atlanta

A Sort of ATL Homecoming

| patmcg

“Claire was born in Atlanta, but she’s never been there.” At least that’s what I tell people.

Okay, Claire (and this blog) was born in Atlanta, and she’s hasn’t been back since she’s was two years old. Notice that the Atlanta-tagged post before this was from 2007!

So I decided to take her there for a couple days on her college string break to see her “birth” house and the town that created her.

We had a fun time seeing the old neighborhood, which Claire has no memory of but enjoyed. It wasn’t quite what she expected Atlanta to be like, which is what we thought when we moved there.

We also got to take in some movie sights, most especially the real site of the fiction and creepy AF Hawkins National Laboratory from Stranger Things.

After seeing the sights in Atlanta, I wanted to take her somewhere new for both of us. My dad had always said that Helen, Georgia was one of the prettiest places he had ever seen. So we ventured an hour north of the city and explored the Bavarian-style Disneyland-esque town as a little day trip.

It was a fun couple days with Claire in her lovely home state, although I think she still considers herself a Texan. 😉

Riding the Rails

| patmcg

Today is a funny day, a single work day sandwiched between Christmas week and New Year’s Day. I was planning to send Claire off to Grace for the day, who had last week off, but it turns out Grace is still in Florida visiting her family, and does not plan to be back in Atlanta until Tuesday. So I unexpectedly have Claire for the day. After all the recent hustle and bustle of the holidays, and all the recent travel, and working on the house, I am going back to an old routine — just me and Claire, taking an unplanned day off. Losing the day to unexpected circumstances is tough, with so many things to do and so little time. But that is to worry about later; today Claire and I are going to have some fun with our day off!

I was initially thinking of going to the zoo, but it was foggy and cold and wet, so spending a lot of time outdoors did not seem ideal. But I felt sort of couped up and wanted to get out on some sort of adventure, preferably something new. With Claire’s continuing fascination with trains, I thought it would be fun to take the MARTA train somewhere. Something about zipping around the city on the train in the fog on New Year’s Eve sounded fun and adventurous. It seemed like a very Curious George type of thing to do.

But where would we go? We finally decided on Underground Atlanta because it was right by the main downtown MARTA station, and it had plenty of fun stuff for Claire to see, including, according to the web site, “caricature drawings and fortune telling, homemade candy, delicious dining and souvenir shopping.”

So I packed up a small survival and dining kit (diapers, wipes, a drink cup, a bib, a fork, and some snacks), and we headed out to Lindberg Station. As we hopped on the train, Claire gleefully yelled, “All aboard!” We grabbed the only free seat, with Claire sitting on my lap, next to a sort of rough looking guy with greasy hair, hunched over sleeping (or pretending to sleep). The train car was largely full of middle aged women all dressed in the same goofy black and yellow outfits, as if for some sort of Georgia Tech pep rally. As we headed into town, the train filled up with more and more Clemson fans. I guess there was a football game today, but fortunately things did not get too tense between the GT and Clemson fans. One of the GT ladies said something about a parade and pointed at the rough guy next to me, jokingly saying, “We should put him on charge.” She looked at me and said, “I hope he doesn’t wake up mad.” This was just funny, not scary; that guy looked harmless enough, and besides, he was way smaller than me. Once the train cleared up a bit, though, we did move to a more “comfortable” seat. During the ride downtown came the requisite Claire comments and compliments from all the GT ladies, with Claire introducing herself to our neighbors and saying, “MARTA train” over and over with a big smile.

We got off at Five Points across the street from Underground Atlanta. and didn’t get 10 steps onto the sidewalk before Claire saw something she liked. There were about 10 pigeons cruising the sidewalk among all the pedestrians, hunting and pecking for food. Claire liked to see real birds up so close, and she insisted that we stay for a good 15 minutes just watching them, laughing whenever they flew around a little bit.

I finally dragged her across the street, and there was more great stuff to look at. They were setting up for the big peach drop, which is Atlanta’s version of New York’s big apple drop in Times Square. There were food stands and lights and generators everywhere. Claire was almost constantly saying, “What’s that?” as we walked along. The camen the big wide stairs into the Underground, which was another prime attraction. We walked down each step, probably 100 of them in all, Claire enjoying every step. Awaiting us at the bottom of the stairs was a big bouncy moonwalk, like the one Claire had loved at the Kit’s pathology picnic a few months ago. I steered us clear of the moonwalk, as I knew we would not get a step further if Claire discovered it.

Inside the Underground were more wonders. We saw big colorful balloons, lots of CHristmas lights, life-sized paintings of Dora the Explorer and Mickey Mouse, a big wooden train, and lots of little kid-sized rides, including a school bus, a fire engine, and a tug boat. I wasn’t sure if Claire would be hungry yet, at it was only 11:30 or so, but when we checked out the food court, Claire said, “Daddy, let’s have some dinner.” So we split some lasagna and pizza, which Claire ate very, very slowly as we watched all the people around us.

It was getting late (in Claire terms), so we gradually worked our way back to the MARTA station, dodging pony rides and mini-carousels along the way, stopping for one last look at the street pigeons on the way back. The train was delayed, so I had to hold an increasingly tired and grumpy Claire at the platform for 15 minutes. We looked at the MARTA system map for entertainment, and Claire pointed out where she thought Mommy was.

The train ride back was different than the one down. Instead of colorfully dressed football fans, almost everyone on the train this time was dressed in dark winter coats, with dark hoods and hats, looking sort of glum and serious, or just tough. And then there was Claire, in her little pink pants and yellow jacket, happily taking her own seat on the aisle next to me. The train was pretty quiet. As the train took off, Claire said — no, yelled — “Here we gooooooo!” with pure glee. I could see some of the stone-faced passengers crack a bit of a smile. Then Claire started talking to the guy in the seat across from her, who looked like a tough hip hop artist along the lines of Dr. Dre or Big Boi. She said, “He’s happy!” The guy smiled and said hi. Claire sort of made friends with him, and he was very nice about it and said, “Is she always this happy? She is one happy kid.” Eventually Claire turned her attention back to me and said, “You’re pooping” over and over. I saw some of the people around us cracking smiles again. We finally got off the train, saying goodbye to all of our unlikely friends, waving as we walked away, fetching a couple more smiles for good measure.

We had a good adventure today, worthy of Curious George, but fortunately lacking the disasters that normally accompany George. Yes, another forced day off, and another good one at that.

You wanna cumbo?

| patmcg

We have not really even acknowledged Christmas 2007 so far at home. We have no Christmas tree set up yet, no presents piled up on display in the living room, or even wrapped, or even purchased yet. We have not even been playing Christmas music. This lack of Christmas spirit is not intentional; Christmas has just sneaked up on us this year. So today, to get our Christmas spirit kicked off, Kit had the idea to go see the Festival of Trees at the Atlanta History Center in Buckhead.

We were hoping the Festival of Trees would be sort of like the Christmas Tree Forest that Kit used to go to in Corpus Christi. It turned out to be classier, smaller, and more subdued than the Corpus Christi version. It featured trees decorated up in the traditional style from several different countries, accompanied by a written explanation of Christmas traditions in that country. But it felt more like a display than a forest, and it did not exactly jump start our Christmas spirits.

So we moved on to explore the rest of the museum. Claire was especially excited to see the big, working toy train track. Along the track were little displays of things like ice skaters on a frozen pond, elves working at Santa’s toy factory, construction crews at work on the road beside the track, and countless other things to look at, each with a button to push to make them go. And best of all was the fact that Thomas the Train was running around and around the track. Things were definitely looking up.

After we saw every little thing on the train display, we went outside and came across an old kid-sized playhouse in the garden. Claire knew it was made just for her, and she went right in to explore. She explored each of the three rooms and then made herself comfortable on the little kid-sized wicker sofa. Kit and I mostly stayed outside, letting Claire explore as we chatted about little things like where the heck we will be living in two years, what jobs will we both have, who is going to be president, and other basic unknowns of the relatively near future.

Over our chatter, Claire was sticking her head out of the playhouse’s front window, looking especially cute in her little green Christmas dress, saying what we could best make out as, “You wanna cumbo?” or just “Cumbo!” We replied, “What’s a cumbo?”, but Claire just smiled and kept saying it.

Finally, when Claire said, “You want cheese?” Kit put it together. Claire was asking if we wanted a “combo”, and she was acting like she was a lady at the drive-through window at Wendy’s or McDonald’s, where they always say, “You want to make that a combo?” or “You want cheese with that?” when you place an order. Kit and I were cracking up, because Claire did this with such as big smile on her face but was also trying to act serious, like she really did want to know if we wanted the combo. At least she did not ask us to “biggie size” it for only 39 cents more.

Pool Bust

| patmcg

Today I had another involuntary day off with Claire. Grace needed today and last Friday off for family reasons. Kit took Friday off and went to the zoo and did errands with Claire. Today was my turn. The day started off with a good sign. Claire’s first words this morning when I got her out of her crib were “Wow! Awesome!” Sadly, the day would not live up to those bold expectations.

The first task of the day was to go to Target to return some lake supplies that we did not end up needing at the lake this weekend. As we pulled into the parking lot, just as Claire said “Target!”, I realized I had the unused toddler life preserver with me, but not the unused sunglasses. I would come back another time when I had everything I needed to return.

Returning home, I began the hour-long process of getting ready to go to the pool. This process involves dressing Claire in her bathing suit and water shoes, dressing myself in my bathing suit and water shoes while keeping an eye on Claire, applying sunscreen to both of us, collecting together all the necessary water supplies such as towels, cups to play with, a kickboard, change of clothes, snacks and drinks, shutting the bedroom door so Muffin does not pee on our bed, and finally getting out the door and into the car. Damn, I forgot my cell phone. And Claire’s hat. Back in the car.

We finally made it to the Garden Hills Pool, at 10:45, just 15 minutes after opening time. Claire enthusiastically said, “Pool!” as we drove up. We parked and walked up to the pool…And nobody was around. Literally nobody. The pool was closed. No hours were posted, it was just closed. I had to explain this to Claire, saying “Sorry, no people. Closed.” Claire calmly repeated back “no people” as I loaded her back in the car. She cried a bit when she realized we really we not going to the pool any more, but she calmed down pretty quickly.

Determined to swim now that we were both all greased up ready to go, I went to plan B. I was not going to spend my day off not swimming! Chastain Park was not too far away, and I knew it had a public pool. So we drove up Peachtree and Roswell roads to the other pool, Claire glumly but calmly repeating, “Closed. No people.” We parked, unloaded, and walked up to the pool…The closed pool. Claire offered, “Sorry, no people.” The pool was closed until 4:00 in the afternoon. These beautiful pools are wasted just sitting there on such a hot, sunny day!

Plan C is to find a playground to get Claire’s mind off of today’s fiasco so far. After all, this was a park, and I hoped to avoid getting back in the car, which I would have considered a mortal failure at this point. The nice fellow at the nearby tennis center told us that there is a playground a little way down the road. So Claire and I walked a few blocks down Wieuca Road in 98 degree heat in our swimsuits and water shoes to the goddamn playground. We stopped along the way to sip on the Poweraid (“juice”, as Claire calls it) that I had bought at the tennis center, and to enjoy the views of the golf course and baseball fields. Most of the goddamn playground was roasting in the near-noon sun, and the swings and slides were too hot to use, especially in a tiny nylon bathing suit. Claire did manage to have some fun, though, generally running and climbing around and just looking at the other, mostly older, kids. I was personally somewhat out of place among the Buckhead nanny set, but it was fun to hang out for a while. We cooled off over lunch at Moe’s with a “kadeeya” and finally headed home to listen to music, dance, read, nap, and take it easy.

Even though today did not live up to the “Wow! Awesome!” expectations, it was still a fine day, and I even learned a few things along the way.

  • Atlanta’s pools are not open on Mondays…or something.
  • Chastain Park offers some nice views of the Buckhead skyline across the golf course.
  • Poweraid is a fine, refreshing beverage, even when quite tepid.
  • Some nannies seem impatient or bored with the kids they are watching.
  • Any day with Claire can be fun even if it is totally screwed up.

Braaay!

| patmcg

This morning Claire and I set down for breakfast, as we do every morning. Usually during breakfast, she’ll go on about the “pancakes” or maybe that she misses “Reesie”. But this morning, she started saying “Braaaay! braaaaay! braaay!” quite enthusiastically, as if trying to tell me something.

I didn’t know what the heck she was talking about.

She could tell I was confused, so she tapped my shirt. When I looked down, I realized I was wearing an Atlanta Braves shirt. She patted the shirt right on the Braves tomahawk and said what I now realized was “Braaaaaves”, with a proud smile. Just in case I did not know what she was talking about, she followed this comment up with “ba-ball”, meaning baseball.

I guess when we have the Braves games on TV, she’s actually paying attention, a lot of attention. I wonder if she knows how to get Andruw Jones out of his slump.

Peachtree Road Race 2007

| patmcg
Today I ran down the middle of Peachtree Road from Buckhead to Piedmont Park with 55,000 other people. I was part of the world’s largest 10k fun run, the Peachtree Road Race. This was actually my first fun run since I was a kid, when I would only occasionally tag along on runs with Dad and Tim.

Technically, it took me two and a half hours to run/walk the 6.2 mile course through the heart of Atlanta. The actual time was not as bad as it sounds. I spent an hour and a half at the starting line, near the Borders where we take Claire for story time with Miss Wendy on Saturdays. I was waiting for 50,000 runners to get going ahead of me. I had made the mistake of entering in the “casual runner and walker” section, which put me in the last section of the race, the “heart and soul of the Peachtree” someone said on a loudspeaker as we finally crossed the starting line. I could have gone a little quicker if there weren’t so many slow people in my way!

That’s nice, you may say, but this is Claire’s blog. What does this have to do with Claire?

Well, in a way, she got me into the race. You see, the first two years we lived in Atlanta, we ignored the Peachtree Road Race entirely, even though it runs only a mile or two from our house. Last year, because we had Claire to entertain and did not have the viable option of sitting around the house on our keesters, we went to watch the race from the sidelines in Peachtree Hills. It was amazing to watch the sea of humanity pass down Peachtree Road, all types of people sweating, smiling, some in costumes, many dumping water on their own heads. I was impressed, and I said aloud that it would be fun to actually do the race next year, before we (maybe) move. Of course, I was not in running shape, and it seemed basically impossible to run six miles. Besides, just getting a number in the race was tough. It was just a nice (abstract) comment.

A few months later, Kit showed up with an application from the Emory hospital. I could get into the race as an Emory spouse. How could I pass this up?

After a very untimely knee injury and the ensuing three week “accelerated” training regimen (at nights after Claire was asleep), I finally made it to the Peachtree sort of in shape and had lots of fun in the race. If not for Claire getting us out of the house, we would have never seen the big race much less been in it. Thanks, Claire, for getting me off my butt.