Two Words Never Seen Together Until Now

Random Shot

Aquarium Sundays

I was wary of the Georgia Aquarium (a non-profit, that's why it's a dot org), not because of touristy overkill, or as an aqua-ode to Bernie Marcus, whom I adore anyway having working for him for many years, but rather that I'd gotten a negative vibe for aquariums since one was a setting where the morally vapid characters in the movie Closer would act-out their manipulative, twisted little sex crimes on each other.

But since the Georgia Aquarium is just down the street and I discovered it to be a wondrously meditative environment for a grownup (even with hundreds of other people crowding you) and an hours-long delight for a six-year old, I broke down and bought an annual pass. Several visits later, I've almost gotten over the sensation that I'll turn a corner and find Clive Owen creeping about.

Bigger Than Jesus

Halloween is overtaking Christmas as the most over-the-top holiday of the year. We've already gone through two costume changes, two parties, one Harry Potter dinner, a monster truck-load of candy corn (me), and the damn day's not even here. After viewing her best friend's front yard, wildly decorated to within every blade of grass with a host of holy ghosties and webbing and tombstones and scattered bones, my daughter exclaimed, "Wow. This is amazing. We've got to catch-up, Mom."

Sorry, wee one. That one smallish pumpkin on the walkway and the lovely picture you made at school now taped to the front door is about it for our association-ruled house. And that $4 plastic light-up jack-o-lantern that burns through battery life faster than a laptop. Now go forth and create yet another costume, the most popular this year being the $10 "Mean Evil" (Medieval) Princess gown found on the half-price rack at Eckerd's. It needed only a few additions from mommy's infinitely coveted accessory closet.

And yeah, all you Harry Potter haters, the Three Hermiones were from a Harry Potter-themed dinner, sponsored by *** Holy Gospel According To Hogwarts, Batman *** our church. Take that, you fucktard Gwinnettian.

N. Georgia State Fair

Below, a tree preps:

Above, the TrueGritz State Fair field production team. Got 'r done!

And one mystery dude below,

who appears to know something we don't.

Peach Perfect

Sometimes the gods do smile on us. Not often, but when they do you recognize the divine intervention because you're dancing to it. Last night I danced to a live, Bill Berry-powered R.E.M., next to friend Cheryl and a happy Dallas Austin, who rocked out to "Losing My Religion" with all the zest of a true fan, let alone joyful inductee, at the 28th Annual Georgia Music Hall of Fame Awards. Then as Gregg Allman sang our state song, "Georgia On My Mind," Max Cleland patted my shoulder.

This was one for storing-up memories for the longhaul as the evening carried on 'til the wee hours with a champagne-ridden note of pure happy giddiness, ending right back in the one place I've always wanted to be.

And look, I even dredged up Tony Paris from the Kremlin!

Pics below courtesy of Tom Roche, Crawford Communications.

State of The South

Mrs. King passed away today, the Queen Mother of the South. Will we ever feel such a genuinely regal presence again? Coretta Scott King was composed of a true, noble character. She embodied ideals of Southern womanhood, perhaps ideals aspired to by older generations of women, but timeless values nonetheless, and she was instantly recognizable for a particular comportment rarely witnessed in a public figure, then or now.

Never in public did we ever hear a word of complaint, anger or bitterness from her lips. She was modest and beautiful, faithful and stoic, strong and committed. She cast an aura of warmth and kindness in every step, and she wore a perennial gaze of wisdom, intelligence and pride, although one lowlit with a shadow of sadness and strife.

The depth of her inner reserves of courage and faith must have been of divine, unfathomable proportions as Mrs. King was forced to live much of her life in what must be every mother's nightmare - an inescapable comprehension that there are twisted, dangerous people always lurking, just beyond the reach of the law, who wish to harm not only one's husband, but one's children. Such was the level of evil and rage that permeated the South in the midst of the race war of the Civil Rights movement.

For her, we should never forget that time - nor our history.

So many came to pay respects (and coverage) throughout the day to Coretta Scott at the King Center on Auburn Avenue . How obvious it was that so very few of the hundreds of faces were white ones. How shameful really, as she has always been there - for all of us.

tag: Coretta Scott King

The Unbearable Lightness of Summertime

I am greedy for summertime. Even in the midst of the hottest, most humid Southern day, when all desire seems tangled in the lushness of a grove of overrun Palmetto trees and magnolias set alive with the whine of afternoon cicadas I bicycle slowly by on the way to visit with ghosts wandering the fiery batteries of Ft. Moultrie, I am consumed with the inevitable - summer will come to an end. There is nothing I can do about this.

And so I throw myself into another summer. Or wish to, rather, when waking every morning to any day promising to be a really hot one. I want to feel baked concrete on the soles of my feet as I moreorless fall from the lounge chair into a heavily chlorinated pool. I sniff Coppertone like it was glue, high from the beach-as-a-child memory surge it powers in my nostalgia-ridden head.

I wish I was a painter so that I could paint the drops that rise up in my head that once rose up on the aqua-striped Tom Collins glasses with the little frayed wicker cozies around the bottom portion my grandfather would present to the guests, remarkable only for their dullness, who invariably stopped by the beachhouse late afternoons all through June, circa 1968. The country was on fire; Isle of Palms was not.

So I steal gardenias to fill the house with Eau De Blanche (DuBois), and to place in Ava's braids, from untended bushes laden with blossoms along Volberg Street in the city, no longer at the beach. This has been a prime year for gardenias; ignored, lovely shrubs of blooms just beckoning to be plundered, just like the purple, not blue, hydrangeas I covet from people's yards who never seem to gather them for themselves. Why not me.

So much wickedness just waiting to rise to the surface in summer, all in a state of air-conditioned arrestedness. I loath air conditioning. It forces Southerners to do way too much, to multi-task for instance. Southerners should never be forced to multi-task. That's not in our blood. What is in our blood is a desire to exist under huge rotating fans outdoors on porches near oceans, with mere ice-ridden glasses to cool our heated tendencies. We are hot blooded people. If only we could live that way.

The Pavement Ended In Buckhead

Edna Earle could sit and ponder all day how the little tail of the "C" got through the "L" in a Coca Cola sign. Eudora Welty, The Wide Net.

Just got back from attempting to live the dream - again. Made it about 48 hours this go-'round before I got so fed-up with my own kid, I just packed up and drove down the mountain laurel-laden road and on out of Lake Rabun, the tranquil, mountain home site to many seriously Old Atlanta families, with a few assorted Yankees and New Money types thrown in to give people something fresh to gossip about every other generation or so.

Here are the results of my Single Moms' Memorial Day Getaway Survey:

Number of novels-per-mom envisioned reading lying on dock: 2-4.
Number of New Yorkers anticipated devouring from cover to cover: 4-6.

Actual number of pages of novel read: 8.
Number of paragraphs of one New Yorker article gotten through without "Mommy, I'm HUNGRY. Fix me something NOW!" bellow: 10
Number of "Mommy, I'm cold"s registered: 76
Number of "Mommy, I'm hot"s: 156
Number of "Mommy, the other kids won't play with me"s: 1,242
Number of "Mommy, this life jacket is making me too sweaty"s: 246
Number of "Mommy, what are those teenagers doing in those bushes over there?"s: 7
Number of kids parading through room when just dozing off for nap: 5
Number of "Mommy, there's just too much water in this lake"s: 1
Number of "Just Stop Whining"s issued from Just-Settled-Into-The-Boxed-Wine-and John McCain-Article mom: don't ask
Number of Euro-trash nannys wished for: dozens