Vacation with a Purpose

People have different agendas for vacations. I remember growing up, my dad and I went on vacation with a family friend and his grandson, David. We went to the Disney establishment in Florida. I think we should have known better. Nothing good can come from Disney.

Anyway, this friend was a typical Type-A personality. Every waking minute was planned. And most minutes were waking minutes. He liked to be on the go constantly. Lord have mercy, it was tedious. The man did not have an "Unwind" button.

There's the opposite of course, doing absolutely nothing. I'm not in favor of that either. I think a vacation should have a purpose. But when I work 49 weeks out of the year serving someone else's purpose, I think on vacation, I should serve my own. I even think Mr. Harry deserved the vacation he wanted. I just didn't want to share it. Fortunately, that was the last time we did.

I'm enjoying mine. As you and your family plan cookouts, reunions or family vacations to the Statue of Liberty, the Biggest Ball of yarn in Idaho or the ancient steps of Malta, seek a vacation that serves you. My wish for you is rest and restoration.

--Laura

Confession: Part I

Since my audience here is probably less than a hundred (that’s funny, it’s probably less than six), I feel comfortable with this confession: I once authored a mystery-romance novel.

I thought of this recently when I was thumbing through the pages of Southern Homespun a book by a family friend. Occasionally I look it up on Amazon to see if anyone is selling copies. Thinking about her book made me think of my own.

Mine was never published of course, but as a junior in High School, I believed I could emulate the style of mystery-romance novels written by Phyllis A. Whitney, someone I’d been reading for a few years because mom liked her.

(At 37, it doesn’t escape me that had my passion been boys, the hard sciences or computing, my life might be much different today. History not so much – because who gets a job with a history degree? I love history now, but I think my 16 year old self did me a favor on that front at least. I’m a bit chapped with her about the other ones though; I bet I would have been good at computers. She could have put a little more shoulder into it. She was convinced she was going to be a foreign correspondent).

She, well I, was also convinced I could write a mystery-romance novel following Whitney’s time tested formula. She was at thirty books by the time I began copying her. And she lived to 104, so that alone is impressive. Anyway, her formula is basically this:

1. Girl discovers mystery is afoot.
2. Mystery tries to kill/maim/injure girl.
3. Girl is perky and sets about to solve mystery.
4. Boy shows up and Girl is irritated yet strangely attracted to Boy. Note: they need to be forced together by chance. This Girl is independent, like Nancy Drew with the titian blonde hair.
5. Boy and Girl fall in love. Kissing ensues.
6. Dramatic tension: Something suggests the Boy isn’t who he says he is and may want to kill Girl!
7. Climactic Moment: Girl tested by extreme danger, mystery killer is revealed and Boy is cleared.
8. Tie up all loose ends of mystery. Kiss Boy. Plan future. The End.

So during one class each day (Yearbook), I wrote my version of this story in a mead spiral notebook. I had won it in a contest that year, along with a box of mead paper products. I still do most of my writing in longhand and struggle to do any real thinking while I’m typing. I’m not sure why.

When I had finished the novel, I typed up the story, using my parent’s typewriter. It was an iron beast with its own black hard plastic carrying case. I stored the entire manuscript in a shirt box.

At some point not long after that I got my first computer. It was a Leading Edge, Model D. and I wanted to be different, so I got the amber CRT monochrome monitor. It had two floppy drives. I don’t remember it running windows, and it is the sole reason I know any DOS commands. I was going to use it in college. I was on the crest of the personal computer age, so of course the novel was meant to go on my new computer and saved on a disk.

Plan's First Fatal Flaw: I destroyed the typewritten pages as I input the story.
Plan's Second Fatal Flaw: I didn’t make copies of the disk.

To cut to the chase, the disk corrupted one day and I lost all but about 50 pages of the end of the book.

--Laura

An Atlanta Night Out

This is the Terminus 100 building on the corner of Peachtree and Piedmont, named I assume because Atlanta was once called Terminus. I took the shot heading to an office party at Fogo de Chao, a Brazilian steakhouse. As a reward for being the second best account in the region, we got money for a party, so this place with its selection of 15 different meats was chosen for our celebration.

I like driving into Atlanta the back way. By this I mean I skip the interstate. I take Moore's Mill Road (named for Moore's Mill, which was established on Peachtree Creek by Thomas Moore in 1828), which runs through, in my opinion, some of the nicest property in Atlanta. Atlanta is a city of decadent greenery and pathetic streets, and my route through Moore's Mill, West Wesley and Peachtree Road is abundant in both. I do not pass by the aging luxury on West Wesley without the phrase "Gracious Living" coming to mind. There are areas in Atlanta just as lovely. But I'm familiar with this drive, which gets me into the city and beats I-20 any day of the week.

I'm not sure I've ever eaten where the final tab came out to around $100/head. But that was with drinks included. In addition to the meal, I had some sort of fruit cream for dessert, a brazilian lime drink, a dirty martini, a cappucino and two shots of patron. We were trying to spend what had been given to us, what can I say?

At this restaurant, there's no menu. There's an extensive salad bar with everything from smoked salmon and proscuitto to asparagus spears and heart of palms. You could make a meal with that alone, but you dare not. Because the table was also laid with small metal dishes of fried polenta, mashed potatoes and fried plantains. Then the servers, called gauchos, fly around the room at a dizzying and overwhelming pace, holding sharp knives and metal skewers of meat poised over shiny metal saucers. They cut portions at your table, or slide portions off the skewers to your plate. Of all the selections, I think the baby lamb chops were the best. Bright pink, they were cooked just enough that no blood was left on your plate when you cut them, but so sweet and tender that you could almost skip chewing. One of the husbands called them "stunning." I tapped Dan, my unofficial date, several times just to see if he was conscious. This would be a bad date restaurant, because men seem to be rendered incapable of conversation by the endless stream of meat.

As we left, I headed behind the restaurant, because I'd done self-park instead of valet. It was late and much of the wait staff was outside, talking in Spanish and smoking. Suddenly the fancy evening was over and I was transported, away from the sophistication of the restaurant, to a scene of working people whose cars cranked hesitantly and sounded poorly tuned. As I put on my seatbelt, I stared at a group of waiters standing in the streetlamp's light. I wondered if they resented how large parties like us lingered to the very end, or if, as my director implied, the tip we left more than made up for the tired feet and sore backs. And as I drove home through the tall buildings and outdoor patio restaurants which Atlantans love, I noticed many in black pants and white shirts, the standard waiter's ensemble, sitting exhausted on curbs, waiting for buses on what must be their busiest night of the week. I hope my director was serious and had tipped enough.

As I returned to West Wesley, I wondered what it would be like to live without want or a sense of dread over financial obligations. Not only this, but to perhaps to be "old money," where neither parents nor grandparents had known a paycheck to paycheck existence.

Another road you cross on West Wesley is Howell Mill. They say it's named after Clark Howell, who was a prominent turn-of-the-century name both in the Atlanta Democratic party and the newspaper industry, which at one time was the same thing. His daddy ran with men like Joel Chandler Harris, an industrious newspaper man before he was a folklorist. They say Clark Howell's run for governor near the turn of the century sparked the Atlanta Race Riots (not as much because of him, but because of his opponent, who won). During his career, he won a Pulitzer, hired other journalists who did the same, steered the Atlanta Journal Constitution for over fifty years and served on special commissions under two presidents, almost a third. He even founded a radio station at Georgia Tech, for giggles. It strikes me that when you come from a family like that, you never wonder, tucked behind your tree-lined drive, if you will have enough money to get your roof fixed.

It makes me wonder if maybe a few of the roads around Atlanta shouldn't be named for guys who make their living each night working until they're exhausted, take the bus home to save money, and still figure a way to pay the bills and do right by their family.

The Happiest Day of the Year

I’ve made the decision today to shorten my entries. This is after reading a story on the NPR website that says the internet has reduced our attention spans. Turns out, at around 800 words a piece, I’m long winded. Well who in my family didn’t know that already?

Speaking of family, my mother has pneumonia and is taking drugs. Mom, if you’re reading this, you should stop, you need to rest. It’s not good for a woman with a pacemaker to have pneumonia, and you sounded terrible. There, please go to bed now.

Another story on the Atlanta Journal Constitution this morning proclaimed that this was the happiest day of the year. This was determined by a psychologist in Wales. It’s my understanding from people who’ve been that Wales is one of the gloomier destinations on the Irish Sea. It’s also called the Land of Song, which I suppose people must do to keep their spirits up. I guess what I’m saying here is a psychologist from Wales would have to find this subject mighty important.

Anyway, he came up with a formula for predicting the happiest day, which looks like this:
O + (N x S) + Cpm/T + He. Which is time spent outdoors (O) plus Time in Nature (N) times the Socialization of summer (S) plus the positive memories of childhood summers (Cpm) and factoring in the temperature (T) and the anticipation of vacation (He).

Wow, this guy is really into summer.

So how many of you agree? Was this your best day ever? I give it a mixed review. Work was a wash, but taking his equation, I decided to up my chances of feeling good. I got home, called a few people (stimulating pleasure centers in my old noodle), then I went outside to mow the backyard. Well, until I ran out of gas. But that was a good start, right? And my hammock was calling me. So I took a little time out to swing under the trees, think about my vacation time next month, and play with my animals who always entertain me. Then I watered my vegetables, picked up a few things around the house and now I’m listening to a new CD that came in the mail today by Chris Thile, who wants to tell me that Not All Who Wander Are Lost, the title of his CD and a quote from Tolkien as it turns out. So far, the first track, “Song for a Young Queen”, is pretty up tempo.

So I don’t know, maybe happy days can be predicted by an equation. Maybe what happens instead is you set a goal to be happy and you bring things to the table to make it happen. What do you think? This psychologist also predicts that the gloomiest day of the year will be the third Monday in January. I guess we’ll just need to wait and see.

Mom, seriously, go rest.


Chris Thile, "Song for a Young Queen"