Guess what I got to do???

Dad took me for a ride on his Harley!  Too bad we didn't have a side car for this guy:

Ignatius watched us ride off from the driveway

Between riding with my dad and my stepmom handing me down a family heirloom--her biker chick jacket from the late 80's--I'm well on my way to being "scooter trash."  Jax Teller, here I come!

Alive and Well in Georgia!

Hi everyone!  I'm back from a totally unintended blogging break, which was the result of accidentally leaving my backpack (including my laptop) in San Francisco!  I had it all packed as my carry on--laptop, books, work, phone charger, etc . . . and left it in the car when I got out at the train station.  Thus, I've been sans internet for a while . . . can't wait to catch up on all your blogs!

As soon as I got home, my mama, sis, and I headed to Tybee Island for a little beach trip.  It was good, redneck fun. ;)  I'm really grateful to have had time to spend with them--we never get time just the three of us!  Plus, the overcast weather led to much Sons of Anarchy watchin.' :)

We drove back on Saturday for my cousin Stevie's wedding:

my beautiful cousin, Stevie, and her new husband, Josh

Mama, Kate, and me at the wedding

the bride with her two sisters (we're all girl cousins on my mama's side!)

sisters: Aunt KK, Aunt Pat, my mama

uncles ;)

Daddy and me 

The wedding was beautiful and fun, and the next day I got to hold this sweet baby (my cousin Jennifer's half-sister's brand new daughter):

Emma Kate: 6 lbs 12 oz of CUTENESS

Today, after accompanying Jason, one of my bffs, to his radiation treatment (he has testicular cancer; he's gonna be fine, and he has the most incredible attitude about it), we stopped for brunch at Social House, where I had the southernest of breakfasts:

fried green tomato crepes, cheese grits, sweet tea

And then I spent the afternoon with my 91 year old grandmother, who advised that instead of seeking romance and passion, I begin to look for a man who is "rather dull."  

Off for a ride on my dad's Harley . . . so grateful he's willing to feed the obsession!

The Holiday Blues

Every year I go home to Georgia for Christmas, but the other holidays can be hard.  I always call my mama's house on Easter, where the entire family has gathered, and she passes the phone around so I can say hi to everyone.  I love getting to talk to them, but it inevitably leaves me feeling a little depressed that they're all together and I'm thousands of miles away.  Would that I could just wiggle my nose and transport myself home for every occasion.

My auntie Pat posted these picture of our family's Easter celebration yesterday:

my sisters

(Jennifer--on the left--is my cousin, but we grew up like sisters.  Lil sis Kate on the right)

sweet Nana on the left and my mama on the right

this year Nana will be 80, Mama will be 50, and I will be 30!

Uncle Mike & pretty cousins with spread of food

Uncle Ted on left, brother-in-law Andy on right

love the twin crossed legs, boys

Jennifer's son, Ethan, and our Auntie Pat

Ethan hunting for eggs in Mama's back yard

I would have loved to be there with them.  I miss everyone exponentially on holidays.  But although it was sad that I couldn't be with my family on Easter, I did the next best thing and headed up to the Freitags to watch Milo and Jude hunt for eggs:

the Freitags on Easter + the view from their backyard

Milo furiously hunting eggs

me and my little love

JJ and Judebug, both sporting seersucker

Thank goodness for the Freitags aka my home away from home!  It was a gorgeous day outside, and those boys always put me in a better mood.  Plus, after the uncles and aunts and cousins went home, Cari and I did something very Easterly: we watched a very intense, violent movie about post-Apartheid South Africa.  ;)

Notice anything about the cast?  Particularly the guy standing in the middle?  Yes, ladies & gentlemen, it's Tim Riggins.  And despite the fact that he had to lose 30 pounds to portray strung out combat photographer, Kevin Carter, he was just as fine as ever in this movie.

All hotness aside, it was a great movie, although devastating.  The story centers around four photographers who are trying to take the best pictures of the violence going on around them.  Kevin Carter (played by Taylor Kitsch--it's a true story) eventually took the following photo of a starving child in Sudan being stalked by a vulture:

from

Although Carter won the Pulitzer Prize for this photo (taken in southern Sudan in 1993), it was obviously surrounded by controversy.  The public questioned him: did you just leave that girl to die?  What did you do after you took the picture?  Unable to face these questions and the ethics of his job in general, Carter kills himself.  And while it was tough to watch Tim Riggins go through all that . . . it was worth it.  

Sorry for the downer.  Probably should have ended with Jude toddling around in his seersucker suit clutching plastic eggs.  What did y'all do for Easter?

Christmas Pressies Part 1

I totally want to hear about what all of you got for Christmas (what was your favorite gift you gave?  What about your favorite gift you received?).  There are a few gifts I want to tell you about, starting with just one today.

Meet my friend Kimberly:

me on the left, Kimberly on the right

at the Brick Store, one of my favorite Atlanta spots

Kimberly and I met ten years ago when we both worked at a very trendy European bar/restaurant/cafe in Atlanta called Cafe Intermezzo.  I was home from college for the summer and Kimberly was getting ready to head off to Columbia in the fall (we're both from Georgia).  We've stayed friends through all these years and several moves, and I think she's come to visit me pretty much everywhere I have lived!

After finishing her degree at Columbia in New York City, Kimberly joined the Peace Corps, spent a couple years in Africa, and is now in her third year of a Ph.D. program in cultural anthropology at Northwestern.  Don't I have such interesting friends?

She gave me this book of poems for Christmas:

We Don't Know We Don't Know by Nick Lantz

The incredible first book of Nick Lantz, We Don't Know We Don't Know is a collection of poems sprung from quotations from Donald Rumsfeld and Pliny the Elder.  What a duo!  I read almost the entire collection on the plane ride back to California (thank you so much Kimberly, totally made my long flight bearable!).  The poems deal with a lot of eerie "what ifs," cause & effect, mythology, and the grittiness of rurality.  Pretty incredible how Lantz incorporates these bewildering quotes of Rumsfeld and turns them into fascinating poems that, at their core, aren't even about politics.  

I love discovering new poets--thank you Kimberly!

Now tell me about some of your Christmas gifts!  (I have another one to share soon).

Things that Happened in Georgia

1.  Mama's back yard looked like this on Christmas Day!  And this was just the beginning of it--we got a few more inches by late afternoon:

note her neighbor's well behind the fence.  he's old school.

2.  Ignatius had surgery on Christmas Eve!  Thankfully it was just a benign lump (probably from eating too many loaves of bread/hamburger buns/plastic bags full of meat/chocolate/ice cream):

real convo that happened when Dad and I picked him up from surgery:

Dad:  Okay Clairey, Ignatius is probably going to be sedated . . .

Woman Behind Counter:  Ummm . . . NOPE!  He was howling the minute he woke up.

(Ignatius comes romping down the hall, barking, with vet tech in tow)

Dad:  Well.  I see he's not sedated.

Vet Tech:  This dog was like . . . a bomb in Afghanistan as soon as the surgery was over!

Other Vet Tech (shouting from parking lot):  We're not sad to see that dog go!

at home, post-surgery

3.  I drank egg nog out of my grandma's antique glasses in front of the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve:

4. I got to see this lil thing:

Lesley's daughter, Matilda

from Lesley's flickr

5.  My daddy got this big ass tattoo (only partially completed):

(a Skip Williamson original)

6. annnnnnnnnd . . . Micaela came to see me!!

I promise I am not a zombie!  

You all know how much I love this girl . . . cause I talk about her all the time.  Sadly, she's been living in Virginia (and I in San Francisco) for the duration of our friendship.  But as fortune would have it, I was at my mama's house in Georgia just as Micaela and her sweet husband were making the long road trip from Madison Heights, Virginia to their new home, El Paso, Texas!  They planned to stop and stay at Chip's grandfather's old farm house their first night on the road . . . conveniently located just 15 minutes from my mama's house!  

And although our time together was nowhere near long enough (Mama and I cooked breakfast for them last Thursday morning, the same day I left for the airport to head back to California), it was wonderful!  But hugging Micaela live and in the flesh only makes me yearn for a longer visit . . . she's so very dear to me (and every bit as beautiful and sweet in person as you all think she is).  Here's to a real trip very soon!!

Happy New Year . . . it was back to the grind for me today with classes & classes to teach.  Hope everyone's January is off to a good start!

Guess Who Came to Breakfast???

More details later! :)

The Game of the Year

Hello, again!  I've missed you all in my absence . . . I've been dwelling in  holiday and family (and snow!) here in Georgia.  Hope everyone else's Christmas was as beautiful as mine was.  My best gift?  Inches of snow!

on my mama's back deck on Christmas Day

excuse the poor picture quality--camera was dead!

But last night came the real excitement as the Saints took on the Falcons in the Georgia Dome.  Note that I am a major Saints fan currently in Falcon territory!  And given that I grew up in Georgia, you can imagine my facebook news feed was brimming with this kind of slander:

Hunter Willett:  I hope the aints fans are wearing protective gear cause there will be some shankin going on tonight if they want to talk that who dat BS. They will walk into the dome tonight happy and hoping for a win and they will leave with a loss and a knife in that ass.

I mean whoa, man, a little agro there, huh?  In any case, I quietly basked in giddiness and glory since my boys were the first team to take down the Falcons in their own stadium this season.  WHO DAT!

from

We had at least 20 people over to my dad & Amy's house, and I believe I was the only New Orleans fan in the room . . . but I wore my Love Dat! shirt, fleur de lis earrings, gold glitter shoes, and my Who Dat scarf, and I cheered my boys on proudly. 

I'm off to lunch with the family, but I'm eager to catch up on all of your blogs and hear about your holidays!

Hello from Georgia!

As soon as I took my seat on the airplane, right next to a couple decked out in head-to-toe Harley Davidson gear (man with long gray ponytail, excess facial hair, Harley Davidson wife beater, and tattoos; woman with excess eyeliner, Harley clothes, Harley ring), I knew I was headed home.  I'm not kidding when I say that I heard them talking about their dog . . . named Harley.

My mama picked me up at the airport, and now I'm writing from my childhood bed (and at 3 am Georgia time).  There's even a framed picture of tiny baby Claire on the nightstand. :)

It feels good to be home, and I can't wait to see all my peeps.  Plus, my stepmom and I are going to get Brazilian blowouts tomorrow--woo hoo for shiny, frizzless locks!

But before I left California, I went to a baby shower for a very special lady.  Many of you know my dear friend Heather from her blog, A Measure Of . . . .  She was one of my first friends in grad school (I met her in my very first poetry workshop as an MFA student!), and we've never looked back--through several relationships, a few wild and mildly embarrassing stories, and trips around the world.  After a few-year stint in Patagonia, Chile, I finally have Heather back with me!  And now she has a husband and a baby (belly) in tow.

On Saturday we convened at The Hobnob, one of the East Bay's finest brunch establishments (my opinion might be swayed due to their $8 bottomless mimosas).  It was so wonderful to see Heather again (although harder to hug her now!) and to finally meet Serkan!  He's just as sweet and adorable as she'd described.

soon-to-be-parents, Serkan & Heather

And because I was so thrilled to be hanging out with Heather again, I didn't even mind that I was the only single person at the table, and the only woman drinking (I had four mimosas)!  Cheers to that, right?

Heather, Heather's belly, and me

She's a pretty damn cute pregnant lady.  She's all belly and she carries it so elegantly!  I cannot wait to meet lil man Yalin.  There's no doubt he's gonna be a stunner, what with his lovely & peaceful parents.  Move to Oakland, Heather!  You'll pretty much have an on-call auntie-sitter! :)

The Worst Dog in the World

Everyone, this is Ignatius:

He looks cute there, but he can usually be found in one of these two positions:

Ignatius is my family's beagle, and he is the worst dog in the world.  Pretty sure anyone who has met him would testify to that.  He is a ripe old ten years old now, but we got him (from the pound) when he was a mere ten weeks:

As you can imagine, Ignatius was a darling puppy.  Beagle puppies are on a whole different level of cute.  My dad was mourning the loss of his Jack Russell, Layla, and we all went together (in the fateful January of 2001)--my dad, stepmom, sis, and me--to pick out a new pup for Daddy as soon as he was ready.

We were all immediately drawn to the two month old beagle, who flopped in our arms and won us over. However, the workers at the humane society eyed us suspiciously as we affirmed that he was indeed the one we wanted to take home.

It wasn't until we'd gotten him home, and he had started raising hell, that we learned that in his ten weeks of life, he had been adopted and returned twice.  How is that even possible???  My dad and stepmom considered this a life (well, ~12 year) sentence for them, as they knew that they couldn't return him a third time, because it was pretty obvious what would then become his fate.

Once in a while, he looks sweet (okay, really just when he's sleeping).

Here are some of the incidents that Ignatius has put my dad and stepmom through in his ten years of life thus far (I swear that all of these are 100% fact):

• Busted through every single screen window in their house (and once, busted through glass, requiring an expensive trip to the emergency vet and stitches in his cut paw)
• Destroyed my stepmom's new living room furniture mere weeks after his adoption
• Howled so incessantly that the neighbors were threatening to call the police within the first few days of his life as a Kiefer
• Gotten kicked out of obedience school (my dad refers to it as Ignatius's "expulsion"--the trainer said Ignatius was "distracting the more serious learners")
• Took a Tylenol PM, unbeknownst to anyone at home, and passed out unconscious.  He was rushed to the emergency vet (Ig and the emergency vet are practically bffs by now) and given over $400 of blood tests, only to determine that he'd eaten one of my dad's Tylenols
• "Taken advantage of" our innocent girl doggie, Django, resulting in Ignatius's penis getting stuck out.  Not kidding.  Stuck out (wouldn't retract), causing Ig extreme pain and my father a VERY embarrassing trip to the emergency vet
• Howled through a 130-guest wedding that was held at my dad and stepmom's house
• Escaped out the front door (his younger brother, Atticus, trailing behind him) and ran into the street, where a jeep ran over both dogs.  Atticus died immediately (RIP), and Ignatius was rushed to the emergency vet (noticing a pattern?) with broken bones and ribs.  The first emergency vet suggested we put him to sleep.  We took him to another vet, who set his bones and put Ignatius in a body cast.  It was red.  Again, not kidding.  So wish I had a picture of that . . .
• Interrupted my dad's lobster boil for his clients (Dad is a corporate chef) and ate five lobster carcasses, resulting in the extraction of one of his teeth (and lots of vomit)
• Has continually peed on Dad and Amy's bed every time Dad is out of town for any more than a couple days (Ignatius and Dad have a little bit of co-dependency, if you haven't detected that already)
• Was offered free services from Bark Busters because the agent had heard his case was so severe

I am going to stop there because otherwise, I will go on all day.

Elf-natius

Why am I telling you about Ignatius?  Because I was on the phone with my Daddy yesterday (debriefing the Falcons' triumph over the 49ers), when he told me about Ignatius's latest stunt.  And I'm still sort of in awe.

My dad is a corporate chef for Schwan's foods.  He does Research & Development for various restaurant chains.  Because his job is to develop new recipes and menu items, he has a test kitchen at home.  A couple weeks ago, he and his colleagues were working on a photo shoot for one of their clients, Red Robin.  Dad was out of town on business, so one of his colleagues, Ciaran, came over to the test kitchen to stage the photo shoot.  Another colleague flew in from Dallas for it.  Ciaran set everything up and arranged for the photographers to come out the next day.

And the next day, when Ciaran arrived at the kitchen to meet with the photographers?  Every single bun was gone.  All twelve of them.  Now, there isn't a Red Robin in the area, so it's not like they could go out and purchase replacement buns for the shoot.  Instead, they had to express order some from another city, and in the meantime, dash to the farmers market to find the closest possible buns to use as a substitute.

Between debacles like that, and the fact that Ignatius howls through every one of my dad's conference calls . . . it's a wonder my daddy still has his job.

(For the record, I love Ignatius more than I've ever loved any animal . . . what can I say?  I like the bad boys, bad kids, and apparently, the bad pets).

Ignatius with his faux-twin we got him for Christmas.  Suffice to say, the majority of the family prefers the stuffed version to Ignatius 1.0

Check out my famous sister!

So my sister, who is very smart and beautiful and leads a pretty charmed life, has impeccable style.  Her wedding was no exception, and now it's been featured in Brides Magazine!  Check it out!

Here's a preview of pictures from her amazing photographers' blog:

all images from wscottchester blog

Kate and Andy's October, 2009 wedding was at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Atlanta, Georgia (where we're from.  ish.).  There was an edgy photography exhibit up, and Kate and Andy scattered lovely, vintage details all throughout their ceremony and reception.  For instance, Kate spent months scouring antique stores for old, glass doorknobs and embellishments to weigh down the big, white balloons that lined the aisle.

The bridesmaids' dresses were the color of her shoes, pictured above, and our shoes were the exact same as hers, only in taupe.

Our daddy is a chef, so suffice to say that the food and drink were extraordinary.  Prettiest wedding in all the land.

Congrats, sissy!

It's a Good Thing Leos ♥ Geminis

cause my family's full of them! Happy birthday to three of my favorite Geminis:

My Mama (turned 49 on May 24th)

mama (on the right) with one of her best friends, Nelah

mama and stepdaddy

My Grandma (May 27th--she is 90 today!)

G$ x 3

Those amazing pictures of my grandma were taken by my ridiculously talented brother-in-law, Andy Lee. Andy's photos do proper justice to all the wonder, love, and strength that is my grandma . . . a woman who served in World War II, who has triumphed over breast cancer, several heart attacks, and a stroke, and who is one of the funniest (and snarkiest) people I know. I can't wait till my sister's 90 because she's gonna be just like Grandma. Wait a minute . . . at 25, she pretty much already is. ;)

My Daddy (turns 56 tomorrow, May 28th)

me, daddy, sister in Cabo

me and my daddy at my sister's wedding rehearsal

Happy Birthday to my dear, dear family. Can't wait to celebrate with all of you when I'm home in Georgia in just nine days!!