Sawr this over at Just a Fleshwound.
KEWT!
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Thursday, November 27, 2008
For the beauty of the earth...
Have you ever looked at aerial images of your home on google or mapquest? You really should.
Here's my grandpa's place in the Ozarks, and a larger version. In the first photo, there's a black-ish oval in a purple circle which barely shows up. That's a pond where my brother did most of his fishing when we were kids, and I just tagged along and looked at stuff. You'd be amazed by the giant black ants they have up there. They don't bite though, so they are okay. That's also where I ate tadpoles, which, as everyone knows, are merely raisins-in-waiting. Gritty, though. Took me years to forgive raisins. The pink circle is my grandparents' house which they built in the late 70s, and which, to my delight, has indoor bathrooms. The outhouse is something you really should have experienced, though. Their little old house, built in the late 40s, is concealed by the trees just above the pink circle. There used to be a mimosa tree there which seemed huge to me. I loved those pink furry chenille blossoms. I was amazed when I was an adult to find that the branch I couldn't reach as a child was barely higher than my head. That tree has been gone for a long time, now, though.
Most of my childhood we lived in the mid-South, Memphis area, and we'd make the two-ish hour drive up to the hills to see grandparents most weekends. Hundreds of times we must have made that trip, but I've only been on those roads a time or two in the past 30 or so years, and yet I remember the entire journey so vividly. A few times, I've gotten on mapquest aerial and started following the roadway from Balfour Road in West Memphis all the way up to the hills, seeing the satellite version of the landmarks I remember, rail lines and waterways being the silent companions of the journey.
Holidays make me think of these trips, too, and of being so alert with the anticipation of seeing loved ones, being spoiled by lovely grandparents, good food and too-rare glimpses of favorite cousins and places I thought of as home. The flat fields of Crittenden County would give way to yet more miles of sprawling cultivation. I always noted when we passed one particular place where the property was dotted with disused freezers and fridges, portholes cut in to accommodate nesting yard birds. Recycling, anyone? Usually, but especially at holidays, Dad and Mom would have classic radio music playing from an oldies station, lots of Bing Crosby, Benny Goodman and the like. That was the sound of home, too.
I hope your Thanksgiving is full of good memories and warm times with dear ones.
Thank you for reading my blog.
Have you ever looked at aerial images of your home on google or mapquest? You really should.
Here's my grandpa's place in the Ozarks, and a larger version. In the first photo, there's a black-ish oval in a purple circle which barely shows up. That's a pond where my brother did most of his fishing when we were kids, and I just tagged along and looked at stuff. You'd be amazed by the giant black ants they have up there. They don't bite though, so they are okay. That's also where I ate tadpoles, which, as everyone knows, are merely raisins-in-waiting. Gritty, though. Took me years to forgive raisins. The pink circle is my grandparents' house which they built in the late 70s, and which, to my delight, has indoor bathrooms. The outhouse is something you really should have experienced, though. Their little old house, built in the late 40s, is concealed by the trees just above the pink circle. There used to be a mimosa tree there which seemed huge to me. I loved those pink furry chenille blossoms. I was amazed when I was an adult to find that the branch I couldn't reach as a child was barely higher than my head. That tree has been gone for a long time, now, though.
The second photo is a larger version of same, with the above photo area in the yellow rectangle. Then below and to the right is a blue square where the church is that a lot of folks in my family helped to build. WWII vet Uncle Homer was a carpenter and built the pews for that church. I have one of those pews in my home, now, and I'll always treasure it.
You don't get a sense from this image of the undulating terrain, but there was something marvelous about a large American-made car flying along these roads. I always felt like my guts were fighting to catch up with the rest of me. Dad would drive fast, and we'd giggle like fiends in the back seat.
Most of my childhood we lived in the mid-South, Memphis area, and we'd make the two-ish hour drive up to the hills to see grandparents most weekends. Hundreds of times we must have made that trip, but I've only been on those roads a time or two in the past 30 or so years, and yet I remember the entire journey so vividly. A few times, I've gotten on mapquest aerial and started following the roadway from Balfour Road in West Memphis all the way up to the hills, seeing the satellite version of the landmarks I remember, rail lines and waterways being the silent companions of the journey.
Holidays make me think of these trips, too, and of being so alert with the anticipation of seeing loved ones, being spoiled by lovely grandparents, good food and too-rare glimpses of favorite cousins and places I thought of as home. The flat fields of Crittenden County would give way to yet more miles of sprawling cultivation. I always noted when we passed one particular place where the property was dotted with disused freezers and fridges, portholes cut in to accommodate nesting yard birds. Recycling, anyone? Usually, but especially at holidays, Dad and Mom would have classic radio music playing from an oldies station, lots of Bing Crosby, Benny Goodman and the like. That was the sound of home, too.
I hope your Thanksgiving is full of good memories and warm times with dear ones.
Thank you for reading my blog.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
ABJECT LESSONS
When I was in first grade, my fingertip was smushed in the hinge of a big heavy bathroom door here. They need to put a little effort into that website, by the way. I wonder if they have a plaque up immortalizing that moment? No? This'll have to do, I spose.
I blame any subsequent bad behaviour in my life on that moment, if, in fact, I've ever actually done anything remotely naughty. Which, of course, I haven't. I'm just misunderstood.
*************
There was a girl in my class who wore froufy dresses to class with lots of ruffles, and she won some beauty pageant and got to ride on the steamboat down the river with all the beauty queens during the New Year's Eve fireworks. I was really jealous-- how could she get to be the cutest girl in Memphis when they must have been aware I was there?
Nap time came daily after lunch. Nap time was difficult for me. Golly, it was the most tedious, boring 30 minutes of my entire life repeated daily. It took becoming (at least age-wise) an adult and having to earn a living to make me crave naps. Sitting still was torture. We sat in our seats, heads down on desks. Other kids seemed to nap, but I'd look around the room sending eye-daggers at the kid who always got the best crayons and then broke them, or wondering if I'd get a chance to
play with the clay that day. Would I make it through the day without being sent out into the hallway or to the principal's office? Luckily for me, the principal seemed to be the one woman in the world who didn't think I was the spawn of Lucifer, so she never paddled me. Yeah, I'd sit there and wonder what I was about to do wrong, next. Then, every so often, something would happen that would remind me that for all my flaws, there were some humiliations in life I would be spared. Every so often, I'd look ahead and to the right and would marvel at the little puddle splattering to life below flounce-beswagged seat of Little Miss Memphis, and I would think "at least I don't pee in my chair."
*Shirley Temple in Baby Take A Bow
Of course, that was a very immature inclination, but I was only 6. I forgive myself.
***Upon its 1934 release, this Shirley Temple film was banned in Nazi Germany for its depiction of gangsterism and gun play.
When I was in first grade, my fingertip was smushed in the hinge of a big heavy bathroom door here. They need to put a little effort into that website, by the way. I wonder if they have a plaque up immortalizing that moment? No? This'll have to do, I spose.
I blame any subsequent bad behaviour in my life on that moment, if, in fact, I've ever actually done anything remotely naughty. Which, of course, I haven't. I'm just misunderstood.
*************
There was a girl in my class who wore froufy dresses to class with lots of ruffles, and she won some beauty pageant and got to ride on the steamboat down the river with all the beauty queens during the New Year's Eve fireworks. I was really jealous-- how could she get to be the cutest girl in Memphis when they must have been aware I was there?
Nap time came daily after lunch. Nap time was difficult for me. Golly, it was the most tedious, boring 30 minutes of my entire life repeated daily. It took becoming (at least age-wise) an adult and having to earn a living to make me crave naps. Sitting still was torture. We sat in our seats, heads down on desks. Other kids seemed to nap, but I'd look around the room sending eye-daggers at the kid who always got the best crayons and then broke them, or wondering if I'd get a chance to
play with the clay that day. Would I make it through the day without being sent out into the hallway or to the principal's office? Luckily for me, the principal seemed to be the one woman in the world who didn't think I was the spawn of Lucifer, so she never paddled me. Yeah, I'd sit there and wonder what I was about to do wrong, next. Then, every so often, something would happen that would remind me that for all my flaws, there were some humiliations in life I would be spared. Every so often, I'd look ahead and to the right and would marvel at the little puddle splattering to life below flounce-beswagged seat of Little Miss Memphis, and I would think "at least I don't pee in my chair."*Shirley Temple in Baby Take A Bow
Of course, that was a very immature inclination, but I was only 6. I forgive myself.
***Upon its 1934 release, this Shirley Temple film was banned in Nazi Germany for its depiction of gangsterism and gun play.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
...speaking of Star Trek-- what do you think of the ideer of the new Star Trek prequel thingie?
Here's my problem with it-- we already have the ST films with the aging original class and the beefed-up budget for set design and cinematography. We will now be expected to go back to pre-series era Star Trek characters with a super-slick degree of technology and design values. To me, if the producers of the prequel had even the tiniest mote of irony about them, they would have found a big-budget way to emulate the geeky analog adolescence of the birth of sci-fi tv without lampooning it.
Star Trek was one of the handful of shows I watched and loved as a kid in the 70s. A marked characteristic of the original series was its ability to take side-trips to the riduculous
ly sublime. I think if a kid today sees the entire series in order beginning with the prequel, they won't get what was so fabulous about the original series. My thought is that the wide-eyed earnestness of later Star Trek films coupled with the luvved-up prequel will spell a whole that is less than the sum of its parts.
Other than the thought of the immaculate Simon Pegg as young Scotty, I can't wrap my brain around the idea of finding enjoyment in this film. I could be wrong, and someday when I see this film, I'll admit it if I am.
Come to that, I hope I am wrong.
Here's my problem with it-- we already have the ST films with the aging original class and the beefed-up budget for set design and cinematography. We will now be expected to go back to pre-series era Star Trek characters with a super-slick degree of technology and design values. To me, if the producers of the prequel had even the tiniest mote of irony about them, they would have found a big-budget way to emulate the geeky analog adolescence of the birth of sci-fi tv without lampooning it.
Star Trek was one of the handful of shows I watched and loved as a kid in the 70s. A marked characteristic of the original series was its ability to take side-trips to the riduculous
ly sublime. I think if a kid today sees the entire series in order beginning with the prequel, they won't get what was so fabulous about the original series. My thought is that the wide-eyed earnestness of later Star Trek films coupled with the luvved-up prequel will spell a whole that is less than the sum of its parts.Other than the thought of the immaculate Simon Pegg as young Scotty, I can't wrap my brain around the idea of finding enjoyment in this film. I could be wrong, and someday when I see this film, I'll admit it if I am.
Come to that, I hope I am wrong.
Don't feel so bad, Detroit. TV's not so good anymore, either.
One hardly ever hears Concierto di Aranjuez these days, and how long's it been since anyone intoned unctuously about the richness of soft Corinthian leather? Well, that's too long, my darling.
Here's the whole thing reimagined, on the wings of gentle zephyrs and whatnot.
One hardly ever hears Concierto di Aranjuez these days, and how long's it been since anyone intoned unctuously about the richness of soft Corinthian leather? Well, that's too long, my darling.
Here's the whole thing reimagined, on the wings of gentle zephyrs and whatnot.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
You wouldn't know this about me, but I sort of really get energetic about 11 or 12 at night. That's pretty much the only time I really enjoy cleaning house, actually. Daytime, well, daytime's for sleeping in, getting up at the crack of noon for a lavish lunch out, and then back home in time for a proper nap while there's still good daylight to avoid.
My place has a concrete floor, and starting about 11:15 on Saturday night, I hand scrubbed half the downstairs floor. Yeah, by hand, with a rag.
OOH, and- SHOPPING REPORT! -- Mrs. Meyers' Clean Day cleaners now come in Basil flavor!!! No, it doesn't smell like pesto, but it does smell super-clean without smelling like a bunch of chemicals or artificial fruit or flower scents. I really like the Geranium and Lemon/Verbena scents, but I saw the Basil at Elliot's Hardware at Motor and Maple Friday and had to give it a whirl.
Mrs. Meyers Countertop Spray is good stuff, too. I'll have to check into their pet-oriented products. When someone comes up with something I can feed these varmints to make them pee lavender, well, I'd do it. In the meantime, I'll keep cleaning with Mrs. Meyers, but only very late at night.
**************
Had the wee darlings over Saturday while sis was working and we fiddled with the filters on the logitech camera. We laughed and laughed. Fun!
I'm a lucky auntie.
Now I'm off to scrub the rest of the floor. Cheers, m'dears!
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Maiden 'Voggage
When you're a person who loves 'Vogs, you'll wear each pair hundreds of times, but the
re's only one day when you wear that pair for the first time. It's cold and I was digging through me sock drawer and found some patterned stockings I've never worn before and one thing led to another et voila! Here I am in my goth-bootie Dame Agnes for the first time.
Got these way back in January, but the time has never been right to wear them. Today's the day!
ROWR!
When you're a person who loves 'Vogs, you'll wear each pair hundreds of times, but the
re's only one day when you wear that pair for the first time. It's cold and I was digging through me sock drawer and found some patterned stockings I've never worn before and one thing led to another et voila! Here I am in my goth-bootie Dame Agnes for the first time.
Got these way back in January, but the time has never been right to wear them. Today's the day!
ROWR!
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