Yesterday was Kim's birthday! She turned 35 and looks great (for her age). Happy birthday to her! The date on the picture is wrong, by the way. That was actually taken in 2004.
When asked what she wants to do on her birthday she said she wanted to drive up to Atlanta, or Stone Mountain specifically and attend the Yellow Daisy Crafts Fair. It's the biggest in the nation so says the ads. I was game. I'm always game for crafts fairs. You can find some really cool stuff there AND some of the most interesting people too.
And Stone Mountain is beautiful. There's a lot of Georgia that is, especially in the North. On the way up to Helen, there are mountains you go up and down and little towns you wind through. If you're near a girl, they might be interested in the Cabbage Patch place they have there... I forget what they call them. Adoption centers? Anyway, the drive is beautiful, the land is beautiful up there and if someone said I had to live in Georgia for the rest of my life I'd either want to live in Decatur not far away from Atlanta but far enough away from it or near Helen. I don't know if I'd want to live IN Helen as it is very much a tourist reliant town.
Anyhoo, back to our adventure.
We left Warner Robins and she was driving. It's great to be the passenger. You get to look out the window and really pay attention to the scenery and relax. I'm already a liad back kind of guy and when I'm the passenger int he car, with the white noise of the engine and the highway and the low volume of the radio I can get pretty chill. Anyway, a friend of mine called while we were on the road and since we didn't have any directions it fell on me to know where we were going (there's no such thing as getting lost, more like finding places you didn't know existed) and because I was on the phone we missed our exit and almost drove into downtown Atlanta.
Which would not have been good.
But we turned around, got off at the correct exit and then felt our way to Stone Mountain.
Here's a fun fact: On the way to Stone Mountain from Warner Robins there is exactly ONE sign that advertises it and it is not a billboard with direction but merely a sign with the exti number maybe two miles from the exit. So you have this huge room for error in just going hoping there would be a sign. Kim says that it's a conspiracy between the US Government and Rand McNally.
But we found our way there, all the while Kim saying I ruined her birthday and exclaiming just how mad she is at the world for not putting up enough signs, for giving her a husband who was on the phone when he should have been helping out, for this jackass in front of her now sho's driving way too slow for her taste etc. etc.
She was wound up.
But the beauty of Stone Mountain calmed her down quickly. We parked and then made our way into the fair. When you first went in there were food places all over the place (more on food a little later), and a stage with a bluegrass band playing. Now, I'm not a huge fan of bluegrass but watching these guys play it was awesome. There was some SERIOUS musicianship and some amazing playing going on. I wanted to stay, would loved to have stayed to watch them but they finished their number and announced their last song was next. So I pulled Annie out of her stroller and plopped her on the ground to listen. She doesn't really like being carried around anymore. I mean, she might when the surroundings aren't familiar or she isn't comfortable but most of the time she's very independent-minded and WANTS DOWN. She loves to walk. So I put her down and she started to dance to bluegrass. She loves it. Absolutely loves it. I've never seen her into a genre before and she's into just about anything so long as there's a beat (and Kim says there needs to be a rocking guitar too). She started to pogo (that's my girl!) and the small crowd surrounding us adored her and the guys on stage must have seen her too. They didn't give any indication they did, but I bet they did. I bet they were either thinking about how much they love their kids or how much they want kids.
Annie has this almost mutant-like power on people.
But the song finished and we put her back in the stroller. I was super hungry. We had gone past all the food places and I was dying. But then, like hope itself, I saw a stand that advertised philly cheese steaks.
A little about me: I'm not huge into Philly Cheese Steak Sandwiches. They're good and all, but a little bit goes a long way and no one makes it quite like the angry guy at my college.
But I was hungry and here it was. So I payed the SEVEN dollars for a SANDWICH and nothing else, no chips, no soda, nothing but the sandwich and then it was handed to me. Apparently they think that shredded beef, a few strips of onion and NACHO cheese is satisfactory.
It isn't.
But I ate it. It was rough too. Messy as all get out.
And after that we were looking around the crafts fair looking at some amazing displays of craftiness. Glass blowers and painters, wood burners, belt makers, all sorts of cool stuff. And then you have people that went to Hobby Lobby and bought fabric and make pillow cases and was charging 10 bucks for one pillow case. This always happens though. It's no big deal.
I found this stall where peanut brittle was offered to me. I don't turn down peanut brittle. More importantly I don't turn down other kinds of brittle that I haven't tried. I'm a big fan of trying new things so when she offered pecan brittle and sunflower seed brittle, I was shoving people out of the way to try some. Both were very good and I would have bought them on the spot but she had to start her sales pitch about how it didn't have any butter or margarine in it. No fats or oils. No calories or cholesterol and all that stuff. Jokingly I asked what it DID have in it (meaning to say right after this "pure deliciousness?") and she cut me off saying corn syrup.
Yuck.
But I had talked to her and sampled her wares so I bought some pecan brittle and got the hell out of there before I was guilted into more.
I found some really awesome stuff there. REALLY awesome stuff that I'd buy in a HEARTBEAT if I had the cash.
We walked around for a while looking at everything. It really is a big fair and soon we were talking about moving back to the stage so Annie could dance some more.
We did, but what was a great bluegrass band was replaced by a country rock band that, you know, played country rock.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I kind of never want Annie to ever hear Carrie Underwood. I don't see how women are attaching themselves to her for "speaking the truth" when she's singing about destroying her boyfriend's car.
Side note: if that were to happen to me, I'd just take her to court and since she would have CARVED HER NAME in the seats, I doubt it would be a hard case to win.
Annie liked it though not as much as the bluegrass. The singer was commenting on how there were so many good dancers out there under the age of three. There were other kids running around dancing and whatnot and then we saw him.
The guy with the coolest job in the world.
There was a man, who worked for Stone Mountain, blowing bubbles for a living. Just entertaining the kids and honestly, how great of a job is that? You don't really have to interact with the kids because the kids are chasing the bubbles and when are the bubbles EVER going to come toward the person blowing them? The kids chase the bubbles AWAY from the blower.
Anyway, Annie was obsessed. She wanted down and she wanted to get in this huge bucket of bubble soap. We let her get down and walk around and all that. At first she didn't know what to do about the bubbles or the scores of bigger kids around her. She was content to stand on the fringes of the activity and watch but pretty soon the arms were up:
And she was having fun. That's my girl.
Good birthday.
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