Somehow Atlanta survived us

Y'all, I was going to try and post this way earlier than now, but this was one of the busiest and craziest days I've had in months at my job.  I'm sitting here writing from my dining room table and waiting on Tee to come over again.  She liked my neighbors so much she can't stay away!  Actually, she was talking about the pillow case dresses she makes for her church missionary fundraising and one of the children at the party asked her to make one for her.  So Tee, being her awesome and sweet self, made one and is bringing it by tonight so that Neighbor Girl can have it before she goes on a big trip this weekend.  Tee ranks up there as one of the sweetest ladies I know.

[UPDATE:  Tee just left.  The dress she made is so stinkin' adorable!  I talked Tee's ear completely off for over an hour.  She cannot hear you because I talked her ear all the way off.]

So, I told y'all I would talk about Laurie and I spending Sunday together.  When we both finally woke up (we were tired, y'all), we sat on the front porch for a bit and I asked her if she wanted me to cook her Eggs Benedict from fresh eggs from my pet chicks in the backyard, Belgian waffles, hand churn some butter, fresh squeeze some orange juice, and fry up some bacon in a pan.  Because I'm a W-O-M-A-N!!!! Enjoli!    Shockingly, she said she'd rather go out.  I think she misunderstood me and thought I said I could toast her a bagel or give her a bowl of cereal since I don't cook.

We threw on our clothes and headed out the door starving to death.  I was a terrible hostess and had not fed her any dinner Saturday night.  Or maybe we were full of bacon wrapped dates and watermelon salad from the party so we couldn't stand the thought of more food.  But anyway, we were hungry by 10:30 the next morning when we finally made it out the door.

I decided to take her to snotty Candler Park (my neighbors and I were talking about how snotty the residents of Candler Park are at the party.  It's 1/2 mile from me but is literally on the other side of the tracks.  Only you drive under the tracks since the tracks are on a bridge.)  The Candler Park people will tell you that they are terrified to drive into my 'hood.  Snots.  I'm terrified to pay what they pay for their houses simply because they are in Candler Park.

But Candler Park does have the original location of The Flying Biscuit Cafe and that's where I wanted to take Laurie for food that tastes way better than anything I would have made her.  Only the line was way down the street and I know when the line is that long it's easily an hour and a half wait for a table.  So I made a quick detour up the street to Little 5 Points which is pretty much the quirkiest neighborhood in Atlanta.  It's bohemian, is not home to a breakfast place, but is full of tattoo shops, restaurants, wig shops, you can still buy vinyl records in places, and it's home to Junkman's Daughter where Laurie bought herself some handerpants.    Yes, she really did.  I was only a tad bit jealous that we only saw one pair so I couldn't buy some for myself.

But we were hungry if you remember, so we didn't actually buy the handerpants at that point in the day.  We saved that for later.

First we drove over to Kirkwood which I thought was a great idea since I had no clue if they had a breakfast place or not.  Laurie, trying to be polite through her growling stomach and hunger headache said, "maybe if we don't find a breakfast place we can just stop somewhere else and eat a sandwich or something?"  That's what she said but on the inside she was probably thinking that I had her trapped in my car and was determined to starve her to death before she could get back to Greensboro.  Laurie's eagle eye and by-then-concave stomach spotted the cutest little breakfast place.  We went to Le Petite Marche where Laurie got to eat something good instead of her shoe which I had seen her staring hungrily at just moments earlier.

At some point, Laurie had mentioned wanting to reupholster a chair and I stared at her in awe that she could do something like that.  She was mentioning she needed to pick out a fabric, etc. so I said, "I have the perfect place to take you!"  And I took her to Forsyth Fabrics and Laurie proclaimed it the place she wants to go to for all of eternity when she kicks the bucket.  Actually she said she could live there which is the complete opposite of what I just said.  I don't even know how to sew a hem on something and sometimes I just go there and look around.  I've cut samples and framed them to make art.  It is full of awesome.

Then we went to Ikea.  It was crowded but we still managed to make it through the market place and fill up a shopping cart.  I bought super exciting stuff:  a laundry hamper and some ziplocs.  Laurie bought cool stuff like curtains.  And then we stood in a long line and we were next to a woman who might have been trying to beat me for being most talkative woman in Atlanta.  She was really nice, but girl could talk the paint off a wall.

By the time we had shopped, we were hungry again.  Laurie probably wasn't really hungry yet but thought she might be within the next 3 hours so she'd best say she was hungry so I could start trying to find a place to eat and she wouldn't have to starve again by the time I found it.  I took her to Flip Burger (Richard Blais is the chef/owner if you are a Top Chef fan) which is across the street from my last apartment.  So she got to see where I used to live and I imagine that was the highlight of her entire Atlanta weekend.  We had burgers and fries and then we split a S'More milkshake only we had half of it all over our table by the time we poured it into two glasses to split it.

She then asked if I could stop back by my house so she could pick up a different camera lens and then wanted to go back to Little Five Points to take some photos of street art.  She really wanted to go buy her handerpants probably, but she used photography as an excuse to go get them.  I told her that sounded great and then pulled into the parking area of L5P and paid for parking.  Because I have a short memory and had completely forgotten she needed a different lens.  So we talked to the parking attendant who said we could leave and come back, drove home, picked up her lens and went back to L5P.  It's less than a mile from my house so it was no big deal. 

We then went to Junkman's Daughter where she got her handerpants and then walked around taking photos of the street art (of which there is tons).  I was kind of hoping Laurie would put on her brand new handerpants while she was taking photos, but sadly, she did not.  Suddenly, three girls came skipping towards us on the sidewalk.  They were singing and dressed in costumes and one of us said something along the lines of, "oh my."  I told Laurie I'm pretty sure they wouldn't mind having their picture taken since they were clearly trying to attract attention so Laurie stopped them and they posed.  One had on a bright blue wig, another had a lime green wig, and the third had black hair.  Two wore top hats and mid-calf boots with skeleton printed shirts and black shorts.  The third had fake blood all over her face.  And they clearly enjoyed having their photo taken.

A short time later, I was walking behind Laurie a couple of feet when she suddenly squealed and stopped.  An Atlanta bird had lovingly shat right on top of her head.  We aren't sure if it was the blue bird of happiness as neither of us saw the offending creature.  I walked into a store and asked an employee for a tissue.  Thankfully he had some paper towels and told Laurie it was good luck to have a bird crap on your head.  Easy for someone to say without bird poop on him.

That seemed like a fitting end to our outing so we headed back home.  Where I starved Laurie again and did not feed her dinner.  Actually, we just never got hungry after those burgers.  So we sat on our computers working on party photos and catching up on BBP until time for bed.

Laurie headed out Monday as I left for work.  She's an awesome lady and I had a great time getting to know her.  I hope she'll come back and visit again soon.  But she'll probably have a breakfast place picked out ahead of time.

I saw that several of you requested a home tour of my house.  I will try to get on that at some point.  I took a bunch of "before" photos before I had the renovations done but then I had that pesky broken arm and never made it around to taking "after" photos.  I still have about 3 rooms that are not close to being complete, but I have very few secrets so I'll post them anyway.  Now I just have to get around to taking some photos.  I'll do that after I pick out a breakfast place the next time I have a house guest.....