Sunday, January 07, 2007

Home again

Aloha, everyone! I hope your holiday season has been as amazing as ours. I will indulge with you some details, and try to reassure you that K did not spend his whole holiday putting together the "Best of Christmas songs" YouTube video list. Don't worry, there's always next year...

Christmas eve was spent on the North Shore with the straggler Sally crew (our frisbee team). Lisa (the girl in the Santa hat below) rented a condo up there and invited all the people who stayed on the island for a nice pot luck dinner overlooking the beach. It was an amazingly good time full of Secret Santa surprises, rubber band balls, and lots and lots of cookies. (Thanks to Buffy (green shirt) for the picture).



K and I had a nice Christmas morning with our newly acquired gingerpeople ornaments made by Megan, complete with Ultimate frisbees. They were hung nicely on our "Christmas tree", which was actually some pine branches I found on the side of the road. Christmas trees are ridiculously expensive here.


On the 27th, Kyle dropped me off at the airport for my big trip to Georgia to see my now 9 month-old niece, Megan. I took a red-eye to Dallas, via Maui, and then landed in Atlanta at 11:30am. I met up with Chuck Derby, who works at Georgia State. We toured his lab and downtown Atlanta, since I had never been there before. My brother, Sam, picked me up around 6pm and we attempted to leave Atlanta. After two hours we finally passed the first exit for Jonesboro, Brian's hometown (me thinks!), which is probably 10miles south of Atlanta. Our bellies and bladders finally got to us a half hour later, and we got off at the next exit in Jonesboro and we looked for the Chick-fil-A advertised on the side of the road, which unfortunately we could not find otherwise I probably could have eaten in, if I'm not mistaken, one of the first places B ever worked! Ah well, maybe nextime! The slow traffic was due to a burning truck we found out much, much later, but eventually we arrived at Sam's house, south of Warner-Robins.

I spent the week playing with the baby and all the neighbor's kids as well. My parents came down for a few days, so it was nice seeing them too. I'll post pictures later, when Cheryl, Sam's wife, sends them to me. Kyle apparently spent the week actually working. Oh, and watching a lot of football too. And Arizona Wildcat basketball. In case you hadn't heard, the Wildcats are amazing this year, minus the Wash State loss of last evening, in overtime. Bear Down!

I arrived home last night at 10pm. No problems with luggage, and all the Bermuda rum and ginger beer (yum, Dark and Stormy's, yum) I bought made it home safely. And then I got to see Gaffney's super wiggling, squirmy smile greet me in the car. When I got home, Kyle had another surprise, waiting in the recess lighting in the kitchen:


Isn't it beautiful?
It's nice to be home again.


3 comments:

Brian said...

Stuck in suburban traffic for a couple of hours? Sounds like you had the "authentic" Atlanta experience.

The CFA's along there are all relatively far from the interstate. If you were looking for the one I think you were, that one is right by my folks' house (which opened after I moved out and I have never set foot in).

The one I worked at c. 1993 was in Southlake Mall, and I think it moved.

In any case, you didn't miss much.

Anonymous said...

Back in the day, Chick-fil-a was a treat you got for having to go to the mall with mom. You could only get Chick-fil-a in the mall. Like Orange Julius or The Great Steak and Fry!

The first non-mall Chick-fil-a was in Greenville, SC.

Boo-yah!!!

Brian said...

Well, that was the first non-mall fast food CFA, but the Chick-fil-a Dwarf House (a full service type place) in Hapeville, GA has been there since 1946. (That was Mr. Cathy's original restauraunt.) There was a second Dwarf House built in Jonesboro in 1985, and now there are about a dozen around metro ATL.

Worth visiting primarily for the "Hot Brown", which is essentially spare pieces of CFA chicken in a cheesy gratin with little bits of bacon. Usually served with a heap of waffle fries.

I haven't had one in probably 10 years, and yet my heart hurts just thinking about it.

Between that and the Varsity, it's a wonder anyone in Atlanta lives beyond 40.