Atlanta, Help a Blogger Out

So it's been nearly a year since we made our triumphant return to the ATL, the land of our carefree youth. I'm very close to having our house completely re-painted inside, I'm using the word "ya'll" regularly in conversation without blinking, I'm up to speed on the latest traffic lingo, and I think Atlantic Station is the greatest thing ever. Also? We have decided that Kennesaw is the new Midtown.

But even after a year here, I have a few unanswered questions. I hope you ya'll can help me out.

1. When and how did Monica go from Kaufman to Pearson?

2. When did Eddie's Attic become Someone Else's Attic with Eddie on staff?

3. Is Clay Harper still around? What about Ottoman Empire? They were one of our fave bands back in the day. They seem to have evaporated.

Please advise.

There's No Charge for Awesomeness

I decided to avoid the crowds at Wall-E this weekend and took the boys to see Kung Fu Panda. It's a great movie, but so much more violent than I expected (although I suppose one could debate the subtle difference between "violence" and "action"). The best part was there were only three other families in the theater with us. The other best part was Jack Black singing "Kung Fu Fighting" during the credits.

Dr. Max and Mombo: An Illustrated History

I've been getting a lot of traffic in the last few days from searches on Dr. Max and Mombo, so I'm pulling this back up to the top. And - even better - I've fixed the link to the theme song and added a quick video clip at the end. If you're an old Dr. Max fan, drop me a line at thelovelymrsdavis@gmail.com, or leave me a note in the comments.(Originally published July 19, 2007.)


If you grew up watching TV in the years before cable television, chances are you had a local kids' program like the one I grew up watching. On WMT, the Eastern Iowa CBS affiliate, we had Dr. Max and Mombo weekday afternoons at 3:30. The show was named for its host, Dr. Max, an older, somewhat distinguished gentleman, and his sidekick Mombo, a big, goofy clown with the intellect of a 6-year-old (at least as I recall).



Dr. Max and Mombo aired cartoons on a "magic" board in their studio. In between cartoons, they announced viewers' birthdays, introduced groups of Boy Scouts and Camp Fire Girls who were visiting the studio, and shared public service announcements about bike safety and hygiene. At the start of every show, they also unveiled the "name of the day" -- which was displayed on the magic board.

I loved this show. And at the age of 6 or 7, I didn't understand the difference between local and national programs, so I assumed that everyone, everywhere was watching Dr. Max. When my Blue Bird troop went on the show in second grade, it was one of the most exciting days of my life, as evidenced by the notes I made on the back of this photo I received there.



Notice, especially, the "I was on T.V.!!!" part:



Just a couple months earlier, I had been lucky enough to have Mombo appear at my 8th birthday party. My parents arranged this as a surprise, and for the 8-year-old me, this was the best surprise ever.



Dr. Max and Mombo aired from 1961 to 1981, and both men have since passed away. The era of television they represent is also long-gone. What does that make me?

Old. Very, very old.



Click here for an mp3 of the Dr. Max and Mombo theme song.
Click here for KGAN's history of the show.

The Best Shot

We shot no less than 500 pictures today on our visit to the Atlanta History Center. As I searched through them for pictures worthy of adding to my Flickr account, I tried to pick a favorite, a BEST picture of the day. I looked at the lighting, the composition, the clarity. But that was all secondary when it came to these two shots. These capture the boys in such a concise, perfect way, even though they are technically so imperfect. These are moments in which each of them "peaked" -- moments in which each of them felt and understood that this was a great day and a fantastic place.

Here is Ralph looking at sheep (real live farm animals! making baaaah sounds!), sweaty and a little worn out, after walking across a small bridge and - earlier - climbing on an elephant sculpture.

Pure joy.



And here is Walter, sitting on the patio at the Atlanta History Center, discussing what we had seen over the last few hours: an exhibit on the civil rights movement, another on the Atlanta Olympics, and two historic homes. He asked questions that I wasn't prepared to answer, and made observations and connections that I did not expect from an 8-year-old -- which led to one of those very serious discussions between my husband and me later on this evening about how to answer such questions and how to find some books or videos to help guide him.

So thoughtful.



P.S. Does anyone have suggestions on books or videos (especially historical fiction or documentaries) to help an 8-year-old learn about the civil rights movement?

C is for Colbert Report

File this under Great Moments in Parenting. My 3-year-old accidentally saw this appearance by Cookie Monster on the Colbert Report.

Our Coverage is Lousy, But Our Hair Looks Great

CNN has let me down many times in the last few years -- anchors that are more like Ron Burgundy than Walter Cronkite, a huge lack of depth and understanding in the stories they cover, and often, just plain missing the point.

But in the last few days, CNN's coverage of the flooding in Eastern Iowa has left me beyond frustrated. Thankfully, I've been able to get better news from family and friends back in my hometown, as well as from the internet. The websites of several local TV stations and Iowa newspapers have been incredibly thorough and insightful. Somehow, I expected the enormous international news network of CNN, with its extensive resources and experience covering natural disasters, to have more to offer than a reporter standing in the middle of a flooded street last night scooping up fish with a net on live TV.

To top it off, I got to see Betty Nguyen make a complete fool of herself this morning. [Update: I found the video on YouTube! Hooray!] A CNN reporter in Cedar Rapids had just explained the severity of the water shortage there by saying that if people didn't stop flushing their toilets, there might not be enough water to fight the next big fire. Betty's response, after the most confused look I've ever seen: "But how can flushing a toilet cause a fire?"

GAAAAAAHHHHHHH!



And so, CNN, since you seem to be somewhat stupefied by how to cover the Eastern Iowa floods, here are a few suggestions.

1. Analyze the economic impact. If a small city with a population of 120,000 or so suffers losses of at least $700 million, how does that compare to other recent natural disasters in other parts of the country?

2. Look at Davenport, Iowa, or another city/town that had major damage in the 1993 floods and show how they recovered -- how long it took, what had to be re-built or fixed, how they cleaned up, how much it cost, how people got through it.

3. Show us the parts of life that are going on (sort of) as usual. Were there any weddings at any of the churches there on Saturday? (It is June, after all.) Were there people at the mall? At the park? At the grocery store? At church or out eating brunch this morning?

4. Speaking of the grocery store, are the shelves there getting kind of bare? Have the stores run out of bottled water or milk or batteries?

5. How many people there have been out sandbagging and cleaning up and helping at the shelters? From what I've heard informally, the turnout has been tremendous.

6. A railroad bridge collapsed into the water the other day. What will be the impact of that?

7. Of the hundreds of city blocks that were flooded, mostly near downtown, analyze the make-up of those areas. What major employers are there? What major landmarks are there? Who lives in those neighborhoods? Tell us about the public library, the Paramount Theater, the US Cellular Center, the art museum, the community theatre, the Czech Museum and Czech village, the churches, the homes, the banks, the Ground Transportation Center. How much of this town's culture and history are located within just a few blocks of the river?

8. There are a lot of farms in Iowa, right? Let's look at what's happening to the crops.

9. Go to the Cork-n-Fork. Or to Leonardo's on the west side. Go to the Drug Town on Mt. Vernon Road. Or Menard's. Talk to people who are out and about. Find the stories.

10. Where is all this water going to go?

There are so many angles to cover, and yet all you had to offer at 10 pm last night was the "Hey, look! There are fish in the streets!" story. You should be embarrassed, CNN.

Sure, I might be more interested in this story than most people, since I'm a Cedar Rapids native and a bit of a news junkie. But the story is far bigger and more interesting than CNN has recognized. Also, I'm not suggesting that CNN give it round-the-clock live coverage. I'm much more interested in the quality of their coverage than the quantity. I would have been happy to see a couple of intelligent, well-produced 3-minute or 5-minute spots on the flooding rather than the hours of rambling, incoherent nonsense CNN has shown.

Lastly, CNN, you're not only getting trounced by local network affiliates in Eastern Iowa, you're also getting trounced by video bloggers like David Howell, who got picked up by the BBC last night with his coverage of the floods, shot on a Nokia cellphone.

CNN, you've dropped the ball.

Devil Town

It's been hard to put together words to talk about the flooding in Cedar Rapids. Watching my hometown from so far away, feeling helpless, being able to reach some family and friends but not others -- it's getting a little unnerving. Not as bad as what the people there are going through, I'm sure. So I really shouldn't complain. I woke up with electricity, air conditioning, a warm shower, a dry house, a sunny day, and my morning Diet Coke. I knew my sister had stockpiled bottled water and was preparing to feed her husband and kids for several days without power.

It was raining this morning and when I went out to my van, that was the first I got really nervous. The sidewalk was full of running water and the water was gushing up out of the sewers and rushing down the street.

I've been watching the flood online over the last few days, getting updates on Twitter from a few CR Twitterers, reading a couple of CR bloggers who have been incredibly on top of the news there, chatting with my little sister by phone (although I can't get through to her this morning), and emailing some old high school classmates.

Very surreal here....People living a little closer to the river may be out of jobs. I feel VERY blessed right now.

But it wasn't until this morning that it all really sunk in with me.

There's a water treatment plant not too far from my house and around 10 PM last night the news reported they needed help quickly. I ran down there, but by the time I got there there were already 3000 people there ready to help, and they were re-directing everyone to Mercy Hospital....I am heading to the west side K-mart to help sandbag now.

And then I saw pictures of one of the hospitals in town being evacuated. This is the hospital where all of my siblings and I were born. It's were I spent a month when I was four years old. It's where I've visited many family and friends over the years, where I volunteered as a candy striper, where my mom worked for several years, where my little sister had her babies, and where my mom spent the last few days of her life. Seeing those pictures, this suddenly became a lot more personal.

So now I'm waiting to see what's next. Waiting to hear the next bit of news. The next neighborhood being evacuated, the next business closing, the next loss of water or gas or power or phones.


Updated to add: Wendy is also following the floods from a distance.

Updated AGAIN to add: For those of you left thinking "HUH?" about the title of this post, listen here:

The Weekend in Photos

Many adventures were had. And oh, it was hot. Here is our weekend in photos. The soundtrack to our weekend (because it's what we had on in the car nearly anytime we were out, and it seemed so perfect) was REM's Accelerate album.

Two T-shirts, a Gallon of Milk, and a Plastic Frog

The title up there is the answer.
Here is the question: What are three things I bought at Target tonight?

Let's try another one.

Answer: New lamps for my living room, some baby formula coupons (because some marketing company has mistaken me for the mother of a newborn), and a gas bill.
Question: What came in my mail yesterday?

Answer: Legos, Cheez-its, frozen waffles, and a whip with sound effects (which is quite awesome, by the way).
Question: What are four items in our house bearing the Indiana Jones name and logo?

Answer: Singing at a professional wrestler's televised wedding.
Question: What is Ace Young up to these days?

Answer: More home improvement projects, playing outside, and writing for a new website.
Question: What am I up to these days?

Please stop over at Being Savvy: Atlanta and say hello!

Links for 6/1/08

I'm so, so sad that we missed this -- a "500 Songs for Kids" marathon at Smith's Olde Bar in Atlanta. You can check out the list of all 500 songs here, and you'll probably be as surprised as I was to find Tammy Wynette's "Stand by your Man" and Dexy's Midnight Runner's "Come on Eileen". Less surprising, but still awesome -- "The Time Warp", "Footloose", "Singin' in the Rain" and "Sister Christian" (which landed at #2). Josh Rifkind, if you're out there, please find me. Let's do lunch.

This is the best commentary I've read on Emily Gould's essay in the New York Times Magazine. If you don't know who Emily Gould is, this is a fantastic place to start. And end.

Check out these photographic re-enactments of kids' drawings. I can't understand a word of it, yet I love it, and I want more. (via Your New Favorite)

Speaking Their Language

The sound of a helicopter flying. The sound of a stuffed animal exploding. The sound of an action figure punching another action figure. The sound of a lightsaber fight.

I can't make any of these sounds well. Instead, when playing with my sons, I say KAPOW! and CRASH! and BAM! Perhaps it's my obsession with using words -- words that can be spelled and written. Words that might be found in a dictionary. These sounds that my sons make are far from words. They are elaborate combinations of consonants -- many of them s's and k's and p's -- with very few vowels.

I've been amazed that while Ralph (now three years old) still struggles to pronounce words like chicken and toilet, he is able to make these incredibly complicated sounds. And his ability to do so seems almost innate. Yes, he's played enough with Walter (now eight) to hear and repeat many such sounds, but there was almost no learning curve. He heard them and repeated them immediately. He created his own new sounds. And this happened without practice, without coaching, without correction.

I wonder if, centuries ago, this was the language of men. If the sounds of helicopters and cars and explosions were the inspiration to build and create such things. There are days I think my sons could communicate with each other using only these sounds -- that words for them are just a formality. And I wonder if my words, to them, sound like an adult speaking on a Charlie Brown special. Wah wah wah WAH wah.

I wish I could speak their language.