Perfect Weekend

I had the best weekend in a looong time. Here's a little teaser, with more to come, probably tonight.

The weekend started out something like this on Friday night

with a visit to the Bone Garden Cantina, home of great Mexican food and crack margaritas, near us on the west side of town. The restaurant has a Day of the Dead theme, cheap good food, very strong drinks, and a very heavily tattooed staff. Bald-headed, full-sleeved Joey-the-waiter is my new buddy. I love it!!

(images via this flickr site)

Saturday included going flea marketing with Ophelia in tow (yes, I got some funny looks), time in the garden just relaxing, and -of course- cheering on SNL' s coverage of the VP debate. Smithy and I have adored Tina Fey for while, so you can imagine how much we love the Palin spoofs.

On Sunday we went to the best party ever. In a nutshell, a group of my sister and brother-in-law's friends started planning this event not long after BIL's brain cancer diagnosis last spring. (For info on their health journey, see here.) They booked his favorite touring alt-bluegrass band, Chatham County Line, to play a private party at the home of one of the couples.

The party turned into a beer, barbecue, and bluegrass fest that was a celebration of life among 70+ friends and family, and the love and care that went into the planning still leaves me in awe. The weather was absolutely perfect, the food was beyond plentiful, the band played two sets and they were easy going and gracious. Here's just a few pictures....

BIL Bert on the far right, with his buddies


BIL on the right, two organizers on left, and the friend in the black shirt
flew to Atlanta from Idaho to attend the party!

The organizers built a plywood stage for the band!!

Chatham County Line

Group shot!

We even went home with swag! One of the hosts of the party has an in with the legendary Hatch Show Print folks in Nashville, and had 100 poster made by Hatch Show for anyone who wanted a poster. (See the image at the top of the page. ) And the band signed the posters! And even the plastic cups were printed with the event info and the band's name. Now that's attention to detail. Wow!

Remedy for Economic Cataclism

The Great Dame Recommends:
One of these

plus this

plus a glass or three from this


A very sobering conversation earlier this week with an architect, a conversation about the dire state of the economy as of this week, a conversation about just what all this may mean for designers like us, had me heading straight for the biggest bar of medicinal dark chocolate I could get my hands on. No one quite knows what all this will do to our industry, but everyone agrees that it's looking like a bumpy ride.

For the record, the chick lit book and the wine came much later, after work, once I got home.
I swear. And it's taken Smithy and me two days to work through the giant candy bar.

None of the above is likely to fix anything, or make the economy better, but a little comforting couldn't hurt right about now.

For what it's worth, the Crusie book is a blast: it has backstabbing Southern belles, hitmen (plural), a mafia princess or two, assault by frying pan, a fixer-upper mansion, and wild flamingos. Pure escapism gold.

I'm thinking of doing more of the same this weekend.

If the Gas Shortage continues much longer...

I may have to rig up something like this to get to work!



Surely,Miss Ophelia wouldn't mind.



All Great Dane owners are all too familiar with statements like "you need a saddle for that thing!" or the ever popular "who's walking who?!", so we might not even raise an eyebrow.

I'm kidding of course, but the gas situation here in Atlanta is pretty serious, and it's not looking like it's going to get resolved quickly. The latest word is that the shortage will continue for a few more weeks. People are freaking out, gas stations are literally out of gas, and I read that in the midst or all this, our governor is traveling in Europe today!

While the idea of a dog cart isn't likely to be a realistic mode of modern day green transportation, I did do a quick search on 'dog carts'. There is a historic tradition of dogs being used as draft animals to pull small carts - either as recreation for children, or used by tradespeople to transport goods. There's really interesting info and pictures here at this site.

And there's a modern spin on dog carts as well. See this site and this site for a sport and exercise options related to carting.

Beautiful Visuals

Over the weekend, Smithy and I had an 'accidental' Lee Pace mini film festival. That means that I picked out two movies, without realizing that he was in both of them. Lucky me!

Anyway, even though not all critics were kind, I highly recommend The Fall. Lee Pace (of TV's Pushing Daisies) is hospitalized in 1920's California after an accident. He befriends an immigrant girl who is also a patient at the hospital, and he weaves and elaborate story about 5 epic heroes for her. As often happens in movies, reality and fiction begin to blur - that's all I'll say.

Pace and the girl, a Romanian newcomer, both do a great job, but if nothing else appeals to you, see it for the visuals alone. They're amazing, and the location scenes were shot over a 4 year period in something like 18 different countries. For example, the Taj Majal and the Alhambra, and maybe Hagia Sofia were among just a few of the settings for the film. The following are just a few of the production photos from the movie.

Movie number two was Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, of which much has already been written. Frances McDormand plays the title character, and she is fantastic - funny and full of dignity at the same time. I rented the movie as much for the Art Deco scenery as for Miss McDormand. It was an added bonus that handsome Lee Pace has a smaller role as one of Amy Adams' suitors. Please see this one too, if you haven't already. Seriously, it has a fantastic Art Deco apartment and night club, beautiful 1930's outfits, Frances McDormand, Amy Adams as a perfectly delightful ditzy blond, Lee Pace in a tux and playing piano, and the craggy-but-handsome Ciaran Hinds (who will always be Ceasar from HBO's Rome to me.) Not a heavy hitter, but pure fun.

Armchair traveler

Sorry posting has been so non-existent lately; Smithy came down with some kind of cold or flu first, and now it's my turn. Nasty stuff, I tell ya. Last night, even my hair hurt.

Since I have pretty much nothing to say, here's something much cooler to read about: Himalayan expedition. Claudia Lopez is a friend of a friend of mine. She's a very talented professional photographer and a mountain climber. And the woman is stunning on top of all that talent!

Anyway, Claudia doesn't just climb any piddly little mountains, she does the big ones. She is currently part of a team doing a climb in the Himalayas, see the link above, and they are updating a site with photos and notes via sat phone. You can read all about her on her own website HERE, and view her portfolios HERE.

Please check out the site and live vicariously.

(Photos shown here are from the Himalay expedition site, linked above.)

Lighten Up

For our tiny second bathroom, I'm thinking about installing something like this

or this on the ceiling

And then adding a trio of framed prints by my favorite vintage pinup artist, Gil Elvgren. He was very prolific, so there's tons to choose from, but in keeping with the 'Hiya, Sailor!' theme:

What do you think?
It's an otherwise bland, small, beige and white striped bath with a low ceiling. In a 1917 era cottage.

So, vintage, slightly-naughty-sailor-girl-themed bathroom = Campy good?
Or= campy bad?

Cheesecake ahoy!

This and That

Random tidbits for the day....

During a stop at my local bookstore this evening, I stumbled across a magazine that I haven't seen before, BlackBook. Not something that I would normally pay all that much attention to, however, this month one of my favorite actresses is the cover girl: Emerald-eyed Scottish iconoclast Tilda Swinton! Love her!
And I'm off in just a minute to pick up Smithy from the airport. He's been off on a bohemian revel in Nevada, where this

and this

were part of the scenery.
(While I've been ogling chandeliers and lighting of an electric variety, he's been playing around with firelight and fireworks.) It's looking like a late night with a few too many stories of just how crazy the whole Burning Man experience is. Oy.

Hope to be back with more happy, pretty design items soon....