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Weekends in the big cities

Posted in Charleston, Favorite People, Hurricanes, Travel, Weather on November 2, 2012| 1 Comment »

Charleston is the biggest city I’ve ever lived in, besides the summer I spent in Rome, Italy (I also spent a summer in Rome, Georgia, but that is entirely beside the point). When I go home to Augusta, I am impressed by the breadth of the sidewalks and the dampness of the dirt, and the abundance of organic material. It makes me realize that there are not a ton of trees in charleston, shade and yards are scarce, and the sidewalks are narrow. It makes me feel like Charleston is a city, a real city!

Right now, I’m drinking a glass of red wine, a Tempranillo, at the Sofitel in downtown DC, waiting for Bizzy to get off work. I’m reading a copy of High Fidelity that I swiped from Bizzy’s house (I accidentally left my nook at home, buried somewhere in my covers). I went to lunch with Cybil, and all in all, this visit has capped off a month of excellent friend contact and quality time.

My plan was to go to New York tomorrow via bus, and watch Libby run in the New York marathon. Hurricane Sandy (superstorm sandy? Dr. Sandy? Professor Sandy? Judge Sandy? Dean Sandy?) has interrupted these plans.

I called US airways to request a rebooking under the travel advisory on Wednesday, as Laguardia was indefinitely closed, and traveling to New York seemed ill advised. I wanted to fly home Sunday from DCA. They said they would be happy to change my return flight for $175. This seemed ridiculous to me.

On Heather’s advice, I took to twitter, and very nicely requested help from the US airlines twitter people. They were unable to rebook me completely, but my original Monday flight from LGA to CHS had a layover in DC, and they were able to delete the first leg of my return trip, preserving my DCA>CHS flight. So, yay twitter! And yay for an extra long weekend in DC.

DC is a stark reminder that Charleston is less of a real city, and move of the movie set of a city. Charleston downtown is so compact, and quiet, and quaint. As a side note, apparently only Europeans stay at the Sofitel. I’m picking up fashion trends from the European teenagers. Braids and big neck scarves, leather jackets and fur cuffs.

Last night, we went to the drag queen race in DuPont circle. It was amazing. This bar has the perfect pitched conversational murmur, in a dim lit red and stained wood setting. Outside, the overcast sky and the wind gusts down the streets shake the trees, and the huddled figures with scarfs and mittens, boots and long jackets, bring on an element of late fall, November, and the cusp of winter that is not yet available in my southern coastal movie set.

Libby will still be running on Sunday – I wish I could be there, and I’m so proud of her training and dedication and fundraising.

I hope you all have a spectacular weekend full of ethnic food, old friends, cozy dark bars, an international community, drag queens, roof tops, bodegas, craft beer, red blends, sweaters, leather jackets, deep conversations about life and love, tall boots, hot coffee, yoga, falling leaves, and good music (with soul! With feeling! With funk! Chasing that old time feeling). I think that is enough for one weekend.

XOXO

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Wild South Carolina Skies

Posted in Charleston, dogs, Favorite People, outside, Television on October 20, 2012| 1 Comment »

Before I moved to Charleston, I assumed the tourist season was the summertime.  We all know what happens when you assume.  Tourist season last all year, but the peak is in April and October.  Hotels are booked six months in advance in blocks for weddings, and whereas in the summer time people are strewn about the various beaches, in April and October, everyone is on the peninsula.  The peninsula is not a large place. Peninsula is a hard word to spell.   apparently Conde Nast readers voted Charleston the #1 city in America, and the #1 city in the world for 2012.  Y’all should come visit.

 

 

I had my first tennis match of the season thursday night.  I got killed.  But I played well, and my opponent was just much better than me.  At least the sky was pretty.

 

 

In other news, Briscoe finds working from home to be extremely taxing, but she is really striving to be helpful.  I think.

 

 

 

 

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The day to be jealous of people who don’t live in North America

Posted in Books, Charleston, dogs, Favorite People, Food and Drink, summertime on June 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

For the most part, I believe America to be the greatest place in the world. We definitely have our own problems, and there definitely parts of America that hold no interest for me as place of permanent dwelling, but as a whole, America is pretty great. More specifically, the South East is pretty awesome. I love the weather, the food, the people, the flowers, and the way we talk around here. But today, I wish I lived somewhere else. I wish I lived in India today. Or, tonight, although I guess it is already night in India by now. I would really like to see the lunar eclipse tonight. I should have planned my vacations better. Apparently there is a chance I’ll get to see full lunar eclipse in America in April 2014, fingers crossed.

Have I told you how Briscoe hates skateboarders? It might be one of the funnier things I’ve seen in a while. I think it is the noise that scares her. The dog needs a haircut like whoa. She’s going to get her hair did tomorrow, and I expect to have a little lamb by tomorrow night instead of the bear that is currently sleeping in my kitchen.  For some reason she has developed this ridiculous habit of spilling her food all over the floor.  It is like she picks up her bowl with her teeth and dumps it out, although I’m not sure that is actually possible.  But once the food it on the ground, she won’t eat it.  For a while, when I would come home to her spilled food, I would pick all the pieces up and put them back in the bowl.  Then I realized, wait, she’s a dog, if she wants to spill her food on the floor, she should eat the food off the flood.  So, I stopped cleaning it up, other than to turn the bowl back upright.  Sure enough, after leaving the food on the ground until late into the night, the dog finally decided she would eat it off the floor.  So, she’s started cleaning up the mess herself, but she’s still spilling the food. 

Something about summertime makes me want to lose myself in a story, preferably a long drawn out saga. Happily, HBO has provided that for me with The Game of Thrones, and even more happily, I am able to read the novels instead of waiting to see what happens in HBO time (which is painfully slow in my opinion). I enjoy the story, the show (and the novels for that matter) are quite gruesome and violent. I find reading about violent and gruesome things is easier than watching them play out on my unnecessarily large television. But I’m totally engrossed in the novels, each chapter is told from a different character’s point of view, and the author has mastered the ability to speak in each character’s voice in a way that is seemless but also adds a depth to the writing and storyline that is not immediately apparent. I would not recommend the books or the television series to everyone, there is a base element to it that not all will find endearing, crass talk of sexual encounters and horrible things happen to almost all of the characters. But even the villainous characters have redeeming qualities (well, some of them do) and the heros have flaws, and there is nothing I love more than a good story with round characters.

I spent the last two weeks of May in Washington, D.C., training for work. Let me tell you, two weeks is a LONG TIME to be in a hotel. I learned a lot, got to spend time with some old friends (sadly, the Bizzy was out of town the entire time I was there), and enjoyed some fabulous food and beautiful sights, but I was very happy to come home to my apartment and my dog. I did meet some super cool new friends though. My mom and my aunt Jan came to visit me in Charleston this past weekend, and boy did we have a good time. I wish I could tell you we did lots of productive things, but really more than anything, we simply enjoyed Charleston and each other. We wandered, we enjoyed drinks on the rooftop under the shade with a breeze, we ate phenomenal food, (as a side note, a merinague will always add to a dessert), we peered through hedges, gates and walls into the fabulous gardens and side yards of people we didn’t know but wish we did, we sweated, we watched little children play in fountains, and Kate and Jan rearranged the furniture in my apartment. We did not shop at all, other than a short trip to the grocery, and we spent most of our time outside. It was great.

Oh! So I want y’all to check out my cousin Heather’s blog – she has MS, and has an amazingly honest and refreshing perspective, including my favorite – Wheelchair Etiquette.

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Monday After Lament of the Maid of Honor

Posted in Augusta, Favorite People, Georgia, Weddings on May 2, 2011| 2 Comments »

I know I’ve talked about the Monday after Masters being miserable, but today was equally as depressing.  Y’all, Libby’s wedding was last weekend, and I had so much fun, but now I’m depressed.  I’m sure that part of it is that the wedding is something Libby and I have been discussing for, oh, the last fifteen to twenty years, and there is something deflating to have it actually be over, but even besides that, it was insanely fun.  I like to believe that all my bridesmaid experience was utilized to the fullest extent, but regardless, I had the maximum amount of fun.  I’m looking at photos of the weekend and wishing I could have been at three places at one time the entire weekend because there is video evidence that I missed almost as much fun as I experienced!  Haha.   I’m also sad because an impressive amount of my favorite people in the world were all in the same place and now I freshly miss them.  Sigh.  If only we could take all our favorite people and make them all live in the same place.

Then I wouldn’t have anyone to visit in Colorado or New York or a few other choice locales, but maybe we could all travel to those places together on a regular basis?  This dream is becoming increasing unrealistic.  Maybe I’ll just stick to praying for cheap airfare, connecting flights that don’t get cancelled in the black holes that are also known as the ATL and CLT, and for staying up until 5 am on a Saturday night to not ruin my entire week.  A girl can dream, right?

On top of everything, my best friend will be virtually  unreachable for the next two weeks.  JUST when we had so much to talk about, she runs off to the other side of the world.  Even Briscoe is exhausted.  Yesterday, my parents house was littered with hungover people and animals.  Bella got in the trash Saturday night after the festivities and let’s just say on Sunday, the term, “sick as a dog,” sprang to mind.  But I’m pretty sure she would do it all over again.

I’d like to tell you more, but I’m so tired my hair hurts, and they say a picture is worth a thousand words, right?

It's a marvelous night for a moondance...

Mr. and Mrs. McAleer

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Stories and side streets.

Posted in Books, Favorite People, Travel on February 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Last May, I was in Chicago for a conference the week before Memorial Day.  That friday, I flew from Chicago to Charleston for Jennifer’s bachelorette party.  I opted for the earlier flight with the connection, which was not intelligent.  That particular Friday, summer thunderstorms raged across the Southeast, and I ended up sitting in a bar in the Charlotte airport, praying my flight would take off.  While waiting, I made friends with some guys who were also heading to Charleston, and it turned out they were great friends with my friend’s little brother, and we had all sorts of mutual connections.  Eventually, after boarding the flight, sitting on the runway, and having the flight canceled, my three new friends and I rented a car and drove to Charleston.  I had already done background checks on my new friends via text, so they weren’t absolute strangers, and they weren’t all traveling together either, we had all four run into each other waiting on the flight. 

As I was pulling out of the rental car lot at 12:30 am in the torrential downpour, my mom called.  “Hey, where are you?”  “Flight canceled, had to rent a car, driving to Charleston.”  “By yourself?!”   Pause.  “No. With Friends!”  Pause.  “Friends.  Like friends you just met at the airport, or friends you’ve known for a long time.”  Seriously, why would she assume I’d just met them, even if I did?  “Friends I just met but we know all the same people and I checked them out and I’m going to be okay let me call you later!”  Eventually I gave her their names and our connections and it was fine.  In the end, we split the $200 cost of the rental car four ways, and made it to Charleston around 3 am.  One of my new friends did not have a checkbook or cash, and he promised to mail me a check as soon as he got back to New York.  He worked in publishing, and also promised to send me books.  The promise of books alone was extremely exciting, and he was nice enough to ask me all about what sort of books I enjoyed and who my favorite authors were. 

As Monday was a holiday, the first business day after our Friday night trek was the following Tuesday.  On Wednesday afternoon, I returned home from work to find a large box on my doorstep.  True to his word, my New York friend had overnighted me a check for $50, and an impressive array of books.  Y’all, seriously, this was probably one of the most exciting presents I have received in recent memory.  I ripped into the box, and spent a long time sorting through my newly acquired treasures, which included coffee table books, cook books, hardback short stories, paper backs, including books that were already in print and not yet published.  I was struck by the obvious thoughtfulness that went into the book selection.  I told him I enjoyed classics, loved Fitzgerald, and above all, enjoyed a good story, specifically novels and short stories.  I’ve been meaning to tell you all about the books he sent me, and which ones I would recommend, but it has taken me months to read them all.  I have included the covers that I found particularly engaging, but you can’t always judge a book by its cover, I just didn’t want y’all to miss the pretty cover artwork.   

My favorite of all the covers and the books in general was the short story collection – Stories.  This collection was put together by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantoni, and includes stories by all sorts of amazing writers, some you will recognize, some you might not.  In the introduction, Neil relates a discussion concerning short story anthologies in which he and Al came to the conclusion that the only thing they really cared about, when it came down to it, were the stories.  That good writing was important, but the stories were where the real magic happened.  The reason he reads comes down to four words.  “…and then what happened?”  This entire short story collection was built on those four words.  The dedication says it all – For all the storytellers and tale spinners who entertained the public and kept themselves alive, for Alexandre Dumas and Charles Dickens, for Mark Twain and Baroness Orczy and the rest, and most of all, for Scheherazade, who was the storyteller and the story told.  I could talk about this book forever, and I was going to tell you which stories were my favorites, but I realized I’d basically need to copy the table of contents for that to happen. 

I’m realizing it could take me days to get through all my thoughts about these books, so I’m going to have to come back to this discussion.  In other news, it has been raining pretty consistently for about the past week, I’m still eating lots of oysters, Briscoe looks like a muppet dog because she hasn’t had a hair cut in so long (someone called her Benji the other day), and we had a fire drill at work this morning.

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Best. Birthday. Fax. Ever.

Posted in Athens, Favorite People, Food and Drink, Law School on October 16, 2009| 1 Comment »

Even if it was six days late.  And it might be the only Birthday Fax I’ve ever received.  David found it in the machine and was like – what the F is this?  Sarah told him it didn’t have his name on it so it obviously wasn’t for him.  It had a cover sheet and everything, but I left that off to protect the innocent. 

Oh, Mean Bean.  I miss you. 

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Cool July Nights

Posted in Augusta, Baseball, Briscoe, dogs, Favorite People, My Bed., Weather on July 22, 2009| Leave a Comment »

This has been a very interesting week.  In some ways, I have finally been able to settle back down into a schedule and get my life together.  There is still a lot of stuff that needs to be done at my house, but my second roommate Erin is moving in this weekend, and this is pushing me to get a lot of things sorted out now.  There is always something else that needs fixing.  Luckily, I have some really awesome people in my life.   

Last week I mentioned to Justin that I needed to borrow his lawnmower to cut my grass.  Brice let me borrow his lawnmower last time, but the Wright family was out of town and my lawn was really starting to thrive.  When I came home from work on Thursday, sweet Justin was at my house and had just finished mowing the lawn and edging and was about to roundup the walkway.  It was super, super nice of him. 

The rest of this story is pretty funny, so try to stay with me.  Libby was in town, so we went to the Thirsty Thursday baseball game and ended up coming back and sitting on the front porch for a little while before going to sleep.  Libby slept in the guest room downstairs, and was driving her dad’s car.  Libby would have normally stayed at her parents house, but she wanted to wake up and do P90X with Sara and Kirby on Friday morning at the crack of dawn (because they are XTREME) and Bryan’s flight got into the airport at like 8. 

Natalie was out on a narcotics raid in Harrisburg (I know that sounds hilarious, but she’s an ADA, and anyway, apparently it’s really fun to go on narcotic raids), so she didn’t get home until after we went to sleep.  I guess I had neglected to tell her that Libby might spend the night.  So I wake up in the morning and I have a text from natalie from 1 am that says, THERE IS SOMEONE IN OUR HOUSE.  And then by the time Natalie woke up on friday, Libby was already gone.  I felt really bad that I might have scared Natalie, but she swears she wasn’t freaked out, and once she saw libby’s toothbrush in the bathroom she figured it was okay. 

Ultimately the weirdest thing that has happened this week is that it has been cool outside.  Last night we went to dinner after tennis, and we left dinner, we were all cold.  Granted, we all had on our ridiculous looking tennis outfits, but still.  In Augusta, in July, you should be able to be in a bathing suit at any hour of the night and day and not be cold.  A wet bathing suit at that.  Normally it’s 90 degrees at midnight.  Recently, it hasn’t reached 90 degrees at 3 pm. 

Speaking of tennis, I’ve decided one of my favorite things about tennis is the fact that you get to wear ridiculous outfits that would be inappropriate anywhere else but are totally appropriate on the tennis court.  It is amazing how much I enjoy wearing tennis skirts.  My tennis shoes are a little clunky, but what can you do. 

The biggest problem of my life right now is that I can’t get up in the morning.  I would happily go to sleep at 9:30 at night if it meant I could wake up refreshed at 6:30.  But I can’t go to sleep at 9:30.  My body won’t let me.  And forget getting up at 6:30, I can barely drag myself out of bed at 7:30.  I  don’t lack will power in any other part of my life, I have a good bit of self control, and I work hard at life.  But I CAN NOT GET OUT OF BED.  It is a real problem.  My body wants to sleep from 2 am to 10 am, and not from 11 to 7.  Sigh.  Oh well.  I think I’ve been working out too late at night. 

Briscoe got her hair all shaved off last week, and she looks like a little lamb.  She also looks kind of fat.  It’s impossible to tell when she has long hair, but when she gets her hair all cut off, she seems to become a little self conscious of her figure.  Natalie made up a new song for Briscoe’s hair cut.  It goes something like this –

Bobby had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb, Bobby had a little lamb who’s puffy, fluffy and white!

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Find out who your friends are

Posted in Difficulties, Favorite People, summertime on July 9, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Sorry I’ve been sort of non posting.  I wish I could say that my mind is blank, but that’s just not true.  I’ve just been too lazy to commit anything to print. 

But I want to tell y’all that Peter and JBlanchard are the best friends ever.  Saturday, on the 4th of July, Emily and I were grabbing lunch at the sub place that I can’t remember the name of right this second on Mount Pleasant, and when we got back in the car to drive to the beach, Emily’s car wouldn’t start. 

Everyone we knew was already on the beach.  Some of the people we called were on islands you can only get to by boat, which was not helpful.  This was not awesome.  Parking lots are hot.  Everyone is doing something on the Fourth of July.  Something other than driving around Mount Pleasant with jumper cables. 

Jennifer had called when we were in the sub place and I called her back.  She and Peter were on their way out to Folly, sitting in traffic that was horrendous.  When I told her what happened, she and peter went back to Peter’s house and got jumper cables, and drove all the way to the end of Mount Pleasant to save us.  It was a true act of love and friendship.  On the Fourth of July.  Don’t make me start singing Lee Greenwood, cause I will. 

I think Tracy Lawrence, Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw would approve.

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The Clouds Dissolve and the Sky Turns Blue….

Posted in Favorite People, summertime on May 26, 2009| 2 Comments »

This past weekend was tons of fun.  I didn’t actually come home until this morning, which is always a much better idea in theory than in practice.  I’m exhausted.  I woke up every two hours last night because I was afraid of oversleeping.  Or it might have been the fact that the sweet tea vodka was wearing off, I’m not sure. 

The weather threatened to rain on our parade, and although we could see the rain off in the distance at many times over the weekend, we only got rained on once.  And we were prepared for it. 

I got to see so many awesome people, and it was wonderful to have a weekend where the only requirement was that all activities must take place outside, weather permitting (except when we had to do a little shopping for outdoor gear like bathing suits!). 

What with the sun bossing around all those rain clouds and making them act right, and the fact that we saved the bocce balls from certain death in the tidal pools (cold beer can make you irresponsible), and all the dolphins that wanted to hang out at our boat, it was close to being a perfect Memorial Day Weekend.  The beer was cold, the music was loud, and Jennifer cooks a mean hot dog.  And only the bottom half of my back is sunburned.  The air temperature was in the upper 70s, the water temperature was in the lower 70s (both of which are a little colder than I prefer, especially for this late in the year, but it was tolerable). 

My only regret is that I didn’t get to sing any patriotic songs.  Sad.  I guess I’ll just have to practice up for the 4th of July. 

OHHH!  And BETSY and BRAD had a BABY!  So happy!  James Brooks Bagwell.  They are going to call him Brooks.  Bety, Brad and Brooks Bagwell.  Poor little Amos.  He missed out on the alliteration.  Maybe Briscoe and Amos can get married and Briscoe will be Briscoe Bagwell.  Ha.  I don’t know why I think that is so funny.  Oh, and for the record, Betsy’s due date is actually tomorrow – but we all made guesses on when the baby would be born, and I guessed the right day.  I was off by like three hours, but still.  I was REAL CLOSE.  Betsy and I just have such a magical connection – the date came to me in a dream.  I can’t wait to meet him!

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Old friends, a twilight wedding, crawfish, green beer, and Friday the 13th.

Posted in Favorite People, Travel, Weddings on March 12, 2009| 2 Comments »

I’m leaving in a few minutes to drive to the ATL so I can fly to New Orleans in the morning.  Betsy and Andrew are getting married on Saturday, and the weekend is going to be slam packed with excitement.  My flight lands around noon tomorrow, Todd is suppose to take the day off from the Dome(and maybe pick me up from the airport, if I’m lucky), and everyone arriving for the wedding should be there by the time the crawfish boil starts tomorrow night.  Todd has also promised a St. Patrick’s day parade at some point, and definitely some green beer. 

I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone, so many special friends from the law school years, and I’m so excited for Betsy and Andrew.  I tell Betsy all the time that I want to be just like her when I grow up.  She’s such an amazing friend and I’m always impressed with how she and Andrew are able to have common goals and dreams and actively pursues these goals and dreams together in a successful and exciting way.  I love them.  And I love Kaya too. 

Pray that it doesn’t rain, and I hope that your Friday the 13th is as fun as mine promises to be!

Kisses!

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