The Crab Chronicles

Facebook Me Later OK?

There are certain things which I didn't realize until I started browsing Facebook every day. Important things. Things that make life infinitely more rich.

Not that I waste my life perusing Facebook. I don't. I do think it's important to wish folks Happy Birthday and see the latest photos of everyone's vacation. I feel very enriched by the cyber community of Friends and Relatives I Have Not Seen in 20 Years.

I wanted to point out some of the absurdities of the online community, though. And maybe I will rant a little..

Did you know "facebook" is now a verb?! Seriously, Dude.

Meme writers often do not know about grammar. Can't tell you how many times I've seen memes with "they're" instead of "their."

I don't care if you've slaved in the kitchen all day, there's a 99% chance if you photograph your food and put the photo on Facebook -- even if it's perfectly-prepared boeuf bourgignion -- I will think to myself Wow. That looks like vomit. I wouldn't eat that if I was starving. (I will think that not because your food is inedible but because you aren't a professional food photographer, and so you don't know the tricks of the trade, like how to make cat food look like boeuf bourgignion - instead your dinner looks like cat food...KK?!)

Speaking of cats... Some people are OBSESSED with cats. It's a phobia. Cat Obsession-itis, I guess. I find it bizarre and disturbing.

this baby, she's the sweetest girl in the world!

Now I find a weird phenomenon happening all the time when I watch the news. I will see viral videos I watched on Facebook appear on the NEWS. WTH?!?
It's called NEWS for a reason, people. Tell me what's going on in the world, for heaven's sake. I can Facebook during the commercials and see the video there.

In case anyone isn't aware of it, most Russians have cameras on the dashboards of their cars and since most Russians drive like maniacs, you can see all sorts of horrifying footage of car accidents because sickos like to take these videos and put them on YouTube and Facebook. Here's another interesting tidbit of knowledge I have from traveling a lot in Russia: they don't like to use seatbelts. Chances are, if there's a bad accident there are dead people. So all those videos are snuff films. Nice, huh?!

I believe I'll just watch the video of a squirrel attacking a snake, or the one of a dachshund licking a lion's mouth. I grew up watching Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom and every time I see animal films I hear the voice of the long-dead Marlon Perkins. Is that weird?!

I have never in my entire life seen so many people dancing as I have in the past few years of looking at Facebook. Young kids, old people, homeless folks, dogs, fat people - dancing and dancing and dancing.

Sometimes there are dire warnings posted, links to blogs and articles so horrifying they seek to inspire heart palpitations in the reader. I see one of these type articles every.single.day:

Dasani Bottled Water Has 4 Ingredients [one being a teratogen, which means something that causes birth defects in fetuses]

Words of Wisdom are everywhere:

Do No Harm But Take No Shit

"If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up." [Hunter S. Thompson, who was actually crazy and somehow still made money...]

Good friends are like quilts. They age with you and never lose their warmth.

No matter how good a person you are, there will always be someone criticizing you. Share if you agree.

"Don't get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life." - Dolly Parton [a multimillionaire with no children]

Bacon is the duct tape of the kitchen. It can fix everything. Mess up a recipe? Fear not! Just add bacon! [this from the National Pork Producers Council, naturally.]

"In life, we must always find out things straight from the horse's mouth, and not listen to the jackass spreading the gossip." Tweety Bird [Tweety is a wise soul!]

"I'm gonna hang a Batman outfit in my closet just to screw with myself when I get Alzheimers."

And just in case you need more evidence as to why FB is the biggest time suck of all time, here are some other random things I saw while perusing FB:

 a photo of someone's feet, wearing a toe ring of course

someone talking about the gory details of their recent surgery

10 Ways You're Making Your Life Harder Than It Has To Be

Before all my Facebook friends decide I am mean and they lambaste me publicly, let me say this: as weird as it sounds, I depend on Facebook to help me feel plugged in to a larger community. I get sympathy, information, cyber hugs, laughter, and advice - so many ways Facebook enriches my life. When I was without my computer recently for a week I felt totally bereft. Those not on Facebook are missing out.

But please stop posting stuff about your meals and your cats. Seriously.

 

 

Music for Chilling Out

Remember record albums? I used to love to get a new album. To rip off the plastic covering, and read the back. The inside cover sometimes had the song lyrics on it, and I loved to sit there and pore over the poetry of the lyrics while listening to the songs over and over.

I can still sing every word of every song on Billy Joel's The Stranger, and on A Song for You by the Temptations, and many others.

I would absorb songs, singing them over and over, until they became a part of me.

I miss those days. I miss having that kind of free time. LOL

Anyway, I love music. I love singing. I started singing in choirs in the 5th grade. When I was asked to join a volunteer choir in 2003 and travel to Russia to sing Handel's Messiah, it changed my life forever, because that was when I met my daughter in her orphanage.

My mom was a professional singer in the 1950's, singing for weddings, soloist for the Men's Glee Club at UGA, doing USO shows.

Her parents, Mamaw and Papaw Hasty, were both musical. Mamaw could play the piano and sing. Papaw could play a country fiddle when he was young, and he loved to play music and dance. [He got kicked out of the Baptist Church in Cherokee County for dancing, which always amused him.]

We have had musical talent in our family for several generations now, including my great grandmother Jennie MacMillan's family - Mom said they always sang as a family, in harmony, and it was always fun to visit the MacMillan home when she was a child.

About 8 months ago I had a lovely lunch with my cousin Linda Harris and her husband Bry. They formed the Parrot Island Band a few years ago, and they play Jimmy Buffett and other songs, and generally make a festive island vibe kinda music.

I remember when I first heard Linda was playing that type of music, on steel drums. I remember her practicing piano for hours when we were teens. I thought she was going to be a classical pianist. Didn't turn out that way. She is just a gifted musician, like her parents, who are in their 80's and still singing in their church choir.

Bry and Linda made the long drive from Acworth on New Year's Eve to play for my mom's 80th birthday, which was awesome.

They now have a professionally-produced CD, Parrot Island Ukelele. Bry is a gifted songwriter and it looks to be a wonderful CD to play if you're in the mood to chill out.

If you want to know more, check out Twenty Questions with Bry Harris.

[He is also a Presbyterian minister and really awesome at relating to people in a meaningful way, a gift that many ministers don't have, unfortunately.]

I am pondering getting a ukelele, but I will fall far, far short of Linda or Bry's talent, but I may get one, one of these days...

Awesome Mac & Cheese

My grandmother made the world's best macaroni and cheese, EVER. ANYWHERE. She taught my mom to cook it, and I've been trying to cook it as well, but not entirely successfully.

I was watching a show on Cooking Channel called Foodography - a show I really enjoy, BTW - and they profiled this place in New York City called Macbar, which serves only mac & cheese, in little yellow dishes shaped like elbow macaroni. Cute idea.

Here's where I get ticked, though.

The Macbar owner is Italian. Italians are, traditionally, excellent cooks. He stated that he cooked all his pasta a little less than al dente because the sauce or whatever else he added would finish cooking it.

"Al dente" means, in Italian, "to the tooth." Let's be clear, here: it means pasta that's undercooked, in my opinion.

My Mamaw didn't believe in "al dente." I'm sure she never heard that term, but if she had, she would've laughed and said "That's Italian for tough." [She studied Home Economics at Bessie Tift College and she knew everything in the world about cooking and food.]

She taught Mom how to cook mac & cheese and Mom taught me. In my house, we don't cook anything al dente.

NOTE: The boxed mac & cheese a lot of people eat? Not in my house. I tried it once when I was in college and was HORRIFIED. That's not food, it's a building material.

I'm not going to write out the recipe for Mamaw's mac& cheese in a formal way but if you love mac & cheese and you want to make it better than anyone else, take heed.

The mac & cheese rules:

1. Don't undercook the pasta. Look at the box. Take the cooking time and triple it. I am not kidding.

2. Make a basic white sauce, and add cheese, lots of it, stirring constantly. If you don't know how, look here. [I like to use Asiago and a mixture of other cheeses but plain old cheddar is just fine.]

3. Use real butter, and whole milk. [If you have a cholesterol problem just stop reading now.]

4. Depending on how much mac & cheese you are making, use 1-3 eggs to thicken the sauce, but you must do it carefully. If you aren't careful you'll have scrambled eggs. Make sure the sauce is cooled down to where it's just liquid. After beating your eggs in a separate bowl, you need to add a big spoonfull of the warm sauce to the eggs and beat them up, then slowly add the eggs to the sauce mixture, mixing carefully. Pour the sauce over the pasta in your 9x12 dish, and mix it with a spoon.

5. You only need to use salt and pepper to make it awesome but if you want next level awesome, add a good bit of onion powder, a small amount of cayenne pepper, and paprika. 

6. Sprinkle a lot of cheese on the top of the dish, and then heavily sprinkle that with Paprika.

7. Put the oven on 350 and set the times for 20 minutes, then LOOK at it. Is it bubbling away? Is the cheese on the top browned? Then it's ready.

above, some of Mamaw's handwritten recipes

 

Summer Days

There's not a lot to report, so here are some small updates and notes.

Summer days are upon us - for example today around lunchtime we got a massive thunderstorm, and an hour later it was sunshine. Of course, I'd already watered my gardens...

My tomatoes are petering out, unfortunately. We are eating them as fast as we can, and giving some away.

Got a text last night. My temp job ended. I wasn't surprised. Gives me time to do some things around the house and to have more time to job hunt, so no worries.

Found Mother a small but very sturdy table at Goodwill, for $16. She can use it to write on because she still occasionally writes to people ON PAPER. Yep, old school. She also reads a lot. Propping the book on the table [or her Kindle] helps her arthiritis.

Poor Lola. I accidentally stepped on her tail today. I felt so bad about that, I just immediately sat down on the sofa and loved on her for a few minutes. Next, I went to put some sheets in the washing machine and she streaked by me and jumped onto Mother's bed, like gotta stay away from Dee she STEPPED ON MY TAIL GRANNY!!! Too funny. Later in the day I tried to gently check her tail to make sure it was OK and she flipped over on her back for me to rub her belly, like no way are you getting near my tail but hey it's always time for a belly rub!

She is our comic relief. I love to watch her tail, because on a basset that's pretty much the only way to know how she feels. She appears to be sad, all the time.

Michael is running at night, when it's cool. I don't like him doing it, but he's running at a nearby school, on a track, and his friend who runs with him is a very tall, muscular kid.

I fixed country fried steak tonight, and I don't know what possessed me, but I put way too much pepper [black AND cayenne] in the gravy. I thought it was too much. Mother and Michael both said it was perfect..

Michael's birthday is this Saturday. I really don't have anything special planned, except to take him out to lunch at The Vortex, where you have to be 18 to eat in there, because they allow smoking. I ate there all the time years ago when I worked in midtown. They have terrific burgers and fried zucchini, and many other delicious items.

After lunch, the plan is for Michael to take himself off and get a tattoo. I am not pleased about it, but I am not going to pitch a fit at this point. We have an agreement that it will not be in an obvious place that might affect a job interview. He sees the wisdom in that. His plan is to get my name tattoo'd on his arm somewhere. I told him to be careful and make sure the calligraphy doesn't look like "Pee" instead of "Dee."

Last Saturday Michael came to breakfast with gaping holes in his ears, ear gauges. I cried for an hour. I have a phobia about piercings and it just unnerved me. I cannot really even discuss it, still, it's so horrifying. We went out to lunch on Sunday in Dunwoody and one of the waitresses, a cute girl, had huge holes in her ears. I couldn't look at her. Why on earth she thought that was a good idea, I cannot imagine.

Michael and I have a deal now. He keeps the holes covered at all times, by having earrings in [the gauge kind], and I don't cry.

I got him some Teva sandals for his birthday. He needed some sturdy sandals. I didn't pay full price - God forbid. I went to a discount place and looked on the clearance rack. His feet are small [8.5] so we can get some great deals because they make the smallest size the floor models, so to speak.

That's all I know for now.

Peace out.

 

A Letter from My Grandfather

We have various items in my house that belonged to my grandfather, Bob Hasty, but just the other day we found something that I treasure above all else, a letter. A letter brings back his voice, his way of speaking, and helps me remember him more vividly than anything else.

The letter was written in April 1958. My parents had been married just over a year, and were struggling financially. My dad was trying to sell insurance, and he wasn't great at it. My mom was teaching school.

Papaw was working at Lockheed, designing the wires in the nose of airplanes. Even though he had been a "jock" in his younger years, playing and/or managing baseball teams for more than 25 years, he was, in fact, quite brilliant. When he retired it took more than a year and he had to train 2-3 men to replace him.

this is the terrific poster my cousin's child, Michael Hasty over at Inkhaus designed

Here is the letter, typed out:

Dear Elva & Tony,

Had your card when came in this pm. Would like to come down but just don't believe I can sit that long. [He had problems with his hips and lower legs] Built me a sunhouse. I'm getting in the sun all I can. [he believed in the healing power of sunshine, which is a great source of Vitamin D]. Believe I'll be better if can get about as tan as a punkin. Can't understand this mess. Haven't been able to turn my head but just part way since Buck was a calf.

The man called me today, said he had the puppie. I went up and got him. He is about like Pete was when we got him, only his face is a little uglier. He got sick coming home and berped on the front seat. I would let him ride with me. We have about as much use for that thing as a hog has for a sidesaddle. [they later had to re-home the dog]

above, Papa and Elva with Pete, early 1940's

You know something? [this was his way of saying "remember/know how much I love you," words he just couldn't say verbally but the phrase "you know something" was always said with great tenderness and his meaning was obvious]

Darn if I don't believe the men are going on strike at Lockheed. Six thousand of them voted Sunday, 90% of them voted to strike. Lot of darn fools up there, or I'm crazy, one.

Just talked to Bobbie. He said he has to go to Dobbins Saturday & Sunday [he was in the air force reserves I think] and he also said that Myrtle might not need to ride that much [his wife, who was pregnant]. I would like to ride down. But to sit too long sho does give me a pane in the ---.

Haven't played any golf in a month. Unless I can free up some in the knees hips and shoulders there won't be much more golf. [He loved golf] Well, had 61 years without much trouble guess shouldn't kick [up a fuss? not sure why he used the word "kick" but it's plainly written].

Y'all come on up when you can.

Reckon Mother will be back before Sunday week. [My grandmother was off visiting one of her sisters]

Love,

Pa

P.S. How's insurance business Tony? Excellent, I hope. [FYI, my dad was a terrible insurance salesman and they were always broke, until he went to work for the bank]

There's an extra letter written on the back of a note from my aunt Marcel:

Dear Elva,

Just talked to Mother. Awfully sorry to hear of your bad luck. [ankle issue] but hope you will be feeling better soon. Had couple of notes from Marcel. Thought I'd send them on. She left this space. Thought to maybe use this blank side. Looks like I may be working all the time for a few days. Two hours overtime each day, 8 hrs. Saturday, probably 8 Sunday. Look out vacation. Can you make it. Just talked to Sonny [a nephew] he wants to come down and bring Mother back. His vacation starts this Friday. He said he may run down one day and back the next if it suited everybody.

Love to Tony and Elva [this is part of the quote from Sonny I think]

You know something -

Love,

Pa

Papaw and Mamaw and my mom, early 1950's

Drama Days

When I went to the University of Georgia thousands of years ago in a time before time began, I majored in Drama. What can I say? I was young and foolish.

Drama was a passion of mine. I'd been acting or working backstage since 2nd grade. I loved writing. I tried writing plays and screenplays. I acted. I worked backstage. I worked in the ticket office. I sang in musicals. I catered Drama parties. I worked at film festivals. I got a great grounding in everything to do with DRAMA.

But what never occurred to me was that I would spend a fair amount of my life, as an adult, actively trying to AVOID DRAMA.

Personal drama.

Why is it that I cannot seem to escape it? I suppose it's because I live with and interact with other human beings on a daily basis.

I lived alone for years, childless, and there was not much drama on the homefront. I worked for some folks who were Drama Queens and Drama Kings, yep, but home was fairly peaceful. It was also really boring at times and seldom fun. I'm being honest here.

I've been standing inside a swirling maelstrom of drama now for more than 24 hours and I wish it would end. I wish I could magically transport myself back in time to my boring little condo and my quiet little life. But I can't. I must navigate the choppy waters of Drama Bay in my pitiful dinghy.

None of this drama is huge. None of it will probably matter in another 10 years.

And let me just add this: I have a teenager.

I have friends with teenagers.

I have a dog who likes to overturn the garbage.

Let me also add this: a hug from my teenager is one of the most priceless trasures in my world. I love and cherish my friends, and their teens. Giving Lola a tummy rub is a great stress reducer.

And I have amazing faith in God.

So all I can do is try to deal, and that's what I am doing. Meeting a friend for a late lunch today helped.

I may need to get in the pool tomorrow, too. Pool therapy works.

Y'all stay cool. Try to avoid Drama - unless you've already bought tickets!

Peace be with you.

The Sweet Smell of Peaches and Dead Bodies

Michael had to work during the day today, which I forgot until I was driving to my job this morning. Lola can't go all day without being let outside. So I went home on my lunch hour and took her for a short walk. I don't mind walking her but it's too hot in the middle of the day.

After work, I walk over to the massive parking deck of First Baptist in Decatur, which is temporarily the parking lot for the building where I am working. There was a little food fair in the huge front lawn area today and I wandered around, sampling food and enjoying the place.

I got some fresh blackberries, and I tasted a fantastic goat cheese. In my next life, I will be a goat farmer.

I wanted to buy some goat cheese and honey and a few other items, but the words "artisanel" kept my money in my purse. That word is a synonym for expensive, y'all.

The last place I stopped before heading back to the car was the booth for Pearson Farm. Wow. Those peaches smelled like peaches should smell - sweet. I took one whiff of that fresh organically grown peach, ripened in the south Georgia sun, and I nearly cried. I was instantly transported back to my childhood. I vowed that one day soon, possibly tomorrow, I will make a peach cobbler.

I love the story of Pearson Farm, and it's well-written.

They also sell pecans. Let's get something straight: that word should be pronounced puh-kahn, not pee-can. The latter is a can you pee in. [I know Mama, I am unladylike and sometimes even vulgar [pronounced vul-gah, of course...] I can only blame it on the South Georgia redneck genes from the other side of the family...]

Then again, those genes are probably why I am so affected by the smell of fresh peaches, and I will find a pecan pie waiting for me when I arrive in heaven..

*****************************************************************************************************************

My blog writing was rudely interrupted by the appearance of a palmetto bug who decided to appear on the CPU of my computer and scare the beejeezus out of me. I didn't even have to grab my glasses to see his nasty roachy body. I started screaming hysterically.

Michael came running.

When I squealed KILL THE BUG KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT he just looked at me like Really?!?

I went in the bathroom and grabbed a can of hairspray, and sprayed it, and Mike grabbed my sandal and eventually we got it killed.

I asked Jesus to help me find and kill it. I hope that doesn't offend, but Jesus knows I can't sleep in a room with a palmetto bug running loose. He had to DIE.

And be DISMEMBERED.

Lola was stretched out on my bed, asleep, through the entire ordeal. So uninterested. So blase. We found out a minute later why. She had eaten an entire box of donuts Michael had stashed in his room. I've warned him not to do that.

Anyway, back to the evil roach.

My killiung method is to slow them down with hairspray and then whack them with a shoe. Sometimes heavy books, like the complete works of Shakespeare.Sometimes it's good to have a degree in English.

The body had a lovely floral scent.

Fried Sushi and Cheap Laughs

I am still here, and life is crazy busy. There aren't enough hours in the day. Here's a quick recap of what we're up to here:

Still working my temp job. Very intense.

Getting thousands of tomatoes from my garden.

Bruce bought some sushi the other day and it didn't get eaten. Michael started to eat it last night, decided it was a bit stale, and heated it up in the frying pan. That's how you know you're truly southern - when frying sushi seems like a good idea... LOL

[BTW, he said it wasn't too good but he covered it in wasabi and ate it anyway!]

I am making a list of all the things we need to do when Michael turns 18 - in TEN DAYS! Yikes. He needs to get his regular driver's license, for instance, and register for the selective service. Wow. 

One of the funniest things I've seen on Facebook lately is a thread started by one of my cousins who needed some advice on how to cure constipation. Among the suggestions:

hot coffee

watermelon

cherries

a prune juice/apple juice mixture

Pepperoni pizza with jalapenos

Epsom salts

Fiber One brownies

a cup of coffee followed by warm prune juice

[I think he tried them all.... I just hope everything came out all right!!]

Weekend Wrapup

It has been a really lovely birthday weekend. I am sorry to see if coming to a close. Life goes on.

Bruce left this morning, with a sack of homegrown tomatoes. He is home in Columbia now. I miss him, even though he folds the dishtowel in the kitchen the wrong way..

Bruce gets the biggest kick out of Lola. She will eat anything, almost. He fed her a bite of Kimchee [he always buys it at the Farmer's Market here] and she ate it. Then he tried feeding her a raw green bean, and she wouldn't eat it - and looked at him like really?!?

Michael went to Walmart with me this morning and we got Mother's prescription and bought groceries. He was very chatty. I guess I am weird, but I like hanging out with my 17 year old son more than just about anyone in the world. We have some great conversations.

A man walked by me in Walmart whose body odor was so bad I could smell him several feet away. I think he was middle eastern. He had a wife and little girl with him. They didn't look particularly hard up. I so wanted to tell him he needs to buy deoderant. WHEN IN ROME. Good grief. I know it's not politically correct to say that, but my person belief is that nobody should have BO unless they are homeless. I especially don't want that stench around me when we are in a store selling FOOD.

ACK.

Someone asked me today if I had heard from my daughter on my birthday. Nope. Didn't expect to hear from her. I don't know where she is living. I hope one day we will not be estranged, but for now it's a situation I cannot resolve.

I had to work this afternoon, two will signings. It feels weird having two jobs, but I need the money. Also, working with my friend Kristy doesn't feel like work. It's fun.

Made homemade potato salad for dinner. OK, it was more like mashed potatoes with mayonnaise, but it was YUMMY. Also had Honeybaked Ham and fresh cantaloupe we bought in the mountains the other day. Sweetest cantaloupes come from the country, not the store.

Was pleasant this weekend, with highs in the upper 80's. Tuesday it's back up to 93. Yikes. I hate July in Atlanta....

Michael is growing...

To the Mountains

As I have grown older I have realized that there are really very few material things that I want, but there are certainly experiences I would still like to have.

Mother needs my help in the morning and evening, and Lola needs to be walked a little bit every couple of hours, so getting away is tough. Michael and I tag team. On days when I am working all day he sees to Mother and Lola.

Yesterday was a great day, one of the best I've had in recent memory - I got to do something different besides working at home or working at work.

Michael and me

There is a college in north Georgia called University of North Georgia, in a little town in the mountains, Dahlonega. I have wanted to ride up there for a while, both to just see the college and also to walk around Dahlonega and eat at The Smith House.

Mike has a friend attending the college and my friend Bronwyn's son just graduated from there. It's a nice school.

Since my brother is here for the weekend, Michael and I got up early and drove up to Dahlonega - takes about an hour. We drove around the campus a bit, then walked around Dahlonega, then ate lunch at the Smith House.

Mike and I had fun going into the little shops on the square and looking at all the cute merchandise - he tried on the hat pictured above. I got some Amish peach butter for Mother, who likes jams on toast, and some hot sauce for my brother. (I don't like paying tourist prices for anything.)

There is a little store that sells jerky, and it was my favorite store. I don't like jerky, or eat it. This store had all kids of jerky - even vegetarian - which was made from portobello mushrooms... The owner and I chatted and she gave Michael a tiny sample of jerky and asked him to guess what it was. He chewed thoughtfully for a minute and said he couldn't guess.

It was kangaroo.

I told him he now is one up on Uncle Bruce - who likes to eat weird meat but has never eaten kangaroo.

I find kangaroos scary - giant jumping rats, is how I see them.

Michael said that unlike most jerky, it wasn't salty or tough. He liked it. If the prices hadn't been so high we might have gotten some. The good thing was he ate kangaroo and I got distracted from going to the candy kitchen right next door.

I had been looking forward to eating at The Smith House, but I was really disappointed. My grandparents used to like to drive up there and eat, years ago. The food was bland and not well seasoned at all, except for the fried chicken, plus it was stupidly expensive. Worse, there were no go boxes. I could've taken home some of the food and seasoned it better and gotten another entire meal but the staff wouldn't give out to go boxes.

Michael was irate. "We paid for the food!" I told him that making a ruckus was almost never a good idea, in a public place. (He is young and full of argumentative boy-ness...)

above, Mike was asked by this lady to take a photo of her and her dogs, three beautiful golden retrievers. that's my purse he was holding, as it was a long walk back to the car...

I wanted to go to Amicalola Falls, where we went when I was a kid - last visit was Thanksgiving 1970, with my aunts and uncles and cousins, a very fun weekend. So Mike and I got directions and headed over to Amicalola Falls State Park. When I was a kid, it was simple. You parked and you could walk over and see the falls - where they came down into a pool. We never saw the falls yesterday. I couldn't figure out where to go to see them - but I did wind up on a very steep road going up the mountain, which freaked me out. So after hiking a little bit and admiring a mountain stream and a trout pond, we headed home. The place was overrun with people by early afternoon, and I hate crowds.

We stopped at a roadside stand and got some cantaloupe and silver queen corn. Yum. The peaches were to small and hard, unfortunately. The corn had already been shucked! Yay! I hate that chore.

The rest of the day was quiet and peaceful. It was too hot to do much.

Bruce grilled steaks for dinner and they were wonderful. I got the beef at Tucker Meat Market, which is a great place, and has organic and locally sourced meat of all kinds. The texture was so much better than what you buy in the grocery store. Bruce is a master steak cooker. He lets the meat come to room temp before grilling it, and always marinates it in lime juice and other ingredients. We also had fresh spinach, and bacon wrapped tater tots, my favorite. Publix cheesecake was my birthday cake, as I had requested.

After dinner, we watche a movie.

All in all, a wonderful birthday. Next up, Michael's birthday on the 19th - and he will be 18 years old! Wow...

Lola is slowly warming up to Bruce....