Al fresco

Pasta and croissants

Flowers and greens

...two more reasons I love living 2 blocks from Atlanta's Piedmont Park - al fresco Market and MacBeth. The Georgia Shakespeare Festival performance on the lake dock that evening, under the stars and the bats, was terrific (what's not to like about a play where the hunky lead - Daniel May - runs around in only a kilt 1/2 the evening? Now that's al fresco!)

"Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble" ...and then add your fresh pasta; boil 3-5 minutes. Perfect!

But, the city's Piedmont Park parking deck task force is getting ready to spoil all that; they voted last week to build the 800 space deck, encouraging more cars in the park.

MY LETTER TO THE EDITOR: The ajc ran a piece today in which SHARON A. GAY's pro-deck opinion stated "...the deck will lessen the parking burden on surrounding neighborhoods..." So the task force determined that people who come to the park to play hacky-sack all day would pay $1.75/hr to park in the deck rather than burden nearby residents by parking in front of their houses - which are on city-owned streets, by the way.

I guess that means on heavy-use days, when the Grady High School PTA opens up their parking area as a pay lot, everyone parks there and the streets are completely car-free?

No way.

Call the deck what it is: convenient pay parking for the tuxedo-wearing folks who rent nearby Day Hall (in the Gardens) or Magnolia Hall (in the Park) for their corporate affair or their daughter's wedding.

Momma don't ride no shuttle bus to a fund-raiser.