8/19/2018

Weekly Update 8/19/2018

The Lunch Bunch met for Happy Hour at a rooftop bar in a new hotel that has just opened in Savannah – Perry Lane Hotel. It was nice, but it’s not on the river, and will never challenge my favorite rooftop bar, Rocks. But I’d wanted to see this place, and the views, so I met with others from my group for a nice glass of wine on a pleasant evening.

rooftop view of Savannah

Sonia,Connie, me, Heidi

Summer is rapidly coming to an end, and I still have lots on my bucket list to do. Many will have to be put off for another year, but I did get a couple more checked off this week. I had nothing on my calendar for Wednesday, so, after I did my swimming, I went downtown. I parked where there are no meters, and walked. I started at the Andrew Low House museum. I had not visited there is quite a while, and they are currently showing a display of some 19^th century clothing that I wanted to see. Because the Andrew Low House carriage house was the where the first meeting of the Girl Scouts was held in 1912, I decided to also go there. It is not frequently open, so I felt lucky that I was able to get in. There were lots of old uniforms on display, as well as dolls, boxes of cookies, and a time line. After that, I waddled over to the Telfair Academy. (It’s so nice to have a Coastal Museum Association pass that allows me to get into all these places for free!) They have a summer exhibit entitled Mansion to Museum, which tells the story of the evolution of the site from an aristocratic private home to an Academy of Arts and Sciences. It wasn’t much. Because I have a pea-size brain, I didn’t realize that there was another temporary exhibit on another level that display some of the purchases Mary Telfair and sisters brought back from some of their tours or Europe, and I left without seeing that. To cover my mistake, I did get to see this exhibit following a lecture the next evening.

lovely old dress in a bedroom at the Low House

first Girl Scout meeting place

look closely - Mary Telfair herself is engaging tourist in front of the academy

Friday, I was at DH, and the The 90. But I had to leave earlier than I normally do because a friend from MP was performing at a coffee house not from from home. I wanted to support her, and I’m glad I went. A little poetry, a little Dan Fogelberg – I was swept back to my youth. Kat is a very talented poet and has a wonderful voice. Iced coffee was good, too. 

a bad picture - the lighting wasn't good

Since I didn’t seem to get enough of a history fix on Wednesday, I spent most of Sunday at other museums. Savannah participated in the second annual Lift Every Voice program. Begun last year by the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, this program seeks to focus on special programming that would inform guests, free of charge, about African American history connections to their local sites. I went to the Owens-Thomas House, which was publicized as “a special tour focused on the lives of Emma, Peter and Diane, some of the enslaved people who lived” there - it was nothing more than a free tour of the house and quite disappointing. But I also went to Fort Pulaski, and listened to an interesting ranger-let talk about African American experiences on Cockspur Island. And, my favorite, was Massie School, which featured a talk by Ulysses Bryant, who grew up in Savannah in the 50s and 60s and was one of 12 students to integrate Savannah High School in 1963. That was fascinating.  

the park ranger at Fort Pulaski

Ulysses Bryant and a photo of the students entering Savannah High in 1963

And while all my bar-hopping and museum-going is interesting, I have saved the best till last: my a/c broke. Thursday, just as I was going to the lecture at the Telfair, I put my hearing aids in (I don’t wear them when I’m home alone), and I heard this sound as if a water tap were running. When I opened the door to the utility room – water was gushing from the inside a/c unit. Luckily, there’s a big drip pan in there, so it didn’t flood. I turned the unit off, and went to the lecture. I was going to be busy all day Friday, and I didn’t want to pay for a service call on the weekend, so I I left the unit turned off, and have an appointment for Monday. It’s been in the 90s every day since Thursday, but surprisingly, I have not been that uncomfortable. Between the ceiling fans, the table fan (I move it from room to room) and the sun-blocking curtains on my windows, I’ve been ok. I can’t wait to see what this repair will cost, and how it will be explained to me that my 10-year warranty doesn’t apply on the unit I had installed in 2010.

NO MATTER WHAT I DO WHEN I CREATE THESE BLOGS, THE FONT AND SPACING ALWAYS CHANGES AND I CAN'T EDIT IT.  I DON'T KNOW WHY.  I'M FRUSTRATED.