Momnesia

Listen, I don't have a degree in journalism and I don't have a masters degree (yet). But I do know that when you write a story, and you place it in a context that skews the reader's perception from one that is realistic to one that is not representational, you have done your public a disservice. With that, I open myself up to gobs, heaps and mountains of criticism with some criticism of my own: I have grown very dissatisfied with "The New York Times."

There. I said it. Sort of. What I really wanted to say is "I hate that frickin' paper," but that's simply not true. I revere it, and I read it, and I follow its decisions with rapt attention, as does anyone who works in journalism, no matter what they say.

However.

The Grey Lady's coverage of all things Southern leaves a lot to be desired. Case in point: this story on a town near the one in which I grew up. I don't know where the writer got his census figures, but once you get inside the perimeter in Atlanta, there are apartment complexes with more than the 7,100 that this writer claims lives in Clarkston, Ga. He calls it a "small town by the railroad tracks," which makes it sound like something out of "Steel Magnolias" or "Fried Green Tomatoes." Some place that time forgot with ladies in white gloves all dolled up on their verandahs drinking sweet tea and lamenting the state of things with all the darkies moving into town. It's ridiculous. The truth is that the population seems small because the according to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 2.7 km² (1.1 mi²).

I don't know what they teach at Columbia but at Augusta State University they teach that a city 1.1 square miles large, inside a heavily populated county (in this case, Dekalb County) that has been noted for decades for its arts, culture, and diversity, is not one on which to base a story about a small-town immigration "crisis." Talk about the one ignorant mayor, but not the city as a whole. There are 675,000 people in that county alone and driving those roads and one cannot tell where the city and county diverge. Oh, and trust me when I say that none of those roads have diverged in a wood in several decades.

I grew up in Atlanta, and Clarkston is not a town of 7,100. It has been a diverse area since the 1960s, when the whole "white flight" thing began. Here's an area that hasn't been "mostly white," as the Times put it, since before I was born, but their whole story hinged on the contrast between race and culture changing the face of the suburban landscape. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, if the truth be known, is probably looked upon by members of the national press corp with some bemusement. "Look at these guys," they nudge each other in the ribs while sitting on their behinds waiting for their Pulitzers to arrive. "What is there to report on in Atlanta?" But my beloved AJC wouldn't have gotten it wrong. Of course, they can probably look out their office windows and count the population of Clarkston, but anyway...

Well, how about the fact that despite the prevailing stereotype of Southerners as a bunch of overall-wearing, tobakky chawing, barefoot racists, Atlanta is one of the few cities that experienced Caucasian residential growth within its urban areas? So don't believe the Times' portrayal of the South as some embattled area still coming to terms with Reconstruction, grumbling about the Emacipation Proclamation and wondering how, how, how on earth we are going to get all this cotton picked by harvest time. This is the same paper that writes stories about every 5 years or so about how Southerners eat dirt. But they'd better be careful. Soon, many of their subscribers, despite the paper's northern appellation, will be in the South.

And we don't eat dirt. If you're looking for Hollywood stereotypes upon which to hang your lead, look to Julia Sugarbaker who said: "I have been a Southerner all my life, and I can vouch for the fact the we do eat a lot of things down here... and we've certainly all had our share of grits and biscuits and gravy, and I myself have probably eaten enough fried chicken to feed a third world country - not to mention barbecue, cornbread, watermelon, fried pies, okra, and... yes... if I were being perfectly candid, I would have to admit we have also eaten our share of crow, and for all I know - during the darkest, leanest years of the Civil War, some of us may have had a Yankee or two for breakfast. But... speaking for myself and hundreds of thousands of my Southern ancestors who have evolved through many decades of poverty, strife, and turmoil, I would like for Mr. Weaks to know that we have surely eaten many things in the past, and we will surely eat many things in the future, but - God as my witness - we have never, I repeat, never eaten dirt!"

Or chitlins, mountain oysters, moon pies, moonshine, opossum, squirrel, rabbit, salt pork, oxtails, pigs feet, or pickled eggs.

UPDATE:
There is a reason that there is no such thing as "Northern food." Here's a list of Southern foods to eat, and love: fried okra, sweet potatoes any way you want to cook them, field peas, boiled peanuts plain and Cajun, black-eyed peas, gumbo, etouffe, hoppin' john, grits, burgoo, crawfish, pecan pie, Brunswick stew, mess o' greens (turnip, collard, or mustard greens), country ham, catfish, red-eye gravy, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, benne wafers, cornbread or hoe cakes, andouille and boudin sausage, and most important of all: biscuits. Because when you're eating any of the above, they go perfectly with them. And when you're done, they're good to sop up your leftovers. And if you're still hungry, they're good by themselves.

Can I just reveal a secret to you? "Guys and Dolls" (there! I resorted to Wikipedia, Alice! and now my brain is on fire!) is my favorite all-time musical. I know every word to every song and most of the dialogue as well. I own the movie and although I can neither sing nor act, I volunteered to work as a stage hand at my high school production just to be near the people who could, in fact, sing "Sit Down You're Rocking the Boat." (Look, those hosers made Oprah. Ew.) I am that big of a dork. Now the Fort Gordon Dinner Theatre is playing the musical only a couple of miles from our house! It is like destiny! Scott and I will definitely be at that show. He doesn't know that, but he will because, hey, when you see a guy reach for stars in the sky, you can bet that he's doing it for some doll.

I love me some horoscope people. They are a fun-loving, creative bunch. When the newspaper for which I work decided that, due to low readership, it would no longer run the horoscopes, we all just shrugged our shoulders. We don't read it, either.

Not so fast, suckers! The horoscope readers are up in astrological arms. They've consulted their star charts and found that today is a day for action. But, being the peace-loving people they are, they decided on a passive protest, and - apparently not being environmentalists - decided to litter our little corner of Broad Street, Augusta, Ga., with some hilarous signage.

Here they're posted in order so that you can see how they are able to rhyme horoscope with so many things.

You might be a journalist if...

... your morning wake-up call is from the BBC office in London.

Me: Hi! Welcome to the (establishment name deleted, where sexual harassment is a way of life). What can I get you to drink?
Elderly Lady: I'll have a sweet tea, and he'll have unsweetened tea.
Me (returning): Here we are. Sweet tea for the lady, and unsweetened tea for the gentleman. Now, have you had a chance to review our menu?
Elderly Man: Miss, I asked for unsweetened tea.
Me: Yes, sir. (nodding and gesturing to the glass) This is unsweetened tea. Would you like to hear about our featured items?
Elderly Lady: No, honey, he wanted UNsweetened tea.
Me (confused): Yes, ma'am. And this is unsweetened tea in this glass here. Yours is sweet.
Elderly Man: Look, can I just get a glass of UNSWEETENED TEA?
Me (giving up): Sure. I'll be right back.
Elderly Lady (as I walk away): What happened to the good service we used to get?

Sorry for all the food-related posts, but I'm purging my old blog from when I thought I could be a food writer. It got boring after a while, and I haven't posted anything in months. So here's another story.

There's a lot to be said about "beach casual," a state of being where your hair never quite dries, your skin always feels a little tight from sun and salt, and a neverending supply of mysterious and sandy grit remains 'round your nether-regions... which are my favorite regions, by the way.

Something at the beach keeps the smell of fish from being offensive - the briny air? the unending supply of alcohol? sunstroke? Whatever the combination, I always find myself craving Los Frutas del Mar - oysters, shrimp, any kind of fish - although non-shellfish that are also non-salmon don't usually register in my Craving Index.

Perhaps that's the draw of Rhinehart's. The picnic tables, sandy floors and weathered wood takes me back to camping in the Keys - without thieving raccoons rampaging through our tent in the dead of night. Tony's terrified face is forever burned onto my retina.

Anyway, besides the prices (cheap!) and the attire (just cover the nether-regions!), there is a strikingly simplistic menu comprised almost entirely of seafood, with two chicken dishes and one beef dish thrown in. I don't like places like The Cheesecake Factory, where the menus remind me of my $95 college Geology textbook from which I have never recovered and I'm sorry, Dr. Breuer, but everything still looks like granite.

Most everything is fried - it's okay! you're at the beach! you'll swim it off - and that would normally be a turnoff except for the batter they use. It's awesome. I swear, if Rhinehart's served deep-fried balls of crunchy batter, I'd eat a whole plate of it and thank them for the heart attack later. It's an adventure!

Go and get a bucket of beer - real beer, not the schmancy-diet-light-low-carb-crap, and set aside your cariologist's stern recommendations for the evening. Butter won't clog your arteries if it's melted.

Smell is our most powerful sense, according to scientists. It's the first sense that we develop - babies can smell their parents before they can see them clearly - and it's the sense that brings back the most visceral memories. Since taste is 90% smell, food is an incredible storyteller in a person's life.

I have fond memories of coconut cream cake, my favorite. My great-grandmother used to make a coconut cream layer cake about every time we came to visit. She would put each minute of her 75 years of cooking and baking into that cake. It was always deliciously savored after a big Southern Sunday Dinner (which non-Southernors call "lunch). God love Mama Ida, but I found one better.

Very Vera is a catering company off Washington Road with a small cafe, gourmet casseroles, and a thriving mail-order cake division. Touring their facilities today, I saw red velvet cakes, strawberry layer cakes, choco-latte (mocha flavored) layer cakes, a variety of pound cakes... you name it, it was there. But Kyle, the cafe manager, had a suprise for me: "I cut a slice of coconut cream cake just for you," he said.

Oh, Kyle. My new best friend.

Ya'll, I'm not one to gush unless something deserves it, and I will say that since I usually eat sugar free everything, the slice of cake was on the too-rich-for-my-blood side of the sweetness scale. But my childhood memories of the Cedertown house Mama Ida bought when she sold the farm came flooding back. The cast-iron clothes iron that served as her kitchen doorstop. The expanse of flecked Formica countertops that stretched from one end of the kitchen to the other. Finally, the wall that separated the kitchen from the dining area. On the back side of this wall was a series of shelves. On the bottom shelf sat Mama Ida's glass cake case. In the case... oh, baked heavan.

Mama Ida was a humble woman, a farmer's good Christian wife, who usually wore a button-up patterned polyester shirtdress and always had an apron on over it. She kept her grey hair in a bun, and was hard of hearing. She called the seafood fast food place, "John Long Silver's" and pronounced pizza as "pie-zah." She thought the moon landing was staged. She was patient, kind and wise, but knew her limitations, and never took offense when we bratty great-grandchildren found comical her octogenarian ways. But the woman got much respect in the kitchen. Scratch biscuits kneaded by hand. Beans slow simmered with pork seasoning. Mashed potatoes fluffy like a cloud. Roast beef so tender it would melt in your mouth. And, again, that cake.

But the cake from Very Vera would make Mama Ida want to slap herself it was so good.

I am a person divided over this cake. Part of me is sorry that I tried it. It destroyed a closely-held childhood memory of the Greatest Cake Ever. Part of me is happy I found something that comes even close to matching it. It gave me some nearly tangible part of my childhood. But all of me is certain that I'll be back for more cake at Very Vera's, particularly when I'm feeling down or childlike, as though The Great Big World is ready to swallow little ol' me.

Sometimes we have to go back to go forward.

Lady: I'd like the hot wings. Now, are those hot?
Me: They're about medium, I'd say.
Lady: How hot is that?
Me (midway between hot and not-hot?): I suppose hot enough to taste, but not hot enough to burn.
Lady: Okay, but I want them double fried.
Me: Sure, I -
Lady (interrupting): I don't want them fried twice as long. I want you to fry them, take them out of the grease, sauce 'em up, fry them again, and sauce 'em again.
I have no intention of telling the cooks this because they will never do it. It will render the fryer useless for the rest of the night.
Me: Sounds great. No problem.

Later that meal...
Me: And how do we find our meals?
Lady: These wings is greasy. See?
She is actually squeezing the wing. She wanted her wings fried several times - did she think they be low-fat? But, seeing as how I don't really give a crap...
Me: Would you like for me to have the kitchen make you another batch?
Lady: I don't know. These is making me sick.
Me: Shall I get you something else?
Lady: Just give me some fried cheese sticks.
Me: So, because they're too greasy, you'd like to replace fried hot wings with fried cheese sticks?
Lady (oblivious): Yes, thems sound good.
Me: My pleasure.

Scott is trying to quit smoking, thanks to the surprise arrival of a free two-week supply of "the patch." He's down from 20-25 cigarettes a day to 5. That. Is. Amazing. You have no idea how proud I am of him! He's been a little grumpy, but in good humor. Part of it is his supply of gum that I brought back from the store yesterday... and lemon drops... and lollipops... and gummy bears... and basically anything to keep his mouth occupied. He's been using them, and the combination is working. But it's not all smooth sailing. Mornings are hard.

Scott: Can I just say that gum and coffee tastes like [crap]?
(I laugh)
Scott: Gum and coffee: [crap]. Coffee and cigarettes... beautiful.

Now that The Metro Spirit has been vindicated in the "James Brown Birth Date Scandal of 2006," I'm posting a photograph of one of our favorite supporters: The Imperial Theatre in Augusta, Ga. They trusted our reporting enough to use our dates (1928-2006) when everyone else was using the Associated Press dates (1933-2006).

Thanks, Imperial Theatre!

I can't tell you how many calls we got from individuals berating us for using the wrong dates, accusing us of apathetic reporting. Apathetic reporting happens when writers go by the "generally accepted" information, instead of getting their facts from the primary sources (i.e., court documents, birth certificates, and the horse's mouth). In our case, we had it from the horse's mouth long before anyone else. James Brown told columnist Austin Rhodes several years ago that he had changed his birth date when he was in his early twenties to avoid prison. Making himself five years younger meant that he received a juvenile sentence for criminal activity he committed in downtown Augusta, Ga.

It's almost impossible to get us to stop talking at work. I don't even know how I manage to write so many fantastic stories every week when we're all so busy talking about the cover of US Weekly. Because, as I frequently point out, we are serious journalists who care about the stories that matter. Oh, look, is that Brittney Spear's vagina? Again?

E: You know, his mother is Gloria Steinem.
A1: What?
A2: No, way.
Me: He's English.
E: Bet me a quarter.
Me: I'll bet.
A1: I'm in.
A2 (checking imdb.com): She's his stepmother.
E: Oh, stepmother.
Me: Pay up!
E: I really thought she was his mother.
A1: Ah, ah, ah... pay up!
A2 (reading): His father married Gloria Steinem in 2000.
Me: Yeah, you know she was like 60 when she got married? She held out a long time. That's a lot of batteries to go though.

I frequently make notes to myself to blog certain conversations - only then I usually can't remember what the hell I was writing to myself about. "Chicken fly swatter" - what the hell does that evenMEAN ? Sometimes my desk gets messy - oh, correction: my desk is messy most of the time - but not now because I cleaned it and I found an exchange I meant to blog about two months ago.

Me (on the phone with a co-worker across the office): Yeah, her last name is Estrella.*
J: How do you spell that?
Me: E-S-T-R-E-L-L-A.
J: B-F-T-R-B-L-L-A?
Me: ... What? No! What would that even spell, J.?! Oh, christ. I'm coming over there.

We went into The Swank Company in Surrey Center last week, to browse their Christmas specials, and I came across this perfume. It smells nothing like marshmallow. It smells like sex and forests after a warm summer rainstorm. It is amazing. I would like to smell like this every day.

"Honey, does this shirt look good on me?" I asked Scott. He appraised me while I looked down at the shirt. I think it's too tight across the stomach. I look up. His eyes are still appraising the same spot.
"Yeah," he says, appreciatively.
"Uh... honey, you have to look at more than just my boobs."

I just had a very frustrating experience at CVS, and I'm not sure if it says bad things about me, or about the other people involved. All I know is that it's left me very sad.

I went to pick up Emerson's prescription (and don't get me started on that. It's a whole other story) that I had dropped off this morning before work. It was 7 p.m., and there were about 20 people waiting around for their prescription, and just one guy working the desk. I stepped in line to wait, with just two people ahead of me. When it came to be my turn, a woman on my right, leaning on the counter, said, "Hey, I know my prescription is ready by now. All you gotta do is stick a label on it." And pitched such a fit that they took her and the guy behind her before me. I tried not to be angry. I know how frustrating it is to wait for a prescription - I usually wait 30 minutes at this pharmacy - and it's not like Emerson was on fire and waiting for water. But the lady in front of me kept on bitching about her prescription, with the guy behind her chiming in, like no one was even there. Like I didn't exist. Like the dude behind the counter didn't exist. Like they could just be assholes and it affected no one. She turned slightly toward me - by this time, I was squatting on the floor - and made a half-hearted apology.

"I don't mean to be rude, I'm just tired of waiting," she said.
"Oddly enough, I know how you feel," I retorted, with a pleasant smile.
"Hey, we've been waiting," the guy behind her said.
"Haven't we all?" I said, again with a pleasant smile.
"Hey, I got a kid who needs his medicine," he glared at me.
"As do I," I said evenly.
"McGowen?" the pharmacy tech inquired and I looked up at him.
"Yes, that's me," the woman in front of me replied with more than a hint of impatience.
"Hey, that's my maiden name," I said, with a smile.
"Yeah, probably because your grandfather owned mine," she spat, with no hint of humor.
Oh. Hell. No.

Now, I'll admit that I don't know much about my geneology. But I know that was uncalled for. And although I've only looked over the work that my aunt did on my mother's side of the family, as far as I can tell, they were just dirt farmers who hardly owned their dogs, much less other people.

Let's just say that there never was much to pass down to future generations.
But instead of being drawn in by her bait, I just smiled and told her to have a better day tomorrow because you never know who you might meet. It might be a long-lost family member.

Even if that family member does want to stab you.

Blue Horse Music Hall
For Immediate Release

Regarding: Closing
When: Immediately
Location: Corner of 10th & Broad Streets

It is with great disappointment that we announce the closing of the Blue Horse Music Hall. As of today, Monday, January 8th, the Blue Horse Music Hall will close its doors. It has been a rough, but exciting road for the Blue Horse since the first concert on July 6th.

The past six months included sold out shows from Corey Smith and Edwin McCain, appearances by Shawn Mullins and Emerson Hart and concerts from the best local bands in and around Augusta. Unfortunately, the sold out shows were not the norm. Lack of support for live music has long been a problem for promoters in the Augusta area and it is sad that this issue was the primary factor in the decision to close the Blue Horse Music Hall.

With tickets prices typically in the $8-$12 range the Blue Horse staff believed that the average resident in Augusta would be able to afford to attend shows. Blue Horse also worked with local lawmakers to create an ordinance that allowed in music lovers under the age of 21. The venue was always smoke-free and had acoustics that both artists and fans raved about after each show. Even wit hall [sic] of this, Blue Horse Music Hall was still unable to sell tickets to shows featuring up and coming artists or unknown talent. Which is too bad, because there are so many amazing artists - local and traveling through Augusta.

A big thank you from the Blue Horse staff to those who came to a show, enjoyed the intimate setting and were exposed to music they may have never heard before. It is the sincere hope of everyone related to Blue Horse Music Hall that the next time a venue opens in downtown Augusta it will build upon the foundation Blue Horse started.

Um, maybe if they didn't make people sit in place for the shows (lame-o) and if it didn't remind people of my elementary school cafeteria, which had a handy stage over to the side, then people might want to hang out in there. The floor was made out of the same tile, which is the kind of tile that should just be painted on each square with the sign "Slippery when wet." I mean, let's just balance the equations, people:
(beer + spill = fall) x (slip + drunk = sue) = ?
Let's see... that's... add beer and spill... then add slip and drunk... so:
(fall) x (sue) = ?
fall x sue = ?

Yes. We all know what the "?" means. It means "print" in BASIC.
No! I kid! That was my geek joke for the week!

It means a lot of money going into pockets other than the owners of the Blue Horse Music Hall.

Some people would benefit from a really good stabbing - in particular, the idiots who came up with these band names:
"Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza" (Who's the boss that approved that name?)
"A Girl, a Gun a Ghost"

Alice read the second one off to me and I threw up a little in my mouth. The name was Vogon-poetry bad.
"What?" I asked incredulously.
She repeated it. These people and their stupid names make my head hurt.
"Oh, god, for real?" I whined.
"For real?" A. mimicked. I made fists and smacked my desk as A. laughed.
"Don't make fun of me!"
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I just couldn't help it," A. said.

Yesterday was a landmark day: Emerson went poopy in her potty. We'd been keeping an eye open for an opportunity to plop her on the potty so that she could plop something in the potty, and yesterday she was doing the thing that told me I was dangerously close to fishing another floater out of the bathtub. So I snatched her up and sat her down, and she went and we all cheered like crazy. She pointed repeatedly and said, "Emmie guh poo-poo."

The problem is that Emmie hates to go poo-poo. She holds it until you think her little ass will explode. I tell you, if I were ever looking for a way to smuggle a watch out of a P.O.W. camp, her butt would be the ideal place to hide it. She clenches her little fists and stares wide-eyed and intense, shaking and sometimes wailing with the effort.

In short, she's nutso. But that's to be expected, coming from our collective gene pool.

I know everyone is just SO happy that we've entered into what will probably be a six-month obsession with where, when and how much Emerson makes a doody deposit. So just stay tuned. There's more to come.

It's Saturday morning and we're carrying Emerson's breakfast to her little table and chair - peanut butter and honey sandwich, as she requested - and we pass the open bedroom door where Scott is pulling on his socks.

"Cock!" Emerson exclaims as she points, then toddles on.
"Hey... don't call your father names like that," I laugh.
"She didn't! She was saying 'sock!'" Scott insists, as he puts on his shoes.
"I don't know, Scott. I think she's smarter than that."

"So, now, I've gotten Emerson to say 'sock' like "sssss-cock," I inform Amy, with a roll of my eyes.
"Well, that's better than 'cock,'" she encourages.
"Hey, nothing is better than...," I start with an evil grin. "Noooooooo. I'm kidding!"
"I zoned out for a second. What did I miss that was fun?" Erica asks from the desk behind me.
"Stacey's talking dirty to me," Amy laughs.

It's 8:45 a.m. on Friday, which means that it's time for...

A.: Okay, I'm already thinking about lunch. What time are we going?

By 9:30, it sounded pretty good to me, too. Let's hope I haven't had another birth control lapse.

Me (irritably): Why do I smell banana?
Corey (from behind me): Because I'm eating a banana.

Oh.

From: mchammerblog@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [MC Hammer Blog] 12/29/2006 06:05:04 PM
Date: January 3, 2007 8:41:09 PM EST
To: stacey.hudson@metrospirit.com

Love U Back !!!

Hammer

As a first-time mom, I don’t have a lot of advice to offer to other new moms. My two-year-old daughter still doesn’t sleep through the night; I don’t know how to wean her off her pacifier; and potty training seems distant. But there is one thing you learn quickly and Corinthians 15:51 sums it up best: "I tell you a truth hitherto kept secret: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed."

We called our daughter "Frauline Poopenstein" because for the first several weeks of her life if she wasn’t expelling something terrifying from her body she wasn’t doing much at all. To be honest, it was okay when she was a newborn and made her first "stinky."

"Oh, look," I exclaimed, delightedly, while relatives dove for air freshener. "Her first doody! I shall name it Fred."

Now it is less than delightful. It is an insidious thing. Like evil, it can take many forms.

One form is Rabbit Turds. These little pellets are hard and sticky, but also small and light like invisible tape so that they sometimes affix to unexpected things. You might discover this later in an unfortunate way, as I did.

"Honey, I’m off to the store. Are you sure you don’t want to go?" I asked my husband.

"No. My back really hurts," he moaned.

"Poor baby. If it makes you feel any better, I found baby poo stuck to the side of my hand this morning after I changed Emerson."

He grinned: "You know, I do feel a little better."

My suffering is worthwhile if it eases the anguish of others.

Silly Putty is similar to Rabbit Turds, but larger. It's sticky, but heavier, so it is easier to handle. But watch out! If little legs kick when you're changing, these can become dangerous projectiles. During one particularly difficult diaper change, Emerson kicked her dirty diaper as I was pulling it out from under her and sent the silly putty flying.

"Gah!" I screamed.

"What's wrong?!" Scott barked anxiously from the door. I merely pointed. "It" had hit the wall, stuck and slid down a couple of feet. There almost wasn’t enough bleach on the planet to make the room feel clean again.

But if your walls need more than cleaning, wait for the Spackle. This substance would make millions for an inventive hardware store if not for the unfortunate brown color. It's gooey, spreadable and dries almost instantly to an impenetrable crust. I’ve taken Emerson straight from the changing table to the bathtub several times.

I asked my daughter about how she’d prefer that I handle this situation. She chewed one of the dog’s toys thoughtfully then said, "Dhet!"

Which brings us to The Poop of a Different Color. There are some hues that do not appear naturally among vegetables of the world yet your child’s doody may contain them anyway. Remember the old Crayola 64 boxes? I know how those were invented. Some sleepless parent looking for an earthly explanation for this unearthly phenomenon.

Once you start on solid foods, it’s a whole new ball of… well, you know. So, beware, chumps. Little tummies aren’t always ready for progress, so sometimes what goes in comes out in exactly the same form and what you get is Vegetable Soup. The reason, I’m certain, that Campbell’s markets their canned foods to children is that none of their parents will touch it. It’s too metaphoric.

For these reasons and more, Emerson has been the proud owner of a training potty since she was about nine months old. She was using it as a step stool, but recently began actually sitting on it… to watch television. We’ll post more information as things progress. We can: we have plenty of adhesives here. Too bad it’s brown.

Proof that we watch way too much Harry f-ing Potter in our house surfaced today, when my 23-month-old daughter requested "Hey Pah-Pah" and I popped in "The Chamber of Secrets" (or, as my brother called them when he was three years old, "see-cruds").

When the scene where Harry Potter arrives at the Weasley's house came on, Emerson stood up to watch it. Julie Walters bursts in as Molly Weasley: "Where HAVE you been?!"
-"bin!" Emerson chimes in, grinning at me, palms up inquisitively.
What the hell?

"No note! Car gone!" Walters half-shrieks.
"No noh! Cah goh!" Emerson mimics, hands on her hips.
Oh, god.

"You could have died! ("diyah!") You could have been seen!" ("seeeeend!")
"They were starving him, Mom. There were bars on his windows," her on-screen son replies. "Deys a bar on da weeennow!" Emerson echoes, then turns to me and begins to shake her finger back and forth.
(groan)

"You best hope that I don't put bars on your windows, Ronald Weasley!" Walters-as-Weasley finishes triumphantly.
"Yooo binna habba duhbuh weeenow!" Emerson warns me. "Ohr, tiyam out!"
Well, at least she understand the consequences of misbehaving: the dreaded time-out.

James Brown died on Christmas Day, and because Scott and I both work in the media, it has turned our lives upside down. It's been non-stop 15-hour days since then. We've been trying to figure out where all the celebs are staying - Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, Dan Akroyd, John Goodman, Eddie Murphy, and Patti la Belle are just some of the names - without much luck. But today, all the work paid off because MC HAMMER IS IN AUGUSTA!!!

These are pictures from our office "Christmas tree." It was weeks before there were ornaments, so Abbi improvised. Here are her pictures.

Thanks to Lillie Morris for these words of wisdom:

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intentiwon of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, egg nog in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO! What a ride!"

Emerson is in her mimicry phase. Everything we do, she wants to do, too. Is Dada shaving his face? You can be sure to find her perched on her little chair, reaching for his electric razor, just a few minute after he finishes. Is Mama cooking? Emerson will help by bringing random ingredients from the refrigerator. Macaroni and cheese with grape jelly, anyone? Really, we have plenty.

She wears our shoes and shuffles around the house. She envelopes her head in Scott's baseball caps so that she can't see where she is going. She points imperiously to the dog and shouts, "No, Rara!" whenever there is food nearby. He likes to steal it and run off laughing. Yes, our dog laughs. Do not question this if you have not met him. He's a little trickster.

This morning took the cake. While following me around the house, watching me get ready, she freaked out when I started to put on my panties and then she ran into the kitchen. I followed her to see what she was doing.

There she was on the linoleum floor, pulling on a pair of underwear from the clothes hamper. It took her a while to figure out how to get them on straight, arrange her legs properly, and stand up. When she did, it was golden. She was so proud with them pulled up to her armpits over her footie pajamas, grinning, shuffling towards me like an old man while holding them up. "Fwowers!" she said, pointing to the lace arrangement, while I died laughing. "Very good!" I choked out. "Flowers!" She clapped her hands and shuffled off, a victim of emulation being sometimes not so flattering.

Emerson is not quite two years old, and she's doing her best to communicate. But sometimes we still have to intuit what she intends to say. Here are some of the words she uses and their sometimes "smurfy" meanings.

P.I. Go - piggyback ride
bedai – raisins
beebobai – drink, from the Spanish "bebida"
cocks – socks – that’s an unfortunate misnomer that I wish I could change. She doesn’t seem to be responding to my efforts.
buh - peanut butter
pee-buh - jelly
nak - snack
hey pah-pah - Harry Potter
carshee - either "car" or "carseat," used interchangeably
eye-sigh baby - Baby Einstein
eye-sigh baby e-i-o - The Baby Einstein Old McDonald
boot – book
soos – shoes
kees – cheese
see-rall – cereal
ehfant – elephant
hi-fi – high five
one, two, fee, fohw, fie, seben, seben, eight, nigh, ten, leben, teh, firtee
NAH! Absolutely not.
Si – yes
Doh-doh – dog
Oh-so – bear (the Spanish word)
Rarah – our dog, Scrabble
Sawee – sorry
Moosh – kiss
Hot – hot
Hot – bright
Hot – warm
Hot – the stove at all times
Hot – any meal placed in front of her
Hot – the microwave
Hot – cold
Hot – coffee
Hot – painful
Up-and-down - stairs
poppers - crackers

I'm having one of those days where I might as well chop off my own head because everything I say and do makes me seem like an asshole.

First, I forgot I was supposed to take the baby in this morning because my husband was on the morning radio show.
Then, as I was getting Emerson out of her car seat at the day care center, I failed to properly unlatch one of the straps and about yanked her leg off taking her out of the car.
After, as I was putting her diaper bag in her cubby and her sippy cup in the fridge, I stepped on another child's foot.
When I stepped on that child's foot, I jumped back and knocked over Emerson, who was following me around the room.
I stopped by a fast food joint to get a soda because now I really needed caffeine, and as I was paying for my order, I dropped the debit card out of the window.
I got out of the car to get the debit card. As I was standing back up with it, the cashier opened the window and banged my forehead.
I almost choked on the first swallow of soda because at 33 years old I am still apparently learning to control my esophagus. While coughing, I hit my already-bruised head on the door frame.
I drove into work without incident and found a spot close to the entrance.
I got to my desk and realized that I'd forgotten to pay the day care center this morning. Doh!
Then I remembered that the car insurance is due this week.
Then I remembered that I left my coat at home and the office is freezing.
Then I remembered that I was supposed to get up earlier this morning to finish my stories because we're on an early holiday deadline.
As I was finishing my stories, the phone rang. It was the local rabbi reminding me that we'd scheduled a meeting this morning.
"Oh, God," I exclaimed, mortified.
"Well, that's prayerful," he replied, with a laugh.
Mentally, I banged my head against the table while we tried to find a time to meet.
He said he'd call me back.
I put stories in the wrong folders on the server all morning and had to go searching for them.
Ditto for photos.
Finally, it was lunchtime.
I went to pick it up and magically found a parking space right near the door - no small feat in downtown - and went inside to find that the order was ready, and there was no line. Amazing!
When we got the boxes open at the office, the food was all wrong. I don't know what they gave me, but it certainly wasn't what I had ordered.
While I was eating my suspect meal, my husband called to tell me that his most recent story had caused "a shit storm." But not to worry! His boss was going to purchase him a bulletproof vest.
(sigh)
I'm just waiting to see what happens next.

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN- Vandals tried to set fire to a giant straw goat in central Sweden but failed to burn down the traditional Christmas monument, which has been soaked with flame-resistant chemicals, officials said Friday.

These are Emerson's Halloween pictures. She's so adorable, but so very angry. She is...

THE. CHiCKEN. OF. FURYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

There was a party at her day care, a little Halloween parade, and all of the children were supposed to hold on to a rope and follow the teacher around the gym while all of the ridiculous parents cooed and chucked candy at their addled little noggins.

Not the Chicken of Fury. The Chicken of Fury wasn't having any of this bullshit and went on a rampage, running away from her teachers and throwing herself on the floor in front of everyone, whining and stiffening her body in the way that children can magically add 40 pounds to their tiny little bodies. I broke ranks and scooped her up, plying her with candy and smooches. She never once smiled. She was too furious.

Ah, co-workers... You spend 40 hours a week with them, and then they want you to go drinking on the weekend. What is this torture?

Oh, hey. Look at me in the background, not objecting or anything... Hmm.

That's Betsy in front, our new Creative Director, being her smiley, awesome self. Great party, Betsy and Ed!

Another one! Will the onslaught never cease?!

(Thanks for the picture, Joe, but did you have to chew on it before you took the shot? Nasty!)

Possibly the Greatest Christmas CD Ever Made! Buy it NOW!

Warning: This is possibly the scariest idea from a so-called "Gift Guide" that I have ever seen.

(scroll down)




















Kinetic Mesh Active
Slip Brief 3051
by C-IN2







<------ AAAAHHHHH!

Every day for the last 6 months, I have found a discarded chicken bone on the sidewalk outside of our offices. I am thinking either a really fast cat manages to take down pigeons on a regular basis, - which makes it not-chicken-wings-at-all - or somebody upstairs is chucking refuse at our heads as we leave the building.

(DISCLAIMER: Men, you might want to turn away from this post.)

So I was bitching about my tampons today. (Hey, I warned you guys!)
"Geez! I just went to the bathroom at home!" I stomp, irritated that - while hooray for getting my period from a reproductive standpoint - my day will be continually interrupted because the tampons I decided to try SUCK.

A. nods.
"Is that just too much information?" I ask, apolegetically.
"No, actually, it's good to know," she replies.
"Oh, great, well then, don't ever buy the tampon that I'm using."
"You know what's good are the sport tampons," she says, earnestly. I'm not sure if she realizes how hilarious that sounds.

Sport tampons. Tampons for the active period in your life, like, when my uterus is engaging in a rousing match on the tennis court. Please. My uterus is more likely to engage in a rousing nap on the couch. I assume what makes them sporty is their absorbancy, and not their aerodynamics, or something like that. Hopefully not their design, or something like they come in the colors of your favorite sports teams, 'cause who would see them?
"I'm a Steelers fan!"
"Oh, yeah, prove it!"
"Okay, look!"
"GAAAHHHH! My eyes!"

But I can see how someone doing something crazy like running a triathalon (Hi, Jim! Yes, I said it was crazy! There is simply no reason to run, swim or bike with such haste, unless someone is doing the same behind you with a knife. And screaming. And the screaming is your name. And there is no one else with the same name anywhere near you. Only then should there be hasty exercise. Which is how my ass got this way, and why you have the lovely wife that you do. And now that I am actively competing with Virginia Woolf for longest parenthetical statement ever written, I shall continue) would require sporty tampons. I mean, there can be few non-lethal things worse than having labored for however long such self-torture takes, only to cross the finish line and think, "I have that not-so-fresh feeling."

So, hooray for sport tampons.

The Metro Spirit is looking for the best, funniest, and most interesting predictions for 2007. Meterologist Jeff Rucker may be right, but he has nothing on us. We won't spare anyone or anything in our quest to make this the best and most accurate forecast ever. Answer just eight short questions and you can win EIGHT (8) seats to the Augusta Symphony's Columbia County Music Series Concert on Saturday, January 25, 2007, at 7:30 p.m. That's one seat per question! Just follow the quiz and have fun! Click here to take survey

Alright. I took the accompanying photo off at a very reasonable request. But I'm still going to tell a portion of the "tail."

There is an ad that has been running for three weeks that advertised "She-Crap Soup" instead of "She-Crab Soup." I won't name the publication, because it's almost 100% awesome. But it's still funny.

I'm sure everyone is familiar with how disorganized and pretentious any local music scene can be. I spent a couple of years in Athens, second only to Austin in prestige on the college rock scene, and it's not much better than other places. Some talent, but it all fades away when graduation rolls around, you know?

For some reason, the Augusta scene attracts a lot of goth-y bands. Maybe it's that the only all-ages venue, Sector 7G, is a post-punk oasis of underage piercings. Maybe that is the scene here. But the more goth a band gets, the more obnoxious their names are.

"What is it with these bands around here?" I snap at our copy editor. "Why don't they just name themselves Black Black Blaaaaack?"
She laughs at me.
"Or, like, Wellbutrin Nation, since Prozac's already taken," I continue, irritatedly.
"Also, I don't know why they have to be a mile long. I can hardly fit them in the listings," she says.

Seriously, what happened to simple "The" - somethings? The Shins, The Killers, The Replacements, The Queen, The Vatican, The Gettys, The Rothschilds... oh, nevermind. Instead, we get shit names like By the Sins Fell Angels. There's probably a parenthetical phrase after that continues on for another couple of sentences. Good luck fitting it all on a CD cover.

"Whatever," I snark. "They should just name themselves 'Zoloft.'"
She laughs in agreement.
"Oh! Or 'Zoloft the Conquerer!' That would be awesome!"

HUGE IN BELGIUM! The copy editor alerted me to yet another dumbass band name: Through the Eyes of the Dead. That doesn't make sense, first of all. Second of all, their acronym would be "TED," which is a way more humorous and "emo" band name than the one they're currently sporting. Third, all the eyes of the dead see are the inside of their coffins - and eventually worms and maggots.

AND IN KYRGYZSTAN! Another stupid local band name is Challenge Theory. What theory challenges them? Could it be the theory of evolution? It sounds like a bunch of knuckle-dragging frat boys got together, inspired by the god-forsaken legacy of Hootie & the Blowfish (now with more tasty Blowfish goodness!), and between bong hits said, "Duuuuuuude! We could totally rock if we were in a band!" And now they are. Hooray for us.

I work at a newspaper, and I love it. But any public forum invites crazy people to step up and open their yaps: County commission meetings, radio call-in shows, newspaper complaint columns, and the never-ending Internet... nothing is safe.

So I get a lot of crazies on the phone where I work. Today, I spoke to "Selene." She calls a couple of times a week to ramble about the classes that she organizes. I can almost hear the granola rattling around in her brain. After one particularly grueling 15-minute conversation, during which I almost fell asleep during her nonsensical patter that is utterly free of organization, I finally cut her off.

"Okay, so I have all the information except the location," I said.
"Well, I don't want to tell you."
(There is a moment of silence in which I consider stapling my ears shut so I don't have to hear her anymore.)
"You don't want to tell me?"
"Well, I'll tell you, but I don't want it in the paper."
"You want people to just guess where the classes are going to be?"
"Well, they can call, and I might tell them the location, but sometimes I get some people who are really mentally ill. You know?"

Yes. I do know.

"I mean, I want everyone to be able to come. It's a great stress reliever, and, as we know, stress is the cause of all wars."
"Oh!" I say, with a laugh. "I thought it was a shortage of chocolate."
There is a moment of shocked silence on the other end of the phone. I hope she isn't lighting some Wiccan revenge candle - oh, I know. That's not fair. Really, I don't have a problem with Wicca. I have a problem with Wiccans.
"You know," she said, quietly and seriously, "that stuff is really bad for you."
"I know," I say. "Sugar and caffeine and fat."
"Yes, but as you get older you can't digest it and it really clogs up your system," she says. "It's just really awful stuff."
I am unwilling to deal with her anymore.
"Yeah, but you know what else it is?" I ask.
"What?"
"It's yummy!"
She sputters and stutters, laughing stiffly. I intervene before she begins to spew marijuana smoke out of her ears.
"I'm just joking," I said.
"Yes, well, I have to go."
Click.

I ran into my lame-o ex-boyfriend at CVS today. I was picking up a prescription and, of course, I was waiting because even though my doctor called it in two days ago, they had not yet filled it. Sure. Great. Thanks.

So I'm trolling the aisles for stupid pappy crap that I don't need - candy, soda, whatever - when my ex-boyfriend came slinking down the aisle, stupid ponytail still intact. Stupid never-been conditioned ponytail. I mean, I bought him conditioner and he still wouldn't use it.

Anyhoodle... Although taken by surprise, I smiled and said "Hi, [name redacted]!" He didn't even glance in my direction. But he came down the aisle from behind me, so it's not as though he didn't see me. And it's not as though I whispered. He intentionally ignored me. We crossed paths again. I was fuming a bit, but I tried again, thinking that no one could possibly be so... whatever... as to be so ridiculously rude twice. In the same place. In the same day. But guess what? Same response.

(sigh)

I left the store without getting my prescription because it hurt my feelings, and because I was angry. That kind of behavior reeks of the blame game, and we broke up amicably - THREE YEARS AGO. Afterwards, he acted like the jealous little man he is (not a crack on his height; on his personality), and it put some very effective distance between us. But it's been a while, and I only hold grudges for serious offenses, not snarkly e-mails detailing how I'm allowed to behave post-break-up. Not allowed to date for three months? You must be joking. I had a date before I even received that e-mail, fool.

Regardless of the jealousy and childishness (again, not a crack; I have my faults, too, they just don't surface in those situations. But ask my husband about my hair trigger temper), again, I wasn't holding a grudge. But I have since found out that when it comes to confidences, his ability to keep them is conditional. He revealed enough on his usually very entertaining blog to let me know that. I guess his character is as imposing as his stature.

Okay, that last line was a crack.

Anyway, whatever. I don't really understand behavior like that, and when I can't understand something, I tend to obsess about it until I either get bored with it or figure it out.

But somehow I think the time I spend on this one will be short.

INTEROFFICE MEMO

Hey guys,

I'm going to be taking over the ordering of office supplies. I'm placing an order at the end of the day today. After today, I'll be placing an order on the first Friday of every month. We will not be ordering multiple times during the month because there is no reason to pay shipping prices multiple times. Let me know what you need for today's order. I've also organized the supply closet so we can better keep up with what we have. Please help keep it straight. You will have a crazy woman on your hands if it gets back in the shape it was in.

thanks, N.

RESPONSE

N. - Here's my list:

Furniture for the empty vault
Money for the empty vault
Chocolate
Coffee
Diet Coke
Tampons
Liquor
Weed
Glue (for sniffing)
Leather
Firearms
A monkey

RESPONSE TO RESPONSE

I'm sorry, but Office Depot is all out of these items at the present time. Please check back later.

Thanks, N.

We had a great time watching one of my co-worker's daughter last night. She's super smart and just darn nice. As a thank-you, my co-worker gave us a box of truffles.

"They're from Target," she said.
"Dude, chocolate and Target? That's like my dream gift!"
"I know!"

The description on the tag said that they're hand-packed fresh after a warm chocolate bath and general sprinkle of pure chocolate flakes. Where can I get a warm chocolate bath?!

Because we ladies simply never shut up at work, much to the chagrin of our male bretheren, the copy editor, editor and I are discussing the movie "Vanity Fair," with Reese Witherspoon.

"What did you think of it?" the copy editor asked me.
"I don't know. Usually, if there are corsets and accents, I like it.... and I like Mira Nair. I guess the story arc was too divergent in parts," I stumble. Alice nods.
"I can see that," she says. I turn back to my desk and see the editor glaring at me.
"What?" I am worried. I cannot anger my comedy partner. My days will be bleak, filled with endless words. Nothing but words.
"You and your big words," she says.
"What big words are those?" Alice asks.
"Apparently 'story' and 'arc' are just too huge for her," I reply, and we all laugh. "Wait! Wait! Here, I'll rephrase my review!"
I stand up at my desk and beat on my chest.
"Uh! Uh uh!" I imitate a gorilla, and run over to pick imaginary lice out of the editor's hair.
"Is that better?" I gasp, through laughter. We're both laughing so hard that we're crying.
"Okay," Editor Supreme says. "I think there's enough laughter over there. Do I need to find some work for you?"
"Just her!" I laugh.

The publisher is looking over the pages before they go to press as I am walking by.

"Um, hellooooooo, where are the House Party pictures?" he asks the editor.
"Um, hellooooooo, I don't know, ask Joe," she mimics.
"Um, hellooooooo... just saying hello," I sing as I pass.

Emerson has hit the terrible twos much faster than I imagined. This morning, she asked for Sprite. Then she asked for a cup. It seemed like such a simple thing...

Emerson (running to the fridge as fast as her little bowlegged self can go and patting the door): pry? pry? pry? pry? pry? pry? pry? pry? pry? pry? pry? pry? pry? pry? pry? pry? pry? pry?

Me (following with eyes still closed from sleepiness and hair all crazy): Oh, you want Sprite, sweetie?

Emerson: (nods frantically, as though the need for Sprite is so great that whiplash is but a small concern)

Me (yawning): Okay, beautiful.

(I pull out the 2-liter of Sprite)

Emerson: ( begins pointing to the cabinet): cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup?
Me: No, shit, honey. Alright, I'm getting the cup. cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup? cup?

I pour the Sprite into a cup and hand it to her. She knocks it out of my hand with a wail and runs out of the room in despair. I have no idea what I did wrong. She runs back in, still wailing. I offer the cup again. She wails louder and runs out of the kitchen again. This continues until I give up, put the entire apparatus back in the fridge and just go pee.

This does not sit well with my little dictator. She screams outside the door until I finish my bidness and open it again. I look down at her tear-stained face, red with fury, as she gasps and sniffles. She looks back up at me with serious eyes full of hope and says: pry?

Grrrrr.

"Hairy!" he says as he rubs his hand briskly over the fish-white skin of my legs.

"You should see my armpits," I mutter irritably.

"Why don't you shave them?" He is poking at the short hairs like a toddler discovering a bug on the sidewalk.

"What for?"

"It's sexy! Girls aren't supposed to have hairy legs."

"Says who?"

"Says the entire leg-shaving free world!" He is waving his arms, bouncing slightly in frustration and making it impossible to write.

"Really? Is that near Neverland?"

"Why is it such a big deal? Why don't you just shave them? I bet if you did it every day, it wouldn't take so long."

I can see he's pleased with this brightly volunteered constructive criticism, considering his approach to be the perfect blend of nonchalance, support and helpfulness.

I hate that. I start to contract him but he cuts me off.

"No! You should do-it-ev-ery-day." He slaps his palms together with each syllable, emphasizing his committment to my leg-shaving experience. Great. It merely serves to remind me of the constant drudgery to which I would be subjecting myself.

"In shaving, as in life, it is not the length of the hair that matters, but the surface area to be covered," I singsong in a faux philosophical tone. His eyebrow raises in amusement.

"As in life?!" he chuckles.

"Yes! Confuscious say: He who shave leg get cold leg."

"What's normal for sex? Try every night!"

"Hey, I have something that might interest you."
"I doubt it."

"New spiders are showing up."

"That's like where he goes when he's a bad boy."
"Oh, you have no idea."

"I think Corey should lose his shoe. I'm going to hide it."

"Your mother!"

"Oh, no. Zombies. Hey, look! Chocolate!"

"Michigan sucks!"

"Go away. We're talking about you."

"I'm pretty sure that's illegal."

(frantically) "Where is the bathroom?!"

(drunkenly) "You're so awesome."

"I'm pretty sure that's illegal."

"It's green apple - it's kind of girly."
"Well, I'm a girl."

"What do you want to hear? Avette Brothers?"
(was there any choice?)

"I'm going to regret this tomorrow."

"Did you hear about the fart machine?"

"Has anyone seen my cigarettes? Anyone?!"

"And then there was the stabbing."

"You'd make a great hooker."

"Wait - why are we 'woo-ing?'"

"Grab her butt!"
"Um, I'm feeling kind of harassed right now."

"Get Andy to do it. He can't get in any trouble."

"You will never beat the goat."

"You're fake laughing. Don't fake laugh at me."
"Honey, everyone fake laughs."

"I'm all about the leather."

"Where did you get those scratches?"
"My dog."
"Oh! I thought you were into something freaky."

Circa 2000...

At 5 a.m., I am awakened by the certainty that we are not alone. Sensing my partner asleep beside me, I slowly open my eyes. A breeze brushes my face and then I look into the face of terror: the gaping maw of a giant, ferocious bat!

Wheeling around the room, it swoops and glides, circling the corners and hardly flapping its leathery wings.

I woke my partner because, as the female, I'm like that robot on "Lost in Space." I alert others to danger. I do not deal with it myself. Is the feminist within me ashamed of this? Hell, no. Not when there's a bat. As the male, it is my partner's duty to act upon the danger.

This was the source of some discussion. Apparently, my partner does not share my philosophy. But, feeling his manhood threatened, he crept from the bed and crawled in only his boxers across the floor to the bedroom door.

"Here, batty batty!" he called and I sniggered and peeked out from under the blankets. Lured, I'm sure, by my partner's siren-like call, the bat careened out of the door and my partner promptly slammed it. I sat up. Now what?

Now he goes back to bed. He crawled back in bed and started back to sleep as I stared at him incredulously. "May I remind you that there is a bat in the house?" I asked.

"Aw, it's out there."
"But what if it comes back in here?" There was a odd, unattractive and uncomfortable 3-inch gap between the bottom of the door and the carpet. Sighing irritably, he flung off the blanket and trudged across the room. He locked the door. Genius!

"Oh, so much better," I muttered and barricaded myself with the comforter. "That'll show him."

So one of the editors, the high school intern (who we love, and who sometimes babysits for us), and I are discussing my zombie evacuation plan. I've drawn a diagram that is lacking only in X's and O's to move around - in sheer panic, of course. That's how people move around in my plan, with the much running and shrieking.

"That's a very elaborate plan," Editor says.

"I know." But I am chagrined. There are fences in the way of two of our escape routes.

"I don't think you've thought it out well enough," Intern says. "What about vampires?"

"Oh. I'll just have my husband breathe his garlic breath on them," I snicker, and they laugh with me. Boss Ron shakes his head and rolls his eyes. He's been riding my ass all day long, and even though I've not taken a break for lunch, he would rather see me bleeding from my eyes than cease my incessant writing. Lots of writing. Serious writing. My pinky is cramping. See? Ouch.

Intern takes the legal pad away from me: "Here. I'll make a list."

Editor and I whisper back and forth like adolescent about how Ron is getting our nerves. We're annoyingly high school about it, but it's deliciously evil fun. Intern gives the legal pad back with the list of things I must prepare for:

• Vampires
• Mummies
• The Blob
• Ron

I hold the pad up for Editor to see and we burst into laughter.

"I think Intern gets a bonus the next time she babysits," I crow.
Editor laughs: "I think so!"

AND the number four prostitute in all of Kazakhstan.

It doesn't matter if you believe in ghosts. At midnight in a cemetery in the middle of Nowhere, S.C., shadows, breezes and soft sounds take on supernatural shape.

The woods are pockmarked with tombstones. It’s so dark I can see galaxies whirling overhead. I trip over graves. A vision of mummified hands reaching out of the ground overwhelms me. Perhaps they shouldn’t have sent the only reporter with a zombie evacuation plan, although, to be honest, the plan involves mostly running and shrieking.

Yet my guide is calm.

"We’re here to debunk this," declares Ginger Yarbrough, organizer of Georgia Ghost Hunters. "We rule out all the man-made and natural explanations first before we try to say there’s spirits."

Ginger and seven other members have brought me to a 200-year-old Huguenot graveyard an hour from Augusta, down a one-lane dirt path through a thick forest where trees bend like frightful fingers reaching for prey.

This group doesn’t look for the paranormal. They look for the normal. If lights in a home flicker, they blame the tree branch or a power line. They check for vermin, leaky pipes, gaps in insulation and other earthly explanations for unearthly sensations.

In the graveyard, the ghost hunters set up candles to provide a little light plus video cameras and voice recorders to document the hunt. They calibrate EMF meters to detect the presence of electromagnetic fields, infrared thermometers to spot temperature differentials and tri-field meters to detect magnetic fields, electrical fields and microwave emissions. When manmade and natural causes have been eliminated, Ginger says, it is generally believed that ghosts generate these fields and temperature changes.

"The most common energy form that a ghost uses is simple heat," Ginger says. "A ghost will absorb heat to help it manifest, which is why people feel cold when a ghost passes them."

These are true believers. Ginger is completing a certification from the Stratford Career Institute in parapsychology and astrology. She and her mother have seen enough unusual phenomena in their lives to scare legions of schoolchildren. They’ve been hunting ghosts for three years, in public and for private homeowners.

"But we keep all private investigations discrete — their name is kept under lock and key, so to speak. We are completely non-profit and do not charge fees for our service as we are trying to collect all the data we can," she says.

They hunt to find legitimate hauntings, in small part to convert the unfaithful. She’s looking for the real deal, because she believes she’s experienced it. "I want the evidence to put it up on the table and say, ‘Look. You cannot disprove this."

Leon Wilkes, a group member who is in the military, tells a story about a house in Iraq that spooked his entire troop of hardened soldiers. Almost everyone in the group has a story about a supernatural experience. I’m just not so sure. I’d like to believe it’s possible to communicate with the souls of departed loved ones — hi, Grandma! — but I’ve never encountered anything of the kind.

"The paranormal is a touchy subject and most people are afraid to do anything about it because they think they may be humiliated," Ginger said later.

That doesn’t stop me from nearly wetting myself when the EMF meter in my hand goes off. Everyone in the group turns to stare at me as I freeze. I put the sensor out again and it lights up. I prepare to activate my zombie evacuation plan.

"Is there anyone here who would like to communicate with us?" Ginger asks the forest while I fight the urge to run and shriek. After a disappointing silence and several tests, we determine I had moved the sensor too rapidly, which gave a false positive.

"That’s why it’s important to look at it from a scientific perspective," Ginger says. "You have to debunk it first."

Leon, in a fearless — and, I think, foolish — stab at making this trip worthwhile, begins to taunt the spirits of the dead who lay in these woods.

"I think you’re too chicken to come out," he calls. "I don’t believe you even exist."

He walks out of the walled burial ground, continuing his tirade, and Ginger and Lisa Barret stay where he began. Ginger thinks she heard a noise nearby, like change rattling in a pocket. Inexplicably, a vine slaps Lisa in the face, and Ginger’s camera picks up red and white streaks in the forest, something she calls a vortex, a strand of light. She thinks it’s a portal through which ghosts travel, though other ghost hunters say it could be individual spirits moving or an "orb."

My camera captures a picture of what the group says is a flaming orb, the best they’ve ever seen. It’s a round spot in the darkness, visible only on my digital camera. Some people say it’s energy. Some say it’s a small ghost.

Just then, Leon calls that a shadowy figure peeked at him from among the trees.

"He wants to come out and play, now," Leon says. I really hope not.

Immune to my protests, the group enthusiastically agrees to go down to the nearby lake. As we descend the hill, the temperature plunges from a chilly 52 to near freezing. I’m shivering in a T-shirt and sweater, more immediately frightened of chiggers and poison ivy than spectral beings, and I see unmistakable beaver activity. We crunch down the hillside toward it, every footstep a beacon for beavers and bears and who knows what all else. Are there bear zombies? Oh, god. I bet there are.

It’s, rather appropriately, a dead lake — a lake that held water in the past but is now merely an overgrown basin, choked with weeds, scrub and fallen trees. Leon continues to harangue those who previously rested in peace as he and Ginger start across the edge of the basin. I see lights twinkling just above the grass near the middle. Right. I’ll just wait here.

Time creeps as I watch my breath rise as a mist in front of me. It’s something Ginger pointed out that they try to avoid when photographing phenomena. Even the clothes of someone who has just smoked a cigarette may contaminate visual evidence.

Then someone in the lake yelps.

"That [expletive] just growled at me," Leon calls as the trio tromps back through the overgrowth. Leon is shivering violently in his autumn jacket.

"Feel him!" Ginger says. "He’s ice cold!"

He is. While Ginger, clad only in a T-shirt and jeans, is still warm to the touch, Leon feels
frozen. They claim to have heard a growl just before the temperature around Leon dropped aggressively.

I look out over the rustling grasses. The lights I had seen are gone.

Although none of the equipment registered abnormal readings, the members are convinced of a spiritual presence, in this case, an "intelligent haunting."

It’s one of the different types of ghosts and hauntings that the Georgia Ghost Hunters categorize.

"No one knows for sure why they are here with us," Ginger said. "And there is no reason to be afraid of them because usually they have the same emotions and personalities they had when they were alive. They are around us all the time."

In that case, I have to revise my zombie evacuation plan.















<------- "Flaming Orb" the original shot (above) and pulled out in close-up (left).

Pristine white cribs stand empty and waiting in quiet rooms painted a soothing azure at in this old building. Yellow ducks adorn a bathroom that has never cleaned chubby cheeks. A walk-in closet stocks Huggies diapers and wipes, Johnson’s Baby Shampoo and row after row of tiny little outfits alongside adult-sized pants and shirts.

Renovations to the Garden City Rescue Mission’s homeless shelter for women and children are 95 percent complete. The paint is dry and the beds that have been donated so far sit assembled and awaiting sleepy little heads. But more is needed. The Fenwick Street homeless shelter renovated the second floor of its building to house up to 50 families, but cannot help them until it is able raise $20,000 to install two fire escapes. In the meantime, mothers with young children may be literally left out in the cold.

"The sad fact is that sometimes they’re stuffed in the backseat of their car, or wherever," Sharpe said. "There’s really no place other than the Salvation Army for them to go and if you talk to them they’ll tell you they’re overrun and they can’t keep up with the demand."

In a push to finish before a potentially lethal cold snap, the Garden City Rescue Mission will hold a Fall Fish Fry on Oct. 7 at Victory Baptist Church in Belvedere, sponsored by Dye’s Southern Catering.

"There’s going to be a lot of hauling children around," Sharpe said. "It’s going to cost a lot to run."

Sharpe estimates that 15 to 20 bunk beds and 15 additional twin beds will just cover their sleeping quarters, but to help these ladies get back on their feet, they’ll need mini vans, car seats and operating expenses to help mothers find jobs, visit pediatricians and attend church. Already they are feeling the pinch. The shelter’s electricity bill has already jumped $800 a month, and Sharpe expects the center’s other utilities to double.

Sharpe’s mother, Susie, and her husband left good jobs with health insurance behind in Florida to come up and work with their soon on his ministry. It’s the children that break her heart. She tells a story of a woman so poor that her children had never owned a book or a toy.

"They didn’t even have an old dirty truck to push in the dirt," she said. "These children had never been read a Bible story or a bedtime story."

When she agreed to come up, she insisted on a playroom for the children, and it is almost done. VeggieTails toys sit in their boxes and children’s books yearn for sticky fingers to turn their pages. The playroom is Susie’s baby. It waits for other babies to fill it with laughter, and there will be no shortage. Families with children are the fastest growing segment of the homeless population – 33 percent of the homeless, according to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and domestic violence accounts for half of that.

Tile and new carpet were lain by one of the gentlemen currently housed in the men’s shelter on the bottom floor of the facility. Many of the men who live in the shelter are skilled workers, the "working homeless," who comprise 15 percent of the homeless population. Some of them have been through painful divorces. Others have had a run of bad luck.

Their stories are not too much different than the American story. As the availability of affordable housing declines, shelter becomes harder to maintain. One estimate by the Federal Housing Authority states that one quarter of American workers are a single paycheck away from financial disaster.

Travis used all of his creativity and connections to complete the work, calling upon skilled friends and family members and guest preaching at churches around the southeast. He has been largely successful - one North Carolina congregation cut him a check before the services were even over on the day he gave his sermon. The mission has paid for work as the project progressed, instead of going into debt, and volunteers donated time, materials and labor, to complete most of the work.

But work remains, and that’s what makes the fish fry so important. The menu will include catfish filets, freedom fries, cole slaw, hush puppies, grits and banana pudding, all catered by Dye’s Southern Catering. There is no per-plate charge to eat the fresh, fabulous fish, but donations will be accepted during the dinner.

"We’ve had people use the fish fry as an excuse to give significant donations - $500, $1,000," Sharpe said.

But if you can’t attend the fish fry and still want to help, the mission has an ongoing need for every day items like crib sheets and baby blankets, toiletries, cleaning supplies, dry goods, furniture – and, of course, cash and manpower.

"Think about running a shelter of this type," Susie said. "You need someone here 24 hours a day."

The Garden City Rescue Mission is located at 828 Fenwick St. in downtown Augusta, GA. Call 706-724-6960 or visit gardencityrescuemission.com. Help by donating items or services for women and children. Donate cash, too. It's really, really important. Even $5 makes a difference.

As I've discussed here before, Scott talks in his sleep. I like to know what he's thinking about in his sleep, so I can rarely resist questioning him. Last night, he got his revenge when I came back to bed at 3 a.m. after dealing with Emerson for an hour.

"mmwabba ... is goo for the community," he mumbled.
Huh?
"What did you say, honey?" I whispered.
"I said it would be good for the community," he said, a little more clearly.
"What would?"
"Hold on," he said.

...
...

[[farrrrt]]

"Is that what you wanted to say?!"
"MMmmm. Yep."