When I attend conferences where I know leaders from other counties, I enjoy having dinner and catching up with them. Two of my friends from a neighboring county invited me to dinner with them last night in Athens, Georgia, and since one has had daughters who have attended the University of Georgia, she knows all the best places to eat.
Last night we ate at Chuck’s. I knew this was my kind of place when I asked for their Riesling list and the waiter recommended “Poet’s Leap” as the most delicious.
“I think that sounds lovely,” I nodded, approving his suggestion, resisting the urge to tell him exactly why that wine name appeals to every fiber of my being.
The menu was extraordinary. I ordered the salad, loaded with all the good things I hadn’t eaten all day, preferring junk food until this healthy option presented itself. Three bites into my salad, though, I had a major hot flash (it may or may not have been precipitated by the wine) and had to box it up and bring it back to the room to eat later.
We had the liveliest hotel shuttle driver. He’s a Communications major from Statesboro, and he hopes to attend Law School here after he graduates. He told us about the “special” sushi list that we didn’t know to ask for in Chuck’s. We’ll know next time to ask for it. All of their specialty rolls are on the menu that “normal” people don’t know exist.
On the way back, he told us that the fire department had just left our hotel building, because someone had gotten stuck in the elevator in Car 2. I thought he was joking around with us, since we are middle-aged teachers a little older than his mother, but when we got in the lobby we could see the Out of Order sign on the elevator.
A guest standing at the front desk urged us not to try to get in that one. “I was the one who got stuck,” he shared. We sympathized with him and imagined how helpless it must feel to be stuck in an elevator. One of my companions grew gravely concerned (sharing with us in real language how she really felt), but not concerned enough to walk that many flights of stairs.
So we took a true risk. We rode in near silence in Car 1, listening for anything out of the ordinary all the way up to our rooms before saying goodnight.
Common Threads 