When TG and I took Audrey and Dagny to the Georgia Aquarium last June for Dagny's fourth birthday -- that was the same trip where we visited the grave of JonBenét Ramsey -- we were less than a week away from our thirty-ninth wedding anniversary.
Since my family lived for several years in the Atlanta area in the '60s and '70s, as we drove toward our hotel I began to notice Interstate signs bearing the names of roads that were familiar to me.
We often visit Atlanta; most recently we'd been there last September, a few days after Andrew and Brittany became engaged, to take in a Braves game at SunTrust Park.
In fact, on that trip, on an insanely sunny, too-hot-to-be-November afternoon, I took Erica to see the church where TG and I were married on June 16, 1979.
I hadn't been back there since 1987, when I flew alone from our home in the Chicagoland area to attend a church service and a dinner-on-the-grounds reunion of folks from "back in the day."
Naturally, as Erica and I drove toward the former Forrest Hills Baptist Church in Decatur, I wasn't sure what to expect as far as how the church property, which loomed so large to me both as a teen and a young adult (in my early childhood I was subjected to no church influence whatsoever), would look after thirty years.
I knew that the church building -- built around 1970 under the leadership of the late Curtis W. Hutson, the pastor who married TG and me -- and grounds had been sold to another congregation in the early '90s.
One might be justified in expecting that any manner and number of changes would have been made in the intervening years.
And so I was more than taken aback when Erica and I drove onto the property in November of 2016 to find that, with the exception of glass front doors leading into the sanctuary instead of the solid white ones that I remembered, the exterior of the building had not changed.
Ditto for the grounds, which are virtually unchanged since the first time I saw them, when I was fifteen years old.
On that occasion, a kind caretaker of the property noticed that we had parked and were looking around, and we told him why we were there. He offered to take us inside, where things had undergone considerable cosmetic alteration.
The sanctuary is now a different color scheme, and the platform has been built out to be larger than before. The aforesaid glass doors replaced solid ones leading in and out of both the vestibule and the building itself.
Other than that, I gazed in a quiet fit of sentimentality at the place where TG and I had stood when we took our vows thirty-seven years before.
Fast-forward seventeen months to early June of 2018, when at my urging TG steered our car again to the church where we were married.
TG hadn't seen the place since our wedding day; Audrey had never seen it at all and of course, little Dagny was a newcomer too.
I took pictures of the classic fan-shaped church architecture, noting the right side of the building as you're looking at it, where in my wedding gown and carrying a large bouquet of gardenias, I made my way around on the sidewalk with my bridesmaids, so that my groom wouldn't see me until I walked down the aisle.
Cars going by on the road fifty yards away slowed and a few honked; everyone loves a June bride.
On one's wedding day I daresay no one pictures one's children and grandchildren standing in the same place, nearly forty years in the future.
On this day there was no one with keys available to let us look around inside.
So I took pictures of TG looking up at the door of the fellowship hall where we held both our rehearsal dinner and, the next day, our distinctly Southern reception of tiny sandwiches and assorted finger foods, served with punch and, of course, wedding cake.
TG walked on the breezeway where we came out into a warm June afternoon, holding hands, having changed into regular clothes, TG holding his rented tux in a plastic suit bag, just before the remaining revelers pummeled us with rice and we boarded TG's 1974 Toyota Celica for the trip to Charleston, South Carolina, for our honeymoon.
Many of the people I loved in that place, at that time, are gone. People who made a profound difference in my life. So there was a poignant, wistful part of the experience too. As much as bricks and mortar can be a part of someone, that church is a part of me.
They say you can't go back. And yet we did, and it was special, and I am glad.
Now that summer has melted into fall, we're left with memories of Things We Managed To Accomplish While It Was Sweltering Outside.
This year's TWMTAWIWSO include taking my two middle grandchildren to the store for school supplies.
Allissa and Andrew are attending a private faith-based school for the first time this year; up until now, they have been home schooled.
Our daughter -- their mother -- took home schooling very seriously. Everyone was up and dressed, breakfast done, each morning by the time Melanie left for her special-needs class at the nearby elementary school.
They had a classroom in the lower level of their house, and each day's priority was lessons.
As a result, the children's academic test scores are high and they were primed for traditional schooling. They are enjoying it immensely.
Melanie is home this year, with her mother carrying out her various therapies and applying the methods used to train her to be more self-sufficient.
Melly will turn fourteen in December; she's becoming a young lady and she's not shy about what she likes and doesn't like. She very much likes hanging out with her mother all day, but she knows there will be work involved, and personal responsibility.
Mel didn't get to visit us by herself during the summer; her sibs came and she will be staying with us for a few days later this year.
In addition to buying school supplies while they were here, TG and the aunties and I took the children to a new café and sweet shop that has opened up near our house.
At the Chocolate Factory and Coffee Shoppe everyone was allowed to pick out a treat. The older children chose some things to take home and share with their parents and Melanie as well.
The girls and I got coffee and we all sat around the shop's big hearth in comfy couches and chairs, and enjoyed our snack.
I want to go back on a cool and rainy fall day, when there's a fire in the grate.
Later that day, we took the kids out to visit an elderly lady who is the mother of one of my dearest friends.
Along with our school supplies, we had bought a metric ton of construction paper, plus stickers, so that the children could make cards for the lady we were going to visit.
We also took her a potted raspberry-pink Kalanchoe, which she loved, and which I am told is thriving -- mainly because I got it quickly out of my hands before I could kill it.
A miniature donkey by the name of Moses lives on the lady's rural property, along with some chickens. The children fed Moses crackers and marshmallows until he ran for cover.
It was approximately a million degrees outside, with eight-thousand-percent humidity.
The sweet lady invited us back inside, where she gave the children refreshing popsicles.
On the way home, we visited Costco and bought even more treats to enjoy throughout the rest of the children's visit.
The days are cooling now; summertime has turned to go.
We're grateful because while summer holds its own special charms and we love it for itself alone, autumn is just about everyone's favorite.
You know I exist to bring you not only experiences, and pictures of those experiences, but the commentary that both deserve.
And the explanations that you deserve.
But I'm pretty sure there's no need for explanation when it comes to Chicago's Crown Fountain.
The installation, completed in 2004, comprises two fifty-foot-tall glass block towers with a reflecting pool between them.
The "face" of each tower is a massive video screen, displaying the actual faces of ordinary Chicagoans (facing one another as though communicating) blinking, smiling, staring, and blowing water kisses.
The water jetting from the mouths is said to have been inspired by gargoyles -- which, I'm not sure if you know this, but if it doesn't spit water, it's not a gargoyle. It's a grotesque.
At any rate, mist and spray moisten anyone walking within twenty feet of the structures, which do, gargoyle-like, spit water from their LED video mouths.
People cavort in the reflecting pool, which is so shallow as to be more like a low place where the water collects. I didn't try it, but I doubt it's even ankle deep. I don't believe it would attract ducks.
Water sluices down the towers for much of the year. In winter, for obvious reasons, the glass block is lit from within and the water is turned off.
We wouldn't want two fifty-foot ice blocks on our hands. Gets a trifle nippy there a few hundred yards from the shores of Lake Michigan, where Millennium Park is situated.
Crown Fountain is at the edge of that newer twenty-five-acre park, all of which -- and then some -- was for decades known as Grant Park.
The fountain gets its name from the wealthy and influential Chicago family who commissioned it into existence and paid the seventeen-million-dollar freight.
Do I like it? To say that the jury is still out is likely the closest we'll come to my feelings in the matter, for a long time to come.
It may even require a second visit before a conclusion may be reached.
The source of my ambivalence is that, although the Crown Fountain was interesting to look at, it wasn't exciting. In any way. As such it failed to touch or move me. It illuminated nothing.
When I walked away, I didn't miss it. I guess we could say I found it boring.
I could go into why I think that's the case, but I'd probably offend someone.
You may have seen photos of the highly reflective Cloud Gate sculpture -- known colloquially as the bean -- which sits a stone's throw from the Crown Fountain, drawing thousands of visitors each day.
Here's me taking a picture of TG standing in front of the bean. If you look closely, you can see us both. Haha.
Although I find much to be charmed by in the country, I'm a city girl by nature. As such, the urban sprawl never fails to fascinate.
Among cities I've visited, Chicago is far and away my favorite. It has the sort of energy I understand.
So if the Crown Fountain fails to impress in the way another design might have? I can forgive that.
Because next time I visit Chicago, among the familiar sights there will something else to notice, to marvel at, to wonder about, and to show you.
Photo Courtesy Maribeth BruinsHurricane Florence wasn't one anymore, by the time she reached us. She'd been stripped of her title.
After all the hoopla that we endured for a week preceding the event, do you know what she turned out to be?
And as rainy days go, it wasn't even an exceptionally rainy one. Not even close.
We got perhaps an inch of rain.
Granted, the wind kicked up and some gusts on Saturday were scary, only because we're surrounded by tall trees and I have a phobia that one will fall on me.
I love rainy days so, for me, it was like a holiday. I sat in my cozy chair in the sun room, holding Rizzo (who was a trifle nervous and whined a time or two) and enjoyed the unfolding climatic (though ultimately anticlimactic) drama.
Such excitement. Be still, my heart.
It's not my intention to trivialize the experience of our neighbors to the north, in the great state of North Carolina.
We have family who live there. They had torrential rain, but since they live in the western half of the tar heel state, they didn't face catastrophic flooding as did those in the eastern half.
And those folks have our prayers.
Meanwhile my friend and blogging buddy, Mari, was on vacation in the American West and sent me this picture of a magnificent raven hanging out in Utah.
I adore ravens. Isn't he special?
Glossy black, with attitude. A commanding presence on his rock.
May we all take our stand and stare down the day, feathers shining.
For near on a week now, all we've heard about in the news is apocalyptic doom coming our way in the form of Hurricane Florence.
And for some, Florence's effects will indeed be devastating. They have my prayers, and I mean that.
But since I live in Columbia, South Carolina -- the city smack-dab in the middle of the Palmetto State that now, most models show taking the brunt of the hurricane (or what's left of it) on Sunday morning, I am interested in how the storm may affect me.
And my family, of course, and our property.
So naturally, I've been watching the ongoing weather forecasts, waiting for dire predictions to be issued for my ZIP code.
I would like to say thank you and blow a kiss toward each friend who has called, texted, and/or emailed both TG and me to check on us.
I've heard from folks in Michigan, Indiana, Florida, and Maryland. Most, but not all, are blogging buddies. TG has been contacted by friends from college days, buddies from back in the day, just making sure we're all right and wondering if there's anything they can do.
Likewise we have gotten in touch with a few friends who live in the coastal areas of the Carolinas.
One faraway family member, concerned for our safety, got in touch with Audrey.
It means a lot that so many would think of us, and take their time to let us know. So if you've made an effort, we're sincerely grateful.
OK so back to the subject of our local forecast.
For a week we've been tapping our apps many times each day to see what's in store.
And for as many days as we've been checking, the outlook hasn't changed much: We are in for a rainy, windy weekend.
And that's all. Although various news outlets are predicting four feet of rain in some areas (and that may indeed happen just as they say), our predictions are for three inches at most.
Sad, that; we've had a dry summer and would welcome more rain.
Even so, Audrey came over and helped me to clear the decks of anything outside the house that can fall, flatten, or fly. The front porch has been denuded of my bistro set and I even took down the American flag lest it be lifted and lofted in a hurricanic wind gust, becoming a patriotic projectile.
Out back, we've removed solar lights that stick up from the large ceramic pots, tossed all of the floaties and noodles and rings and vests and goggles and balls and toys into the pool shed, and brought every tube and bottle of cream and spray, plus extra pairs of sunglasses, into the house.
I folded the umbrella and stored all but the heaviest pieces of outdoor furniture in the garage, together with every cushion and pillow that could end up in Georgia if the aforesaid wind gusts materialize.
I took down wind chimes but left the hummingbird feeder, since last September the littles fed during Hurricane Irma.
If our power goes out, I'll call the kids and go where there's air conditioning and TV.
Likewise I told them all that if they're left in the dark but our lights are on, they're welcome to sleep and eat here.
At any rate we're prepared to ride it out. Currently, outside it's sunny and breezy, with zero chance of precipitation on this calendar day.
I promise that I will let everyone know what happens, after it's happened.
Maybe even while it's happening.
It all depends on how interesting the whole thing turns out to be.