My Almost Mother Heart is Hurting

I really do love Atlanta. But when I heard the news this morning about all of the gifts being stolen from City Hall East that were being stored by the Empty Stocking Fund for needy children, that old familiar thought of moving up to Canada hit me again. Sort of like when Bush got reelected.

Now I keep thinking about 48,000 little kids who may or may not get Christmas gifts this year, all due to some greedy and horrible people who found an open window to the warehouse and made off with gifts valued at roughly $50,000. It's really just awful. I also think about all of the well-wishers who sacrificed money and time to accumulate that many gifts, and about how little time it probably took for those thieves to get away with all of it.

Honestly, my husband and I end up driving up and down Ponce de Leon on a pretty regular basis, and I have turned into one of those people who discreetly locks the car doors every time we are on Ponce. It does fascinate me though, looking at all of the shady business going on in broad daylight, and the women that are CLEARLY not walking up and down Ponce for the exercise, and wondering why things work like that. My husband and I talk about how neat it would be to live in Midtown, and be right in the middle of everything, but the truth of the matter is, we don't want to deal with all of the yuckiness. Lake Claire is still an in town neighborhood, but we don't have to deal with being afraid to run from the car to the door, and we don't get asked for change every time we step outside. We're not going to run to the suburbs now that the baby is on the way, but I am glad we are in a safer neighborhood in town. And I can understand more why some people choose to raise kids in the suburbs. It would certainly be easier.