A Couple of Firsts

Rollie had his first field trip today. I had my first experience chaperoning a group of three and four year olds. Me being in charge of a group of kids is kind of funny, as I think I still need a guide when I am out in public. I had total flashbacks of my middle school getting kicked out of the Atlanta Symphony Hall one year for bad behavior.

It was also pretty scary to put other people's children in my car and drive them around, even if I do drive like a Grandma. I had two other kids in my van, in addition to Rollie and Tiller, who seemed thrilled to be hanging with the big kids.

Note to parents: If you want someone else to take your kid in their car, do that person a big favor and know how to install your own car seat.

Note to self: Next time you volunteer to chaperone a group to a puppet show, or to anything else for that matter, don't stay out till one a.m. drinking wine with the girls the night before.

I thought sleep-deprivation and a slight hangover were bad with two kids. If I had three-year-old triplets, i would never touch a drop of alcohol ever again for fear of experiencing what I experienced on the 15 minute ride to the puppetry theater. Every time I write "puppet," i keep thinking Metallica's Master of Puppets, which my friend Owen blasted for a good year in the car on the way to high school, which was actually quieter than what I experienced this morning. Those three wouldn't shut up for a minute. There was one point where I was trying to merge onto 85 South and all four kids were screeching and screaming at top volume, and I thought momentarily about driving the van off an overpass just to shut them up.

Also, while one kid was a joy, the other one kept saying things like, "Rollie, why does your Mom drive so slow?" and "My Mom's car is faster than yours" and I know it is not a sign of maturity that I wanted to tell the kid to shut the fuck up before I kicked his mom's ass. Instead, I made myself feel better by telling him in a sweet voice, that "Yes, I think your mom is fast."

Our Weekend in Savannah: Part II

As I said, I felt like SHIT on Saturday. Nausea and splitting headache, which i think were due more to lack of sleep than quantity of alcohol. Complete and utter shit, all the same. I told Todd I didn't want to drink a lot, so that I would feel good on Saturday. He made me drink.

We woke up, ate some continental breakfast, then headed out to get a new digital camera. (Ours finally pissed us off enough to be retired.) Then we had a tasty sandwich at a sub place and headed back to the room for naps. I was disappointed that I was so tired on Saturday - I far would have preferred strolling the squares all day Saturday, but knew I must sleep or I would never make it through the wedding on Saturday night.




We slept for two hours, then woke up, had a snack and dressed for the wedding. The trolley (ring! ring! ring! goes the bell) was picking up at 5:40 for the 6:30 wedding. We rushed around getting dressed and got on the trolley. We picked up more wedding guests at the Mulberry Inn and the Desoto Hilton. I have never seen so many women wearing dead animals in my life.

The wedding was at The Oglethorpe Club. Another beautiful house, right across the street from the original Armstrong College, where my father once attended classes. As we pulled up around the corner on to Bull St., we heard the piper playing. I swear to God, they had a bagpiper greeting the guests on the corner.

We got off the trolley, then proceeded up the stairs (festooned in beautiful greenery and white roses - I think they spent more on flowers than I spent on my whole wedding. There were white roses all over the whole house.) We checked my coat, then went up to the second floor for the ceremony. They conducted the ceremony in an upstairs, wood-paneled, long and narrow room. It was dark and candlelit. The bride wore a beautiful dress, and the the whole wedding party was decked out in Scottish tartan. The groom and his family wore their tartan; the bride and wedding party wore their own. Women wore a tartan sash with a brooch, including the bride. Nice, unusual touch. The piper piped as the wedding party entered. They also had a four-piece string instrument thing going on. The ceremony was very short, which was nice, because about half of us were standing in the back of the room.


After the ceremony, it was off to the bar. The Oglethorpe is a men's club. I was a little weirded out about things I have heard about it (no black members, no women allowed to walk up the front steps, etc.) All of that didn't matter - they could have made me crawl around on my knees as long as I could partake of the buffet.

I'm going to throw down the gauntlet: BEST. WEDDING. BUFFET. EVER. There were the usual carving tables, and an open bar, but the piece de resistance was the asparagus/cheese/tomato sandwich/oyster table. If you know me, you know they had me at "cheese," but if you throw in tomato sandwiches with the crusts (I still call them "the bones") cut off, I am yours. There were so many different kinds of stinky, blue-veined cheeses that I would have been sick even trying a bite of each one. Todd, meanie that he is, didn't think it was appropriate for me to put a whole chunk of cheese in my purse at the end of the evening. I am horrified at the thought of the cheese in a trashcan in the basement of the Oglethorpe Club.

Add in a bottomless pan of freshly-fried, hot oysters? Holy crap! I am surprised I didn't get sick. I spent half the evening hovering around the oyster dish with a bunch of old southern men, waiting for the next batch to come out. I think I impressed them with my oyster-eating prowess. I was so tired that night, that i took it easy on the drinking. Well, I did start at 7:00 or so and drink till 3 something in the morning, but i was a good girl. I felt fine on Sunday. One reason? I ate my weight in buffet. The reception lasted a long time, and people were pretty toasty by the end. I was pretty sober myself, having spent more time stuffing my face and looking at old weapons and pictures of Civil War generals.

In the end, the bride and groom came down the wide front steps of the club as we showered them with white rose petals. Both had changed: The groom was wearing ridiculous plaid pants, a bowtie, and a tam. The bride wore pants and sweater, along with a wide-brimmed hat and her tartan sash as a scarf. The "getaway" car was not a car at all - Definitely the cutest "Just married" getaway ever: They climbed onto a vintage tandem bike, complete with basket and bell, then rode off into Monterrey Square. (I think it was Monterrey Square). Adorable. I got a little choked up, and I don't even know them.

We took the trolley back to the hotel, then changed, and met people at the bar the wedding party had chosen. I am going to go ahead and say it was possibly the most hideous place I have ever been. Some kind of karaoke bar, attached to a bar that looked just like an Applebee's. I guess I am a snob, but I am picky. It is bad enough hearing the original versions of crappy rock songs (think Creed or one of those bands with numbers in their names), but hearing drunks butcher them even further was downright painful.

I drank PBRs with Kate (the bride's sister and Todd's friend), her husband, and her lecherous uncle from Bogota. They gave up the ghost and headed home. Todd was just kicking it into high gear (for those of you who know Todd, this is the part where he starts stirring his drink with his fingers, and then licking them merrily one by one) and so despite the fact that I was ready to fall into bed, I took one for the team and accompanied him for a few more hours.

We finally found a couple other like-minded guests who decided to venture with us to another bar, Hang Fire. My friend Donnie had recommended this place as having an excellent jukebox, and so when a fellow wedding guest mentioned it as a place where they might go, I jumped at the chance. It was pretty cool, but by the time we got there, everyone was wasted, and they had a band playing, so I didn't get a chance to check out the jukebox. I did get to see the shocked look on the face of the little South Carolina girl who had joined us, when she saw two girls making out in the corner and about ten guys taking camera phone pictures of them. That actually made the trip worthwhile. She then got into an argument with her date, who had somehow offended her by putting down "Carolina" and "the status quo in Columbia." They were a riot. We met a very nice Chicago girl who had been living in Savannah for a couple of years and tried to convince us that since we like Wilco we like jam bands. Ain't gonna happen. We finally walked back to the hotel with the feuding Columbian (of Columbia, SC) couple. I was asleep within five minutes.

I woke up feeling wonderful; Todd, not so much. Ah, sweet feeling of a Sunday morning without hangover or regret. We looked around in vain for somewhere neat to eat, then in desperation and hunger, I phoned my friend Jason, who recommended The Firefly Cafe, which looked awesome, but had a wait of what looked like hours (think Flying Biscuit waits). We went down the street to a J. Christopher's, which was actually really good, and had IHOP-style bottomless coffee on the table.

On the way, I caught sight of this guy who was carrying an interesting sign. I am guessing he strolls the streets every Sunday to put fear of God into Saturday night's hangover victims roving the streets searching for a cure; Everyone out on Sunday morning seemed to be a slow-moving student, or a well-dressed churchgoer in a fancy hat. It was Sunday, crisp and bright, and the people were walking their dogs with coffee in hand, and the church bells rang at noon. Lovely morning. Todd looked like death eating a ham sandwich, which only cast into relief my elation at having a sunny morning without kids or hangover.

Some things are indescribably perfect. We had a wonderful time (hard not to without kids), and I didn't even mention all the six degrees of separation, or the menage a trois come-ons (or so we like to flatter ourselves,) or the Episcopal Mafia. You can see more of our pictures from the trip by clicking on my Flickr link to the right. They should be up some time today.

Oh, p.s.! On Saturday, even with my hangover, we "discovered" an awesome artist at Chroma Gallery on Barnard. I posted about it here on Atlanta Metblogs, as the artist is an Atlantan. If you ever want to see what I am saying about Atlanta, there are links to my posts on Metroblogging Atlanta to the right.

New Year's Recap

Night started off slow, with me laying a base of soup and salad at the nicest Olive Garden ever. Todd's Mom says so, and she should know, because she lives in that mecca of fine dining that is Dadeville, Alabama. I also had a latte at Starbucks in an attempt to jumpstart my very hung over body while Todd chatted with the Turks. No doin' on lighting a fire under me; It wasn't until I arrived at Iain's and choked down that first beer that I started feeling a little better. I had grandiose plans of dressing up, even maybe wearing a skirt, but I was lucky to get there in one piece, much less to change out of jeans and t-shirt. I threw on my fluffy-fringey sweater in an attempt to give myself some style and just ended up looking like a Smashing Pumpkins' D'arcy wanna-be from 1991. You will notice only one picture of me in the whole New Year's set on Flickr. This is not coincidence.

Highlights:

• Black-eyed peas and greens and Iain and Annie's Crappy Cornbread Quiche.
• Todd drinking brown liquor is always a highlight. He starts gesturing with his hands more, and he likes to stir the ice in his glass with a cute little tinkle. He gets a bounce in his step that he only ever gets when he is drinking liquor. (Bounce has been known to morph into him falling backwards on his ass in the basement at Gravity Pub, but he was drinking vodka tonics that night, so we cannot blame that on the revered bourbon whiskey.)
• Watching people strip down and display body art and mutilation in the largest fucking bathroom in Alabama was pretty entertaining.
• No evening is ever complete until you have cleared the whole living room of furniture so as to perform a few numbers from Grease, replete with male and female parts, and dancing on remaining furniture.
• Finally, and this one is so obvious, but I will say it anyway: I am so cute when I am drinking. Everyone says so.

The only thing missing was the people that I couldn't be with this year, but they are always in my thoughts, and just as soon as I make that first million off Dogwood Girl, I am going to buy a farm and start a commune where we can all live together. Right after Lisa and I buy the Sea-Doo. It's gonna happen - 2007: The Year of Big Dreams. Who's with me?

Youth Recapture Interrupted: First Steps

I kind of figured that after recovering from my hellacious basement party hangover, that the first thing that I would do is download the pictures and blog all about it. Funny thing about kids: they have a way of trumping anything of importance in your own life, in favor of their own crises, milestones, and illnesses. Take Tiller for instance. . . .

I crawled back home on Sunday at about one in the afternoon, took a bath, changed clothes, and then fell into bed for a few hours sleep while the kids napped, it being impossible to nap while children are awake within a mile radius.

When they awakened, Todd took pity on me, and let me sleep a while longer. I planned on waking, eating grilled cheese, and blogging about the previous evening. I finished the grilled cheese while Todd played with Rollie and Matilda on the den floor. Todd was sitting on the floor about three feet from the ottoman, and my feet were on the ottoman. Tiller came over to stand next to me, holding her arms out to be held. I picked her up, hugged her, then set her down on her feet in Todd's direction. Todd held out his arms, Tiller's eyes lit up like the sun, and she put her arms out towards him. She took two wobbly steps, maybe three, and fell into his arms. First steps! He and I both welled up a little in the eye area. It is easy to forget about the little things with a second child, but some things are just monumental: A child's first steps, always towards one of us, and setting off so suddenly a chain of milestones in the future, reminding us that they will continue to walk on and on, farther and farther away every day.

We practiced her new trick the rest of the afternoon and into bedtime, my attempts at recapturing my own youth completely forgotten for the time being.

Way to go, Tiller baby! We are so proud of you, sweetheart.