...
REMEMBER ME? I used to blog here in this space. I used to say such things as this and this and this. I'm aware that it's somewhat pathetic, tossing out dittos! when you've come here, Dear Reader, for fresh entertainment, or wisdom, or...well, whatever do you come here for? I'm guessing just a moment's distraction from your long swim in the river of life, crawdads biting at your toes and jellyfish brushing their treacherous tangled tentacles against your tender skin, your labored striving to avoid the undertow--ah, and your gulping of saltwater now and again, your flailing about. I hope I've sometimes thrown you a buoy of sorts, however minute.
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Friday, April 30, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
...
LOOK OUT, DEAR READER, IT'S A GALLIMAUFRY COMING your way! Oh, come on, relax-- it's just an olio! (I'm giving you time to scratch your head).............all right, all right, I've got a hodgepodge again. It's all on account of these odds and ends that I wanted to show you, but never got around to posting. (And, it appears I'm just too lazy-and-or-uninspired to make a tidy tale about each one. So, blurbs it is--just a bunch of blurbs.)
I. Lazy? Uninspired? Actually, I was walking my walk! Instead of my usual uphill commencement, I descended (the novelty of which drew me further and further down the road until it enticed me into taking the whole three-mile circuitous route that leads me over this little cement bridge [plain as a mud fence, but charming in its own way).
II. When those international guests were here to see the Little Star not long ago, I failed to mention this: My yard man was inspired to take them to visit a burial ground where his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather is buried. (Please, Dear Reader, do not hold me accountable if I've slipped a tad too many greats in there--or, even more egregious, omitted one or two! )
IIb.Almost as fascinating to me as the fact that this grave is still marked, and resting amid a sea of other ancient graves, is the surprising discovery that this yard man of mine had never, ever visited it before!
I mean, really...how many persons do you know who can casually hop in the car and drive off to see the grave of their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather (giving or taking a 'great' or two)?IIc. Straight from the cemetery, our guests went with us to visit an Amish barn and gift shop. While there, how pleased I was to get this terrific shot of jackasses!
What? Surely you...
I mean, you don't...?
Yes, of course it's those long-eared creatures!
III. Costco parking lot--an afternoon in early April, stopping to memorialize this view of the flowering trees and the cottony clouds, as I wheeled a case of tinned catfood to the car.
IIIb. Sassy grows ever more feeble.
Sassy has trouble eating dry catfood.
She must eat tinned catfood now.
IIIc.
Sassy's mistress gives her a fond farewell, in what could be her final ruffling of fur.IV. I give my daugher a fond farewell, and an admonition to settle only lightly into Asheville, NC.
V.
Remember when I seemingly went to the Used-buggy lot? There were
bikes there, too!
...
P.S. Ooops! That was going to be it for the gallimaufry 'til I found just one more photo. I studied it for a while, pondering whether I should save it to build another olio. But, nevermind, there's enough building going on here already...
VI. Well on the way to Fifteen Million.
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Friday, April 23, 2010
...
"RED OR GREEN?" That was the question.
For me and my twin, (a long time ago, I must let it be known) the question was one to be pondered, as we stood at the old wooden counter, peering up at the weathered brown faces of the elderly couple awaiting our response.
Mama had hurriedly wrapped up her shopping trip downtown and hustled us to the car just before the shipyard whistle had sounded. (We weren't very old, my brother and I, but we knew that whistle, and we knew that it meant skedaddle! All those men who were building great ships would be finishing up their shifts, filling sidewalks and clogging streets for miles around on their journeys homeward.) Now Mama was rewarding us with one of our favorite treats as she often did when we'd scrambled out ahead of that mass exodus and left the city limits and the worst of the traffic behind us.
The ceiling fan in the shoppe merely stirred the hot air, so muggy and tidewater-laden, and the old screen door didn't let in much of a breeze as my twinnie and I gave the question some thought: Do I want the cone filled with red this time? Or should it be green?! Our tacit agreement--if one wanted red, the other would choose green; or if green were requested first, the other would opt red. In this way--aha!--between us, we'd always have both!
Dear Reader, I can't tell you what heavenly concoction that old black couple scooped into our cones. (Alas, that's just what I mean--I really can't tell you! Sometimes on hot summer days the mystery haunts me.) It was sort of like a sherbet or some other kind of icy dessert, perhaps a gelato?--the recipe was all their own. And whether "red" and "green" was all they could offer, I'll never know. But I do know the taste was simply sublime!
Epilogue: The elderly couple are long-since departed, the building is long-since torn down. Even my mother has left this world. A few years ago I received a package--a box of brown bulbs with a small slip of paper and these handwritten words:
"RED OR GREEN?"
...
"RED OR GREEN?" That was the question.
For me and my twin, (a long time ago, I must let it be known) the question was one to be pondered, as we stood at the old wooden counter, peering up at the weathered brown faces of the elderly couple awaiting our response.
Mama had hurriedly wrapped up her shopping trip downtown and hustled us to the car just before the shipyard whistle had sounded. (We weren't very old, my brother and I, but we knew that whistle, and we knew that it meant skedaddle! All those men who were building great ships would be finishing up their shifts, filling sidewalks and clogging streets for miles around on their journeys homeward.) Now Mama was rewarding us with one of our favorite treats as she often did when we'd scrambled out ahead of that mass exodus and left the city limits and the worst of the traffic behind us.
The ceiling fan in the shoppe merely stirred the hot air, so muggy and tidewater-laden, and the old screen door didn't let in much of a breeze as my twinnie and I gave the question some thought: Do I want the cone filled with red this time? Or should it be green?! Our tacit agreement--if one wanted red, the other would choose green; or if green were requested first, the other would opt red. In this way--aha!--between us, we'd always have both!
Dear Reader, I can't tell you what heavenly concoction that old black couple scooped into our cones. (Alas, that's just what I mean--I really can't tell you! Sometimes on hot summer days the mystery haunts me.) It was sort of like a sherbet or some other kind of icy dessert, perhaps a gelato?--the recipe was all their own. And whether "red" and "green" was all they could offer, I'll never know. But I do know the taste was simply sublime!
Epilogue: The elderly couple are long-since departed, the building is long-since torn down. Even my mother has left this world. A few years ago I received a package--a box of brown bulbs with a small slip of paper and these handwritten words:
"RED OR GREEN?"
...
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
...
I'M STILL THERE, HAVING A CAPITAL time in the capital city!
(Or let's just pretend that I am, Dear Reader. If I have to say that I'm THERE, then perhaps I am not. It's likely I've instead been back HERE [where I usually hang out] for a couple of days already; but who's going to quibble?)
We have time for one more sightseeing something-or-other, Tina and I, and then we will search for dinner. We wait for the Metro (delayed due to hitting a passenger-gasp) and finally arrive at the Post Office Museum. Then we re-think our plan. Hmm...maybe we should eat something now, before we peruse the museum. Breakfast was eons ago.
So we go next door--we're supposed to find international food there; but we trot from one end to the other and, alas, all-American chain food abounds. Outside we go, and propose to eat the apples we have carried with us for hours. First, however, we must enter the museum (where the sign reads NO FOOD ALLOWED), go through the security check, and all the way down to the restroom--to wash my apple.
"Ah, you're a germaphobe!" says Tina.
"Well, look," I say, "I've been fingering it in my pocket all day--opening all those doors, putting my hands on the apple......okay, you're right--I'm a germaphobe."
Not much later a guard catches us with our half-consumed (fully scrubbed) apples, sends us back outside, where we eat in the pleasant sunshine.
Stamps are a big attraction in the P.O. Museum, though all the other displays keep us interested, too.
And...(Oh, before I forget--just in case you should ever find it helpful--Heligoland's stamps are okay, but Upper Volta's are much more attractive. Huh? You want to know where the heck is Heligoland? Don't be silly--it's where they speak Heligolandic, of course!)
...we're off to get dinner
and catch the homeward-bound bus.
...
I'M STILL THERE, HAVING A CAPITAL time in the capital city!
(Or let's just pretend that I am, Dear Reader. If I have to say that I'm THERE, then perhaps I am not. It's likely I've instead been back HERE [where I usually hang out] for a couple of days already; but who's going to quibble?)
We have time for one more sightseeing something-or-other, Tina and I, and then we will search for dinner. We wait for the Metro (delayed due to hitting a passenger-gasp) and finally arrive at the Post Office Museum. Then we re-think our plan. Hmm...maybe we should eat something now, before we peruse the museum. Breakfast was eons ago.
So we go next door--we're supposed to find international food there; but we trot from one end to the other and, alas, all-American chain food abounds. Outside we go, and propose to eat the apples we have carried with us for hours. First, however, we must enter the museum (where the sign reads NO FOOD ALLOWED), go through the security check, and all the way down to the restroom--to wash my apple. "Ah, you're a germaphobe!" says Tina.
"Well, look," I say, "I've been fingering it in my pocket all day--opening all those doors, putting my hands on the apple......okay, you're right--I'm a germaphobe."
Not much later a guard catches us with our half-consumed (fully scrubbed) apples, sends us back outside, where we eat in the pleasant sunshine.
Stamps are a big attraction in the P.O. Museum, though all the other displays keep us interested, too.
And...(Oh, before I forget--just in case you should ever find it helpful--Heligoland's stamps are okay, but Upper Volta's are much more attractive. Huh? You want to know where the heck is Heligoland? Don't be silly--it's where they speak Heligolandic, of course!)
...we're off to get dinner
and catch the homeward-bound bus.
...
Monday, April 19, 2010
...
I WAS BRIEFLY FASCINATED by the ceilings of Washington, DC, but only briefly:
at the Jefferson Memorial,
at the Metro Station,
and then in the president's office of the Old Pension Building, which is also known as the National Building Museum, which is where Tina and I ended up next on our slightly haphazard jaunt through the city.
What happened was--we got to this place, it was just five minutes to wait if we wanted a tour of the building. We did; and we waited; and, after viewing the entire building--seeing as how the architectural creativity and the artistry and the sheer stupendous workmanship that went into building this edifice one hundred and twenty-nine years ago had me simply agog--I forgot about ceilings!
What was offered was a half-hour tour, and we tagged along asking questions and exclaiming at appropriate times.
"How many bricks would you guess were used in building this place?" Our short little frazzly-haired guide posed the question as we bunched around him and gazed at the front of the building from across the street. Right away I thought--Aha! the answer is way more than I'd suppose. So I doubled my guess to four million.
"Fifteen million!" he declared, and he went on to give us all kinds of facts and interesting tidbits,
and pointed out scenes depicted in the frieze, and the varying architectural designs of the windows, and the building's built-in, naturally air-conditioned state.
"Listen up!" I said to Tina. "When we're on our way home, I'm giving you a quiz."
Of course, then I had to keep notes--
$600,000 to build it in 1881--70,000 bricks inside each column--
And about then he launched into a tale of the pensions that were being paid out, way back in the 1880's. It was all very interesting, and it was a gorgeous day, but twenty minutes had gone by--Tina and I were starting to despair of getting a thorough and unrushed tour of the building's inside.
We needn't have worried, of course; the tour lasted more than an hour. We made our way up such pleasing sets of brick staircases--two long flights for each floor.
We stopped off at every level, our tour guide continuing to be a fount of knowledge,
until we rather nervously perched up there on the highest walkway--some seventy-five feet from the ground. (I noticed that no one seemed inclined to hang over the railing.)
That's where the guide finally wrapped up his talk, with details on a variety of near-the-ceiling features, and a description of changing the lightbulbs still far overhead (it can only be done from the roof, where one climbs in a window and performs a daredevilish act).
Tina and I made our way back down the glossy brick stairs, stopping to look at a few exhibits (finding nothing as intriguing as the building itself).
We sat near the indoo
r fountain (included by the architect to make the air pleasantly humid) while we plotted our next destination.
I know where we should go next! How about one more visit to our favorite room in this building? one of us suggested.
Oh! Great idea! That room's definitely worthy of another look! the other responded.
The afternoon sun cast a yellow glow on the yellow walls
and the yellow fixtures.
Once again we raved.
...
I WAS BRIEFLY FASCINATED by the ceilings of Washington, DC, but only briefly:
at the Jefferson Memorial,
at the Metro Station,
and then in the president's office of the Old Pension Building, which is also known as the National Building Museum, which is where Tina and I ended up next on our slightly haphazard jaunt through the city.
What happened was--we got to this place, it was just five minutes to wait if we wanted a tour of the building. We did; and we waited; and, after viewing the entire building--seeing as how the architectural creativity and the artistry and the sheer stupendous workmanship that went into building this edifice one hundred and twenty-nine years ago had me simply agog--I forgot about ceilings!
What was offered was a half-hour tour, and we tagged along asking questions and exclaiming at appropriate times. "How many bricks would you guess were used in building this place?" Our short little frazzly-haired guide posed the question as we bunched around him and gazed at the front of the building from across the street. Right away I thought--Aha! the answer is way more than I'd suppose. So I doubled my guess to four million.
"Fifteen million!" he declared, and he went on to give us all kinds of facts and interesting tidbits,
and pointed out scenes depicted in the frieze, and the varying architectural designs of the windows, and the building's built-in, naturally air-conditioned state.
"Listen up!" I said to Tina. "When we're on our way home, I'm giving you a quiz."
Of course, then I had to keep notes--
$600,000 to build it in 1881--70,000 bricks inside each column--
And about then he launched into a tale of the pensions that were being paid out, way back in the 1880's. It was all very interesting, and it was a gorgeous day, but twenty minutes had gone by--Tina and I were starting to despair of getting a thorough and unrushed tour of the building's inside.
We needn't have worried, of course; the tour lasted more than an hour. We made our way up such pleasing sets of brick staircases--two long flights for each floor.
We stopped off at every level, our tour guide continuing to be a fount of knowledge,
until we rather nervously perched up there on the highest walkway--some seventy-five feet from the ground. (I noticed that no one seemed inclined to hang over the railing.)That's where the guide finally wrapped up his talk, with details on a variety of near-the-ceiling features, and a description of changing the lightbulbs still far overhead (it can only be done from the roof, where one climbs in a window and performs a daredevilish act).
Tina and I made our way back down the glossy brick stairs, stopping to look at a few exhibits (finding nothing as intriguing as the building itself).
We sat near the indoo
r fountain (included by the architect to make the air pleasantly humid) while we plotted our next destination.I know where we should go next! How about one more visit to our favorite room in this building? one of us suggested.
Oh! Great idea! That room's definitely worthy of another look! the other responded.
The afternoon sun cast a yellow glow on the yellow walls
and the yellow fixtures.
Once again we raved.
...
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