To celebrate our move to the metro Atlanta area, I am starting a new blog here on this site. I'll try to describe our experiences as honestly as possible--without totally exposing myself to ridicule--and changing names or omitting names to protect the innocent and to prevent lawsuits.
I've described our move on MySpace, so I'll begin here where I left off there, with a clean slate, so to speak, looking not back toward our old home in Texas but forward to whatever home and life we re-establish here in Georgia (having lived here before, near Columbus).
We are still looking for a home here, having chosen the school district/neighborhood/metro city in which we want to live. What we knew before we moved was how much more expensive are homes here than in the small Central Texas town from which we moved. So we're trying to buy a home that meets our needs, our sense of style, and our budget: no small order. We've made an offer on a ranch style house that partially meets our desired location, that meets our space needs, that suits our style on the inside but is rather boring on the outside. But then, there's something appealing to having an outside that's unprepossessing and an inside that's full of surprises and beauty, like one of those homes in the French Quarter of New Orleans with the blank brick facade that opens up to an iron gate beyond which there are fountains and gardens: the richness of the interior life.
If the owners do not accept the final offer we have made today, we will begin again with a list of homes to view and review that I have here in front of me. At least half of the houses on that list are empty, an important point since as of July 27th, we will be without a place to stay. We are currently staying in a two-bedroom apartment that Tom's organization paid for from the last week of April through June; now we're paying for this final month, and the rent is exorbitant.
So this is where we are now, still in-between our lives in Texas and our lives in Georgia.
Meanwhile, we've been entertaining ourselves with a few outings. Yesterday evening we took M-M to see Ratatouille, an animated film that has received rave reviews in Salon and The New York Times. Judging from the audience's reaction, the film has not been over-rated. The film provoked loud, delighted laughter from the audience (including from me and M-M), and at the end, spontaneous applause. I've seen only two or three films in my life where the audience applauded at the end. Another illustration of the effectiveness of the animation is that Tom got motion sickness. He said that he had to close his eyes several times during the film, particularly during the scene where Remy goes barreling through tunnels of underground water. Now, Tom is easily beset by motion sickness. Yes, the movie was cute, the animation was absolutely stunning, and the story was good, too.
On Saturday, the three of us got up early to drive to the Georgia Aquarium, arriving before 8 a.m. We finished viewing all the exhibits in a little over an hour, even though we tarried at the tanks with the Beluga whales (my favorites), and M-M paused to take pictures at many of the exhibits. The hour passed wonderfully, and we picked up a few facts along the way. The piranha exhibit exclaimed that HUMANS eat piranhas; piranhas do not eat humans. A guide told a group of people gathered around that whale sharks may be able to grow up to 66 feet long; at least, there's an unconfirmed report of such length. Of course, those are whale sharks in the wild, not in an aquarium--even the huge 6-million gallon tank at the Georgia Aquarium. Two of the aquarium's whale sharks died within the past few months, the first whale sharks on display outside of Asia.
We also learned that Japanese spider crabs can get as big as a car and live to be 100 years old.
After our stroll through the Georgia aquarium, we stopped for several minutes at a nearby coffee and tea stand and ordered three cups of hot tea. Then we walked over to Olympic Centennial Park. As we walked, I noticed a helicopter overhead; the "whop-whop-whop" of its motor became a continuous background noise as it hovered overhead, and I wondered why the park required such diligent, such visibly vigilant security. Then the mystery was solved as we walked back across Centennial Park toward World of Coca-Cola. About thirty protesters were holding up signs protesting the corporation's overuse of ground water in India, the dumping of industrial sludge in canals, and the corporation's hostility toward union organizers. Several union organizers of Coca-Cola workers were killed in Colombia, and some have claimed the corporation's complicity in the murders.
Ten or twelve Atlanta Fire Rescue personnel stood across the street, dressed in red shirts and blacks shorts, their bicycles lined up with them, and eight or nine police motorcycles were parked in a line behind them on the sidewalk. Several policemen and negotiators in black uniforms hovered nearer the protesters, who were mainly college-aged young people. The protesters were led by a man dressed in traditional kurta and pants.
Several of the protesters arranged themselves on the concrete, posing as dead, while another protester outlined their bodies with chalk. A very polite young woman and young man asked us if we wanted an informational leaflet, and we said, "Sure."
The scene wasn't threatening nor the protesters loud and angry. Why was there such a show of police force? The helicopter overhead seemed particularly gratuitous, with its suggestion of menacing military power. "Do we live in a police state?" we wondered aloud to one another.
As we walked away, I overhead an onlooker say, "This makes me want to buy a coke."
More surprises are to come, I'm sure.
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