Tomatoes at 1245

This Memorial Day weekend, we focused on....tomatoes! And tomato containers. The original goal was to add two plants to our existing two (a Brandywine and a Cherokee Purple), which I planted about a month ago and which have gotten to be about 4' tall. Only one fruit so far, and they've been experiencing blossom drop, but I ordered some special blossom set spray from Burpee that everyone seemed to like, so here's hoping.


We started a Pike's where the plants were two for one -- which was a sign of the plant quality -- had to look hard to find good plants but ended up with a Celebrity, a Big Boy, a Better Boy and something else. Then went over to Hasting's, which is where we should have started. From there, we departed with a Mr. Stripey (Alan's choice), a Yellow Jubilee, a Yellow Pear, and a Grape Tomato. All went into various containers, including a reuse of one of our cat litter containers to attempt an upside down tomato plant, which were all the rage in the internet forums. That was yesterday's DIY adventure. Today's was to create a homemade self-watering container.

Community Supported Agriculture

Awhile back the Atlanta Journal Constitution ran an article about Emory's efforts towards serving regional and organic food. It stimulated me to look for Community Supported Agriculture programs in the area that were taking new customers and we signed up for the one from Farmer's Fresh Food. We pick up our weekly bag at our local Whole Foods on Wednesdays and every week have 5-7 items, including vegetables, herbs, and on one occasion, eggs. It has introduced us to some new foods like kale, collards, and turnips, which are surprisingly delicious when roasted with onions and garlic in olive oil. We also get lovely fresh lettuce, with so much flavor compared to grocery lettuce.



This week we got this huge cauliflower, whose taste is so sweet and texture delicate. All in all, we love getting our vegetables and fruits this way and it's leading us to new choices which is fun, too.

Weekend visit to Parker's Ferry

We just returned from a brief visit with Suz and Jim over at Parker's Ferry, Jim's plantation which is a beautiful natural oasis on the banks of the Combahee River. It's about a 5 hour drive from Atlanta--not too bad. We did the usual -- walks on the dikes, alligator and bird watching, a trip to Plum's for lunch in Beaufort. And some shopping for the nieces and nephews. All in all a nice change of pace. Plus Suzy cooked some yummy meals.

I asked Alan what his favorite thing was about Parker's and he said, "the quiet." I might concur, although I answered "the color palette," which right now has the bright greens of spring and this weekend featured slate blue skies with puffy thunderheads. It was very nice to get a bit of respite.

Spring in Atlanta

Spring is so incredibly beautiful here. These are taken in our back yard.

Sports weekend in Atlanta

This weekend we said goodbye to the 07-08 Thrashers and went to our first (and likely only) Braves game of the season. It was the first time we had been downtown since the tornado that struck on March 15. The destruction was still obvious, with many windows still out in the Westin, CNN Omni, Georgia Pacific, etc. The Tabernacle is covered with a blue tarp and looks to need some major help. Small pieces of glass were everywhere. What a mess.

The Thrashers pulled out a 4-1 win to end this horrible season. Ilya Kovalchuk was named MVP, which he was, and the crowd pulled a nice chant of "Kovy, Kovy" for the first time that I've heard. Time for playoff hockey. Just not, unfortunately, for the Thrashers.

Sunday we headed down to Turner Field with our friends Merry and Ann. Holder Construction, who is building our Psychology Building, had called last week and offered tickets to the game. I am not a baseball fan and almost said "no" but thought that Alan might like it, so said "yes." On Friday, Brad from Holder brought the tickets by and called me twice to make sure I understand all the directions, etc. I was frankly a little puzzled. I mean, I knew where Turner Field was and figured out that we could manage to get ourselves in the stadium with no problem.



Only when I got home that night did I open the envelope with the tickets to see that they were for the new Suntrust Club. Row A, seats 6-9. Wooha. What a trip. We drove up to the stadium, showing our parking pass as we passed barrier after barrier, cruised up to the door, handed our car keys to the attendant and headed inside. In the club lounge, there was a full bar, an omelet station, crab cakes, and tapas. All very tasty. And the view from the seats was just ridiculous. We even had flat panel displays in front of us so we could see the TV coverage and attendants fetching drinks and food.

Thank you, Holder!

All-Star Game

The All-Star Game was a blast. It was so cool to be in our city and to have hockey fans and celebs everywhere. I literally bumped into Bill Clement and Toby Enstrom sat in front of us at the All Star Game itself. We also saw Peter Laviolette, coach of the (evil) Carolina Hurricanes, waiting in line with his family to get his daughter's face painted.



Saturday was probably the best -- the all star game itself was okay -- but Saturday there was the red carpet arrival for all the players. A respectable number of people turned out, so Atlanta didn't disgrace itself. Nothing like Toronto, of course, but a lot of kids and Lindsay Lohan turned out, so I guess we'll call it a success. :-) The skills competition was fun and much better in RL than TV -- I can say from personal experience since after coming home from the skills competition, I watched the taped skills competition. (I do believe my obsessive compulsive attention to hockey is getting better, honest, I do.)



The weekend did take its toll -- we skipped Wednesday's game against the Pens (which we won) and tonight's against the Sabres (which we're currently losing). But, to excuse us, tonight we did go to an amazing conversation between Salmon Rushdie and Rosemary Magee, VP and Secretary of Emory (and my former boss). Rushdie is on Emory's faculty and comes for a week each year and this was the kickoff event. What an erudite, intelligent man. He spoke about his creative process (he writes when an idea has stuck around long enough), the smallness of the world now (world is flat), the idea that the novel is somehow innately local (in tension with global expanse), and his antipathy towards critical/literary theory. Rather, he would prefer close readings and attention to how the second sentence follows the first sentence.

NHL All Star Game in Atlanta

The All Star Game, originally scheduled in what turned out to be the year we lost an entire season to the lockout, is finally here in Atlanta. Downtown is getting geared up, including a 30-story picture of Ilya Kovalchuck on the Westin.

Somewhat disappointing is the fact that Sidney Crosby won't be playing due to a high ankle injury. But, that's kind of cool, too, because maybe it means other players will get some attention. It would have been interesting to see him in the skills competition, though.