Week 4 - Where did a month go??

Today's topics are nature (again), roads and getting around (again), food (again), southern hospitality (again), and two new volunteer opportunities that I'm looking forward to:

I haven't cried in the car in a week - that's a huge accomplishment from the first week I was here. I'm not as impatient with the Garmin (although I have yet to name her - any suggestions?) and now that I have her stuck to the windshield, she's not losing the satellite as much as before. She actually tried to take me home a different way than I had been before and I knew enough of where I was to go MY way and make her recalculate! YAY!

So what's with the speed bumps around here? They are HUGE. Every parking lot has them in front of the store entrances and you seriously have to creep over them or you'll spill your coffee and hurt your car. It's nuts. My neighborhood has them about every 100 feet and they are serious "humps" as the sign says. Personally, my juvenile sense of humor makes me giggle every time I see "speed hump" but that's just because they were called "bumps" in Michigan and there's a big difference between a "hump" and a "bump". Just sayin'.

My yard is like Wild Kingdom. I love having deer go through my yard - they are so pretty and graceful. My boys go ballistic every time they see one and Sammy will sit in front of the window for hours watching them and/or waiting for one to happen by. The only bummer is that these graceful creatures are eating my flowers. The mangy, left-over rose bush from the former resident finally got a gorgeous bloom the other day. I looked at it and it was pretty. Then later that day, after the afternoon "Deer Parade", it was gone; an afternoon snack, I'm sure. Glad I saw it that morning!

We did two fun things this week that got us out and about:

Went to see "Let The Children Play" - a documentary about El Sistema and Gustavo Dudamel at this theater:

http://www.fandango.com/regalperimeterpointstadium10_aadit/theaterpage

Great movie, adequate theater. The area around the theater is nice with Starbucks and other restaurants in the same strip. We were horrified that a medium diet coke and a medium popcorn was $13!! We decided to pass on that - is that normal these days? Wow!!

We went to a lovely dinner in Johns Creek at Trattoria One41

http://www.trattoria141.com/

Food was excellent, service was good. We had sauteed calimari and shrimp in a delicious red sauce for an appetizer. The bread came with a wonderful red/cheese sauce spread. Amazing. Our caesar salads never showed up which was a bummer - they brought our entrees (veal chop and veal parmesan) first and were mortified when we mentioned that the salads hadn't come. We ordered chianti and the first glasses were musty so we sent them back. The replacement glasses were also musty so we sent them back too (and that's generally not how we are but if it's skunked, it's skunked) Waiter handled it very well and brought us a totally different wine, opened the bottle in front of us, etc. He made a great wine choice for us and I can't wait to go back there.

When we came home and went out to walk the dogs, we met our next door neighbors who invited us to sit on the patio for some wine. Then another couple of neighbors came over and they hung out too. It was nice to get to know some of them and our boys behaved well on their patio. They considered going after the fish in the koi pond and were twitching to get one of their cats but they didn't actually do either of these things (thanks to a leash on each of them!)

Speaking of the dogs, we've joined the golden retriever rescue group here called GRRA:

http://www.grra.com/

I'm hoping to do some volunteer work with them; my preference is to help with adoption events and to do some transport for dogs who are new to the program.

And since we also want to help people, we'll be helping out at this place on July 31st:

http://tcmatlanta.org/trinity-table

And next week, I'm actually working a little bit! Excited to play with the GSO on their outdoor pops concert:

http://www.gainesvillesymphony.com/press/

That's it - more soon!

As always, please make suggestions of fun things to do and I'll add them to my list!