A LOVELY DAY.
Sunday's AQLF meeting of committee members(as well as those of us who were hardly ever present, last year!)went well, and I am even more enthused about next year's--the Third Annual Atlanta Queer Literary Festival, than ever!
It appears our Festival will coincide with Charis Books and More's 35th Birthday, which is really cool!
Our venues will be less spread-out, and won't compete so much with each other, so it'll be easier to attend all the events!
Afterwards, Hansoo and I headed over to the legendary "Colonnade Restaurant" on Cheshire Bridge Road. Cheshire Bridge is a rather infamous stretch of road which includes venerable old restaurants, like Nakato Japanese, and Bamboo Luau's late-night Chinese eatery. There's also a high-brow fabric store(where I obtained the silk charmeuse for my wedding dress!), a new-ish Greek Restaurant(Taverna Plaka)and several, uh, low-end "girlie" establishments(please note: girlie, not as in "feminine", but as in stripping, and/or "jack-shack" outlets)--all this within a few feet of each other!
The Colonnade's interior environs can be best understood by describing the folks gathered--at the early hour of 3:00 P.M., Sunday as:
The lovely, big, older African-American lady wearing her huge pink hat, with scarf-tie, and bright pink going-to-church-dress, and her daughter and grand-daughter, similarly dressed.
An older couple who prayed quietly before their dinner (wait--I think we call it "supper", here).A young gay man who read Southern Voice while sipping sweet tea. "Gays and Grays" is the way Creative Loafing once described the regulars at The Colonnade, but that description is not nearly inclusive enough.
We saw everyone--young marrieds, couples with kids, even an entire "family reunion" bunch of folks who needed several tables pushed together in order to accomodate them.
Hansoo sat down to a meal of (they are famous-for-it)Southern Fried Chicken, fried okra, onion rings. Ol' veggie-me opted for the country-fried steak(I hardly ever eat red meat, but this was scrumptious--complete with milk-gravy!!!), loaded smashed potatoes, and squash. I stuffed myself with five of their to-die-for yeast rolls with butter, too!
Just after our iced tea arrived, as I was telling Hansoo how fond Collin Kelley is, of "The Colonnade"--guess who walks in? Yep. The one-and-only, with his BFF, Joy.
There was a "Lisa, I didn't know you come here?" from Coll...I wish they'd squeezed in at our booth with us, but they grabbed their own little table, and I stopped in to chat with them as we were heading out. Coll always looks so happy when he's spending time with Joy, who I had the pleasure of meeting, long ago, at a book-signing/reading.
Wish I could've hung around at The Colonnade, and had dessert(moist yellow-cake with fudge icing! Everything made on-premises), but I simply could not eat another bite!
Then it was home to Louie--our long-faced golden retreiver, who I slipped bits of (no skin on it)chicken to, all evening!
All in all, a lovely day.
Peace, kids.