Allison's Jesus Song

Allison said she wanted to sing a song about Jesus. So here it is, music and lyrics by Allison performed by Allison. I really don't know what she's saying through the middle. She starts out with things Jesus made and she ends there but through the middle, I'm not even sure it's in English.

It's cute, though.

Daily Pictures

Look, a baby!

My little friend Tara had her baby yesterday! A little boy. No pictures yet but there will be soon. You know, for those of you who like that sort of thing.

Meanwhile, welcome Josiah!

Toco Hills Publix is a vortex of bad vibes

Today, I was in the store and this poor woman was there doing her shopping--full cart, clearly near the end of her trip--and her daughter was crying. If I had to guess, I'd say she was 2. Clearly not happy but not exactly throwing herself on the floor, either. The Mother was ignoring her and I could just about hear her thinking, if I can just get these last few things, we can get home. She looked like she was having a hard time.

So just as I'm passing her, another woman walks out of her way and stops the mother to say Why don't you take her out? Or Something? I mean, ugh! The Mother said thank you so much! She turned down an aisle and just kept walking. Well, you know I didn't pass without saying something. I told the woman who reprimanded her to leave the woman alone. Give her a break. She needs to do her shopping.

She muttered at me and huffed.

Since this is the same store where someone told Allison to shut up, I'm starting to think of it as a swirling vortex of bad feelings. Good thing we're moving.

Allison on Comedy

Allison: Mama, you're funny.
Me: Am I?
Allison: Yeah.
Allison: Except no!
Me: I'm not funny?
Allison: No! No one in this whole flamily is funny.
Me: Nobody at all?
Allison: Nobody except Uncle Marty.

Hanging around

Our friend Christa was nice enough to invite us to use the pool at their apartment complex yesterday, so I took the girls and we swam with Christa and her daughter, Kate, who is the same age as Frances. We had a lot of fun but it was a big day. Allison and Frances both crashed out on the way home, which was a good thing, since we had to circle for about 30 minutes and wait out a house showing (no they did not want to buy it).

Anyway, that means we're hanging pretty close to home today.

On the agenda:


advanced improvisational dress up





















pretending to talk on the phone. Hiya! hiya! how you! Hiya! Hi dere!





















sitting on mama when she's trying to do other things





















and posing.

Ya'll have to read this.

Here's the link to a blog by a nun. A very smart nun with a sharp tongue and a wicked sense of humor. If you get out of line, she'll probably rap your knuckles with a ruler but you won't mind because you'll be laughing at what she just said.

From her current post, a summary of the story of St. Agnes.

St. Agnes was one of many virgin martyr saints with roughly the same story. Girl finds Jesus. Girl vows virginity. Boy wants to marry girl. Girl refuses. Girl is tortured to death. Girl goes straight to heaven.

Not as cheery as a musical, but it does have a happy ending.

You should go read it.

Sleepy Baby

Francie Boo

At least, that's what Allison calls her. Francie Boo. Francie France. Francie Pants. And Francie Lou Who. Frances, for her part, calls her big sister Da.

So Frances is rocking the baby mullet these days.




















She's also digging on the park. I took the girls today. Frances was especially keen on the slide. She's an extreme baby. We started out on the little slide--as in this picture--but she quickly got bored and moved on to the big one. I would have taken a picture but my camera battery died.





















Now, I had to include this one because--even though you can't see her face--this is a classic Frances pose, with the finger hooked around the nose.























Frances also had fun on the swings.






















She likes swinging. Allison likes pushing.















Also, she got new shoes. Aren't they cute? Don't you love the huge mosquito bite on the leg? Seriously, where is this child's mother and why doesn't she put some insect repellent on her?



















ps you know your child can get worms if you let her go around barefoot, right?

Joe has arrived.

I'm just not sure where. But he does have an entry on Rate My Professors.

And yes. He does have a chili pepper. Nice.

I said I'd let you know....

I was hired to teach as an adjunct at St. Edward's University in Austin, which is the local catholic university. I was a bit late in the season to get Fall teaching but I'm on for Spring and should be able to get work there in the future. They seemed to really like me.

So that's good news.

House before and after, mostly after

I didn't manage to take a before of every room so I really only have one. You'll have to rely on your memory.

Here's the living room before:





















And after.

Um..wait. Isn't it the same? Hmmm....yeah. But no! It's a creamier yellow, the chair is on the other side and the whole room is shifted so there's a sitting area and an entry.





















You can see that more clearly from this angle, although this is blurry. Sorry, taking quick pictures while I wait for cookies to bake.






















The biggest change, I think, is our bedroom. For a start, we got a bed. This was my birthday present. Yes, that is Allison sleeping in it.

The color is the same as the living room but it looks much less yellow in the bedroom. I don't really like it in person but it does photograph beautifully.

















We cleared a lot of stuff out of Joe's office and reoriented the rug so it doesn't look like the table is eating up the room. This has been tricky because he still needs to work in there but we need it to look as uncluttered as possible.





















And the kitchen. Looks pretty much the same but they painted the cabinets white and the area above the cabinets the same color as the living room. We also did new pulls. The biggest change is that we moved the desk out of there and put the rolling island in the corner.

Allison. Not Allie. Not Al.

Allison has decided we shouldn't call her Al anymore and definitely not Allie. No, it must be Allison or Alla. So she says here lately.

What else has she been up to? Well, the usual stuff, I suppose. She plays lots of make believe. Lots of princess. Lots of pirate. Lots of princesses who are also pirates (my personal favorite). Lots of dress up. Lots of bike riding. Lots of watering plants in the backyard. Above all else, lots and lots and lots of talking to herself in a cockney accent.

She's also big into making art just now. We've been making books. She dictates the story to me and I write it out, staple the book, and let her decorate.

All of this dovetails nicely with the school I've enrolled her in for the fall, which is an arts preschool. She'll be doing visual and performing arts and I'm really excited to see what sorts of things she gets to do and what she thinks about them.

In the meantime, Allison and I made cookies this afternoon as a belated father's day present for Joe. We were traveling up until Saturday night, so there really wasn't time to do anything. We'll celebrate tonight when he gets home from his Greek reading group.





















She likes to cook and bake, so she was pretty wound up. She wanted some pictures of herself dancing....






























































....and clapping.....
















....and being sweet.























































































Then, of course, she ate cookies.





















She picked out a tie for Joe. I've declared this a new tradition! A tie for Joe! On Father's Day! It's such a cliche I love it.

Unfortunately for Joe, I really did let Allison pick it and she's in a bit of a pink phase. After considered three or four other pink ties, she settled on this one:

Anecdote in the park

So we went to the park near our duplex while we were in town and I was pleasantly surprised by the mothers there. The mothers in Decatur are not necessarily that friendly. To be fair, some of them are. Others don't speak to me unless it's to inform me that my child will contract worms if I don't put shoes on her. But in general, I feel not quite good enough for at-home moms whose sole focus is getting their kids into montessori school and the au pairs, well, don't generally speak English.

In Austin, the vibe seemed different. Women at the park spoke to me. I thought the moms seemed younger, too, though not as young as the ones we saw in Mississippi where the average first time mother is 23, I've since discovered. In any case, I felt like people were laid back and friendly and I liked that. And I didn't feel like I stood out as being especially young the way I feel in Decatur.

Anyway, I got into a conversation with this woman, Crystal, who had a toddler and a baby with her. As it happens, she was the nanny but that's neither here nor there. She told me what a great neighborhood this was and that sort of thing blah blah whatever. It's actually a pretty pricey neighborhood, so cool that we found a place we could afford there.

As we're talking, we see a nanny stroll up with triplets. I say it was a nanny because she was an older Latina and the children were pasty little towheads. In any case, she walks up pushing a triple stroller with these three in it. Crystal points them out. Triplets, she says. Wow, I say.
She gives me a knowing look and says In vitro. Then she rolls her eyes.

I fell out laughing. You know she's right. First child at 39, in vitro, triplets, full-time nanny. Some variation on that. So not so different from Decatur after all. Just greater variation among kinds of people, I think. This is a good thing. Central Decatur can be a little bit homogeneous.

Keeping Austin Weird

So Austin, like Portland, wants to be weird. Actually, Austin was weird first then Portland borrowed the idea. Take that, Portland! I do like the sort of anti-corporate vibe they've got going on and the whole let's walk places and support local businesses rather than big chains stores. As for the really weird, some of it is okay. The rest of it is just...weird.

In the realm of the not so weird, there are lots of local businesses to support. In most cases, it's going to be more convenient to support them than to drive out to the suburbs to hit a chain store.

Our finds while in town include a diner where kids eat free on Tuesdays, which means we can probably still eat out now and then even on our meager budget. It's also a really cool place. Good food, they serve beer. Yeah. Love it.

There's a bakery up the street from my house that everyone seems to love and where I can can get baguettes for $2. This is excellent because there is no publix in Austin and I don't quite know what I'll do without the Publix bakery. Besides that, I'll like supporting a local bakery.

There's also a local growers farmer's market downtown but last night, I figured out there's also a local grower's farmer's market a couple miles up the street from my duplex. Much better than the big chain grocery store.

Then there are the donuts. We eat them once a week here, at Krispy Kreme. Kind of a family ritual. We'd have to drive 20 minutes one way to get to one, which means we'll be trying out a local, family-owned donut shop nearer to our house. Everyone seems to love that place, too, so I suspect we'll end up liking it.

The one chain store I'll definitely visit regularly is costco and thankfully, it's a lot closer to my new duplex than my costco here is.

All of that is awesome and we're excited about it. We're also excited that we can walk to a big park that has a playground and a pool from our new place--and not feel like we're going to be killed. There is a market nearby, too--not necessarily a place we'd want to do all our shopping but close enough to walk to if I just need a few things.

Anyway, that's all the great part of keeping Austin weird and local.

The not so great part? There are some weird people. I saw a man--he must have been about 65 years old--crossing the street. He had a bandana on his long hair and a full beard. He also had full breasts. He was dressed in a t-shirt and denim mini-skirt with little rhinestones on the pockets and women's sandals. He stopped about halfway across the street, looked around and then hitched his skirt up over his hips, revealing a purple g-string. He left it that way and I'd love to say he finished crossing the street but he didn't. He came back to his original curb and stood there.

Nice. The kids were asleep in the back seat. That's all that stood between me and an awkward set of questions about why that man has nurses (what Allison calls breasts) and purple underpants. The day will come when I'll have to answer that question, I suspect, so long as Austin is weird.

The Jazz Festival

I meant to post our pictures from the Jazz Festival but I forgot about them. We've been going to the Atlanta Jazz Festival since we moved to Atlanta. It is the largest free jazz festival in the world. We've heard some pretty big acts there--Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Cassandra Wilson--and we always have a lot of fun.

This year, the festival was held in Woodruff Park, which is much smaller than its usual location in Piedmont Park, because drought conditions have rendered Piedmont Park too vulnerable to sustain it. The acts were primarily local, the crowd much smaller, and the sound not so good. Still, we went down there because the Jazz Festival has become a Memorial Day ritual for us. It's the official beginning of summer.

This is Allison, falling out of her chair. What else would she be doing?



And here's Frances standing on her chair. Because what else would she be doing?



People watching is a huge part of the appeal of the Jazz Festival. Allison actually took this picture. This little girl was dancing with Allison and Frances. Allison does a gimpy bop but Francie--when she feels like dancing, she spins.





Being in Woodruff Park, which is in the middle of Five Points--the center of Atlanta--gave me the opportunity to take a few pictures of the downtown area.


Boarded up windows as a result of tornado damage.


And, of course, it wouldn't be Atlanta without Coca-Cola.

Craigslist update

Okay, so I told you before that I got an email from cragslist chewing me out for offering free stuff at the curb, right?

I replied to that email and said while I appreciate that there's a potential for problems with free stuff at the curb, I was more or less holding a free yard sale. In terms of wasted fuel, it really isn't any different than a paying yard sale. I honestly don't think I did anything wrong.

Several days later, I got a reply. It said (and I quote):

u did.

Um. U did? Wow. Professional!

I replied to that one. I said:

Whatever. I'll never use craiglist in Atlanta again. Not that you're interested.

Also very professional, if I do say so myself.

I got another reply. It said:

U need to leave a phone # to let them call u to see if it is still there , if u do this again in the furture u will be baned from using craigsist. Not very green to waste people time and gas driving over for nothing.

Maybe I shouldn't be surprised this person can't type the word "you" or spell banned or, you know, make a coherent argument. But somehow I am.

if you know me you know I'm not leaving this alone. This green business is a ridiculous argument or, at least, an argument that could just as easily used against yard sales in general.

By that logic, no yard sale is green because people could potentially drive to it only to find the item they wanted already *sold*. It isn't different in the least. That's why this isn't about being green. You're using that as a noble sounding excuse. The real problem, as you outlined in your first email, is the moral failing of people who can't handle the disappointment of not acquiring a particular piece junk for free and who, as a result, might start an altercation on my lawn. That may be a real problem and it may make advertising free stuff ill-advised. What troubles me is that you're aiming your disapproval at me, as if it were my fault for putting people in a situation they don't have the strength of character to handle. It's ludicrous, this entire conversation. There will be no future. I already told you. I wash my hands of craigslist.

Really done with craigslist, at least in this city.

Meanwhile, I'm pretty amused by the whole business so I thought I'd share it.

Pieces of Austin

This is the common grackle. Allison made me take a picture of it.









































We were all pretty bored in the apartment locator's office. Frances is eating goodness knows what and as you can see, Allison has discarded her shoes.






















Wall art in Austin:





















This is UT, where Joe will be in school




















And St. Edward's, where I'll be working part time in the Spring.

A real gem

After I posted last, we looked at three duplexes and one apartment. The apartment was ridiculous--seriously, the two bedrooms each had closet doors....but they opened into the same closet. That would be the only closet in the entire apartment. Flipping sweet.

Two of the three duplexes were an option. The third was dingy and there was no flooring in the living room--not kidding, bare concrete--and the management company clearly had no idea what was going on with their properties. Told us they couldn't get a hold of the owner to fix the floor and also that they didn't allow pitbulls, even whilst there was a pitbull in the upstairs bedroom that would probably make a different argument. Just...no.

Between our two good options, we decided on the place that was closer to campus. It's in a great neighborhood. The elementary school is excellent if we decide to stay another year. It's just under 4 miles from campus--4 miles of wide streets and bike lanes. What really helped us make the decision, though, was the fact that the landlord was so courteous and professional, where the other landlord wasn't very helpful at all. He clearly didn't want to rent to us because we had a dog.

So we settled on this one. The price was fantastic. So fantastic, in fact, that I was completely incredulous when the owner answered the phone and told me how much. Looking at it from the outside, I assumed it was because the place was a dump. It doesn't look so swell, does it?



By the time we saw this place, I had come to expect that anything so inexpensive must be really horrible. When the owner opened the door to show us around, I was pleasantly surprised by how nice it was. Brand new ceramic tile in the entryway and kitchen, gas stove, new carpet in the living room and bedrooms, and big closets. And it doesn't share walls with the neighbors. The units are connected by the carport. The yard is nothing to speak of, but it will serve as a handy dog run for Sonja. It's a small place and it only has one bathroom but I think we'll be happy there.

Please tell me people don't live in these places

Apartment hunting is miserable. We're in Austin now, looking for a place to live in the fall. We have a week or so here--we're not leaving until we've found a place we're happy with--and so far, it's been pretty awful.

Our first day, we worked with an apartment locator. That didn't go so well. He took us to see a few properties, starting with a duplex he said was a gem. I was pretty excited about it on the way over but as we pulled up, o my. Wow. Not so hot from the street. He assured us it was better inside but you know, it really wasn't. Partly, this was owing to the loadie guys who lived there and the thick layers of dog hair covering everything, which gestures toward their questionable cleanliness standards--and friends, my standards are really not all that high--and it was partly because the place was just crap.

If this is a gem, I'd hate to see a lump of coal.

Not quite in the realm of please tell me people don't live here, though. That came later. After half a day with the more or less useless apartment locator, we drove around and collected some numbers for for rent signs and found only one in our price range. Despite the fact that it was only 700 square feet, we decided to take a look at it because it was in a fantastic neighborhood with a great school and a park half a block down the street.

I cannot stress to you how not good this house was. It was tiny--we knew that--but then there was the bizarre looking linoleum, the lack of interior doors, the fact that none of the kitchen cabinets closed properly, and the general deterioration. So yeah. No.

I did some more research online and based on that plus my notes from before our trip, we looked at a few more places today. Not too terrible. We have a few options in apartment complexes but that leaves us no yard for the dog and no washer/dryer hookups.

This afternoon, I called about a few more houses. I found two in our price range. The first was taken by another woman just as I came to look at it. I had a look around and it was better than the previous option but in a so so neighborhood with a bad school and no central air. Did I mention it was 100 degrees today? Yeah...the no central air thing is not going to work for me. So no hard feelings spiky purple haired tattooed woman! That house is all yours.

The other, well, I couldn't get a hold of the person and the house seemed okay from the outside and the price was okay but a little high for us and the school was bad. I don't think I care to pursue it.

That brings us to this evening, during which time I've set up appointments to look at two duplexes. We'll do that tomorrow and drive around a couple of more neighborhoods to look for yard signs. That plus one more complex to check out and one email out to someone with a craigslist ad is pretty much all we've got right now. Unless something posts to craigslist tomorrow.

This is seriously miserable. I hope tomorrow I'm logging on to show you pictures of our new duplex because I'm really hoping one of those will work for us. Sadly, something tells me after I've seen them I'll be asking myself whether people actually live in these places. And feeling sorry for them.

I don't take very many pictures of the children.

The point here was to keep people updated and I know people want to see the children. I'll try to take some more pictures after they get up from napping. For now....