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and last updated July 9th.,1998.
Well, I am still here in Atlanta, having celebrated America's birthday in this Southern city.....
That makes one Queen's Birthday, and one nation's birthday in one unplanned holiday...
Not bad for impromptu timing??
(BUT can I make it home in time for Number One Son's first child's actual BIRTH day?
One thing about this trip, it is making me realise not ALL my Post-Grad., in Psycholingusitics is being wasted....
seems I absorbed enough to assist me in quickly picking up the cadences and subtleties of each accent and
recreating them ...
(Especially when Dave's family have just treated me to a Pork-Barbecue Restaurant meal, where I have drunk
two glasses of American designer-beer!)
I had a lot of fun on line after that sending all my EMails and ICQ messages in phonetic Georgian,one of the
nicest sounds I know, particularly the softer male voices!
But, Sylvia Silver, I never expected anyone to answer in kind,,
and so fluently, and so quickly!!
And how very nice to hear from you again!!
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Miz Rawbn, Ah wez mahty purleesed to git yaw email this mornin so's Ah thawrt Ah'd reeplah raht aways........
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My family will be surprised to find that Dave and Atlanta managed to achieve something even London didn't...
When Dave said he thought we should take Marta when we went into the city centre, I figured Marta was his sister
and wondered why she hadn't shown up when he came to collect me. And even when he had parked the car and
guided me through the station, the penny still didn't really drop...
But I have actually been on PUBLIC TRANSPORT here, and have a MARTA token in my purse to prove it!
So Dave showed me his city downtown, and we went through the Underground, where I bought postcards and some
yummy Georgian spreads and sauces, and then he took me through the Coca Cola Museum, which, for Dave whose
forefather designed the Coke logo, is a part of his family heritage...
I hadn't realised Coke started in Atlanta, and in a pharmacy at that, when the pharmacist made a mistake in his dispensing.....
Hmmm!
Dave took me around some of the places he buys comic-books to study, and I saw some of the few places
in Atlanta that have resisted the developer's dictates..places where time has stayed still if not exactly run
backwards..
HE says that's how he will remember me in America...reading comics in HIS shops in HIS parts of town!
The thing is, I DID find it interesting, because, when I used to teach the A.L.A.I.A Registration Examination Course
one of the final year subjects was 407: Readers And Reading, and one part of that syllabus dealt with the
Mass Media, so for a couple of weeks each year my students were REQUIRED to collect comics for perusal in
class!
(Of course, the next section included Pornographic Publications, an, er, interesting part of the studies!)
Anyway, at one store, they had one copy of The New Yorker, which I almost bought, then put it down again, deciding there
didn't seem to be much in it for such a famous magazine...
And when I reached home, there on the radio was the news that there would be no more New Yorker magazines,
that the issue I had been handling was the last and would become a collectors' item....
Well DONE, AQ!!
But I didn't know that when the usual warning of 30% chance of thunderstorm decided, for once to
become 100%, and so we headed into a Takeaway Place..a bit like KFC, I suppose, and there behind the
counter, working in the kitchen, was the OLDEST lady I have seen still employed.....
Though I have been here three weeks now, I still can't get used to the sight of seriously OLD men and women still
gainfully and cheerfully and productively employed!!
I guess that is what they call GRAY POWER
Now I know they call them French Fries and the Belgians say they were invented in Belgium, but I call
them CHIPS, and I hadn't eaten any since leaving home, so I ordered the chicken and Fries option, and
it came with three sauces...ketchup, barbecue sauce AND the special honey-lemon sauce, so I tasted each sauce
and then poured all of them over everything, and dipped the chips into into the sauce AND the slaw, and
found out I really was HUNGRY, and that this was one of the best meals I had ever eaten, and even Dave
decided three sauces really ARE better than one,and we stood at a window bench and watched the storm and the
traffic...and when this INCREDIBLE panel van with the most amazing embellishments turned at the lights,
the kind of vehicle you say prayers will never park outside YOUR house,and that your daughter will NEVER
drive in,Dave said that it was a fine example of the First Amendment, but that he thought the owner might be taking
his rights just a little too far...
Though David is younger than either of my sons, his two sisters have trained him well,so he found an
American KMart for me, and waited patiently while I worked out sizes and tried things on...
and I came away with lots of marked-down shorts and TShirts,some of which I had to take back because they
were too big....apparently SOMETHING is getting smaller in America!!
But all attempts to find a lipstick sealer, without which I can live but not drink coffee or kiss, were doomed to
failure, the Great American Dream system of the pharmacy in the supermarket breeding Checkout Chicks but
not badged trained Cosmetic Advisers...
And when I DID walk to Phipps Plaza, and consulted several cosmetic advisers, they, too, professed a total
ignorance of anything used to seal lipstick..(though I DID find out there was to be an Australian wine-tasting at the
winebar there on Wednesday....)
And, strangest of all to an Australian, in this land of Equal Opportunity, they have MEN working as cosmetic
advisers...especially at some of the exclusive agency counters..!!
And, at a rough guess, the black/white ratio of workers in the shops, especially at the checkouts is around six
or eight to one..
So I had to wait until I took the hotel shuttle over to Lenox Plaza before the elusive lipstick-sealer materialized.
And even then, I started out with an under-lipstick sealer from the Chanel collection, before the Estee Lauder girl
told me she was pretty sure the Body Shop keeps a sealer.....and they do...so I bought two, just to make sure...
(So kisses and coffee are back on the menu, folks!)
And then, because I was finally shopping without MEN, I tried on at least a thousand bathing suits in Rich's
and actually bought one...eggplant purple with gold trim!
and after, to counter the depression that accompanies prolonged viewing of oneself in an allways/allover mirror,
I had a pizza and salad lunch before hitting Macy's, where the grandmother in me took over and bought a pink
thingy for the expected sixth grandchild, who is rapidly acquiring an international wardrobe as I travel.
About makeup, it seems some people have quite the wrong idea about me...
A friend from Pennsylvania says he doesn't want to meet me here in America, (and will wait for me to invite him
to Australia), because he wants to see me without makeup and being natural in my home environment...
Hmm...think some of my other friends should tell him how they have helped me send my formal Australian
clothes home, and supervised the buying of casual holiday gear...
how they have seen me go straight from the swimming pool and out to dinner having borrowed only a lipstick...
and that my hair works just fine in the American climate with just a comb between swims..
In fact, I am calling on all my friends who have seen me without makeup in the last six weeks to EMail this
much-mistaken-male and advise him of his misconception
that I am some kind of painted dolly-bird, with everything artificial!
Sorry, W.G., not a facelift scar in sight, and not a lot of makeup, either, as those American friends with the courage to initiate face-to-face contact will attest.....
And..hey!.... THEY are the ones who will get the Aussie invitations!!
And it is seriously warm here, though the sky is still not as blue as in
Australia,being kept paler, we decided, by the higher humidity..and everything is green, green, green, and lush
(And, yes, Jody, I CAN see why you and your friends were so homesick for the TREES of Georgia during your tour of duty in
Kuwait!)
And we have driven a really long way, around and around, and I have seen so much, but, even though Dave drives that big hulk
with one hand on the wheel, just like Luc does, and the cars are all on the wrong side of the road, just as in
Belgium,...folks, after Belgian roads, I don't think I will EVER be afraid in a car again!
And David's seatbelt waits politely for me to fasten it...it does not presumpt my efforts and threaten to
decapitate me, as Rudco's belt was wont to do....something I NEVER did get used to!!
And Dave's car is so old that even if he could afford to regas the air conditioning system, he probably couldn't
find anyone who knows how to do it, so even though we didn't FEEL uncomfortably hot, when we came back to
the hotel after a GREAT American pizza ( even the PIZZA slices are bigger in America), and my first American
beer, we found our keycards must have been heated enough to have lost their magnetic charge, and the room
was locking us out so that we had to have new ones made....
and the nice Night Manager went all giggly about my..... cute accent which immediately made me feel
like a foreigner again...
And then, when I saw what the grocery buying service had left in my 'frig, I felt even more displaced...
I mean, no gin, Evian water for Tonic Water..and a 1 GALLON bottle of milk..for FIVE DAYS??
I have never even SEEN a one gallon container of milk before!!
And some kind of pouring shortening instead of the spread in a tub?
And for 8 small washed new potatoes, read, 6 huge saratogas wearing half the farmyard!
And it turns out all Dave's family's cats are lactose-intolerant, which means I have had to learn to drink skim milk
as a thirst-quencher..and, you know what? American skim milk tastes GREAT!
In fact, I felt very American with my cookies and milk at bedtime!!
Or, rather, milk and part of cookie.....EVERYTHING is bigger in America!!
Although some things seem to be pretty much the samethe world over...
At least that's what I was thinking as both Daves, father and son, took me to a Computer Users' Group, right
across town, with the universal male-competitive-driving spirit lurking somewhere there beneath the polite
surface....
and who should be there, and saving seats for us but the Very Old Netfriend who had behaved so STRANGELY;
in so, well, HOSTILE and CONDESCENDING a fashion at the weekend....
And when he gave me the Microsoft TShirt he had won in the Lucky Number draw, I couldn't help wondering
if the fact he wasn't accompanied at THIS meeting by his wife and mother- in- law might be what was making
uch a DIFFERENCE to the way he was reacting to my presence ...
Interesting, that, the idea that some American men seem to be AFRAID of their womenfolk!
But I had already met my first Ugly American when we finally boarded the Burlington to Chicago flight..
only 6 hours late, (we had to wait another hour to take off but that is another, tedious story) when the
gentleman firmly settled in the aisle seat objected strongly to having to stand up to let me take my
(unasked-for, since I hate this part of it) window-seat, and then even more to being asked to stand and put
my tennis racquet into the overhead luggage locker, which I had neglected to do since he had rather upset me....
I tried to place his accent when he snarled:
But by the time we got going, (they were firing us off at 30 second intervals by then),
I had made friends with the fat black kid beside me, if only to infuriate Mr AisleSeat, and as we rose
majestically, and VERY quickly, the Kid confided that the island we could see was Hawaii...
And when I gave the kid my Belgian five-franc coin,and told him what it was, he asked if that was the money
they use in Vermont..
Hmm, Clark Kent, suggest you keep your day job..you have a worthy rival...
But it got better when were passing over a city, and I asked the kid what it was, (I was pretty sure it had to be
St Louis) and he opined Kansas, so we asked Mr AS for an opinion, and he snapped,
So I decided that perhaps geography is not an American strong suit...,which was a
real pity because we stayed low, and flew between the clouds, (shades of Charlton Heston holding back the
rolling waves of the Red Sea/Dead Sea?), and I saw so many INTERESTING things I would have liked
explained...
For example, I'm sure there is definitely a meteor impact area between Chicago and Atlanta....
Is that big crater where they find the dinosaur eggs?
And why does the black soil of the Vermont area and the brown soil of the Missouri area give way so very quickly
to the red earth of Georgia?
And are those etched out fish-spine stretches of wetland the famed Bayoux, or the Everglades..or what?
But we finally touched down, as one always hopes to do, and smoothly indeed, and I was not at all
surprised to hear that the city was about to receive a heavy, and most unexpected electrical storm..I mean,
didn't they realise who was just ARRIVING..hadn't they prepared the STORM SHUTTERS??
And there, having waited all afternoon, until 8.30pm, was Dave III, my host,
who had never met me except on ICQ, and he was holding an AQ sign, which I saw later, but I knew him
at once, though the ponytail doesn't show on his ICQ picture...
but it suited him, as did his hat...and very suitable for the weather, which was doing the cats and dogs thing by
this..
And he had parked on the very roof of the
carpark, which gave us a superb view of Atlantian lightning, and,since Dave couldn't find the hotel right away,
I was given an unscheduled tour of the city,and we talked about Blade Runner , with its neon views of
another steamy, overheated metropolis...
and I looked around at Dave's car, a true (autocuriousity) collector's item, and knew this week was going to be
VERY different from my ten days in Vermont..and we arrived laughing but wet enough that the friendly
Marriot staff issued us with immediate towels..
and before I opened my cases, I had unpacked the laptop and checked out the datapoint.....
And I have found the citizens band radio station with its classical music and great local news,
and talked online to the folks from home and abroad, and looked for mail from others not yet in touch
and kept up with my washing, but not with my reading...(sorry, folks waiting for a new book review!) but
when I asked about walking to the nearest shopping plaza, the staff here said I shouldn't because there are
....NO SIDEWALKS..
Don't Americans have FEET??
What??Again?? Here too???
Wasn't there a Nancy Sinatra song about BOOTS..and WALKING?
But it appears the plight of the American pedestrian is gradually making its presence
felt..
From Vermont, Rudco tell me that a question has been asked in a Progress Association meeting about the
difficulty (tourist) pedestrians have had accessing Taft Corner shopping....
and the local paper here reports a planned community where, shades of Australia, facilities will be so grouped
that citizens can utilize basic commercial facilities without the need for a car..
Actually, Yanks, you'd be surprised how much more folks will buy if they don't have to carry the shopping bag
five miles home without sidewalks!!
And to those of you still asking, 'Are you still coming home early?', the
answer is "er....NO!!".
I have started to enjoy myself, and some friends I was trying to contact have surfaced, which is nice....
(Pity I sent their presents back home,thinking they were playing Shrinking Violet!)!
But this was seriously bad timing because I had rebooked my flight to LA and arranged to vacate this room
on Friday,knowing they had no other vacancies....
BUT airline reservations departments love to show how efficient they are,, and the United Airlines Lady was
VERY helpful,and I hadn't scheduled my time so severely that changes couldn't be made, and I seem to be
thriving on the warmer weather , (and I have some Gordons Gin, now, and some tonic),so I am actually staying
longer than planned in Georgia, though whether I have the courage to embark on my original plan of driving south and
right around Florida remains to be seen....
Since noone has yet let me behind the wheel of their car, I am still seeing life on the road from what
appears to me to be the driver's side, but which, in fact, is NOT!
So if there is anyone out there in Georgia, Florida or California willing to take me onto a side road somewhere
to practice driving this silly way, I'd be real grateful to hear from y'all! .....
Because I am starting to get the feeling I am missing something about America by just living in city apartment
hotels...think it is time AQ got out and about!!
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