jaysaint Getting it all down on paper…

I’m feeling homesick for Atlanta today. Last night all I wanted in the world was to go to Taco Mac and have my way with the salsa bar.

Not to mention most of my friends are still there. I’ll bet I could get most of them to go have salsa with me.

What is the name of that cool little neighborhood north of Atlanta? Lake Park? Park Lake? Something else? It’s a bunch of cute, hippie-fied cabanas set around a (surprise!) lake. I always wanted to live there and it bugs me that now I can’t remember the name.

First, thanks for everyone’s helpful comments about train travel. I asked that question and then promptly left town, so didn’t get to respond to your comments in a timely way. I’m bummed out that it seems like what we want is almost impossible to find, which is a longer trip where we stay on the train. Maybe we’ll make some sort of combo plan.

Now we’re back and adjusting to the snow. Also adjusting to Zoe, who likes us to be awake 24 hours a day. When we’re not, she expresses her anxiety by standing in our doorway saying “meowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeow.” She doesn’t want anything. As soon as we’re awake she calms down, even though she doesn’t get anything special once we’re up. I am considering making her spend the night on the fire escape.

Now it’s 10am and I’m already ready for a nap.

Yesterday was a whirlwind I was dreading, but it all came out fine in the end. We got up early yesterday, got packed, put a suspicious Sam into his carrying case and hit the airport.

There was a flurry of concern the day before because when Damon called to confirm Sam’s ticket he was reminded that pets over 20 pounds are not allowed in the cabin. While we didn’t actually know how much Sam weighs, we sure did know he’s a fattie. So Damon called our local UPS and said, “So… if I came down there with a cat, would it be possible to weigh him on your package scales?” The UPS guys thought that was a great way to kill some time and said they’d be happy to weigh any animals we might have. 10 minutes later the verdict was in… 22 pounds. Luck was with us, though, and the airline did not ask to weigh him. I think it was because I told Damon, “Let’s make it look like he’s really light! You know, don’t let your shoulder droop. Swing him around a little bit.” Anyway, if you ever need friends just take a cat to the airport. We were like rock stars, everyone wanted a piece of us. I enjoyed that more than Sam did. Especially when we went through security. When I took him out of his carrier to go through the metal detector (which is mandatory) there was a collective gasp when people saw his size. I felt proud, like he was a prize pumpkin.

He slept through the flight and was a good boy in the car from Orlando to The Villages. Now he’s dazedly checking out a house that seems to never end. We’ll miss him something awful, but think he’s going to be just dandy here.

An hour and half after we rolled into The Villages my mom’s 60th birthday party kicked off. It was a bit overwhelming, but I actually found most of her friends appealing and the food was great. There was one man we met who, when told we own our apartment in Manhattan, advanced on us saying, “Million? Million?” I really enjoyed refusing to tell this man we’d known for 20 seconds how much we paid for our apartment.

Something to know about me if you invite me to your party: If there’s raw cauliflower and ranch dressing, I will eat it all.

Today we’re living it up retiree style. At 3pm we go to mom and Jerry’s bowling tournament and then at 7 we’re going to a local talent show. Woo hoo!

Tomorrow, though. Oh tomorrow. We’ve got Park Hopper passes for Disney World.

So my dad thinks it would be fun to take a scenic train trip here in the US (and maybe into Canada). Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? What train? What route? And here’s a sort of silly question — I was looking at Amtrak routes and they go through some really wonderful cities. But do you stop long enough to look around? Whenever I take an east-coast train (Boston-DC) we’re only in each station for a few minutes. I don’t know that it matters THAT much. I think we’d be content just sitting in an observation car drinking lemonade and watching lovely landscapes go by.