Damn you, Laurie Berkner, and your catchy “hip” kid tunes. Ever since the rain subsided and the weather cooled off last week, I’ve had “What Falls in the Fall” stuck in my head on heavy rotation. I am so very thankful, however, for the beautiful fall weather Atlanta experienced over the weekend. I took the opportunity on Saturday to have a “Cassie-Day” in Atlanta.

My first stop was at Sublime Doughnuts in my old Georgia Tech neighborhood. Just around the corner is the house I used to live in with my boyfriend’s college roommates after the boyfriend moved to Cali, and just next to Donut Heaven (as Sublime Doughnuts is now known in my head) is where I got my yarn ball tattoo. All that to say: I CAN’T BELIEVE I MISSED THIS PLACE! How do you say no to a chocolate-glazed doughnut topped with Reese’s candy chunks and a center hole filled with peanut butter? Unless you’re deathly allergic to legumes, YOU CAN’T. It’s impossible- you will eat two of them and fall into a choco-donut-peanut butter coma and you shall die peacefully. Okay, so I didn’t die, but I did go on to eat a doughtnut filled with light cream and fresh strawberries coated with powdered sugar. AND THEN I DIED PEACEFULLY. (And there are no pics because I ATE THOSE SUCKERS. The doughnuts, not the pics…)

So I went to Oakland Cemetery near between Grant Park and Cabbagetown and made some new friends.

Guess what? It ended up pouring down rain while I was on my guided walking tour, but I love this place. When you take the guided tour, you get a sticker that gives you a $5 discount at the restaurant Six Feet Under (cleverly named, huh?) across the street. And I learned that this cemetery is HUGE: over 40 acres of burial plots, mausoleums, and green space. It’s Atlanta’s 3rd largest park. Yes, you heard me right- park. People play Frisbee on the Potter’s Field. A little creepy, but apparently this place was always intended to be “Living Friendly.”

It was such a fun excursion into a part of the city I pass on a regular basis, yet never before stopped to explore. Glad I did because now I have a coupon to blow on oysters at my birthday part next week!

And here’s my Daily Moment of Shame: I bought Eclipse at Target today. I feel weak and inferior.

If you haven’t already heard, Atlanta recently became the Lost City of Atlantis on Monday. It rained here for nearly a week and a half prior to Monday’s flooding so when it began raining heavily yesterday, the ground was saturated and the new rain had no where to soak. The Chattahoochee River runs just north of the city and has several major tributary creeks running through the city. Thankfully my part of town is elevated just enough to have avoided any flooding, but nearby neighbors didn’t fare so well.

At first I thought all the flooding was occuring along the city’s northern limits along the Chattahoochee, but via Twitter, I quickly learned that places I used to live and places that I visit often were under several feet of water. I-85 and I-75 merge in Atlanta into was is known as the Connector. On Monday afternoon, motorists had to be rescued from their cars in the northbound lanes as water piled up at the Freedom Parkway entry ramp onto the Connector.

When this photo appeared on Twitter, I started to get really nervous. My boyfriend is at law school downtown and around the time this started happening on the Connector, MARTA shut down due to water in the tunnels. And then north Atlanta (where we used to live) got pummeled with flood waters and the Chattahoochee River began to swell under the I-285 bridges that crossed its murky waters. Thankfully the rain stopped in the evening and waters began to recede in the downtown area. MARTA started running again and my boyfriend got home on time.

But the pictures tell the story of how much flood damage actually took place. I was lucky to have gotten by unscathed (except for a little window leakage), but all over the city and especially in the northwest counties of Cobb, Douglas, and Paulding, people’s homes are STILL under water as we speak.

In March 2008, a tornado came through downtown Atlanta, tore off pieces of the Georgia Dome, and smashed windows in the CNN Center and the Westin hotel. People were in shock that this kind of disaster could happen inside a major city. There’s this impression that cities are immune to the devastating acts of Mother Nature seen out in the rural parts of the state. In the city, somehow we’re safe from this killer weather. But the tornado and this flood have convinced me that Mother Nature doesn’t want us to be lulled into false security. We’re all in danger of forgetting what she’s capable of… but then there are weeks like this when she sends us a harsh reminder.

I’m thankful to be safe and well, but still a little worried about my fellow Atlantans. We’ll make it!

(And now I’m off to watch the Futurama episode about Atlanta… )

For those of you curious as to how Twilight ended up faring for me… um. I don’t like it….? Honestly, I don’t really know how I feel about that book except that all the references to Edward’s beautiful/perfect/smoldering/perfect/Adonis-like face/teeth/mouth/eyes/body got REALLY EFFING OLD. Fast. And then I had to go and watch the damn movie. I’m surprised my boyfriend was able to sleep in the next room last night because I was HOWLING. I could not stop laughing at how ridiculous the acting was, I mean, c’mon R-Pat! Angry kisses are sooo not hot, buddy. But enough of that crap. Onto a great book that actually made me cry.

This evening I gave a book presentation in my Young Adult lit graduate course on Sold by Patricia McCormick. It follows young Lakshmi’s journey from her agricultural village in the Nepalese mountains to a life of prostitution in an Indian brothel. McCormick exposes the truth and horrors about child sex-trafficking via a made-up character who faces many of the issues child prostitutes face: deception, abuse, depression, and hope. I made a video using GarageBand and iMovie about the first half of the book and the events leading up to Lakshmi’s stepfather’s decision to sell her.

Book Presentation on ‘Sold’ by Patricia McCormick from Cassie Smith on Vimeo.

I then linked to a You Tube video that exposes child prostitution in India (it won’t let me embed it). I only showed the first few minutes, just up to the part about Nepalese girls being prized for their light skin and virginity. Heavy stuff.

I have a bunch of books coming in the mail this week that I can’t wait to dig into. Right now I’m trying to decide on which book to start next. I’ve gotten into about 40 pages of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie & The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer. I also have Persepolis sitting on my desk to tempt me. It’s so hard to choose!

I realize this blog is turning into something of a Young Adult lit blog right now, but hey, it’s what I’m doing ALL THE TIME. I rarely stop reading long enough to eat, sleep, and shower so this is what’s coming out right now. Shrinky Dinks have been on the back burner of my brain lately so next week you might see something a little nerdy pop up. ‘Til then, time to choose my next book, take a bath, and hop in bed!

I’m at chapter 7 of Twilight and I am so far quite unimpressed. I feel like I’m reading my high school diary about this guy I used to be obsessed with in theatre. Oh, how his eyes smoldered, too!

All I can think about is Peter Facinelli as Dr. Cullen and I just giggle my ass off every time I think about it. He’s Mike of “I’ll kick everyone’s ass in this room!” from Can’t Hardly Wait, for cryin’ out loud. And Coop! Friendship-bracelet-wearin’-Dr. Coop!

Sorry, I’ll stop being mean. I know there are people reading this who loved the dang book and I’m sure in another 100 pages I’ll be eating my words, but yeah, so far it’s just not the amazing literary tome the kids I sub for would have me believe.

I do have a hankering to travel to the northwest coast now, though. Maybe not Seatlle, but Portland maybe (”Disneyland for Liberals,” a friend claims).

And to follow up from last night’s desperate post- today was muuuuuch better. It included ice cream and a trip to an outdoor park that, to my surprise, had inflatables set up for opening day of the local city’s soccer league. Major bonus with a four year old in tow! I figure if I get to read The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog, get a Chick-fil-a milkshake, and slide down an inflatable slide all in one day, then things must be alright.

The title says it all.

I’m so tired I can barely move. I just passed the 12 hour mark for my 48 hour babysitting extravaganza with a 1 year old and 4 year old. It’s been quite awhile since I’ve done overnight babysitting and an extended sitting for a 4 year old. Both girls woke up at 5 am and were in crap moods all day. The older sister misses her mom and combined with being overly tired, the entire day has been one tantrum after another. Every little thing we do is accompanied by, “Mommy doesn’t it do it that way. That’s not how Mommy does it. Did Mommy tell you that?” Bedtime was an hour ago and the light is still on in her room because I’m exhausted and fearful of a crying fit that will wake the baby.

The 1 year old almost weighs 30 pounds and doesn’t walk so going anywhere with her is quite the trek and my body is sore. I really don’t feel like having to go console a crying tanker truck if she wakes up.

I have only once or twice before consumed alcohol while babysitting and usually it was at a parent’s insistence when they got home. Like a single beer or glass of wine. So don’t go calling DFCS on me here. I’ve barely been able to take three sips from this thing because I’ve been standing at the bottom of the stairs debating which moment will be the best to start a small riot when I go up to turn off the light.

Question (because I’m rusty): Would Super Nanny go upstairs and just turn off the light and leave the room without saying anything, or would she say, “It’s 8:30, lights out now. Goodnight?”

Books shown (bottom to top):

- Maus II by Art Spiegelman
- Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres
- The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
- Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
- The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
- New Moon by Stephanie Meyer
- Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

Yes, I finally gave in and got Twilight. I won New Moon at Dragon*Con and I suppose that was the final impetus to go ahead and read the damn books. I’m sad that I actually spent some money on it, but a friend offered to give me her copy so I can return the one I bought. Most of the books in this stack are part of the 24 I need to read for my graduate course on young adult literature except for Jesus Land and Inheritance. I’d had those on my wishlist since the summer and went ahead and ordered them.

Also in the mail are:
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
- Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
- Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath by Stephanie Hemphill

I wish I had more time to talk about these books and the ones I’ve already read for class, but this week has been a desperate attempt to get life back together and catch up on everything after spending my entire holiday weekend nerding out and sleeping. And now this coming weekend I will be babysitting overnight and probably won’t have much down time other than to work on homework and read. I’d like to make a little book talk video for next week and highly encourage you to recommend young adult lit to me in the meantime!

This year’s Dragon*Con acted as a great trial run for me. I vaguely remember my first (and prior to 2009, my only) Dragon*Con two years ago and that’s probably because I had to work both Saturday night and Sunday morning so I didn’t do much. I dressed up as Leela from Futurama one day, but that’s about it. This year’s Con was a much more serious attempt at attending panels, making new friends, sitting next to celebrities (Malcolm McDowell, fools!), hiding alcohol, and figuring out how to stay well-rested. I failed in the latter item as it took nearly 15 hours of sleep on Monday to recover.

On Friday I saw a bunch of stellar costumes to start off the weekend:

This Nurse Joker wasn’t messing around. It usually makes me giggle when people are in character, but this dude had it DOWN. The voice, mannerisms, everything. Best Nurse Joker I saw all weekend.

I refer to this guy as “Man Leia.” I have another pic of him trying to lick himself.

This gal did an excellent job on the Johnny Depp version of the Mad Hatter. Really loved the hair and eyebrows!

A walking, talking TARDIS!

Dr. Mrs. The Monarch gets checked out….

A huge lucha libre group. Check out the guy’s pose on the front left!

So yes, the costumes were fun and there are many more on my Flickr site. Sadly, I didn’t take any pictures during panels because I didn’t know we were allowed to, but now I know for next year and will make a point to take pictures during big panels and try to get pics with panelists.

As far as panels went, I attended several from the Young Adult literature track and enjoyed them very much. I especially liked the religious themes in YA lit panel and look forward to next year’s YA track. Jason and I attended an voice acting panel with several famous voice actors including the guy who did Roger Rabbit’s voice, the current voice of Porky Pig, and Vic Mignogna (who is 47 years old?!?!). That was quite the interesting panel- I didn’t know who most of those guys were at first, but they were all so funny that it didn’t matter.

I missed a lot of great panels though due to working half of Sunday and then needing sleep like crazy. I’m a little sad, but mostly I just feel like it’s good prep for next year. We definitely plan on getting a hotel room at the Marriott, stocking it with booze, and taking naps as needed. No more of this schlepping back and forth to East Atlanta on the MARTA business.

Another great event from the weekend was meeting up with some fellow-crafty-types at the Marriott on Saturday:

From left to right: Renee, Alexia, Dot (aka Nancy), Jessi, and Misty

You can follow theses ladies on Twitter: @obajoo, @emberlexi, @DotatDabbled, @jessidee, @mistyg

They are all amazing crafty ladies- you may know Renee from the great blog The Domestic Scientist (she’s had several items featured on the Craftzine blog!) When I fix up my blog’s appearance I’ll add a special place to link to their blogs.

And finally, I ran into a local hero of mine: Lucky Yates of Dad’s Garage fame!

I talked to him for all of two seconds and totally gushed like an idiot (look at my giddy smile in that pic), but this was a major fan moment. I’m a little surprised at myself as I used to interview famous musicians at the radio station and always prided myself on my composure, but damn, even Jason said I was acting stupid silly. I think I actually forgot the name of the neighborhood I used to live in (Inman Park) and Lucky finished my thought for me. Major stupid silly, I tell you.

We had a great weekend and now I have all sorts of inspiration and ideas for next year. I’m already plotting costumes (Hank Venture as The Bat, Duck Dodgers, and Futurama just to name a few…), plotting tactics, plotting mini-events (more crafting, anyone?). Why, why, WHY does this only have to be one weekend out of the year?

But there are some fun events coming up to keep me occupied: Oktoberfest/JapanFest on Sept. 19/20, GreekFest/my birthday the weekend of October 3-5, and HALLOWEEN! Yes, I am totally succumbing to the marketing tactics of Michaels, Target, and every grocery store in Atlanta.

I miss all of my new friends already, though, and hopefully we can all get together before next year’s Con!

I don’t have much time to write a great Dragon*Con update, but I did want to add this for the ladies who met up at Pulse Bar next to the “Geek Crafters Unite” sign:

“Penis….NOOOOOOOO!”

I was going to wow you with my l337 HTML skills by putting a lovely table with my proposed schedule on here, but when I realized how many rows this thing would need, I figured you probably wouldn’t mind too much if I abstained this time. I’ll show you what a l337 hax0r I am some other time.

As for my schedule, it’s in list-form with highlighting on the “crafty” panels I’ll be attending. I have a birthday dinner to attend Saturday night and work on Sunday morning so sadly I don’t get to go to some of the costuming panels I want to visit, but since Jason wants to try his hand at cosplay next go-round, maybe over the course of the year we’ll both start learning costuming skills. I am attending several Young Adult Lit panels as I’m currently taking a YA Lit graduate course- doesn’t hurt to get a little Sci-Fi and Fantasy into the classroom!

Friday:
10:00 AM – Shatner/Nimoy
11:30 AM – Spin City
2:30 PM – Tarot Reading
5:30 PM – Animation Voice Acting
7:00 PM – Religious Themes in Young Adult Lit
8:30 PM – Dunny*Fest
11:30 PM – East Asian Tattooing

Saturday:
10:00 AM – Dinosaurs!
11:30 AM – Firefly Verse
1:00 PM – Venture Bros / Crafty Meet-Up (UH-OH!)
2:30 PM – MST3K to Cinematic Titanic
4:00 PM – Story Origami *crafty*
7:00 PM – Costuming 101 (maybe)

Sunday:
2:30 PM – An Hour With Space Ghost
4:00 PM – Gonzo Panel Show

Monday:
10:00 AM – Sci-Fi/Fantasy for Teachers
11:30 AM – Origami Open Fold *crafty*
2:30 PM – Futurama

I have some major gaps in my schedule (Friday afternoon, Sunday night, Monday) so if anyone has some suggestions I’m totally game. I’m not well versed in a lot of what Dragon*Con is about, but I’m definitely open-minded and game.

Also, still debating whether or not I will wear some sort of fun dress-up outfit one day. I have a platinum blonde wig somewhere and some fun shoes. I’d love to go sort of Harajuku one day… we’ll see.

And you may have noticed that the Venture Bros. panel conflicts with the crafty meet-up at Pulse Bar: I may go to the panel for a little bit and meet everyone around 2 pm. Just keep me updated as to where you are- email me your cell #s so I can text/call you. cassiecsmith [at] gmail [dot] com.

Unrelated: I’ve gotten some fun goodies from Etsy this week. New earrings, vintage shoes, and this fantastic Elizabethan frame necklace from eRosasJewelry. I’m modeling it while trying to look fun and fancy-free, but I think it just comes off as silly!

No, the gigantic house in the background is not mine. I was babysitting & the baby was asleep. Here’s a better pic of the necklace:

Mmmm, loooooove.

See you at the *Con- email me/Tweet me for my cell #!

I got a MacBook Pro for school (how did I ever live without it?) and today I made my first video with iMovie about our sweetie Nugget. It totally looks like a memorial video, but I assure you that this kitten is alive and well and wreaking havoc in our house. The footage is mostly of the first week we got her when she was just a little, well, nugget of a cat. My favorite part is at the end when she falls asleep- too funny!

Nugget from Cassie Smith on Vimeo.

I don’t quite have the hang of iMovie yet so I’m probably gonna go buy a cheap video camera to take silly videos with and then mash them up into silly iMovies! My favorite part is picking the music; I chose this sweet little Kimya Dawson song because Nugget is so wee and the song is about feeling a particular size- literally and figuratively. I don’t think Nugget thinks she’s a little cat at all- she constantly harasses our two other adult cats and tries to bully them. But like the little girl with the curl, when’s she’s good, she’s very, very good and when she’s bad, she’s horrid!


And pssst! Word on the street is Pulse Bar at the Marriott Marquis in the ATL at 1pm on Saturday. Pass it on. More Dragon*Con info coming soon!