Somehow the Georgia Tech bookstore has become a rite of passage for all my out-of-town guests. I’m not kidding – I am hard pressed to think of guests who I have not taken to the GT bookstore. A main reason is location: I know where it is and how to park there, and it’s a convenient place to meet if I’m coming in on MARTA. More importantly, it has books, a general crowd-pleaser. Perhaps even more compelling, it has a Starbucks.
And so it was that JFA and I were there on Saturday morning. We sat outside, watched the world go by, caught up. I haven’t seen JFA in months – I mean, months. This may have been the longest we’ve gone without seeing each other while are living in the same country. Some mornings when he was starting work in China, he would call me, who was wrapping up my workday in South Carolina. When I was in Northern Ireland, I would call him when I came home from work, which was the middle of his afternoon in the Midwest.
And even on the same continent, it’s just hard to find time. What a luxury to sit and listen and gab, about everything and nothing. He was willing to have lunch at an “upscale Southern” place I have been dying to try, and that was wonderful.
Then we walked through Piedmont Park and agreed that we are not hot-weather people. Piedmont Park is beautiful, and it was fabulous to see all the folks who were out for the jazz fest and farmer’s market and a sunny Saturday.
I think it would be nice if I could import JFA every few Saturdays for Midtown adventures. I could not have spent a more wonderful day … even if a museum was not involved.
Georgia Confidential 