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So Josh and I went down to the city last night to see one of our friends play at the Roxy in Buckhead. The show was great, the band is Tim Brantley and they are really good. Hopefully soon they’ll make it big. Pretty cool, huh? No big deal, just a great start to the weekend.
Well. That’s where the story begins. The story doesn’t have anything to do with the show, either. Huh.
We decided to take Marta down since it’s usually hard to find parking in Buckhead (that’s the hoppin’ part of Atlanta for those of you that don’t know the area). The Coca-Cola Roxy theater is a converted movie theater that’s now a music venue. Kind of like the Electric Company in Philly, but not a warehouse. Actually the only similarity is the lack of seats, other than that this is a lot different from that place.
I’m off subject. Parking is a problem so we rode the train. The car we chose happened to include a vagrant traveling down from Tennessee. Apparently he was on a mission, or so he said, to find warm weather. He was on his way to Florida. I suggested that we move to the back of the car, but Josh said that he wanted to stay where we were so he could overhear this guy. Now, it’s not that I’m a snob on the train. I don’t mind sitting next to anyone (unless they smell), but this guy looked unpredictable and, frankly, unsettling. So we stayed where we were I guess to kill the 10 minute trip with some interesting observations, I don’t know. When we walked into the car apparently he was right in the middle of telling some guy that he hated ‘pigs’ and that he meant in no uncertain terms, ‘cops’. He had been in Georgia for only a day, but already they were picking on him wherever he went. I think this just goes to show that if you are up to no good, people take notice.
Anyway, after he went ON and ON about his dislike for our fine lawmen (that’s what they call them in Gainesville. If you are attacked, you don’t call the Cops or the Police, you call the Law) he went on to tell us how cold it was where he was from (up north) and how warm it was down here (mind you I was a bit chilly as I was wearing only a sweater). Oh, to get the full effect, please feel free to insert an expletive in any place for the above comment as he took the liberty of doing.
After the next stop, a young girl in front of us starts chiming in about her course work at school. (that’s the weird thing about Georgia trains…people talk to each other. It’s not like it is in NYC) I think she started talking about Inspector Gadget or something, I don’t know, I was trying to talk to Josh without laughing. The strange man then told us that he had been incarcerated when he was 20 and didn’t get out for 12 years for FIRST DEGREE murder! (that’s premeditated for those of you who do not watch Law and Order). He then turned right around to the guy behind him (who was black) and said:
That’s like Snoop Doggy Dog, ‘a yippe ti yi yi ya bow wow wow wow’, you know what I’m talking about, don’t you bro?
To which the guy just stared at him like he was out of his mind. And then our stop came, which is a good thing because I think Josh would not have been able to suppress the giggles much longer.
Once we got to the show, all was good. We had a great time and when we left, we just missed our bus back to the train station. We had to stand on the street corner for awhile, feeling very silly, when a taxi full of drunk college kids pulls up and the guy in the front yells:
I don’t know who’s hotter, you or your boyfriend.
To which Josh yells out (I suppose he thought it was a great comeback at the time):
We’re married!
Huh. I just thought that was the perfect ending to a great Friday night.
P.S. You should check out our friend, Brent, and his band Tim Brantley at Tim’s website Tim Brantley
Yah! So now I will bombard you with pictures of our Sweet Boy. Some of these pictures were taken a while ago, and some only a couple months. (I still don’t have that new battery for the camera…Christmas Present Idea! [Lithium battery for a Nikon Coolpix 2100, please])
I just had a realization about something…all these pictures of Harper I’m taking…what will it be like when I have babies to capture in the digital media? Scary thought Although, the world might be more interested in a photograph of my child than my beagle. Ah, well. I give what I have to give…don’t get any ideas, ladies.
I don’t know if any of you out there have a dog, but let me just tell you how much we love this little guy. Alot of people told us that Beagles are the WORST dog for apartment life because they howl all day long. Well let me put that myth to rest. This little critter did not make nary a SOUND for the first four months that he lived with us. I’m not kidding! We thought we got a disabled pet. Some breeder…sells us a mute dog. When he finally did test his vocal chords, he did it initially to warn us that a strange looking person was coming down the outside steps to our apartment. Then it was the occasional ‘huramph’, the test, if you will, to make sure that sound could still escape that mouth. Now, he barks and howls (short little funny howls where he looks exactly like Snoopy with his snout up in the air) only when Josh or I really get him going. Racing around the house, tackling him and rubbing his stomach, those sorts of things. He might let out an occasional whimper here and there, especially if we are not being attentive enough to realize that his bathroom break has arrived, but other than that- not a peep. And you wonder why we call him Sweet Boy. The dog that defies his breed characteristics.
This picture is of him when we barely knew eachother. I think it was his second or third night. I put a cozy blanket in his cage and apparently he didn’t want it there. He hadn’t even seen it before, but it was love at first sight for this little guy. He whimpered and sniffed and whined and won. He got his blanket. I had to trick him out of the room just to be able to put it into his cage before I left each morning. I still do. The blanket has survived, with a few new holes.
What is with people today?? I cannot tell you how many times today I wanted to throw my phone out the window. If you ever get offered a job where you are the main telephone operator, I don’t care what amount of money they offer you, TURN IT DOWN! Just say no, folks, and your sanity you may keep.
I had one girl call several times to speak to a customer service representative. I duly transferred her over to the queue of calls waiting to speak to a representative. On the fourth call she calls me back and gives me attitude as if I wasn’t transferring her properly. When I told her that she would have to wait for the next representative, she said that she already had for 20 minutes. (Which, by the way, was impossible, her first call to me came in only 10 min ago.) I said that I would put her through again and she mutters under her breath, “well it’s about time you did.” Well. Of course I couldn’t transfer her with that comment hanging out there. I did the only thing that I could possibly do. I said,
“Ma’am, I am doing everything that I am able to do. I am the receptionist. I cannot look into your account. I will have to transfer you to customer service where they will be able to look up your account. Unfortunately, they are busy. You will have to wait a few minutes. You do not need to take it out on me.”
As you can see, I do not have the best temperament to deal with a thousand calls a day like this one. I end up just not being able to handle it. Of course, before all this began, I got hung up on, yelled at, cursed at, and dealt with all other kinds of subtle rudeness before I reached my threshold. Luckily for me and the world, this job is almost over with.
Another crazy thing today, we had a bomb threat up the street, a lady got hit by a car crossing the side street by my building, and a girl was rear-ended in the left turn lane on a busy street in Atlanta. After she got rear-ended, she decided that it wasn’t a good idea to move her car off the side of the road so that she didn’t hold up traffic. Instead she got out of her car, (did I mention that it was a VERY busy street?) and stood in front of it as if she was guarding it. Which I was thought was kind of pointless, I mean the car had already been attacked. What was she guarding it for? Was she going to throw herself in front of it to protect it from further damage? Like a shield? Anyway, there she stood for a good 45 min to an hour, just standing there and bearing all the evil looks people driving by must have been giving her (I know I would have given one) and all the horns honking at her, until Mr.. Policeman came to get her on the side of the road. Mind you, all this was in rush hour traffic.
and thus it was said:
God must love crazy people; He makes so many of them
Anonymous
Today I Googled “professional knife sharpeners” and looked on Yellow Pages, and apparently having a knife sharpening business is old news. This is very frustrating to me, because, while I do want to get a steel rod to sharpen my knives at home, I still wanted to do the ‘Big Sharpen’ once a year. My little chef’s knife just isn’t mincing those onions like it used to.
The Food Network (which is THE food resource if you ask me) told me that I needed to swipe that bad boy along the steel rod before each use. Then once every 6 months (or every year) get the Pros in to do the job. What the Food Network says is gospel truth, and I have to do it…because they said so… They also said that a dull knife is more dangerous than a sharp knife…something about using more pressure to get the job done.
But there are no more knife sharpeners in Georgia!
I could send my knife off to get sharpened through an online store, but the cost is astronomical for just one little itty bitty chef’s knife! So, I thought, well, I can get everyone I know to go in it with me to counteract the shipping charges and we’ll all get our knives sharpened in one go. But, of course, as you all are thinking, what will we do in the meantime about knives? How will we cook? Seriously, the cost of all of this makes me wonder if I should just go buy a new knife! Ha! I guess that if I had 10 really expensive knives, then all this aggravation would be worth it, but now? Not so much.
Sigh.
I guess I will content myself with getting a steel rod and swiping that sucker up and down until it feels like it could split a hair in two. All this for chopped onions. Go figure.
Every morning I wake up before at least 90% of the world so that I can make it to the train station on time. As anyone who lives in the Atlanta area knows, traffic is the #1 problem. I realized very early on that I DO NOT have the temperament needed to survive the daily commute, fighting the masses and masses of cars. I can’t even relate to people who put up with it every day because they have to “just accept it”.
So I take the train.
Even taking the train, I still have to combat the sea of cars in the evening for a good 30 minutes, but at least the train cuts down on the major Atlanta traffic. Marta, however, is getting old. Don’t get me wrong, I like having the time to read in the morning and drink my coffee. I like knowing I’m saving $50 a month or more on gas. I don’t even mind the odd people sitting next to me, even once having a seizure in front of me. I take all this in stride. However, every morning I have a fear of hearing one phrase that disrupts my whole morning.
“Due to technical difficulties, the Southbound train will be delayed. Sorry for any inconvenience.”
It’s almost getting to the point, why even rush to get to the platform? The train will be late, I should just change my schedule to accommodate theirs. The only problem today, was that it was FREEZING and of course, being that it’s Georgia, no one standing there with me had a decent coat on to keep warm. We all stood there shivering and waiting. When the train finally came, we all stumbled into the warmth of the Marta cars. One passenger right behind me muttering, “Marta’s new motto: Sorry for any inconvenience…”
…you need a little help from your sis. Last weekend I went up to the Big Apple to help Deb pack some of her things since she’s moving to the ‘burbs. She didn’t really need to give me an incentive to come help her, but the SWEET U2 tickets that she had just lying around didn’t hurt. We had decent seats, I mean they weren’t second row or general admission, but neither were they so far back that the band members were the size of peanuts when you looked down. They were decent. I had a BLAST of course, as anyone who knows me, knows that I *almost* idolize them. I said almost! Anyway, I went with Deb and she was also the happy owner of 4 sets of tickets so that she ended up going to 4 different shows.
I guess she can make it on her own.
I have to say, though, that she had some FANTASTIC seats, as they weren’t seats at all. She got to go on Tuesday night as General Admission which, of course, is the Floor. The Floor, ladies and gentlemen, is the place where all your concert-dreams come true. The Floor is where you can get there early and get in line to get a good place in the arena and not just depend on your place in the queue at Ticketmaster for a good seat. The Floor is where you could maybe, quite possibly, on the off chance, have Bono choose YOU out of the masses to go up on stage with him and…dance. Dance with your head on his shoulder (have to admit, a little weird) and sway to With or Without You. ah, the Floor. She said it felt like it was a intimate concert in some small venue and that Bono was singing directly to her crowd. She said that it was everything she thought it would be. And she’ll never go back.
sigh.
My other sister and I are going to the Atlanta show in November. In the nose bleeds. Section 300 something. Sigh, again. Still, with all the energy output from a crowd screaming and singing at the top of their lungs, 20,000 strong, it will still be an eventful evening. It always is.
These pics are some that Deb took with her camera phone, as she was about 3 ft away from the outer ring of the stage. Cheers, Deb.
Ahh…the puppy. I figured since I mentioned him already, I’d have to include a picture of Harper to introduce him to those of you that haven’t met our ‘Sweet Boy’. This picture is pretty old, it was taken right after we got him last New Year’s. I really need to stop procrastinating and pick up that new battery for my digital camera!
One of Harper’s favorite activities is to run like a crazy dog around and around our apartment. When we moved, he dodged all the moving boxes without breaking speed or his neck, for that matter. All you hear is a lot of heavy panting and the occasional *thump* as he lands on the floor after flying up onto our bed, followed by an immediate collapse if we say to him, “settle”. At least he listens to some commands.
He really is our sweet boy, though. He hangs his head when he knows that he did something wrong, like dismantling my bed and eating a corner of the bedspread while I was away at work. Or, my favorite, eating a ball point pen when I was taking a nap and spreading blue ink EVERYWHERE just two weeks before we were scheduled to move out of the apartment.
hmm.
I know I started out by saying he was a sweet boy. And he is, if not a little mischievous…
ah, dogs.
Yesterday I was a dog. Today I am a dog. Tomorrow I will probably still be a dog. Sigh. There’s so little hope for advancement.
-Snoopy
Despite the rocky start, I hope you all will forgive the ineptitude of the editor…(small cough)…Joanna…of this blog for her crazy emails going out to everyone informing them of the new blog. There were rumors that the link didn’t work, which was entirely possible and probable, a promise to be able to subscribe to the blog which never manifested itself, and of course, the curious fact that the site you are now looking at is, in fact, a different site altogether from the one previously offered. Well. Let me just say, that I’m new to this people! I should have scouted out all the blog sites out there to find what I wanted in a site first before emailing all of you. I apologize, but I know you all will have figured it all out by now…else you wouldn’t be reading this post.
and now…
Thank you for checking this out. I promise the remainder of our relationship here will be hassle free and smooth as glass…famous last words.
Hey everyone…I started this blog so that all my friends and family could see what is going on in our lives. This way, everyone can keep up with news and, of course, funny anecdotes which I think infiltrate my life and those around me on a fairly frequent basis. You all out there can add comments and keep in touch with me, as well. As you know, I am not the best with keeping up with everyone through email and phone.
Of course, the phone is not entirely my fault, as I have the WORST cell phone service known to man.
Hopefully, this will be so successful, that everyone out there in friends and family land will feel close and in contact with my little family. After all, what’s the use of having all this great technology without keeping in better contact with those that I love? I remember when we used to get excited about great long distance plans (like 10-10-220) and now when have we thought about that since almost everyone has cell phones? Do they still even have plans that don’t offer nationwide long distance??
Anyway, this post is just an FYI, so make sure you all sign up to receive updates whenever I post one so that you can click the link and feel like you are having a conversation with me in cyber-space.
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