On Sunday... On Saturday...
Today at the Braves game, a little girl sitting in front of me finally talked her mom into buying her a tiny pink mini-bat in the 9th inning. The mom was carrying a silver-sequined purse. Everyone in the stands was going crazy because the Braves had just beaten the Pirates 5-4 and the little girl dropped her new pink bat to cover her ears, it was so loud.
Yesterday, on the way to my office downtown, about six Atlanta Police officers and a couple of paramedics were standing casually around a man who was sprawled haphazardly in the road. An ambulance and three or four police cars, all with lights flashing but no sirens going off, sat nearby but no one appeared in a hurry to get the man to the hospital.
Two days, two really different scenes. That's all I'm saying.
I came, I saw, IKEA
Maybe going to the Atlanta IKEA on Saturday afternoon wasn't such a great idea after all.
Too many displays everywhere, too much merchandise in my face, too little staff to help and way way WAAAAAAAY too many ATL transplant intowners with Chicago accents who kept saying snide things like, "See, Carole, Americans aren't *used* to this: urban living." Que? And, hey dude, YOU ARE AMERICAN. Nary a "y'all" to be heard in the fray, except from this country girl.
I'm reserving full judgement until I go back - next time on, like, a Thursday morning - to get the bed frame and the TV stand I need. Today's haul netted me a 20-piece tableware set for $9.99 and three $1.49 plates so it wasn't a total loss. But I was worn out by the time I left, just from trying to hurry up in order to suit the other shoppers who weren't in a "looking around" mood. Why were they there then? To play a personal game of "Beat The Clock"?
And I didn't even get a cup of the "strong Swedish coffee" they promised in the catalog. I needed that coffee, too. And a snack. And a nap.
A win, and a loss
At tonight's Braves game, reliever Jay Powell came out from the bullpen, threw a pitch that went waaaay wide of the Pittsburgh batter standing in and then collapsed to the side of the pitcher's mound in what appeared to be agony.
Turns out he'd had elbow surgery a while back and early word is that he might have broken his arm when he released the baseball. It was an awful thing to see.
Atlanta won 2-1, but the Braves lost bigtime. We needed that guy.
Something for Shannon
On my way home from work, sometimes I get stopped underneath this interstate overpass and stenciled on one of the concrete bridge supports in black spraypaint is this message - "SHANNON HAS AIDS" - which has been there at least since the late '90s. When it first appeared, it was painted on the overpass bridge and all of the supports. The DOT erased the most obvious graffiti, but I guess they missed that one little area that I see on the off-occasions when I crawl beneath the overpass, inching through the late afternoon traffic.
Each time I pass by the stencil, which has faded a bit over the years, I wonder who Shannon is - or was - and if he or she really has (or had) AIDS. Not that it matters. And I wonder if Shannon, too, passed by the graffiti and felt sad, angry or stunned - amazed that some bitter soul who he or she (or I) will never know felt a compelling need to spread a cruel form of anonymous hatred in a public forum for all to see.
I go IKEA
Call me a whore for affordable, stylish, easy-to-assemble modern furnishings. Because I love
IKEA. And I haven't even set foot in the gigantic ATL store yet. I've only been driven by it once and that was months ago - long before it was finished. I'll say this for the Swedes: they're real go-getters. If they want something - like you, in IKEA - they are relentless in their pursuit. Must be the old school Viking in them. That explains the forthrightness of ABBA's "Gimme Gimme Gimme A Man After Midnight" as well as IKEA's in-your-face marketing blitz here in Hotlanta.
I got my complimentary 2006 IKEA catalog in Sunday's paper. It was neatly tucked in the midst of fast food coupons and screaming "NO MONEY DOWN!" car dealership ads. 366 pages of Swedish efficiency later and I'm still unable to put it down. It's better than any beach reads I've tried plowing through all summer and that includes those Nicholas Sparks books everyone else zips through in, like, a day. Initially, I dog-eared the pages of the housewares I need and have since been repeatedly sucked back in, scrutinizing page after page of things I just want.
Someone at IKEA in the catalog design department has a healthy dose of snark flowing through his or her veins, which is another of the 524 reasons I love this handy book and the store it's reppin' for. Take page 89, for example. Here's the large-type tagline, meant to summarize why you should buy everything you see on the two facing pages, which feature a cool, clean white-and-blue living room/den set: "Socializing is easy and relaxed, getting friends to leave is harder." Hee. Sure, somebody needs to introduce the notion of the semicolon to Team IKEA Catalog but that's one of the funniest things I've read in a catalog - hell, in print - in years. Sears or JC Penney would never have the cojones to put anything remotely like that in one of their catalogs. If they even still print catalogs. And here's something to make any parent happy, from the Children's IKEA section: "Children can discover new worlds and get lost in their imagination without ever leaving their room." I'm for that. Here's a thought from IKEA interior designer Monica Lofven: "Living with kids should be carefree and not hard work." You can take the store out of the socialist country but you can't take the socialist country out of the store, I guess.
No printed product is without its flaws and the IKEA 2006 catalog is no exception. More than a few sentences describing the Joy of IKEA are Just So Exciting That They Must Be Punctuated With Exclamation Marks! A lot more than a few. Too many, in fact. Say it with periods, IKEA. Your cool furniture speaks for itself, 'kay? And... how do I put this without sounding like an immature 7th grader? Including the FARTYG wall spotlight in the bathroom section probably wasn't the smartest idea. Yes, I giggled when I read it. And when I wrote that just now.
All told, I'm still amped about hitting the local, brand spankin' new IKEA with my nieces once they get back from Iowa later this week. We'll load up on all things Swedish, like TINGA cutlery, JOKKMOKK dining sets and heck, if the girls are little angels in the store I may just buy 'em each an EMMABO rocking chair at the New Lower Price of $19.99 apiece. It's RA - "requires assembly" - but a few clicks, snaps and twists here and there and hey, we're mod, baby.
Tour de Lance
As some anonymous soul once mused on the AJC's
Sports Vent, "Shouldn't we call him Lance LEGstrong?" Word.
Seven in a row. I love this man.
Girl of 100 lists
These are the things I must get done today:
• Deposit month-old checks in the bank. You'd think I'd be all over NOT being broke.
• Finally mail out CDs to Janna, Emily and Sherman. Finally. Like, after just one more listen.
• Send out money order for 10-speed bike I found for $70 on eBay. For someone else, natch.
• Make covers for the Janna, Emily and Sherman mix CDs. I'll have to *gulp* go down to my office to do that.
• Resist the temptation to put in overtime (unpaid) at work on a project I'm way behind on. What the HELL is wrong with me? Overtime?
• Make those long overdue mix CDs for Michelle. Here we go again.
On the road again
While tooling my way up I-75 North into downtown ATL on the way to work this a.m., I took inventory of the more unusual things abandoned by the roadside. On today's roster: a New York Yankees visor (in Braves Country, no less), one solitary hiking boot, a smashed Igloo cooler, one dead dog stiffened by rigor mortis, a black baseball cap bearing a rebel flag insignia and some sort of message (probably "FERGIT HELL!") in all caps, one empty Dasani water bottle and three half-empty Gatorade/Powerade bottles. The watermelon pile is still there, evaporating in the heat.
So Gatorade bottles now litter our nation's highways rather than beer cans. Good to know that America's hitchhikers are choosing fluids scientifically formulated to rehydrate, replenish and refuel in ways beer can't.
Thumped 'n' plugged
It's not really summer in Georgia until you've seen your first upended watermelon hauler wrecked by the side of the interstate. This morning, I did, and there was a big pile of the prettiest dark green and deep pink sweet melons you ever saw... smashed to all heck and back on the side of I-75. Oh well, the local yellow jackets will be in hog heaven. I can't remember an afternoon when, sucking down pieces of watermelon as a kid, when a pack of those evil bees didn't descend upon us, ruining Happy Watermelon Time. Man... what a waste of good, Georgia-grown produce.
Say it with Coldplay
Now I'm no mixmaster par excellence, but I've been busting out mix CDs for some friends over on the Television Without Pity "Grey's Anatomy" TV forum. (Yeah, that was a blatant plug for our snark-o-rama over there. I'm not ashamed.) Only thing is, I haven't actually *sent* the mixes out to my compadres yet. Because my lame self is: a) too lazy to address the mailing envelopes, which is pretty freaking lazy and b) too selfish to turn over these phat beats to their new adoptive mamas and daddies.
Aw, heck. Now that I just started this here blog and will be telling them about it, I guess the jig's up. Mixes ahoy!
