Spring is being itself here. Besides the flowers, which I have been trying to report with some accuracy so I can check this log next year when people ask when to come to see (fill in the blank) blooming, the weather is spring like. It is mostly pretty mild although occasionally cool. Rain and thunderstorms are neither ubiquitous nor rare which is kind of nice. I have taken to sitting on my well-protected front porch, usually with some kind of beverage and the phone and a large white dog, and reading the New York Times or one of the books in which I am engaged. It seems so civilized.
After Ricki and Rosie left, I had a couple days of making bank deposits and shopping for stuff I neglected to get while they were here, and yesterday spent the whole day in Atlanta. Brian and Jason Marshall and I spent the day looking at materials, cabinets and various appliances and fixtures in order to get to some kind of an understanding as to the approach we might take on these condos if we do end up developing them together. It was and interesting but tiring day.
I really have never liked Atlanta as a city and yesterday's trip did nothing to change that feeling. It is a very large and sprawling city which seems to have multiple downtown-like nodes along Peachtree Road as you head north from the real downtown. None of it is very attractive to my eye and it has no recognizable character that distinguishes it from other modern cities. The buildings are, for the most part, pretty unremarkable and there appear to be few great parks or public places. The High Museum of Art, which was originally designed by Richard Meier in the 80s was recently expanded by Renzo Piano so it was interesting to see that in a drive-by, but that was pretty much the end of the stuff I liked. There is virtually no contemporary housing being built. Everything there is some fake period stuff. . .mostly neo-colonial townhouse architecture except when you get to Buckhead. This is an old North Atlanta neighborhood that has some very grand old mansions and some of the most appalling new ones I have ever seen anywhere. Driving across Paces Ferry Road, which is sort of a main East/West drag cutting through Buckhead was a deeply disturbing experience. Virtually every house for about 2 miles or so of this road is either new and huge or completely remodeled and huge and they are, almost without exception, in the most execrable taste you can imagine. Columns are grotesquely out of scale with the massing of the buildings and details appropriate to one style are generously mixed with others willy nilly on these massive and ostentatious front elevations. I probably should have taken pictures, but my jaw was on my chest and my palms were involuntarily stuck to my cheeks. I probably looked exactly like Edvard Munch's famous painting "The Scream" but was frozen in silence.
Interestingly enough, an inordinately large number of these houses are on the market. Some of the older ones, which probably are nicer looking and smaller, are well hidden behind lush landscape, but the new ones and the big remos are there for the whole world to see since the owners and designers have apparently decided to denude them of the old landscape so you can see the entire looming mass of some of these behemoths. I really don't think I can adequately describe the horror. You just will have to see it for yourselves someday.
It is now the 18th and Jini Bauer and Jerri Schenken have finished the Asheville leg of their trip around the Southeast. Yesterday afternoon, after having pretty much run them ragged for almost 4 days, I sent them off to Charleston for the next part of their tour. Jini and Jerri are a couple 60-something buddies from California (Jini from Carmichael and Jerri from Truckee) who have a great attitude about travel and clearly are well suited to running around together. I haven't seen the dynamic when respective husbands are involved but they are a pair of wild women when it is just the two of them. We had a great time hiking, touring, eating, gabbing and eating some more. We crammed in quite a bit in the 4 days they were here and I managed to squeeze in a couple meetings and do some drawing to boot.
Jini really wanted to visit the basilica of St. Lawrence while she was here and I had never been inside before so that was a new one for me. To say that this is a dramatic architectural experience is somewhat of an understatement, but the topper was that there was a very enthusiastic docent there who was an Asheville local and a deeply involved Catholic who was more excited than any tourguide I have had anywhere. The building and art were wonderful but she was really a hoot. Almost made us regret not being Catholic. . .well maybe not really, but it was kind of nice seeing someone who got so much joy from her devotion to her faith without being condescending or preachy. Accuracy didn't seem to be her strong point. . .in fact there were a few things I got the feeling she just was making up as she went along, but she was so enthusiastic that it was hard to fault her. It was fun and beautiful and I will probably add that building to the list of places to take people who visit. . .except perhaps for Kathy Treaster, who after our trip to Germany, Austria and Hungary will probably never set foot in another church or palace with me.
Cannot believe it is now June first and I still haven't finished this post. Other than the fact that I have been putting in a ridiculous amount of time on assembling an investor package with the development team to which I have alluded in the past, I have few other excuses.
Weather has turned warm again so our hiking has been reduced. We either have to go early in the morning or up to higher altitude to find cool weather. On occasion, if it isn't quite 80 out, I will take Abner to one of the hikes we routinely do that are completely shaded at this time of year. After the one encounter with the Copperhead at the Arboretum, and another on the river trail at Biltmore, I have become absurdly vigilant for snakes. Of course, I have seen narry a one since. In fact, animal sightings in the great outdoors seem somewhat different this year. Last year, for example, there was a time in the spring when every time we were at Biltmore on the northern portion of the estate, we were guaranteed to see groundhogs scurrying around in broad daylight or sometimes just standing beside the road watching people and cars go by. This year, in the entire spring season, I have seen one. I don't know if they have suddenly gotten timid or maybe they moved. Very confusing. The turkeys, while not as rare as the groundhogs, are certainly not as abundant as last year, and the deer as well have been largely invisible this year. I remember fawns all over the place last year and haven't seen a single one this spring.
Wildlife in the house, however, is another matter, and no, Big Rat has not returned. Some of you may remember the episode many years ago in my house on Garden Street during which a bird had fallen down my chimney and was trapped for a couple days at the bottom of the flue but was unable to figure out how to get out, either up the flue or into the fireplace box itself. Arlo just sat for hours in front of the fireplace waiting for something to happen and I eventually figure out (helped by the occasional pathetic chirp) what was going on. In that instance I blindly groped around inside the flue hoping to grab the bird but each time I reached up into the small cavity where he had landed, he fluttered around in panic and I was unable to grab him. Finally, in utter desperation, I managed to wedge my head up into the very tight area and shined a flashlight as well, all the while with visions of "The Birds" and being pecked to death by this undoubtedly maddened avian. Well, the bird, shocked by my head and the light, managed to get out of the flue and into my living room. Arlo and I chased it around the house for a few minutes until it finally landed on the back of my red chaise and I was able to catch it in my hands. Arlo, retriever that he was, would have preferred to have caught it himself.
I went out front to release the terrified little critter in my grasp only to see Judy Reynen striding up my front walk with a friend of hers she wanted to introduce to me. Seems the friend was interested in building a house and looking for an architect. Well there I was, walking out of my house with a bird in my hand and my hair and face completely jet black from soot, with an overly excited Golden Retriever following. Needless to say, she was very impressed and I never interviewed to do her house.
Well last Monday Matt and Amy came over with their dogs for a Memorial Day dinner here and toward the end of the evening I heard chirping and fluttering emanating from my fireplace. Visions of so many years ago came back to me but my fireplace on Garden Street was considerably bigger than the one here so there was no question of my ample skull fitting up into the top of the firebox. . .not to mention that anatomy doesn't take to pretzel shapes required for navigating the innards of a fireplace like it did 25 or 30 years ago. I really didn't want another dead animal in my house and have a read affection for birds anyway so I called Lori how is the rescue queen to get some advice. She had none but sent Jay over with gloves and about a 10-zillion candlepower flashlight (I believe they could see it shining out the top of my chimney from the International Space Station)
Jay gamely wedged himself between the gas log and the top of the opening of the fireplace, shining his beam up into the chimney while groping around above the small opening into the flue. We heard the bird flutter again once but after that could find no sign either visually or audially of him. After a while, Jay said he could see the entire inside of the chimney and there was no sign of a bird. With no more sound, we concluded that he had figured out how to get out the top and had flown away.
Well, apparently we weren't quite right. This morning, I went downstairs to make my coffee and sit on the front porch for a while to enjoy the New York Times in the foggy cool morning air, but after 10 minutes of so downstairs, I head noise that didn't sound like Abner. I wandered from the kitchen into the hall and living room and found nothing amiss, but when I went into the dining room, there, perched on a handle for one of the casement windows was a little finch-sized black colored bird with it's wings beating wildly against the window. Fortunately, since Abner is rather casual about getting his day started, he was still upstairs so I didn't have to compete with him to catch the bird. I guess he was probably tired and dehydrated from more than 2 days and nights in the chimney, because he was easy to catch. Without ceremony, and before Abner got wind of what was going on, I took him outside and put him on the bench on the front porch. He took off immediately for points unknown. Thank God.
Yesterday, Abner and I took the day off and took a little field trip. I had been hearing about the mountain towns of Boone and Blowing Rock ever since I arrived in Asheville, but had never been to either so after finishing a meeting with Jason Marshall, I got Abner, his water canteen, and some dog treats into the car and we headed up to Blowing Rock. The drive there is very pretty although the weather turned rather dramatic at one point when we were on the Blue Ridge Parkway fairly close to our destinations. We encountered a cloudburst that was so dense that I could barely see, even with the wipers going at high speed. There was also a brief burst of hail in the middle of the downpour. I was thinking that perhaps I had chosen a bad day to be a tourist, but about 4 or 5 miles outside of the Blowing Rock, the rain stopped as abruptly as it had started and the sun came out.
Blowing Rock is the smaller of the two towns. It is achingly picturesque. It has essentially one commercial street that is lined with stores and restaurants and lots of friendly people who either were tourists or are used to tourists. It is very pretty but I didn't see much that I was compelled to buy (I did pick up a stuffed squeaky toy for Abner) so we spent a couple hours walking the length of it, and having lunch. I also answered all the regular Pyrenees questions for about 400 people and we met several other dog travelers. I probably won't be going back on a regular basis but it was awfully cute so I was glad to have seen the place.
Then we took the short drive (maybe 5 or 6 miles) to Boone. Boone is a college town, home to Appalachian State University, and looks it. The old center of town is probably mostly early 20th century with one or two relics from the late 19th and is also sort of appealing although not as cute as Blowing Rock. The university campus completely dominates the area. Unlike Davis, with which most of you are familiar, this campus is built on steep hillsides that define the physical limits of Boone, so you can see practically every building on campus from one of two main streets in the town. The enrollment is over 13,000 full-time students and the official population of Boone is 13,286 so you can imagine how dominant the University is. I think just walking down the main street, I raised the average age in town by about 10 years.
We enjoyed our brief visit, but it too is a place I doubt that I need to return to on a regular basis. I probably will be in this neck of the woods again when the winter comes since the best ski hill in the North Carolina Blue Ridge is close by.
It is still foggy and not too hot, so I think I will take Abner out for a jaunt around the neighborhood. It embarrasses me that It has taken almost a month to finish this pathetic little post, but I am going to use the excuse that the heat turns me lazy.
Later. . .
