The Dixie Cheese

Chock full of Chikin we are

Stacy — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:31:44 +0000

Though the commute in from Monroe should be a bear and a half, with my guy it hasn’t been much a problem at all yet. Don’t know where Monroe is? Yeah, I had absolutely no idea either. Even Google Maps laughed at me when I tried to find it.

It’s become a time to just curl up next to him in the truck and enjoy being together…or, yeah, sleep in his lap while he has to do the drive. I’m such a nice girlfriend, aren’t I? But, anyway, yes, I most certainly do curl up next to him in the truck each and every time, thankyouverymuch. I don’t think I’ve been in the passenger seat yet.

In any case, today’s commute in to work tickled me so that I’m still thinking about it 3 hours later.

It was a Chikin kind of morning. A lot of mornings are Chikin kinds of mornings, as evidenced today when the lady in the window greeted us like long lost friends. Okay, maybe not long lost friends. But there I was, curled up against my guy, and the lady just greeted us and exclaimed how pleasant we always are when we come through. Always are. As in: maybe we’re eating at the Chik-fil-A a little too much? Nah…..

I told Rex I bet she’ll also think it’s absolutely adorable when I show up as a cow on Cow Appreciation Day (this Friday - click the link!) because I am SO showing up as a cow on Cow Appreciation Day, much to his chagrin, I’m sure. You know, I have a feeling he may just put me in the passenger seat for the first time Friday. :)

Guess what I found today?

Stacy — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:36:08 +0000

A nail salon in the Atlanta area is actually American Owned & Operated.

I KNOW! I didn’t believe it either!

:-)

And I’m off!

Stacy — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:09:08 +0000

…Or I will be in a mere few hours that can’t go by quickly enough.

I’ll be heading up here this evening to spend the rest of the weekend with R. and his family. As usual on the day of a trip, I’m not wanting to do anything but hit the road (I’m at work, finishing up a few things first). As unusual, I actually remembered to pack everything (!!!), including my camera, the spare battery, and the battery charger! I’m hoping to not only get some real pretty photos up there but some randomness along the way.

I’m not sticking to the typical I-75 route, deciding to to through little bumble towns of Georgia and Tennessee instead. Though this actually was the route recommended to me, my real thrill in doing it was brought on by Paulie and his similar off-interstate travels through the Southeast. I might have to warn R. to expect me a little later than he first thought. Hopefully there will be some fun little photo ops on the way.

Happy Fridays and good weekends to you all — catch you on the flip side with (hopefully) some fantastic photos and travellogue.

(p.s. do kids these days even know what a flipside is?)

Atlanta Time Machine

Stacy — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:13:36 +0000

My new waste of time at work is exploring this website.

It has oodles of photos from all over Atlanta, showing neighborhoods “Then” and “Now.” Wicked cool!

Are we consumers REALLY this stupid?

Stacy — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:30:22 +0000

I was recently reading the back of my Crest Pro Health Night toothpaste while brushing my teeth and noticed there is actually a line on it that reads: “Crest Pro Health Night is effective both day and night.”

Damn, wish I’d known that before spending all that money on my Morning, Mid-Day, and Early Evening toothpastes as well.

Good Things About Tuesday So Far

Stacy — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:46:09 +0000

1. Crazy coffee A coworker got this from a friend. He brought it in to share with us coffeeholics. It’s some strongass coffee but tastes pretty darn good.

2. Another coworker, Angie, seeing there was crazy coffee, then offered up her Waffle House pie. Story goes that she stopped for breakfast this morning and the Houses in this ‘Hood are doing a pie-selling contest. The winning House gets to pie their manager in the face. (Yes, I just used a noun as a verb. It’s killing me, too.) So she bought one to share here at work. It came out at 10am.

3. Lunch with The Primer. :-) It’s amazing how tough it is for us to manage to get together for lunch. After high octane coffee and half a chocolate pie, you wouldn’t think I even needed lunch, right? Wrong. We decided to try a new place for both of us: Psych-a-Deli in Marietta. Very good food in a nice open, light atmosphere. with clever little food titles such as the “Hang on Sloopy-reuben,” “Friend of the Devil-burger,” and ”China Cat Sunflower-club.” The PB&J sandwiches are called “Stawberry fields forever” and “Purple Haze.” Cute. Seriously cute, but tasty enough to forgive them for it. :-) I myself had a “Pink Moon-smoked salmon BLT” and Barb had a “Sugar magnolia” salad. And, as always, Barb was very good company. We dished about dates, what we (and the rest of you yahoos) have been up to and realized it’s been way too long since we managed this and must do it again.

And on that note, it’s back to work. But with this much happiness this early on a Tuesday, who knows what the day can bring? Hope y’all are having good ones as well!

Though I’m not quite sure of their platform…

Stacy — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 13:27:00 +0000

…My newest coffee mug, a gift from my roomie, makes me giggle.

Sure, it’s June. But how can you resist when you’re driving by a Christmas MegaStore?

It just wasn’t meant to be

Stacy — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:12:06 +0000

This weekend I went to a private Belmont Stakes party, sponsored by a gentleman from UPS. Even without ever following horse racing before, it’s a no brainer when I learned that UPS was the major sponsor of “Big Brown,” who is one of my biggest clients. (Appropriate name, don’t you think?) The party was a success — open bar (how many dirty martinis can Stacy put away? Oh, only as many as my guest Julia did her bloody marys!), wonderful spread, and great people in a bar in East Cobb called Trilogy. Unfortunately, however, Big Brown failed to live up to the promise of being Triple Crown winner. Even without a huge passion for horse racing, I’d gotten caught up in the excitement of it all, only to be disappointed like many others….probably all others except those who bet on Da’ Tara, the winner.

Color me stupid once again that I hadn’t realized how QUICKLY these races go! Well, duh, of course they do, right? I mean, it’s not like it’s a car race and they have 70+ laps to finish! (Poor, poor horsey that it even crossed my mind) But it was there and gone in a flash, leaving the whole room shocked and saddened. So there was really only one thing to do… Jules and I headed out to join with friends Allen, Rex, Royce and Connie to get the mood back up. We ordered an obnoxious amount of pizza (which is becoming a trend, really), drank an obnoxious amount of drink, and just hung out the rest of the evening until it was time to call it a night and head home.

The button above is actually kind of fun. They were part of a campaign we helped UPS get out, but mine here is of the special variety. There’s another little button on the back of it that makes a horse neigh sound when you press it! It’s just gotta be the cutest thing ever! That, and durable, as I put it through the washer yesterday, still pinned to my blouse. Oops. :) Hopefully Big Brown will come back and do well again later this summer because there’s nothing more fun that walking around with an obnoxiously cute horsey-neighing button. I never really thought about horse racing before, but I might just could get into it now.

Thanks to you for my education last night

Stacy — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:22:27 +0000

I am woefully ignorant.

Last night went a ways in changing that.

Currently, I get about 12 channels of television in my room. This is solely because I am lazy: I have no remote, and therefore cannot “program in” any channels over Channel 12. I am told this can easily be changed just by going out and purchasing a universal remote. I haven’t gotten off my ass to do it yet, so I guess it hasn’t been too much a priority.

Because I only get channels 2-12 (with a fuzzy one or two in the middle there), it has caused me to tune into some programming that I never think to watch. Last night I rediscovered the joy of Georgia Public Broadcasting (…made possible by viewers LIKE YOU! THANK YOU!).

Last night’s viewing included:

The Deadliest Airplane Crash

On this topic, I was actually educated prior to this viewing. I think I can only owe it to Wikipedia, who did a “topic of the day” sometime in the past year to teach me about this horrible airplane accident in the Canary Islands. I was horrified and enthralled all at the same time. The hour-long television show last night filled in some of the gaps, including interviews with some of the very few survivors of the Pan Am flight and the woman (a Canary Island tour guide) who decided to stay on Tenerife another night to visit with her boyfriend instead of re-boarding the fateful flight.

When the first airplane crash documentary was over, PBS wasn’t ready to give up the ghost. The program I watched next completely shocked me — in that I knew absolutely nothing about it.

The Day Atlanta Stood Still is about the deadliest plane crash (up to that time); one that killed over 100 prominent Atlantans who had been on an art tour around Europe and on their way home when their plane crashed at Orly in Paris. Here’s the thing that amazes me the most: the Atlanta Arts Center (now the Woodroff Arts Center), is actually a memorial to that group, a cultural center founded on all the love and beliefs that group had and what they wanted to do in Atlanta for the arts. In fact, the Rodin that stands outside the center is a tribute of sympathy from the French government of that fateful day.

Now, I’m well aware that you, dear readers, are probably much more cultural aware than I am and this is not news to many of you, but for me it was still an eye-opener.

The documentary did really well in capturing the lives of the folks who were lost. Before there was even any explanation of the disaster, the entire front half of the hour touched on the victims, who they were, their families, their civic involvement in Atlanta. It also had some really neat old-time 1960s movies and photographs of the city — wicked cool to see the differences over the span of the last 50 years! The stories were interesting too… one man had had a “rustic cabin” on the outskirts of the city: where the Georgia Tech campus stands today.

All in all, it’s a very touching documentary and, tragedy aside, I enjoyed it very much.

When my local PBS station had enough of plane crashes, they decided to throw an independent film my way next. It was called, “New Year Baby” and didn’t have much of an explanation by way of introduction. I thought: phew! Something a little more lighthearted and uplifting, perhaps?

New Year Baby is a documentary on the Cambodia genocide of the 1970s.

Again, I found myself thinking: how incredibly naive and sheltered and ignorant am I that I knew nothing about this? In fact, when the story started, upon hearing the year “1975,” I figured it must have to do with some sort of spread of violence after the Vietnam War, knowing Cambodia was “somewhere around there,” right? (And, yes, me, the map freak, has a hard time admitting this.) I knew NOTHING about the Khmer Rouge - nothing. I did sit up when I heard the name “Pol Pot” — but then, what the heck kind of pride can I take in that? That I knew I had heard the NAME before? Sheesh.

But this is not about kicking myself. This is about me being really happy to have found this little gem of a documentary. It’s incredibly touching and beautiful, narrated by the youngest daughter of a couple who lived through that time before escaping and settling in Texas. It’s only as an adult that Socheata Poeuv realizes what her parents went through, that what she’s known as family all her life is changed, and has a chance to revisit her homeland with her parents. Alternately sad and sweet, it’s beautifully done and, though touches on the genoicide and what happened in Cambodia, is really about this particular family’s personal story that comes out of it.

After that, it was definitely past my bedtime.

So, yes, I’m still woefully ignorant.

But thanks to PBS (and VIEWERS LIKE YOU, THANK YOU!), I’m a little less so this morning.

Happy Memorial Day to all

Stacy — Mon, 26 May 2008 17:14:59 +0000

For all who’ve served and all who have yet to come… thank you. :) Hope you all are having a happy, safe Memorial Day.