Archive for the ‘Shirking Responsibility’ Category
Photos from the West End Concert and Tour of Homes
WEND, our neighborhood association here in West End, celebrated the kickoff of their Tour of Homes at the Wren’s Nest on Friday night.
We had a great time. The 4th Ward Afro-Klezmer Orchestra opened for Maria Howell, she often of the Sambuca Jazz Cafe (…and Army Wives!).
Take a look at the pictures I snapped.
The weather held until 9:53 pm when we were pummeled with rain. Your loyal staff did not have to usher anyone off the grounds at 1 am as we occasionally must do, and I don’t think anyone left disappointed. Great success!
The West End Tour of Homes followed on Saturday and Sunday.
Amelia and I skipped out on the Wren’s Nest to catch the last hour of the tour. I took a few pictures to show you what you missed.
The Wren’s Nest isn’t the only storied home in West End, and we’re honored to share our neighborhood with the rest of Atlanta. Thank you to WEND, and specifically to Vonda Henry, for making the West End Tour of Homes such a successful event.
Categories: Atlanta, Events, Historic Preservation, Shirking Responsibility, West End | Tags: Atlanta, Concerts, The Wren's Nest, Tour of Homes, West End,
The Wren’s Nest Staff Is in a Bit of a Pickle
Let me tell you a story. Ready?
Chapter 1 – Mysterious Potato Farmers
Once upon a time the staff of the Wren’s Nest had a friend who does consulting work for a local Potato Farm* in the area. Recently, the Potato Farm Consultant said, “Hey! Over at the Potato Farm today I saw signs advertising a big Potato Farmer field trip to the Wren’s Nest. You guys are big time!”
What great news! We are big time! Except that we had no idea what what our friend the Potato Farm Consultant was talking about. Wren’s Nest trip? Potato Farmers? Time for some sleuthing.
Chapter 2 — Gulp!
The next day at our request, our Consultant Friend ever so gently stole one of the signs she had read. She forwarded us the details. The good news — the Potato Farmers are SUPER excited about visiting and there are a lot of ‘em. The bad news — in all their excitement and very detailed planning, they …kinda left us out of the loop.
Now, you’re probably saying to yourself, “Geez, Amelia. Visitors drop in all the time. Get over yourself.”
Gentle reader, here is why I am under myself — long ago we scheduled a very large school group for the same exact time and date.
Chapter 3 — Showdown
I called the Potato Farmers and left a very sweet message about our sleuthing and the little mix up and if you could call us back, please. Shucks, we’d appreciate it.
A few days later they called. Lain spoke to the Potato Farm Field Trip Organizer who, um… well, let’s not mince words. It was ugly. And somewhere between crying and wetting himself, Lain guaranteed this woman that we would work things out in her favor. Eeps.
(Sidenote — she was horrified by the prospect of children being present in the museum when she visited. Right.)
Anyhow, we have since asked the school group — who has played by all the rules quite graciously, we should add — if they had any flexibility in their schedule. They do not.
Chapter 4 — Choose Our Adventure
So we now have two groups scheduled for the same time slot, and cannot accommodate them both. Other than chastising Lain for making promises he can’t keep, what should we do?
* Name changed to protect the innocent (or guilty, depending on how you look at it).
** Thanks for the Potato Farm picture, John Beales.
Categories: Failed Attempts at Looking Reputable, Nonprofit Management, Shirking Responsibility, Storytelling |
Road Trip — House Museums from Atlanta to Salt Lake City
When my mom asked me to help my sister drive to Salt Lake City in November, I took it as an opportunity to geek out like whoa.
While I’m happy to help Susie and her dog Hazel get to Salt Lake City, I’m mostly excited to see as many house museums as possible along the way. I even mapped some out.
You can
find the full map here with descriptions and pictures of each museum.
The basic plan is to visit house museums in and around Nashville, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Denver.
If I can find cool house museums in Topeka, Lawrence, and Manhattan, Kansas, we’ll cut across that way. Otherwise, I have not been to Iowa or Nebraska, so we’ll stop in Omaha and Lincoln.
Here are the burning questions at this point–
- Which are the best house museums along the way? The worst?
- How can we best document our story–blogging, podcasting, twittering, video recording, what?
- Will this be the single lamest road trip ever undertaken?
- What do we do with the dog when visiting house museums?
Categories: Challenges!, House Museums, Marketing Tricks, Road Trips, Shirking Responsibility, Trail Blazin' |
The Wren’s Nest Publishing Co. Visits Paste
Did we mention that the 2008 Wren’s Nest Publishing Co. has officially begun? Probably not, because it did so the day before Wren’s Nest Fest, which erased 40% of my brain.
But! We’re now in the swing of things, with 6 great student editors and three meetings under our collective belt, the most recent of which was a trip to Paste Magazine.
(Three of our Editors.)
Josh Jackson, the Editor-in-Chief, was kind enough to show us around and answer everyone’s questions and generally be way more gracious than he needed to be.
We accidentally interrupted steadfast work in the Metaleap Design studio.
Somehow they were able to regain their composure in order to attend to our highly impatient group. Harumph!
Jose Reyes, Design Director, spent a good chunk of time generally being awesome and giving a side-by-side comparison of the magazine’s relatively new layout versus the old.
It was super neat to go from being like, “I swear, Paste looks different this month!” to learning the specific objectives achieved by the change and why they were chosen.
In short, it was a great trip to a great magazine with a great and kind staff. As usual, we felt lucky to be people who know people.
So thanks to everyone at Paste for guaranteeing the Editors have at least one good thing to say about the program.
(More posts about the Wren’s Nest Publishing Co. (both 2008 and 2007) here, here, here, and here. And here.)
Update on the Art Block Summer Camp
A few weeks back we discussed the Art Block–the summer camp for middle schoolers we’re hosting right now–and how nobody had signed up.
Well, I’m pleased to say that we had seventeen kids sign up at the eleventh hour. Way to be, us.
Unfortunately, the kids are no longer writing their play at the Wren’s Nest as previously planned. Uh oh.
Instead, they’ll be creating the play entirely at Hammonds House and the West End Performing Arts Center (home of Fly-By Theatre) right down the street.
There are two reasons for this, and they’re certainly related:
1. Our professional writers disappeared faster than the drummers of Spinal Tap.
2. The other artistic professionals who took over the writing component deemed our workspace too “depressing,” our dining room too “cramped,” and our outside too “hot.”
Had we been able to provide a writer, the theater people would have been spared the horror of our venue.
And while it’s our own fault for not anchoring down a writer, I think it would have been irresponsible for us to involve a contract when the Art Block may or may not have had campers. I wouldn’t have wanted to explain to our accountant how we just paid someone, say, $2,000 because s/he woulda taught a camp for us, except we couldn’t come up with any campers. Oops!
Frankly, we’re not too upset about our lack of involvement.
After all, the camp is indeed happening, plus it’s a lot less work for us and a lot less wear and tear on the house. No doubt the kids will put on a great show without our help–
In the meantime, I’m happy to get on with the Wren’s Nest Publishing Company. It’s more exciting for me…which is what counts. Who did you think we were doing this for, the children?
Categories: Failed Attempts at Looking Reputable, Shirking Responsibility, Transparency, West End, Wren's Nest Publishing Co. |
Everybody’s Working on the Weekend
Now, I know the kids these days often use their Friday nights for wooing their sweethearts and going to the disco, but here at the Wren’s Nest, we have bigger and better things to do.
Specifically, host a great and totally confusing (for us) concert! Woot!
(Theresa Hightower, doing what she does best: singing about thinly veiled sexual euphemisms! Dentist’s drill, anyone?)
Friday night the Wren’s Nest hosted (totally awesome) Theresa Hightower to kick off the West End Tour of Homes. We used our splendid amphitheater and guests brought their own food and drink, which made things pretty easy on our end.
(Food adorably carted in a wagon and Theresa Hightower in the background.)
In fact, we had so little responsibility, we actually had no idea what was going on. Luckily, there was wine, so we quickly got over our worry and had a grand old time. Like these people:
Or these people, including Board Chair-to-be Janice:
Or even these people, featuring recently-blogged-about West End Developer Suna Om (she gave me her card!):
Frankly, a good time was had by all and the only downside was that we had to lie and say our bathroom was out of order.
Sometimes people forget that port-o-lets are not just for decoration. And yes, while you really have to go, we really need to not have people trying to bust into the museum. Sigh.
Part 2 of our weekend adventures coming tomorrow!
Until then, you can tide yourself over with pictures on the Wren’s Nest’s facebook page! (Not a fan of the Wren’s Nest yet? Don’t talk to us. You sicken me. Err, become one today!)
Categories: Events, Ladies Night, Shirking Responsibility, West End |
The Staff of the Wren’s Nest Nearly Fixes a Window
There are two windows to a mysterious, unaccessible room up very high at the Nest that have recently lost their glass. When it rains, water comes in these windows. Which then comes down to lower floors. And proceeds to ruin things.
We don’t care for this scenario.
(The offending window, taken from as close to it as we could get. Can you tell why we’re eager for a new coat of paint on the place?)
Unfortunately, the only people we had on hand to resolve this issue were Lain and Eduardo, who began their adventure with the following dialog:
Eduardo: “Are we ready to do some windows?”
Lain: “Yeah! But first we need to figure out how to open this!” (holds up a tub of window glaze)
Moments later, Eduardo returns, triumphant: “I opened it with a spoon.”
Excitement was in the air! We were going to fix something! With our own 5 hands (I had one allotted to the camera)! Without any idea what we were really doing!
While we were sure that someone was going to get hurt, that did not deter our enthusiasm. See?
Turns out the ladder was in the wrong place. Like I said, we’re experts. I helped here by… documenting. The work of a mercenary is never done!
Clearly clothing had to be shed when things got too manly/dirty.
Look how triumphant Lain looks upon reaching the alleged summit! It was short-lived, however.
Quickly Lain discovered he couldn’t actually get up to the window in question. Shoot.
So we made good use of his height and took some “aerial” shots.
There’s the retirement home! And… the ground. Good choices.
Then, like any Executive Director would, Lain squatted on the roof and cleaned out the gutters with his bare hands. It was gross. I was very busy running away from the muck pouring down around me, but still managed to take a picture. For you.
We’re pretty sure that this trap door is the key to our success/where all the dead bodies are hidden. We have no idea how to get up there, as it is directly above very steep and wind-y stairs. Any suggestions?
So, to sum up, we accomplished pretty much nothing, and the Wren’s Nest remains unsealed. Can you imagine how well we’ll document a real adventure?! I can barely wait!
Categories: Failed Attempts at Looking Reputable, Really?, Shirking Responsibility, This is awkward |
To Our Potential Visitors Who Tried to Visit the Wren’s Nest Between 2:05 and 2:30
We’re sorry. We couldn’t stay open today.
Jeri lost power when a tree fell on her neighbor’s house, Amelia had to be at her other job, I was away at a meeting until about 4:00, and Nannie was busy picketing the new World of Coke because she likes Pepsi so much.
Categories: Cruel Games, Failed Attempts at Looking Reputable, Nonprofit Management, Shirking Responsibility |
Savannah is the only thing more fun than the Wren’s Nest
While some people find Savannah delightful for all its neat public squares, or its prime riverfront location, or all the ghost-lore that accompanies just about everything, I find it so engaging because it’s where Joel Chandler Harris met his wife, Esther LaRose.
Stop snickering.
(Not here, but let’s pretend.)
Lain and I traveled to Savannah for the Savannah Book Festival, which was a delight. (If you ask nicely, maybe we’ll even tell you which books we bought.) There were plenty of signs of JCH in Savannah — look:
For example, an actual sign.
Or this familiar fella given an illegal home on the side of a information booth (the old gum is the artist’s flourish, methinks).
Um, this is awkward, but… it’s pronounced “Brer”.
We also happened upon the childhood home of Flannery O’Connor, another member of the Southern Literary Trail family.
This is Flannery’s abode, where they rent rooms out to, you know, live in. What if you were like, “Oh yeah, we can totally watch the game at my place. The entry fee is $5, though.”
She got a sign, too.
Neat thing: the docent at the Flannery O’Connor home hails from beautiful Bloomington, IN and majored in Comparative Literature (?!) at Indiana University. Sound familiar?
The point of this all is: you should go to Savannah. It is so beautiful and truly unlike any other city I’ve ever visited. Here are a few more photos to whet your palate.
Madison square, looking triumphant.
The marsh where we stayed, about 20 miles outside of downtown Savannah. Much thanks to the wonderful Cushing family for letting us trash their marsh house.
Forsyth Square. It’s not even springtime yet, and look how lovely it is!
Sigh. I want to go back.
Categories: Birds of a feather, Historic Preservation, Shirking Responsibility, Southern Literary Trail |
Bossman and Mercenary are off to Savannah
Working at the Wren’s Nest isn’t always all fun and games.
But today it sure is!
After a morning filled with children dancing to the new Wren’s Nest song, Bossman Lain and I are headed to Savannah for their book festival.
We win!
Feel free to come to the Wren’s Nest tomorrow and see what shenanigans Nannie pulls when Lain is away.