Shutdowns and Southerners

You would think we have done nothing the last few months, but really I am just a lame blogger. Now that I am home from work on furlough I really don't have any excuse. Last week was spent organizing my house, getting some much needed house provisions from Ikea and Target and spending one day at the zoo. SInce it seems like I will be home this week too I guess I can fit in some blogging. 

First things first, a cute picture of Wishbone to prove we haven't fatally neglected him yet. Despite his weak, almost desperate look in this picture he's just taking a nap between two couch cushions. 

Our friend Carrie invited us to go be Southern with her last weekend. We drove down to Anderson Georgia on Saturday to find out just what that means. We passed no less than 10 pecan and peach farms and we felt like we were in the country. When we got out of the car for the festival that feeling grew stronger. If our non-southern accent didn't give us away, our within-normal-range BMI most certainly did. The main draw of the festival was the civil war reenactment. It was entertaining to hear children in the crowd refer to the north (the union, the yankees) as the bad guys and the confederates as the good guys. It will be no surprise to anyone who has been to the South that the Confederate army won the reenacted battle. I take solace in the fact that despite the revisionist history that surrounded me that day the North had a long-game plan and ultimately triumphed. 

 Carrie is apparently our red-headed step child in this picture:)

 Re-enactors. Apparently it's quite a close-knit culture. 

 The troops lining up. In their defense the Union soldier really were terrible outnumbered. 

The Battle

 It wasn't good enough to just reenact a civil war battle they also had a shoot-out. While Carrie assured me that shoot-outs probably happened regularly on the South, I thought it was a stretch and the festival organizers were mixing genres. We all know shoot outs like that reenacted here are a wild west sort of event.

It is unclear to us whether this horribly drunk man was actually part of the production or if they improvised around his insistent participation. Either way he improved the performance and heightened the entertainment.

Let's hope the next blog post doesn't have to wait until the next government shutdown. 

Introducing... Wishbone!

Here he is:

This is Wishbone on our first day. The pet rescue place we adopted him from has named him wishbone and since I am such a fan of his work we decided to keep it. We took him on a walk to a local restaurant, where they allow dogs to sit by the fence. He was very friendly to pedestrians and enjoyed the constant attention.
We've had him two weeks now and I think we are going to keep him:) This is what we know about him so far:

• He's a year-old, Jack-Russell-Terrier mix.
• He gets car sick and has thrown up every time he's in the car with the exception of when we brought him home.
• He loves to cuddle (see pic with Svet below).
• He's not very good at walking on a leash, but we are working on that. 
• He is really sweet and seems to like everyone... so far. 
• The only time he's peed in the house is when he got overly excited. 

Savannah

This post is long overdue. Svet and I visited the historic, very Southern city of Savannah a few weeks ago. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect other than spanish-moss-covered trees, old buildings and women in in big hats with parasols. We did see a lot of spanish moss and old buildings but the women with big hats and parasols have apparently been replaced with SCAD (savannah college of art and design) students looking very edgy and grim. We stayed at a lovely B&B where we were well fed even if we had to make small talk with the owner who often made politically tinted comments I did not agree with.

Our itinerary consisted of a beach day at Tybee Island, a jaunt through Bonaventure cemetery (made famous by Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) , people watching in the public squares and a lot of walking around the city. There is a lot of southern food to be had in Savannah and by the time we left I was ready for a new genre. Here are some pics from our adventure.

On the way down we stopped to eat at the Whistlestop cafe in Juliette, where they filmed Fried Green Tomatos. Please excuse Svet's awkward hand placement:)

Forsyth Park, Savannah.

Headstone in Bonaventure. I like to look for potential child names in cemeteries, have for years. 

Eery, but cool statue of Jesus? John the Baptist?

Spanish moss at Bonaventure

Cool Headstone at Bonaventure

View of Tybee Beach from Tybee Lighthouse. Being up that high made Svet very nervous. 

Tybee Lighthouse. 

Visitors

I finally had my first family members come visit me this weekend. It only took me living in ATL for 3+ years and getting married for it to happen. Kirsten and James came for a visit. Unfortunately, Atlanta didn't get the weather memo and didn't live up to its nickname of Hotlanta. Friday was overcast but at least it didn't rain, but Saturday made up for that by being downright soggy all day. Despite the weather we still had some good times.

Friday we made out way down to Madison Georgia. It is part of the Antebellum Trail, meaning it has a lot of really old, well kept houses. One of the residents persuaded Sherman to spare it on his March due to it's beautiful houses. We toured a few houses, viewed many more from the outside and then headed for the famous southern buffet at the Blue Willow Inn in the neighboring town of Social Circle. It was delicious and I'm sure will be a prime contributor to any heart disease I experience in the future. Since we knew it would be raining Saturday we had to forgo the Stone Mountain Laser Show Extravaganza (I was most upset about them missing this) and instead just went and hiked Stone Mountain Friday night while the weather was still good. We topped it off with some delicious Vietnamese food and a spirited game of Family Business. Mob games seem more than appropriate when ones family comes to town.

Saturday we kicked it hipster-style for breakfast and gorged ourselves on the delicious breakfast food of Highland Bakery. Sweet potato pancakes, peanut-butter french toast with carmelized bananas, fresh squeezed orange juice, bacon... need I say more? Once we rolled ourselves out of there we went to visit the Martin Luther King Jr. Historical sites. I have been before but this time, perhaps due to the rain, we took more time and even caught a presentation where a man does a reenactment of the last five minutes of the I have a dream speech. Very Powerful! Then we went to see Iron Man:) and capped the night off with a spirited game of Risk. Kirsten is the worst loser ever and by that I mean she really wanted to lose so she could go to bed but kept winning battles and taking over countries in her suicide mission. James, who was trying a lot more than Kirsten got out sooner than she did. Sunday morning we bade farewell to our weekend guests and look forward to the next time friends or family take us up on our invitation to come visit.

Madison

Hiking Stone Mountain

First Post

I guess with marriage it means it's time for a new blog. Plus because of Svet's naturally domineering personality (I'm sure you all picked up on that at the wedding festivities) and the accompanying insecurity this blog is an attempt to reassure him that even though I have not yet legally changed my name I am still committed to this relationship. The name of the blog was supposed to be an Amren-inspired rendition of our not so easy last name: ChocoLove. However, believe it or not that domain name has already been taken so I had to settle for this one. I will probably be as bad at posting on this blog as I was with my other one so don't get too excited, but hopefully with two of us we might do a little better. First anythings always remind me of one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands: http://youtu.be/dl1tIH5ByDg

This last weekend Svet and I were both in Boston. I presented at a conference and Svet had work and a conference there this week. I flew in on Friday in the middle of the man-hunt. I guess I was lucky, and flew in right after they lifted the taxi ban. I've never been to Boston but if I was to judge it from Friday's experience I would have thought it was a post-apocalyptic town inhabited only by CNN TV personalities and bored Westin guests.

Nothing was open so even if one wanted to be brave and go out there was nothing to do except wonder around the streets and watch various news networks try and sensationalize the current situation as much as possible. It did get exciting that evening when the man checked his boat. I watched it all from the safety of my hotel room but could see the procession of cop cars lights across the river. It was a little eery to see the blast site from my hotel room. Svet showed up Saturday after most of the excitement was over.

Sunday I presented at my conference, Svet attended a few sessions and learned more about lactation than he ever wanted to know. Saturday night we caught up with Tina, a friend from Michigan and Atlanta before she landed in Boston. We found an amazing Cambodian restaurant, sadly it was lacking in Cambodians but the food was great. Sunday night we made Kara, another Michigan friend break the Sabbath with us to eat at a delicious restaurant called GasLight. Sadly we didn't get any pictures of people just a city scape and a picture of the Public Gardens.