stepped right in the first one i got to, and couldn’t feel my toes for the rest of the day, but our flight was at 3 pm and decided against buying a new pair of shoes for one morning of walking around. We walked the stores on 5th Avenue and Madison Ave. We stopped in St. Patrick’s during the 11 a.m. service, which was really beautiful. We made fun of people. We decided to go all out and hit the FAO Schwartz, which was crowded but funny.
Worried about the weather, we got back to the hotel in time to check out and make sure our flight was still on schedule. It was, so we grabbed and cab and headed to Laguardia. I was much less nervous about the flight home, which is v. unusual for me, as I am usually a complete nutcase about it. This is partially because I figured out on the flight up that all i really need is a Xanax and TRIVIA IN THE BACK OF EACH SEAT OF THE PLANE. Mother of God, why did they not think of this before? Best invention since pay-at-the-pump! You’re pitted against other people on the plane, so that you can say, “You’re going down, 27C!” when they are beating you. (Except you probably should only say it in your head, or Homeland Security might meet you with handcuffs at the arrival gate.)
I was despondent upon realizing we were bereft of trivia on the flight home. Things took a distinct turn for the worse when the Captain came on the loudspeaker to tell us, “We have had reports of some turbulence upon takeoff here from Laguardia. Much of this has been severe turbulence. Now, let’s put this into perspective: Severe turbulence is not going to damage the aircraft, but it will be very uncomfortable, and will require that you remain in your seat with your seatbelt fastened.” He then proceeded to attempt to convince the passengers of his prowess as a pilot by telling us about his background in the Air Force. Um, okay, so are you comparing this flight to a battle situation? Awesome. Just awesome. Thank God for prescription sedatives. Turns out it wasn’t half as bad as had been reported earlier. Which is good, because I don’t have great bladder control since having children.
We arrived back in Atlanta and I made it home and I was really glad to see the Rugrats, which is the best indicator of a relaxing weekend trip.
I miss New York, though. Great city. Wish I had more time. Didn’t get to hit one museum. I am sure Todd is shaking his head at the thought of having to go with me in the future. Not because he dislikes art, but because he dislikes how long it takes me to meander through museums. I guess I’m already planning my next trip. I think I’ll call it The Goat Man Returns.
