LeahAndMark.com

So, Grad School has started and we’ve hit the ground running. I love it. I’m so happy to be back in school, you don’t even know! But I’m also VERY BUSY! Mark went out last night to see friends at the Yelp Elite Event, and guess what I did? I stayed home and read. And read. And… read. That is going to be a big part of my life for the next two years.

We’ve been talking/dreaming a lot of travel/moving abroad, too. As excited as I am about moving to China… I also really, really want to live in Nepal at some point, too. After China. Mark hasn’t been there yet, but do you see that picture up there? How could you not want to live there? Huh? It’s gorgeous.

Anyhow, since I’m so busy and really should be doing some more reading right now, I’m just going to jot off a few other things on my mind real quicklike…

• I really can’t stand that “I kissed a girl” song. Arrrrgh. Who’s with me?
• I think my pregnant and mom friends are super awesome. Seriously.
• I can see how protesting the Olympics in China can make a statement about their human rights issues. However, I think most countries/governments are guilty of violating human rights and I think the Olympics is a not the most appropriate venue to voice concern/anger over those issues.
• I also think that boycotting China as a whole- everything made there, traveling to China, basically everything that supports their economy- is not only an ineffective, but also a misguided form of protest. Travel especially is such a great way to truly learn about another country and culture. And to give the people you meet a taste of you and where you come from, too. The Chinese people are not their government, just as we Americans are not ours. Not all of us support the practices, policies, and mistakes the government makes. Not all Chinese people are human rights violators. Most aren’t. At all. Not even a little bit. In actuality, everyone we met was full of warmth, genuine hospitality, better educated than most Americans I know about political issues, and excited to get to know two crazy American travelers. They are so proud of their country’s history and culture, and so excited to have the opportunity to host the Olympics. I don’t agree with everything the Chinese government does. I don’t agree with everything the American government does. But unless we get out there in the world and MEET people, and talk about issues, and try to understand each other, how can any meaningful, long-lasting change occur? What good does boycotting an entire country really do, especially if you’ve never taken the time to go there and find out for yourself what China is like? A lot of issues need to be addressed. But making China out to be a “bad guy” and pointing fingers without taking a good, long look in the mirror doesn’t seem like the best approach to me. There are other ways, other venues to speak out and get some attention, start some dialogue, etc.

Okay, that was a little longer than I anticipated. Oh well. Time to hit the books again. Toodles!

Last night was a Yelp Elite party - sadly, Leah couldn’t make it. Too much school work and reading that she needed to catch up on for class. I however made the time sacrifice and decided to go get some… terrible free drinks and then a glass of wine provided by our friend Lauren. Oh. I also won two free tickets to a German Bierfest! that’s being held in Woodruff Park in Downtown Atlanta this year. Score? What’s funny is that to us (LeahAndMark) Woodruff Park is nothing but the hangout spot for all of our homeless/soon to be homeless youth that we see at StandUp for Kids. I mean, obviously they’re going to block off the area since they’re selling tickets but still… that’s our perspective of the place. Whatever. It’s beer I suppose.

So a few weeks ago I signed up to receive the brochure from this guided travel tour group - Intrepid Travels - and wow. If you need any motivation, or ideas on where you’d like to go… you should go sign up and get a brochure. If you read our blog, you probably want to travel abroad at this point after seeing so many photos (or you have the other reaction and never want to go to China.) But wow, we started looking at the brochure and saw all of these planned trips across several countries and it really got us thinking. Now, obviously we’re all for not going on guided tours because of the schedule and the whole rigid nature of the thing… but there are benefits to it.

And before you think that we’re plugging something (god we totally would if we could get free stuff… but the only people that give us free stuff is Deanna from Yelp! - and she gives everyone free stuff) - the reason I started even looking at Intrepid Travels was for ideas. And then I realized that for people like us, who wouldn’t really mind being dropped in the middle of a country without reservations - these travel tours are as close to a relaxing all inclusive resort as we ever really want to be. Obviously the price is slightly more in some cases than what we would end up spending on our own (and in others less) but when you take a trip like the 40 days across all of India - the hassle and trouble is easily paid for - and with this group the max number of people is 15 - but trips are guaranteed once at least one person pays in full - and apparently there are instances where it’s only a handful of people in your group. It’s just… would be fine for a first tour of such a vast and overwhelming country such as India. Or one of the month-long southeast Asia trips that covers 8 countries - it’s a very good overview and introduction to eventually doing your own travels.

But… since the bank of LeahAndMark is currently running on a limited cashflow supply - these trips will have to wait - besides, we’re saving up for a honeymoon in Belize!

Great things on the horizon and although there is that saying ‘when it rains it pours’ - it’s happening in a good way for me. This week? The potential goodness is overwhelming and it’s as if everything was being held back for the last 3 months and now it’s all happening at once. I cannot wait to be able to let you in on the the breakthrough. Oh. And hello to our friends Rick D. & Liz A. whom I met (again) last night at the Yelp Elite party - y’all are nice and awesome and thank you.

*Note!: …and now that I read that line about the breakthrough - it sounds like I’m a Scientologist and I’ve finally reached a higher Thetan level or something (Tom Cruise here I come!) - or that I’ve delved into the world of The Secret and I’m finally law of attracting things into my life… ummm… it’s not like that. It’s just normal not really crazy good stuff.

So. Next time we’ll just reach out to our extended friends of friends and ride one of their horses. Even if we have to make new friends to accomplish this. Sunny Farms North? Generally disappointing. Sure we were probably a bit naive to think it would be anything more than the trail rides offered by… stables of this sort… but damn, their website does specifically say:

“We have fast horses for people who like to ride fast. We have slow horses for people who like to ride slow. We have big horses for big folks & we have little horses for little folks. For those who have never ridden before, we have horses that have never been ridden”.

So I like to think that we had at least some reason for thinking that Leah could at least take off for a short run and not do the usual horse follow horse follow horse routine. Generally disappointing all around. Mind you, I’m probably just bitter about the whole thing - compounded by the fact that we were grouped with other people (and while the people were fine and awesome and no problem at all - it’s a F*cken annoyance when you don’t think that you’re signing up for a group activity. If we wanted a group adventure, we probably would have gone looking for something else instead.)

Basically, if you’ve never ever ever ever ridden a horse, or have kids and want them to ride the type of sad stable horses you feel sorry for - take them here. I could say more, but I have to stop because it’d just all come out really, really mean and completely biased - biased by nothing more than my actual experience with Sunny Farms North in Dahlonega, Ga., just past the end of 400. Oh yes. In order for you to truly get the picture - as Leah was getting onto her horse Max, the owner was holding the reigns - and then Max tried to bite him. Okay, I’m not so naive that I’m surprised by any ‘animal’ trying to bite a human - but this guy, grabs the horses head and loud enough for Leah to hear clearly, in effect says, “If she wasn’t already sitting on you I’d beat your f*cken brains out of your skull” - and you kind of get the feeling that he’s not one to kid about such things. Now, I’m probably out of line and this is how everyone in the um, horse-world treats their animals, but I don’t know. 

After our awesome trail ride we decided to drive into downtown Dahlonega and on our way there we saw this guy selling boiled peanuts on the side of the road! These were exactly how boiled peanuts should be. Their greatness was compounded by the fact (or due to?) that they were prepared on the side of the road, in a huge pot, and with a propane heat source. We’ve been fortunate enough to find one of these both times we’ve gone to Dahlonega - it makes the drive back to Atlanta so much better.

The other ‘event’ we went to last Saturday was the Festival of India - held by the… Indian group of Atlanta… well, that’s not their official name but whatever. Seriously. Like me, you probably understand the depth and general cultural richness of India - so you would expect that a ‘Festival of India’ run by the Indian American Cultural Association - to be better than a sad collection of booths selling cell phone cards, insurance, & vacations. If anything - you would probably think that they’d have some interesting food - and not just 3 sub-par indian restaurants and 1 decent indian restaurant selling up the common goods that the Indian branch of Panda Express will undoubtedly sell at the mall food court in the near future.

Granted - there were a lot of Indians that attended the Festival of India… I’m hoping that they were as disappointed in it as I was. I don’t see how they could find any real value in the whole thing since Anime conventions are more representative of Japan than this was of India. Of course, I could be wrong.

With high hopes for this event, Leah did wear her salwar kameez that she got in Nepal. See? We were totally hoping this would at least be better than the dealer’s room at a SciFi con. Next.

What did make the day better was that our friends Anna & Chris called us and invited us out to dinner with them. First we tried the Vortex down the street in L5P - that was a no go with the 45 minute wait (we don’t wait 45 minutes - not with SO MANY other places in Atlanta to go to). So then we drove over to Los Loros and had some good mexican food. That was our Saturday and Sunday was quite easy and sleepy and like I say every weekend - here comes Monday.

1. Nepal
2. Tibet
3. India
4. Japan
5. Peru
6. Thailand
7. Laos
8. Turkey
9. Phillipines
10. Italy
11. France
12. New Zealand
13. Australia
14. South Korea
15. Cambodia
16. Malaysia
17. Indonesia
18. Singapore
19. Vietnam
20. Switzerland
21. Fiji
22. Greece
23. Morocco
24. Tunisia
25. Mongolia
26. Spain
27. Iceland
28. Argentina
29. Cuba
30. Denmark
31. Belize
32. Ireland

This is the immediate list of countries that we want are going to visit. Although not in the exact order, I think we’d mostly be okay with this order (of course we haven’t plotted out a logistical plan so you could probably group most of South East Asia all on the same trip, or at least two trips.

Still. We both figured that we needed to at least ‘put it out there’ so that just in case ya know, if someone all powerful (well, with money) sees our list and is like wow these two really enjoy their travels and they don’t just eat at the local equivalent of f*cken AppleBees. I think I should fund one of their trips. Now we just need a paypal button and ummm.. ha. Still. You don’t get what you don’t ask for right? Not that we’re asking. However, the intention must be put out there or else it will never ever ever ever have a chance at becoming reality. This photo set up above is literally One Photo from Each Day we were in China and in order - 24 in all.

Tonight’s episode of No Reservations (with Anthony Bourdain!) covered Japan (well, Tokyo and Kyoto.) I enjoyed this episode a bit. While it’s easy for me to say that his best shows are anything in Asia (true) that’s not always the case. He has some really awesome shows that aren’t in Asia at all. Off the top of my head, San Paolo, Peru, Sicily, Puerto Rico, Mexico/US Border, India, Uzbekistan, French Polynesia, South Carolina, Tuscany, and Loas. That’s my general list of good episodes that take place outside of China/Southeast Asia.

Most of western Europe was pretty boring (London/Edinburgh, Berlin, Iceland, Ireland) - and I generally feel that it’s only a 50/50 chance that any episode in America will be anything more than some contrived setup full of skits that only work by the thinnest of margins - check episodes Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and the latest U.S. Southwest as examples of shows you can skip and not really miss out on anything.

I should write an episode guide. I should. I will. Just watch.

Have any places to add to the list? Tell us!

I’m back in Atlanta after a whirlwind trip to Phoenix, which for the most part was great.  It was wonderful to reconnect with so many of my Phoenix friends, even though I still didn’t get to see everyone I wanted to!  But lots of excitement indeed at seeing Brandy’s new house, feeling Skye’s first contractions, seeing the new and improved HomeBase (where I used to work), and marveling at Melanie’s adorable, entertaining genius of a daughter.  Oh!  And dinner and Wii with Mark’s familia was awesome.  Great food, thanks to Myra and Mark’s mom.  Ryan is a rockstar at the Wii games.  And Mark’s BFF Amy always cracks me up.  I love all y’all!!  Can’t wait to see you in December, this time with Mark in tow.

I had the video camera, not the digital one, so you’ll have to wait for a Video Spectacular later!

Last night we went to a party!  Cuz we are fancy party people.  That pic up there is the view of the city from our new friends’, Ramit and Madhura’s, balcony.  Pretty cool, huh?  It was a little scary at first, but then we got used to it.  Well, sort of.  Mark didn’t really get totally used to being up on the 28th Floor…

Wheee.  We’re high in the sky.  We got to spy on all the pretentious folks at the W strutting around and trying to feel cool.  Oh, if you were at the W Midtown last night, that doesn’t apply to you.  Just everyone else.

It was a fun night.  Lots of good food, too!  Homemade hummus, delicious Indian nibbles that made me miss wandering around Delhi and Varanasi, and lots of nice new people to converse with.  I even found another White American Person that can speak Chinese!  Really well!  We like how people think we’re all cool for speaking Chinese when in actuality it’s a way easier language than French or Spanish.  Hah.  But go ahead and think we’re totally awesome.  We don’t mind.

Alright- time to get ready for a day at the lake.  Ciao!

LeahAndMark.com - Feels Like Home from LeahAndMark.com

No video today - and even less photos. But clearly I’m not done. Up above is an Animoto slideshow video of… well, obviously more photos - since we upload them to flickr.com but it’s sometimes too cumbersome to go thru everything - even I rarely go through other people’s flickr’s (except for those rare few.)

I got some good news today. Hopefully I can tell you all about it on Friday. And that would mean that FRIDAY IS POSSIBLY GOING TO ROCK! Even Still. I’ve been thinking and churning some thoughts in my head about how the next few years are going to be and exactly how we’re going to do whatever it takes to make it some form of reality. Mostly - eventually moving over to Asia, but then also - visiting again at least once if not twice before we move. Nepal/Northern India are next on the list, followed with… well, there’s so much that to make a concrete list would be… almost pointless since so many factors can change everything. We must still make it up to Tibet though. That’ll be awesome.

Pulled together these kind of feel like the Death Cab for Cutie Video: I will possess your heart. Oh look - here it is posted below. The weekend is coming fast and I look forward to all of it. I’ve had a bit of a break from studying/other things since Leah’s been in Phoenix - but mostly because I’ve come back down and decided to relax a little. I was pushing things and while there’s that margin between letting things happen and then what’s beyond a healthy measure of force - I was getting run down. So. I let go a little this week and wouldn’t you know - halfway good news today. We’ll see what Friday brings. Watch the slideshow up above, and watch this video below if you haven’t seen it - this is the long intro version though.

I think you’ll see where I stole some of my ideas on how I edited our music videos on the VideoLife page.

This weekend was tiring in the best of ways. Let’s do a basic list/rundown. Friday evening we made our way over to the Castleberry Hill district for part of the ArtWalk - Leah’s nonprofit that she works for was having a gallery showing (the kids work with some local artists and make some pieces - which they eventually auction off) and so that’s what we did that night - like old people, we took a nap right when we got home so we could wake up and make it to the event.

Actually, we came home late Thursday evening after the wedding um, convention? show? exhibition? what do you call those things? (This was a nicer one held by the Weddings Atlanta magazine - and cost $10 per person - but we grabbed several free bags and other junk and technically, made our money back in um, promotional junk - and I’m sure half of it we’ll throw out, the other half, we’ll use.) SO. We got home late Thursday evening and noticed that Three-Four kept going to the litter box - over and over again - and then after check the box - he wasn’t actually going. After a little longer and after noticing some blood coming out of him - Leah and I rushed him down to animal hospital in Decatur for the checkup. Basically - nothing too bad, and most likely a UTI - so that was good.

We’ve been fortunate that we haven’t had a problem with either of the cats - ever - healthwise. This is the first time we’ve ever really had to do anything like this - and it looks like the medicine has been working and Three-Four’s been doing a lot better.

Now. Since they’re house cats and we honestly don’t really have a reason to take them to the Vet - we haven’t experienced anything like what we experienced over the past few days. Essentially - when Three-Four came back home, his scent was completely different and One-Two (his brother) didn’t recognize him at all - and started hissing and growling and attacking Three-Four. Freaked us out since we’ve never had to deal with this.

We separated them that night and it still carried over to the morning. Now, while some of you pet owners out there might be used to this - we aren’t and it was more than bothering us and we felt really bad for Three-Four. I mean, he’s kind of hurt/healing AND he has to deal with his brother attacking him. AND we could tell that it was kind of making him feel bad ’cause he’d continually try to go up to One-Two (when we would try to see if it was still going on) and kind of say hi - but One-Two would again hiss/growl/attack.

Fortunately, Leah bought some scent wipes, and then some pheromones that actually DID help. Immediately it calmed down One-Two and then the wipes helped One-Two deal with taking the ‘Vet’ scent off of Three-Four (she wiped both of them down.) They were still tense over this weekend, but it’s slowly been getting better. They’ve even done their usual cuddling/sleeping wrapped up thing - but we watch any playfighting for signs that it’s turning into real fighting - like it did earlier this weekend.

Saturday hit us like Awesome. Breakfast at Carroll Street Cafe in Cabbagetown:

Honestly some of my favorite shrimp & grits in all of Atlanta - they have a spicy grilled flavor.

Leah and I went to OutBack Bikes in L5P to have a kickstand installed on her bike - and on the way back we stopped by the WFRG 89.3 radio station block party. We arrived a little early but we were there for some african rhythm drumming and some rather good spoken word poetry.

THEN we decided to go for a run. Well, I decided to run while Leah rode her bike alonside me. Now. It has been REALLY Humid all weekend. Impressively humid - in the same way I would want it to be 120 degrees outside in Phoenix, AZ. when people would visit there, this weekend was equally as humid as I would want for any visitor to the deep south and to um, show off the hot humid summers here. Anyways. I ran 4 miles and Leah biked alonside. Needless to say - by the time I got back I looked as if I had stood under a shower.

And then here’s where things made an unexpected turn. Instead of taking the hard earned Saturday afternoon nap, after messaging with people on Twitter - we decided to make our way down to the Cypress Pint & Plate Pig Roast - and meet up with our Twelp friends! We had originally planned on just stopping by and maybe having a drink or two. Almost 4 hours later it was definitely more than 1 drink and closer to 5 or 6 - they had these $2 vodka drinks which were kind of good in a drinking cheap dimetapp medicine sort of way.

That was a good time.

Those are tickets that Lauren won - for the Poison concert. Yes. Poison.

AND STILL. The Saturday was not over. We had to leave Cypress to go over to our friend Jolene’s house and make an appearance at her party.

At this party we met an awesome couple from India - Madhura & Ramit. Oh yes. Leah worked her All-Things-International-But-Especially-Asian/India Charm and now hangout time with these two awesome people is imminent. PLUS. We HAVE to make friends with people from everywhere - how else can we take over the world?

If you must know - while we both drank healthy amounts at Cypress, I slowed down long enough to drive while Leah drank to the end, and then when we got to this party, Leah stopped and I started back up. Still. Guitar Hero ensued and new friends were made. What more could you ask for from any party? Oh yeah, Leah also impressed people with her cork trickery.

And since THIS POST marks the new record for LONGEST POST EVER (screen length-wise) - I’ll end it soon. And even though all this fun was had at the price of some missed assignment points for school, and a VERY tired and sleepy Sunday - it was much more beneficial than that nap we had originally planned on taking last Saturday afternoon. And just think. This doesn’t even cover the Feeble Flobbler Flapjack Fiesta that we went t this Sunday morning - but I guess I’ll cover that tomorrow + everything else.

Goodnight.

We finally built our bed yesterday. Sure, it sounds easy - but it wasn’t one of those unfold-snap-together metal bed frames that just hold up the box spring and mattress. This Ikea bed had the bazillion screws/bolts/pegs and the awesome instructions with Swedish drawings of clunky builder men. After putting several sections together backwards and then disassembling and flipping them over - we eventually finished! Still. It’s a much nicer bed frame than we could have gotten most other places for the same price.

Break:

We missed the first episode of No Reservations (with Anthony Bourdain) this season, but we saw Columbia and Laos. The episodes so far this season more than make up for nearly all of last season. For some reason, we just weren’t as interested in the places he went to last year. The episodes weren’t as good as they were during the previous years. Whereas last year I thought the show ‘jumped the shark’ - this year, it’s right on track and back to going to places unfamiliar and with less of the contrived and set up shows that they produced last year. But that may just be us - because we like it when he goes to far off locations and meets up with villagers and eats with them on their bare floors - embodying a sort of ‘traveler’ lifestyle where you are invited into people’s homes - and not just showing us the places that tourists will inevitably flock to after seeing it on the show.

We went to China with the intention of getting reasonably lost enough to find things that we wouldn’t have found otherwise - this show was a big inspiration and motivation. Heck, we even decided to take a road trip down to Charleston after seeing it on No Reservations - and although we did eat at two of the restaurants shown on the show - there was no shame since they really were as good as advertised. (Jestine’s & Hominy Grill)

20 minutes after we arrived into town, we found ourselves at the farmer’s market, eating shrimp & grits. Seriously, what other type of first meal would you ask for after a 4 hour drive to Charleston?

And while this entry has gone wildly off track - what I realize now - and as Leah has mentioned to me lately - we need to go on another road trip. Someplace just beyond reach, and someplace different. When we lived in Arizona, we would drive to one corner and keep on going. At one point, we even came across some wild horses. THAT was pretty awesome. Hidden lakes, rarely driven roads, and wide open spaces and sky.

And now I have the hint of an idea.

Have a great night. Here comes the week.