The 150th Anniversary of the US Civil War

I see the Conspirator is coming out this weekend, just in time to mark the 150th anniversary of the US Civil War. I had the chance to see a screening of it in February, my review is here. My thoughts on the war: 1. I live in Atlanta, Georgia, which is dotted about with plaques describing battles, hospitals and other notable things about the war. I pass by a lot of them all the time. 2. It's indelibly linked (for better or worse) with Gone with the Wind. 3. There are still lots of people around who think of themselves as the sons and daughters of the Confederacy and display the Confederate flag. They don't think of themselves as upholding slavery, but more the right to live as they wanted. They don't think of the fact that it was based on the brutal exploitation of others, who were black, who were slaves. 4. It's the home of the US civil rights movement, birth place of Martin Luther King, Jr. Setting the slaves free with the 13th Amendment was only the beginning. There is still a long we all have to go to have equal rights among the races. And we haven't even touched sexism among whites and blacks. As an Asian American, not being black or white, it's interesting and important to be aware of this and to think about and recognize as I negotiate my life here.

Getting to be Spring 2011

The past few days in Atlanta have been up in the 70sF, reaching almost 80F some days. And Husband's friend came from Delaware to visit, before moving to Wisconsin. Yes, he likes driving.

The picture above was taken from the Commerce Club of the 191 Bldg. On the left is the Westin hotel. At the top of the hotel is the Sundial restaurant, which rotates 380 degrees clockwise. We ate there for dinner on Saturday night and the 191 bldg was prominent in part of our view. So it's kind of nice to see the Westin and the neighborhood in the day.

The white trapezoidal building in the middle of the picture is the Georgia Aquarium.

And look at the sunny blue skies.

I had been knitting the Carnaby skirt from Knitty.com in wool. However, with spring on it's way, and the fact that I've somehow made one side shorter than the other, and a whole host of things, I think I'm going to start over in some yellow linen yarn from the stash.

Hothlanta 2011

So, I've quit my job and set up meetings with various people about setting up my own shop as a consultant, or finding another job, or things to do with the adoption, or just catching up with friends.

Then along comes the great storm of 2011 and puts everything on hold.

Atlanta got some snow. About 4 inches worth. Not much, right?

However, it is a rare event in the US South and there aren't enough snow plows, salt and sand trucks, etc to deal with it. Plus, the snow melts a bit when the sun is out and the temp rises, then refreezes at night. So the top layer of all the snow is actually ice. Makes for very slow going. The local news is full of warnings about "Don't go out unless you really have to!" Personally I've seen cars and trucks spin out and one pedestrian slip and fall on the ice. And I got stuck for a bit in it myself.

So schools have been closed all this week, along with many businesses. All my meetings have been postponed until next week at the earliest. As of yesterday, day 4 of the snowmaggedon, this graphic's been going around

I'm a home body, so I'm not suffering. I have many, many distractions:

1. Tai Chi and Yoga

2. Cooking, especially from One Big Table: 600 recipes from the nation's best home cooks, farmers, fishermen, pit-masters, and chefs

3. DVDs galore. I thought I'd rewatch Buffy the Vampire Slayer but have been rewatching Dollhouse Season 2.

4. Netflix Watch Instantly. I saw a tweet about this article http://beyondvictoriana.com/2011/01/09/56-ten-reasons-why-steampunks-and-everyone-else-should-watch-avatar-the-last-airbender/ and was motivated to figure out how to make Watch Instantly work.

5. Nook e-reader and knitting -- 2 things that were made for each other. I borrowed "And Another Thing..." book 6 in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. It's been a long, long time since I read the other books, but fortunately, they provide a "previously on..." section to catch you up. Especially since it's been years since the last book came out and the author died. This one is written by Eoin Colfer. And I'm still plugging away at Husband's stockingnette blanket. Talk about mindless knitting.

Speaking of Husband and blanket; so it's been cold and I had a lap quilt (made for me by Best Friend) across my legs. Husband wanted a blanket too and asked "is it the only blanket we have?" Pfft! I have made plenty of blankets! So I gave him the quilt and I'm using this blanket.

6. Going out anyway. Even I have a limit to how much nesting at home I can do.

Pictures of disaster

A few weeks ago, a tornado ripped through downtown Atlanta. The week after, I had to go to the Westin hotel, which lost many of it's windows. It's a very tall, round building and the entire exterior is glass windows.

Despite all this damage, no one was hurt. There were injuries and, sadly,deaths reported elsewhere in the city and the metro area, but at this hotel, none. There was a rumor that the building shifted a few feet off it's foundation but that's not true. It sway with the wind, as designed.

Here you can see the cables for the elevators and the hotel curtains exposed.

We got some desperately needed rain, but I'm sure those who live in buildings missing roofs, windows, and walls, really wish it would have stayed warm and dry, not cold and rainy.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2008

Went to the march downtown Atlanta today.

I had my choice of groups to march with: The Peace and Justice Group, Save Grady Hospital, or the Stop Family Violence group. I went with the third, though I had made plans with the second, and used a sign from the first group.

Yes, it was kind of a confusing beginning. First of all, I couldn't find any of those three groups. I stood on a corner of Peachtree Street near the Peachtree Center MARTA station. There was a woman holding a "Healthcare not Warfare" sign so I asked her where the Peace and Justice group was. Yes, it was really random, but who knows? She might have actually known. But she didn't. Still, we chatted and it turned out that she and her daughter volunteer with refugees and so I gave them my business card. Clearly, I need to get out of the house more often. First at Knit Night and now at the MLK march, I got some good networking done.

Eventually they found their group (the Unitarian Universalists, I think) and I walked north up the street. I figured I might meet up with some people I actually knew, and I did. I found the Stop Family Violence group. They were standing down one of the side streets. When the march comes by, we'll step out at the end and join it. This is the group waiting across from us:

It's the young men of Project Manhood at North Clayton High School. What's not shown are the Girl Scouts behind them. At one point the girls were doing jumping jacks (or should it be jumping jills?) to stay warm. Because it was around freezing and the girls were wearing skirts

The march was supposed to start at 1pm, but of course it didn't. The speechifying by the politicos apparently ran long. It was cold (right around freezing) and eventually I couldn't feel my toes. At 2pm, the march finally came by and here are pictures of the groups that passed us before we could join.

Yes, there actually are unions in Georgia, but not many.


Oh, look: it's the Save Grady Hospital group. I went over to say hey and then went back to the Stop Family Violence group:

Basically Grady Memorial Hospital is the public hospital, serving everyone regardless of ability to pay, and the only level one trauma center in northern Georgia. When victims get airlifted to a hospital, it's Grady they're taken to, not any of the dozen or so other hospitals in the Atlanta metro area. It's in financial trouble and no agreement about what to do to save it.

This was a group of Girl Scouts. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the kids dressed as the cookies.

There were signs for the other candidates, but I didn't take those pictures.

Then it was our turn to join and here are the pictures I took along the way.

Here's Youth Pride, and a sign for their hotline for LGBTQ youth:

In case you can't see, the sign says "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

It was interesting to walk down Peachtree Street and Auburn Avenue, roads I normally drive down. Walking gave me time to really look at the buildings and notice the new shops and restaurants moving in. Auburn Ave used to be the center of black culture and then it went into decline. Having the interstate built right over the middle certainly didn't help.

But now it looks like it has a chance of really making a comeback, with new shops and condos. With the housing downturn, though, I don't know what will happen.

The march ended at the MLK center. And here's a little something to counteract against all the uplift and hope of the march. The placard says "Jesus Lord of All or Hell Awaits You!" Nice, eh?

The tented platform is shown below for more speechifying, placed on Auburn Avenue, right between the MLK center run by the National Parks Service and the MLK center run by the King family. The 2 MLK centers are located across the street from each other and next to the old and new Ebenezer Baptist Churches, across the street from each other. By that time, it was 3pm and I was frozen and decided to go home.

I parked at the Inman Park-Reynoldstown MARTA stop,which is the next stop over from the MLK stop. My brain must have been frozen because I thought "it's only one stop from where I'm at now, I'll just walk there." It turned out to be a mile away.

However, like the walk down Auburn, I got to really see the shops and new condos built along DeKalb Avenue, instead of driving past at 55 miles an hour.

One place was Polly on the Avenue, a pottery studio that I've driven past for over 10 years. Today, Polly came out to walk her dog as I walked past and I finally had a chance to ask about it. It's Polly's pottery studio, where she makes items for art fairs and she supplies the sugar bowls at the Flying Biscuit, a local bakery. She's having a little open house party in February and she gave me an invitation.

So all in all, it was a great day. Not quite a day off, not quite a day on, (MLK Day is a day on, to volunteer at community events to make the "beloved community" better). But a good day, any way you look at it.

Breaking news

It's snowing in Atlanta!

I signed up for e-mail alerts from the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the local newspaper. I got this:

Breaking News: Snow sightings in Peachtree City, Sharpsburg. Line of snow will move into metro Atlanta for Wednesday evening commute http://my.ajc.com/W0RH011A2E17FEB3528DA34C1F2360

Snow began falling around Peachtree City and Sharpsburg Wednesday afternoon and the National Weather Service phones began ringing with reports of the frozen stuff.

* Copyright © 2008, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Came out of the office and this is what my car looked like.

After Wisconsin, this ain't nothing. Still it was fun to drive home with big fat flakes drifting down.

Exhausted

This week, at work, we conducted a national training for about 15 women from 7 or 8 different states, representing 9 or 10 different ethnic groups. We went pretty much non-stop from 9am to 5pm. Some evenings we did workshops too. And the other nights we didn't have workshops, I took some people out on the town.

As usual we went to Auburn Avenue and drove by the old Ebenezer Baptist Church where Martin Luther King Jr preached, the new Ebenezer Baptist Church across the street, the two MLK centers next to the churches, his and Coretta Scott King's burial memorial, his birth home, and so on through the historic preservation district, down to Studioplex at the end of the street. Studioplex is a converted warehouse (at least it looks like a converted warehouse) with artists shops and work studios on the first floor and apartments above. Even though we're driving through at 8pm when everything's closed, it's still a cool thing to do.

This I did twice this week and another staff did once.

I also took people to Centennial Olympic Park downtown, near the CNN headquarters, the Georgia Aquarium, the World of Coca-Cola (one gigantic advertisement for the drink that built Atlanta), and Imagine It! children's museum. The ice skating rink is up and going at Centennial Olympic Park, and the Christmas lights are up too.

All in all, it was a great training. It makes all the stress, even with Complaining Employee, worthwhile.

And now, I am tired.

But no sleep for me. I have to clean the house for Thanksgiving. Sister, Sister's Boyfriend, Brother One and Brother Two are all coming over. Since they're siblings, and younger siblings at that, I figure as long as there are clean sheets and towels for them and cat hair is kept to a minimum, we're okay. But Husband has higher standards than that so there's more work to be done.