Voted Off the Island

Woof

A recent weekend in Richmond, VA playing ball -- endlessly -- with two darling dogs has me thinking about canine love. 

It's been a very long time since I have had dogs in my life.  Like 25 years.  But when having dogs was in my life, it was my LIFE.  I worked on a pet food account at my NY ad agency and created the greatest campaign of my brilliant career for a dry dog food.  My live-in boyfriend and I had four rescue dogs -- two Newfoundlands, a golden retriever and a mutt. That's a lotta dogs. We loved it. But we had no kids and we lived in an exurb of New York where they could cavort in a large dog run all day, each with their own cozy dog house and galvanized buckets of water.  We doted on them and they on us.  It was a mobius strip of relationship -- walk, feed, scoop poop, pet, brush, lick, love, nuzzle, play -- in endless repetition, that wouldn't unravel.

I don't miss the dog hair.  I don't miss the doggie smell or the muddy feet. I don't miss having to come home and walk them.

But I've never stopped missing the unconditional love of a dog. It's utterly unlike the complex love that came next for me -- the love of children, which someone wiser than me recently called "an exercise in unrequited love."  Sometimes loving your kids really does feel that way. A love so deep and dangerous, so hard and irrational, so joyous and wondrous, that it truly makes doggie love feel small. A love that ebbs and flows and is sometimes given and withheld.  It's the real deal.

Why then, did the dumb optimism of a dog "get" to me this weekend?  Why did that sweet sunny retriever, always ready to play, always soft and smiling, tawny and tender, seem like a proof text for the existence of God, a manifestation of grace.  And I really do mean that in the Christian sense of the word.

Brewster came into my room one morning with a stuffed toy held tenderly in his soft retriever mouth.  Then he dropped a tennis ball at my feet and cocked his head and gave me that that come hither look.  Why did it melt me?  Maybe because I'd been in serious conversation with some friends who have and love dogs.  These are mainly single people and it is my honest and true observation that they don't seem to be able to create lasting human relationships. Pets are easy. Along with abundant love, they bring responsibility and structure to your life. 

People are hard. They can hurt you.  They can leave you.  They can speak. Like dogs they also bring abundant love, responsibility and structure to life.  They don't come to you with toys in their mouth or drop a tennis ball at your feet inviting you to play. Indeed the teenage human I live with is more often moody and mercurial than sunny and chatty. But I love him with a depth and dimension no dog can ever provide.

Am I going to get a dog again?  Sigh.  Nuh uh.

Saying "No" to Mommy Cam

So . . .that's Grumble (far left) having a ball in Israel with some his 650 new bff's. How do I know?  Bunk1.com.

Bunk1.com is a company that sleepaway camps use to provide more or less continuous coverage of your child's summer activities. If I choose -- and for a fee of course -- I can see photos of my darling son 24/7 at bunk1.com and bask in the warmth of his smiling goofy face, scruffy beard, curly locks and sun tanned punim (that's Yiddish for face). And sometimes I actually do.

But more often, I don't want to see his every move. My parents didn't get to see me and my teenage pals do all the hormonal things we did the summer I turned 16 in 1968...the summer of love.  And thank heavens for that!  Some things are better left to the imagination. I just don't go in for all this Mommy Cam, Nanny Cam, Doggy Cam stuff. It's such. . . narcissism. Such....helicoptering.

Grumble is traveling in Israel with the North American Federation of Temple Youth -- NFTY. NFTY also makes it possible for kids to rent inexpensive cell phones while in Israel. Buckling under to intense teenage peer pressure, I caved in and let Grumble rent a phone. It did allow him to connect with his father who was also visiting in Israel and have a meal with him. But I have only called him twice and only reached him once.  He sounded great.  So far, I don't hear from him at all...which is wonderful. This simply underscores the fact that he's having a good time and is busy, busy, busy. Just what I want, just what he needs. These trips are quite the logistical enterprise...think troop maneuvers...and the kids sign a very strict covenant of behavior.  Drugs, smoking, drinking and canoodling get you an immediate ticket home. 

NFTY supervises 650 North American teenagers (rising 11th graders) broken down into 17 groups of twenty, each on a different bus and each with a slightly different 4-5 week itinerary.  The NFTY "command center" in Israel is in daily contact with Tzahal (Israeli army) security and itineraries are adjusted to deal with the realities of life in a war zone. Grumble was in Jerusalem the day a Palestinian rammed a bulldozer into a bus killing 6 and wounding dozens. He's been there all the while that Iran has been testing long range rockets meant for Tel Aviv.

And I really don't worry about it. But as blase as I sound, I simply can't wait to talk to him about it when he gets home.  All that theory and passion and history about Israel we've fed him for 16 years is now being digested and filtered and sorted and processed in the real Israel. I want to hear what he thinks, what he ate, what he saw, what he loved, what troubled him.  I don't need to see him boogeying. So when the parent e-newsletter (updated daily) indicated that we could watch 650 kids atop Masada grooving to the music of a Jewish rock concert in a live podcast, I laughed. It was a Thursday night and it conflicted with HGTV's Design Star. I chose TV.

I'm not completely detached. I really DO like reading the itinerary and knowing where Group 15 is each day.  But I don't have to know EVERYTHING. When Grumble gets home I'll be happy to see his photos and hear his stories.  What he doesn't share, well, that's all for him.  Like my 16th summer.  Big and beautiful and hormonal and utterly unforgettable.

Cross-posted at Mid-Century Modern Moms

Another 15 Minutes

My stats went off the charts this morning, and now I know why.  Peter Shankman's wonderful Help A Reporter Out (HARO) referral network has landed me another 15 minutes of blog fame and a big boost to my blogsite.  Last month one of his reporters put out a query for interviews with New Yorkers who have moved to Atlanta.  I responded and had a lovely chat with Bloomberg News ATL bureau chief Steve Matthews.  Story below.  I don't agree with the ex-pats about Atlanta  pizza, by the way.  Osteria 832 is as good as coal fired Salvatore's pizza in Port Washington, and Fellinis is on par with the average New York pizzeria.  You wanna talk about bagels...now there's an area where Atlanta needs improvement. 

`Damn Yankees' From New York Raid Atlanta Housing, Spurn Pizza    

By Steve Matthews                     

 

July 10 (Bloomberg) -- Atlanta sounded pretty good to Scott Merritt while he was squeezed into his parents' home on Long Island with his wife and two children.    

He took a new job in the Georgia capital and moved his family to a $275,000 house in the suburbs with four bedrooms, a two-car garage and a yard with a swimming pool. It came at a cost to his New York sensibilities.           

``I haven't found a single slice of pizza I have been remotely satisfied with,'' Merritt said. ``I am not going to the corner pharmacy and being welcomed by name any longer. It was a culture shock.''    

The Merritts are among throngs of New Yorkers relocating to Georgia for affordable housing, a lower cost of living, a thriving job market and warmer winters. Displaced Northerners must adjust to Southern accents, a slower lifestyle, restaurants that close early, a ban on Sunday liquor sales and a reverence for ``Gone with the Wind.''   

They're hunkering down by sticking together. New Yorkers in Atlanta have their own group on www.myspace.com, and crowd athletic venues when the Mets, Islanders or Jets visit. One exile has a blog called ``Voted Off The Island.''          

``We have this pocket of all relocated New Yorkers who hang out together,'' said Merritt, 34. ``All damn Yankees.''    

About 40,000 New Yorkers resettled in Atlanta between 2000 and 2005, double the number from any other state, according to the Atlanta Regional Commission. An additional 14,000 came from New Jersey. Atlanta gained 1 million people in the past seven years, the most of any U.S. metropolitan area. It added 177,549 jobs from 2003 to 2006.           

Bargain Trail   
``There is a huge migration from high-cost areas to lower- cost areas, and Atlanta is a big beneficiary,'' said Mark Vitner, senior economist with Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina.           

Housing is the biggest catalyst, said Barry Wolfert, 42, a real-estate agent and former New Yorker in Marietta, Georgia, who helps others relocate. The Atlanta area's median sales price for an existing single-family home was $172,000 last year, compared with $469,700 for the New York-Northern New Jersey region, according to the National Association of Realtors.    

``For the money, you get double or triple the home,'' Wolfert said.           

A career move spurred George Fleck, 32, to give up a $1,800 rent-controlled, studio apartment in Chelsea last year. For $1,300, he got a one-bedroom apartment with a balcony overlooking downtown Atlanta's Piedmont Park.    

Fleck said he walks to his job at a midtown hotel and gets stares when he tells local residents that he doesn't have a car. Atlanta's Marta subway system has just two lines and fewer than 50 stops.           

Cooler City   
Differences like that make some transplants disdainful of their new address 900 miles (1,400 kilometers) south.           

``Atlanta is a second-tier city,'' said Jessica Harlan, 36, who relocated two years ago. ``New York is cooler and more exciting in every respect.''    

New Yorkers may even take exception to the way Georgians speak. Their drawl, and expressions like ``y'all'' and ``bless her heart,'' grate on some newcomers.           

``If my kids have a Southern accent, I will kill myself,'' said Brooklyn native Jodi Flensing, an Atlanta resident since 1998. Flensing said she tends to socialize with ex-New Yorkers, and finds inviting Southerners to lunch can be troublesome.    

``Being Southern means you wait for someone to finish a sentence,'' she said. ``We talk really fast. They can't get a word in edgewise.''      

Resistance to Change 
City and business leaders have welcomed the new arrivals as good for the economy. Skeptics say Atlanta, home of the 1996 Summer Olympics, risks becoming too cosmopolitan.           

``We are not going to get that sophisticated, damn it,'' said native Mary Dobbs, 62. ``We are not that involved in sports. We have other things to do.''    

Atlanta's bear no personal hostility toward New Yorkers, said Connie Sutherland, another native, who is director of the Gone With the Wind Museum.           

``Since 9/11, everybody in the country has bonded with New York,'' she said.    

Some New York transfers embrace the Southern lifestyle.           

Steve Segall, 23, who moved to Atlanta after graduating from Cornell University, said friends up north are envious that when they have a foot of snow on the ground, Atlanta's climate allows him to play golf after work.    

Sticking Together   
Even so, the New Yorkers-in-Atlanta group on Myspace.com draws suggestions of places for partying together and alerts on low airfares home.           

``I miss the lawn on Central Park,'' said Simone Joye, 42, who organized the site after moving to suburban Stone Mountain three years ago. ``I miss pizza -- real pizza -- and bagels and lox. I miss bridges and the water, which creates a sense of serenity. Atlanta has no beaches.'' 

The pull of Atlanta's affordability versus New York's excitement sometimes results in boomerangs. Amy Josephson, 46, moved to Atlanta a first time in 1992, returned to New York in 2005, then came back to Atlanta in September.           

``I am a New Yorker through and through,'' she said, yet she missed her friends in Atlanta and its lower cost of living. ``I may feel different tomorrow.''    

To contact the reporters on this story: Steve Matthews in Atlanta at smatthews@bloomberg.net;    

              

Atlanta's Millenium Gate

Large egos build large monuments.  So it is with the Millenium Gate, the pretentious structure being dedicated this weekend in Atlantic Station with pomp and parades.  It's the project of Atlanta aesthete Rodney Cook, Jr., creator of the National Monuments Foundation, which is backing the $18M project, financed by private donations and foundation grants. Cook is also credited with saving the Fox Theatre.  He is not an architect, but architecture is his passion.

The Millenium Gate is, according to one report, the largest public monument built in the United States since the construction of the Jefferson Memorial.  The classical drawings above do have gravitas and the "look" is completely derivative of European monuments, just as the Washington Square Arch, designed by Stanford White in 1892, was modeled after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.  Here's the fact sheet

The notion that great moments in time should be marked by iconic and monumental architecture isn't a bad idea.  But is this classical arch really the "look" that defines Atlanta at the turn of the century?  Having watched the construction of the Millenium Gate, I know that it's all cinder block to the core, slathered with concrete, prettied up with pediments and architectual gew gaws, much like the cheaply built Atlantic Station apartments and shops that surround it.  What offends is the feeling that this is Instant history, instant permance.  Just add water and nuke for 30 seconds. 

But maybe that's who we are.  I mean, East Cobb has its iconic Big Chicken. What would Atlanta's icon be?  Perhaps something made of cinder block and covered in faux marble isn't so far fetched.  Should we build a monumental shotgun house and put it on a pedestal?  How about a kitschy Tara-style plantation house?   

Or do we just accept the fact that nothing is permanent in a City once called Terminus and once burned to the ground?  In the South, everything rises again.

The Arch boasts a museum inside with exhibits on the transformation of Atlanta's steel yard into Atlantic Station, an Atlanta Pioneer Gallery, an Interactive Philanthropy Gallery (huh?) and "Period" rooms that can be reserved for special events. 

Some are calling the Millenium Arch L'arc D'Ikea because it frames the IKEA store so perfectly.  Many call it "Disneyesque" and reminiscent of Las Vegas faux architecture.

I call it a fancy catering hall.  You can bet your bippy that the glass structure that sits at the top of the Arch will be the catering venue of choice for brides and others in the years to come.  There's a "Book and Event" tab on the website...I'm sure the view is amazing. 

Factoids about the Millenium Arch

COST: $18 million. Privately funded by Atlanta families, foundations and companies. The arch is owned by the National Monuments Foundation, a nonprofit started by Atlanta designer Rodney Cook Jr.
ARCHITECTURE: A competition produced 10 winners. Hugh Petter of Robert Adams Architects in London honed their ideas, along with Cook. The architects of record are Collins Cooper Carusi of Atlanta.
SCULPTURES: The eastern facade is flanked by two feminine forms —Peace and Justice — created by Alexander Stoddart, who recently did a series of works for the Queen's Gallery in Buckingham Palace.
INSIDE: A museum dedicated to Georgia history and pioneer Atlanta families and philanthropists. One display re-creates a drawing room from the Rhodes-Robinson house, a Buckhead landmark designed by classical architect Philip Shutze and owned for many years by Cook's in-laws.

King of Picnics

As the reigning Queen of Picnics, a skill honed by 20 years of al fresco meals on the lawn at Tanglewood in the Berkshires, I have been thinking of giving up my title and just retiring. I haven't been in a terribly picnicky mood lately. Perhaps it has something to do with not having the time or money to actually BE at Tanglewood anymore. Perhaps its my funk just knowing that the season has begun for my Berkshires rat pack and I'm not at the party anymore. The Great White Middle Class Yuppie Culture-Fest is underway, and I am consoling myself with plans for one splendid night in August, and the Berlioz Saint-Saens program. It will have to be enough. 

Picnicking on  the Lawn at Tanglewood

At any rate, Mark Bittman wins my vote for King of Picnics.  Today in the NY Times he offers 101 20-minute "Inspired" picnic recipes, and man they're good. This is like getting a picnic cookbook for free.  The categories are:

1. Raw Vegetables 
2. Cooked Vegetables
3. Beans, Rice & Grain Salads
4. Potato Salads & Egg Salads
5. Fruit                                                                            
6. Seafood
7. Meat & Poultry
8. Sandwiches
9. Cold Noodles
10. Desserts

Now on to one of my own picnic favorites --

Israeli Cous-Cous Salad
1 cup Israeli Cous Cous (fat, pearl sized)
Juice of 2 lemons
1 cup of fresh dill, minced
1 can (drained) garbanzo beans
1/2 bag (2 cups) fresh uncooked spinach, arugula or swiss chard, finely chopped
1 large red pepper, seeded and minced
olive oil (about 1/2 cup)

Boil the cous cous and drain. Toss with olive oil and salt to taste.
Add the remaining ingredients while cous cous is still warm. 
The greens will wilt. 
Serve warm or refrigerate for your picnic.

Real Housewives of Atlanta Coming on Bravo

We've arrived.  Bravo's putting its first multi-racial group of socially elite ATL mamas in the spotlight with The Real Housewives of Atlanta. They're from Alpharetta, Duluth, Sugar Loaf and Sandy Springs. No intowners or Buckhead Betty's in the bunch. (It's time to retire that tired term anyway.) The preview premieres on my birthday, July 30th.  Now there's an excuse for a parTAY.

According to TV Week:

The “Real Housewives of Atlanta” are DeShawn Snow, a mother to three boys and wife to the captain of the Cleveland Cavaliers; Kim Zolciak, a single mother of two and aspiring country singer; Lisa Wu Hartwell, wife to NFL player Ed Hartwell and multi-business owner; NeNe Leakes, an outspoken social butterfly and mother of two boys; and Sheree Whitfield, a single mother hoping to open her own clothing line.

Next up in the Bravo stable, Real Housewives of New Jersey.

Three Stories About Breasts

In the last few days I have been hugely entertained by 3 different stories about boobs.

1)  Driving in the car with Gabriel we hear an NPR piece on the milk shortage in Venezuela.  Seems that Hugo Chavez is trying to boost milk production by nationalizing a plant and putting the same procedures in place that basically bankrupted heavy industry.  Gabriel's quip:  "I guess it's time for Venezuela to start milking the women."

2)  Again driving with Mr. G, we hear Friday's StoryCorps, the sidesplitting story of 94 year old Betty Jenkins who remembers being given an inflatable brassiere, which she wore as a young girl traveling in Latin America.

3)  And then it's on to Slate.com where Adrienne So contemplates the energy potential of putting the girls to work and harnessing the power of breasts in motion.

While we're on the topic, don't forget your annual mammogram.

APWBWGTTD = My Kind of People

Ever the group groupie, I just found a new one -- Atlanta People With Blogs Who Get Together to Drink.  Sort of says it all, n'est-pas?

Next meet up is July 15th at the west side Six Feet Under (Westside), 685 11th Street, Atlanta, GA 30318 (map) Complimentary valet - bring tip money!

Scooters

Every darn day I see more of them. Four just this morning.

My favorite scooter rider is the woman who rides a pink Buddy scooter and wears a pink helmet.  Lemme tell you, if my commute were a little shorter and didn't sometimes involve a segment on 285, I'd be all over this. 

Can't you see me riding around town on a nice little Vespa, the color of an Italian orange, or a shot of Campari?

However, this little red Honda Elite 80 is pretty cute too.  MSRP is $2399. 

Read at Work. . . on the Sly

This is just too cool.  An app that makes your computer desktop look like a Windows program.  So it looks like you're working, but in reality you're reading great poetry, fiction, etc.

The New Zealand Book Council asked Colenso BBDO Auckland to find a fun new way to make books more accessible and to encourage people to fall in love with reading again. They figured that surely people would rather read books than do work. So they created a site to disguise books as every day office computer documents.

You can now read classics by George Orwell through to modern short stories on any computer, at any time, without anyone ever knowing. Especially at work, where your boss and co-workers will be none-the-wiser. And all these books are housed at our equally disguised online library, which is designed to look identical to a Windows desktop.

Is this cool or what?