Fried Green Tomatoes

January Day-trip to Columbia

2012-01-22T11:39:00.000-05:00

A Christmas present for Duncan was three day-trips, one in January, one in February and one in March to get us through the winter. Last Saturday, we went on the first: sight-seeing in Columbia (that would be Columbia, South Carolina.)

We visited Riverbanks Zoo, the Botanical Garden and checked out the statehouse grounds.

One of my goals for the day was to see a giraffe. They are weirdly elegant creatures.

We were very impressed with the zoo. They had a lot of most of the animals (15 kangaroos, 6 elephants, 8 - 10 giraffes), nice habitats and good views. It was cold enough for hats and gloves, but sunny -- a great day for the zoo!

Rather than bore you with individual pictures of different animals, I just made a collage. (To see better, press the "control" and "+" key as many times as you want to. When you want to return everything to its original size, press "control" and "0"

The Botanical Garden was an easy walk across the Saluda River from the zoo.

Not sure what this plant is but it was definitely planted to be interesting in the bareness of winter.

We saw lots of these glass ornaments throughout the grounds. They give some color and interest to a garden space in January.

Here is Columbia's Capitol Building. The center palmetto tree is a metal sculpture.

Here is the controversial site of the Confederate Battle Flag on the statehouse grounds. It is on one of the sides of the building, the Memorial is nearly to the sidewalk, and the flag is behind it -- in this picture, hanging quite limply. I can't believe they even have a discussion about it. The flag should go.

I'm sure it was installed to appease the critics of the flag, but there is this really nice African-American History monument on another side of the statehouse grounds. It is in two arced panels depicting the history of African-Americans in the state. This side shows slavery to freedom beginning with slave ships, showing the Civil War, finishing with Harriett Tubman at the far right.

From the other panel, this detail memorializes Briggs v. Elliott, the first of five cases that combined into Brown v. The Board of Education. Briggs v. Elliott challenged segregation in Clarendon County in 1952.

If I had visions of dining at a toney little Capital City hot spot, I had to remember who I was with and who's Christmas present this was. We had dinner at Sandy's Hotdogs -- a joint Duncan remembered from his days as a Park Ranger at Congaree. It reminded me of the Yum Yum in Greensboro. The entire menu was hotdogs and ice cream. And I have to admit, for a hotdog, it was really good.

Stay tuned to see where we go in February.

Christmas Holidays 2011

2011-12-31T12:19:00.000-05:00

It's been a lovely Christmas holiday; Mom here for a week, time off from work. Today is the last day of the year. I'm doing my annual out-with-old-in-with-the-new cleaning/reorganizing ritual and Duncan is cooking up a storm in the kitchen. I'm not sure what is to come, but I saw a can of collards so I think I was successful in talking him out of cooking fresh ones. Here are a few pictures:


A couple of weeks before Christmas, Duncan played Santa Claus for a Charleston Animal Society fundraiser. He overcame his aversion to the camera because he loves cats and dogs AND dressing up like Santa!

This is that moment when we've done everything we're going to do to "get ready" and we are just enjoying Christmas at home. Notice the framed envelope over the fireplace addressed to my Grandfather., We'll come back to that in a minute.

We did our annual Christmas Day Walk on the Beach. It was cold enough to bundle up, but not freezing. We hit it at a good low tide, so it was great for a walk.

Christmas Dinner was a picnic after our walk at the Folly Beach City Park. Ham biscuits, deviled eggs, fruit salad and tea. Yum!

Here we are among the "public art."

Too bad he doesn't have on his red suit. . .


Mom keeps passing along family treasures. This is a pearl handled quill pen that belonged to my Grandmother Bowles. Mom says she feels sure it was a special birthday or Christmas gift and is the one she used to write all the letters to Granddaddy that we have saved. (Go back to the large framed envelope over the fireplace, THAT envelope was addressed with THIS pen.)


More treasures from the Bowles family: Mom's note says these two pieces of silver were a wedding gift to Grandmother and Granddaddy in 1913 -- and since they eloped, there probably weren't many wedding gifts -- so, very special.


And this final family treasure: Recently I told Mom I didn't have many pictures of Daddy, so she made special albums for me and each of the grandchildren. This is Daddy and me at Christmas in 1996.

Christmas is Coming to Our House

2011-12-18T22:21:00.001-05:00

It's a pretty big deal for us to put up a Christmas tree. Most years, especially if we're traveling, we don't. (Not having children grants you certain freedoms). But Mom is spending a week with us this year, so we're pulling out more stops.

It's not leaning, is it? Damn!

Charleston Parade of Boats

2011-12-18T10:03:00.001-05:00

Early in the month we went kicked off our Christmas season by going to see the Charleston Parade of Boats.

It's blurry, but squint your eyes and use your imagination and maybe you can tell this boat celebrated Christmas At the Beach. There's a flamingo and a jumping dolphin. Sailboats paraded at their own pace behind.

2011-12-08T18:04:00.000-05:00

2011-12-04T18:33:00.000-05:00

December 4th and my summer flowers are still blooming.

When Mom visited in October we bought this Debutante camellia. It blooms now and the Lady Claire blooms in Feb.March.

We've had one night when it threatened to go below freezing, but the following day it went up to over 70 again. I recently said I wished it would get colder so it would feel more like the holidays and someone told me to be careful what I wished for. True, true. So, I'm enjoying this e-x-t-e-n-d-e-d fall.

Thank Goodness

2011-11-18T17:56:00.000-05:00

After years of mom telling me the point of living is not just to "be happy" I find myself, for the first time, -- happy. Content -- OK with it all. And thankful. So it CAN be happy people who are thankful, but I get what they're saying. Thank you Mom.

This year I find myself particularly thankful for:

The courage to change jobs -- again. Knock wood, it seems to be going well.
Something has shifted in me and I've made peace with staying in Charleston longer. Duncan got a boat and I bought a bathing suit somewhere not Costco. Whoo-hoo, at this time of our lives we live at the coast and we're going to make the most of it.
Doors on closets
Teachers
My high-tech achievement of the year -- transitioned to a Mac and a phone that is smarter than me.
My low-tech achievement of the year -- I've learned to knit and am almost done with a "twirly" scarf - a very forgiving 1st project.
Knowing more people who like to play Bananagram
It has been a year relatively free of committee work. That's about to change so I'll take a moment to appreciate it.
Those big things that I've mentioned in years past remain constant -- very thankful for Mom, Duncan, Duncan's job, health insurance, many good and dear friends. Very thankful, these are truly big - really the only things that matter.

Punting on the Stono

2011-09-03T22:42:00.000-04:00

We decided if we're going to live on the water, we ought to be able to explore our creek a bit more -- so we finally bit the bullet and got Duncan the Port-a-Bote he's been looking at for two years. This is 12.5 feet long and folds up to transport (so we don't need a trailer) and it has its own dolly so we can just wheel it out of the garage and into the water. Once it's in the water, we take the wheels off and go.

About the time we got it, the temperature went up into the 100s and it just wasn't that enticing to "go boating." Duncan took it out a couple of times, but today was the first time we both went. We caught the rising tide and tooled around our little Jason Creek and out to the Stono River.

Duncan launched right behind our condo. I took this picture from our deck.

Then he picked me up at the end of the boardwalk. The tide was high and it was easy to step in from the platform.

That's our wake!

A quick shout-out to our good friend, Marcus Brown, who has just arrived in Taiwan for a 5-month teaching assignment. Marcus, when you get back, you're going to love this! (For regular readers, this is Fiona's dad -- and Fiona and her Mom are staying here while Marcus is away on this job. So, Duncan and I are even more vigilant as neighborhood grandparents, now.)

We went out of the creek and turned right and rode by Waterway South condos and then turned right again and went down behind the houses in Battery Hague we have walked by so many times.

We've watched this neighborhood being built -- even in this wretched economy. A lot of these lots have docks long before they have houses.

Next, we retraced our steps back out into the Stono and went the other way, past Capri Isle and then turned left into the cut that becomes the Wappoo Cut. This area had a lot of traffic and we were the smallest boat out there, so we found ourselves fighting the wakes from the big boys. We didn't go far enough to even get in sight of the draw bridge on Folly Road. But that's where we were heading.

There were some nice houses along the shoreline.


We weren't quite sure what was going on here. Some kind of homemade seawall effort?


This is a pretty lot with a large older home set way back in the trees. This was coming back out of the Cut going back into the river.

On the way home we got a good look at this guy. He was intent on dinner and paid us no mind.

Back in Jason Creek, home is just ahead. (I really like this picture.)

Home again -- still had gas and still had plenty of tide.

Goodnight Irene

2011-08-28T14:47:00.000-04:00

Hurricane Irene turned out to be a non-event for us, but as she was forming earlier in the week, I was preparing to evacuate to Cary. No damage done to me and mine but it could have been messy for a lot of us. The NC coast fared far worse than we did here.

Taken earlier in the month, this is the view out our deck on a normal day.

This was about 2 PM Friday as Irene was passing through. I know, not that much difference. It was basically a 30-minute rain.

As Irene left us, she went with some lovely winds and skies. Dusk was a pretty time Friday night. It seemed like the trees were being "fluffed" -- the limbs and leaves were lifted and dropped -- shaking the dust out. I took this picture from our deck about 8PM. It was a high tide, but not the highest we've seen by a long shot. Can you see the rainbow?

On Tuesday, as we were waiting to see what Irene was going to do, there was an earthquake in Virginia felt by Mom in Cary, and by some here in Charleston. Not me. Still, we all survived a hurricane and an earthquake in one week. Whew, enough weather news for the year!

So How Hot Is It?

2011-08-12T18:01:00.000-04:00

It's hotter than a June bride in a feather bed!

It's so hot I saw a dog chasing a cat and they were both walking.

I sure hope you brought some champagne because it's real toasty.

It's hotter than love in August!

Continued Heat Wave

2011-08-03T16:56:00.000-04:00

This comes via Pat who is in Marion, NC and says it is hot there too!

Post-Vacation

2011-08-01T09:05:00.000-04:00

There's no escaping the misery of Charleston in August.

Vacation in Blowing Rock

2011-07-31T20:32:00.000-04:00

Our very relaxing mountain-top vacation was well-timed. In the last week of July, we spent five nights sleeping under blankets with the windows open. Now, home again, it is sweaty, sizzling, sweltering, stifling hot! What are we going to do to get through August?

We had a condo at the lovely Chetola Resort at Blowing Rock. None of us had been in that part of the mountains in more than 10 years! Everything in Watagua County looks pretty upscale and prosperous compared to what we all remember. Especially in Blowing Rock, flowers were nearly as lush and pretty as they were in Victoria and Vancouver last year.

Driving 421 and 321 out of Winston-Salem, we took the Parkway into Blowing Rock and the Blue Ridge was living up to its name.

In the 80s, Duncan worked at Blue Ridge Parkway National Park and spent quite a bit of his time around the Moses Cone Memorial Park. As a park ranger, Duncan used to take visitors on a hike from the house up to the grave site of Moses & Bertha Cone and tell them ghost stories. He very much wanted us to walk up there with him, but we never made it. We spent too much time in the wonderful Crafts Showroom that fills the lower floor of Flattop Manor now.

From our deck at Chetola we could see this vast house way in the distance filling the entire mountainside. At first we were unaware it was the Cone House and we grumbled about the poor taste of whoever ruined the view with such a monstrosity. But when looking at a picture in a brochure, we realized that this mostrosity had not been built by "new money" but was Flattop Manor and had been on the mountaintop for quite awhile

We went shopping in Blowing rock, everyone bought shoes at the Tanger Outlet, and we went over to Boone and took a look at the campus of Appalachian before stopping at the Daniel Boone Inn for a blow-out meal. We had great kitchen facilities in our condo and mostly fixed our own meals and ate outside on the patio. That felt like such a luxury!

I had never been to Grandfather Mountain so we did another drive down the Parkway to see that. Very pretty and now I can say I have walked across the swinging bridge.

Truly my daddy's child, I don't think I would make it on the bridge on a windy day, but this was pretty tame -- and wonderfully cool at that elevation. We climbed around on some of the rocks, took in the views, and just enjoyed being there on a nearly perfect day.

This was one of those great relaxing vacations where we did things at our own pace and sometimes it wasn't much.

We went for walks.

We watched the ducks on the pond. The swans at Chetola were raising babies -- (learned that baby swans are called cygnets. I am sure I will continue to call them baby swans.)

Relaxing for everyone except Duncan maybe. He did a lot of driving.

In the evenings, we laughed through episode after episode of The Vicar of Dibley. Sitting on the couch with your mother and laughing at a Priest tell almost dirty jokes is satisfying on so many different levels!

Ready for Anything

2011-06-29T17:22:00.002-04:00

Back in the day, I thought I was thinking ahead when I made the rule: "Never set out to go anywhere without a corkscrew." My travel emergency kit consisted of jumper cables, a tampon, and always, a corkscrew.

Today, in preparation for holiday weekend travel, I knew I needed to clean out the trunk. After 5 years married to a disaster preparedness guy, here's some of what I found in my trunk: -- all of which I am told we "need to have."

4 bottles of water
suntan lotion and bug spray
duct tape
a bath towel and a wash cloth
a small fleece blanket
leather work gloves
3 umbrellas
2 flashlights -- both with working batteries
a sleeve of quarters
5 bungie cords
an insulated cold storage bag
a first aid kit where the band aids are at least 5 years old
an assortment of wrenches and screwdrivers
a city map and a phone book
a pair of crocs (for emergency gardening?)
a raincoat
and a corkscrew

Space for suitcases and beach chairs is shrinking.

Playing Hooky from Church -- Again

2011-06-19T20:45:00.000-04:00

Duncan and I skipped church today and instead went out as tourists in our own town. Our neighbor Harry has started doing Charleston tours and we went on his Harbor Tour today.

We've decided next time we go to a costume party, we can recreate this look and just add a pair of binoculars around Duncan's neck and some sightseeing maps spilling out of my bag and we'd be great Tourists!

We went out on the General Beauregard

Harry covered Charleston history from the 1500s to the establishment of the Navy base just before WWII

We got some pictures of the Ravenel Bridge from angles we don't usually see.

The bridge, the marina and The Yorktown. Downtown is to the left, Mount Pleasant to the right.

Passing under the bridge

We went right by the Yorktown.

Here's me enjoying the breezes.

And here I am again, on-shore. Fun Day.

What are Friends For?

2011-06-04T13:04:00.001-04:00

This morning before breakfast, Duncan went over to our friend Marcus' house to help free this black snake that got stuck in the cage around a strawberry plant. I did not go. They were successful and the snake is apparently unharmed.

Photo taken by Marcus with I-Phone.

The Baby Blanket Continued. . . and Finally Completed

2011-05-24T18:38:00.000-04:00

The baby blanket I started in early April progressed nicely, with only a few unexpected interruptions, but still, the baby arrived before I got it to the parents. It is for a couple who were Debbie's good friends, and I wanted to do something nice for them. It always buoyed Debbie's hope for the whole world when people she loved chose to parent the next generation. I understand the baby is a girl -- and her middle name is Deborah. Nice.

Here, the warp thread have gone through the beater and the heddles. The most tedious part of this warp is done! Yea!

At the top of this picture, you can see that the warp has been pulled to the back and tied onto a bar. Towards the front of the loom, you can see several sticks running through the warp. Those sticks help keep the warp threads from tangling as the warp is wound to the back.

Here's another shot of basically the same thing. The back of the loom is at the bottom of this picture. I turn a crank handle that moves the entire warp back, back, back, until I can tie the ends off on the front bar. This process is hard on the tread, and if a thread gets hung up or snarled, it sometimes breaks. You can fix it, but it's a pain. Those sticks in the front help a lot. I just learned that trick. (Thank you Garnette and Michaela!)

Finally, I got to weave! This warp is 34" wide and I wanted the blanket to be square, so I wove 36" in length figuring it would draw up some when I took it off the loom. Under the tension of the loom, you can hardly see the waffle weave design at all.

Here's how I dealt with the only warp thread that broke while I was weaving: I tied it off close to the weft (so I wouldn't continue to rake the beater over a knot as I kept weaving), took the new thread through the beater, through the correct heddle, then just wrapped it around these 2 heavy bolts and laid them of top of the back beam. Subtle like a truck, but it put the thread under enough tension that everything could progress just fine.

When the blanket first came off the loom, I could see the waffle design, but not very distinctly. I could only hope it would pop out after it was washed.

And hooray! It did. White on white is always going to be subtle, but the little waffle squares show up nicely. This 100% cotton drew up more than I was expecting. The finished blanket is 28" wide and 30" long. Live and learn. I think it will be fine as a dressy blanket and it should not shrink any more with further washings.

Whoo-hoo! The Numbers Are In!

2011-05-20T08:58:00.000-04:00

One of the things that motivated me to want to do the Healthy Charleston Challenge was a physical I had in October that showed my weight at an all-time high and enough elevation in my cholesterol numbers to make the doctor double the dosage of my medication. I went for a follow-up visit on Friday and here's what has happened since October and starting exercising and eating better in January:

Weight loss: 25 pounds
Percentage of body fat: down 11%
Total Cholesterol: down by 22 but still higher than recommended. LDL (bad): down by 12 but still higher than recommended.
HDL (good): high enough to be a protective influence over the other two high numbers.

And here's what has really changed things for me. I figured out that all the knee pain and leg aches were not from gaining weigh or from the exercise itself -- it was a side effect of the statin drug I've been taking forever. And I've also been taking 2 Alieve tablets a day since at least 2004 to manage leg aches -- and I never attributed it to anything other than my own failing body.

Turns out, joint pain, especially in the knees, muscle weakness, and relentless aching is a very common side effect of all the statin drugs. Co-enzyme Q-10 is supposed to replace some of what they deplete. So, the doctor has reduced the dosage of my statin by 75% (wow!) and suggested I add the Co-enzyme Q-10 -- and we'll check how I'm doing again in 3 months.

We continue to go to the gym 2 or 3 times a week. It is exercise that keeps that good cholesterol number high. The bad cholesterol is influenced by weight and diet. So, I can still eat less meat and more salads.

A Good Use of Rainy Days

2011-04-02T23:38:00.000-04:00

We've had two days of pouring-down rain this week. Not only has it washed the pollen away, but I've spent two days inside, completely happy, listening to the entire playlist on my birthday I-Pod and warping the loom with my favorite yarn -- Henry's Attic Queen Anne's Lace. It's going to be a baby blanket for a good friend of Debbie's in Winston-Salem. If Debbie were here she would do something really extravagant to welcome this baby, so I thought I'd do something special.

Here's the Queen Anne's Lace.

Here's this cute song; Love Bug, by Joan Armatrading playing:

We've both come down with the love bug and it means we got to stay in bed.

I hope you'se guys don't get this 'cause it knocks you right offa your legs.

Love Bug. . talkin' 'bout Love Bug. . .

Let me 'splain the symptoms - first of all, there's hardly any pain.

With the love bug, you kinda lose your memory - you see, hear, think, talk, dream, care just for 1 person only.
So don't come down with the Love Bug 'cause it drives the sense right outta your head.

:-)

Here's the beginning of the warping process. The blanket will be about 36" square. Eight threads per inch in a waffle weave. White on white. Stay tuned.

Spring in March

2011-03-23T16:10:00.000-04:00

When we can see past the yellow pine pollen, we see the azaleas are about to bloom. This huge tangle of wisteria and Confederate Jasmine is on the way into our neighborhood from the Savannah Highway (meaning we don't go anywhere without passing this corner.)

A Canada Goose is nesting on the island on the back pond. Daddy and a couple of cousins are hanging around close-by. Last year, there was one chick, and when he/she was really tiny, they all packed up and moved to a pond about a mile away. Marcus saw them walking over there. Mysteries from the natural world.

Elizabeth Taylor died today. Now there's the end of an era. Talk about fat, thin, good days, bad days. . . she's had her share of it all.

Working on the Beach

2011-03-14T09:09:00.000-04:00

We are down to the last 2 weeks of this crazy fitness program that is taking up all of our time. One woman on our team has a house at Folly Beach and she invited us for a beach workout and then a brunch on Saturday. It was a perfect day on the beach and fun to be anywhere but the gym!

Here we are in the flattering "Sumo Wrestler" position. Feet wider than shoulder width apart, deep bend in the knees, drop your rear as low as you can, keeping your weight in your heels. Now press your elbows into your thighs and just stay there for 30 seconds or a minute. Small wonder I chose this moment to go get the camera. Our trainer, Ryan, is 2nd from the left in the sunglasses and red headband. He has been tremendously helpful these weeks.

Duncan is playing his weight loss pretty close to his chest, but this week, I lost another 2.2 pounds and have lost a total of 15. 6. Whoo-hoo!

Me (holding a starfish), Ryan, Julia (intern at MUSC), Julia's boyfriend, Kyle, Cyndi, Duncan, and Kari

Spring Fever

2011-03-09T13:33:00.000-05:00

You may be aware that I LOVE dishes!

I got these pretty painted plates and serving bowl at a consignment shop today for $32. It was a nice diversion from doing taxes (and a bit of a reward.)

Spring in February

2011-02-26T20:28:00.007-05:00

We're having a lovely early spring. Most of the garden looks pretty rough but there are some pretty spots. Here is the Lady Clare camellia we planted this fall. It is also putting out new growth. Very promising.

At week 6 of the fitness program I've lost 13.6 lbs. and am still putting ice on my knees. I'm meeting the group tomorrow afternoon for a workout at Waterfront Park under the Ravenel Bridge over in Mount Pleasant and Duncan is going to the Sierra Club's Oyster Roast where the menu is oysters, hotdogs, and Ben & Jerry's ice cream. He looks forward to this all year.

The Oldies, Sweating

2011-02-05T20:51:00.000-05:00

Duncan and I are doing this 12-week kamikaze fitness program over at MUSC and it's about to kill us.

I've never seen it, but there's a TV show called "The Biggest Loser." Yes, well, this is based loosely on that. We are on a "team." We have a "trainer," Ryan. We have the run of the health center at the Medical University.

The Cardio Room at the Harper Center -- Sunday afternoons are a good time to go, most people are taking their day of rest. Treadmills, Ellipticals, Stair machine, and Bikes -- all have individual TV monitors so you can plug in your earphones or ipod. Watching Jeopardy definitely makes this time go by faster.

We are supposed to workout with our team Monday and Wednesday nights, do something on our own every other day of the week, and on Thursday, all the teams come together for a "weigh-in" and then stick around for a big class that features others' wild success stories and a nutritionist urging us away from processed food.

So, our weeks have become working, going to the gym, thinking of things to eat, fixing things to eat, packing things to eat to take with us because WE ARE NEVER HOME and when we are, we are exhausted and have piles of sweaty, smelly laundry to do. We are at the end of week 3 and Duncan has lost 10 pounds and I have lost 7.5.

The pool. Who thought I would like water aerobics. But it's better than jogging and "running stairs" - which when I do it, is "trudging stairs." My knees hurt, I have taken to icing them when I get home, and it's just easier to work hard in the water than is on land. The first time we did a water aerobics class on a Saturday morning, we were in bed by 8:00 PM that night.

When we work out with our team, it's a combination of laps around the track, working against the resistance of these stretchy bands for arm strength, walking up and down 4 flights of stairs multiple times, and doing a few yoga moves I've never been good at - The Dancer, where you reach back and grab your foot and bend forward while you lift your leg back and your other arm forward - and The Plank, which is down on the floor like you're going to do a push-up but your forearms are down and your weight is divided between your toes and your forearms. Do that for a minute. This is supposed to be the new great thing for your 'abs" - now thought to be way better than old-fashioned sit-ups or crunches. What good fun we all have together.

Here is Duncan catching his breath on the evil stairs. I just flat-out won't do them anymore. I am beginning to trust this skinny, young, trainer just a bit because he is thinking of things I can do to strengthen the muscles around my knees rather than to just keep pounding on them. If I am going to exercise regularly, I am going to have to do it around these knees. I'll probably never be a runner.

We are heading into week 4. It has not gotten easier. It is hard to find time for all of it. Stay tuned. This was our Christmas present to each other! How crazy is that? The idea is to stop our descent into our retirement years as fat, tired, old people. Apparently, to feel good, you have to sweat. So, who said life is fair.

Girlfriends' Weekend 2010

2011-01-10T19:27:00.001-05:00

I'm getting my stories out of chronological order here, but in early December I went up to Virginia and spent a weekend with long-time friends Kathy and Lee at Kathy's house in Manassas. This is our annual get together that always features fabulous meals by Kathy. My favorite dish this year was Quinoa Black Bean Salad with Smoky Lime Dressing. We keep telling her she really should write a cook-book.

On Saturday, we ventured out and went to the Torpedo Factory -- which at one time was indeed a torpedo factory, but now is three stories of art studios and showrooms down on the waterfront in the historic district of Alexandria.

Almost immediately we encountered Tanya Davis who, along with her watercolors, was selling origami snowflake ornaments. She took the time to show me how to fold one right there. It isn't easy, but between her help and You Tube videos, I'm going to master this one.

This woman has the largest loom I've ever seen and she wove these huge tapestries with wool and some metallic elements. She had family in Mount Pleasant and I think would have happily come home with me

There was some kind of Scottish Heritage Festival in the area so there were men in kilts everywhere we went. These dancers were on the lower level of the Torpedo Factory. We watched them for awhile but no one asked us to dance so we went on down the street and had dinner at a pizza restaurant.

The rest of our weekend together was several other good homemade meals, talking, watching movies, dog walking, and playing Bananagram! It's always fun and so comfortable to be with them. We are thinking maybe wait a little longer for next year, and they will come to Charleston in February or March 2012. Boy, that sounds a long time away!

Christmas 2010

2011-01-08T20:38:00.001-05:00

While everyone we loved was getting snow, it was a pleasant day on the beach this year. Sunny. Not windy. We arrived at low tide and had plenty of beach to walk on. Not as many people and dogs as in the past. We pretty much had the place to ourselves.

We took a nice leisurely walk and picked up shells and were perfectly, perfectly content. We discussed if we had become "old people."

In the next 24 hours the temperatures dropped significantly and on Sunday, snow fell even in Charleston. Our plan to join Mom and the Parkers at Green Peace in Black Mountain shfifted to joining them in Winston-Salem. They had a good bit of snow there, but the roads were clear, so we just enjoyed looking at it and being with them.

Thanksgiving, then Christmas

2010-12-12T14:32:00.000-05:00

I tried to illustrate my list this year with watercolor pencils, and ended up leaving important things off the list. We've enjoyed Tai Chi on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 7 AM (I see my dad shaking his head. . .) and we have jobs and are whole and solvent in all ways. And then, there's Sandy Witman who keeps gently encouraging me to sketch with watercolor pencils. Friends make life good.

Upstate Roadtrip

2010-10-24T19:25:00.001-04:00

Last week I went traveling with my co-workers for the express purpose of seeing small, Upstate South Carolina towns during the pretty time of year in the mountains. There wasn't much color in the trees and it didn't feel as much like being in the mountains as I usually do in North Carolina, but sometimes we would get a view and I knew I was definitely on the crest of the Blue Ridge.

Generally, I found small towns in the Upstate to be more prosperous than small towns in the Lowcountry. Here is the pretty B& B we stayed in in Lyman which is on the road between Spartanburg and Greenville. These days it's about the only thing in Lyman, but back in the day, (the early 1900s) it was the home of the owner of the textile mill.

The Walnut Lane Inn in Lyman, SC

Textile mills were huge in this part of the state -- as were classic mill villages. Say what you will about "paternalism" but many people worked in otherwise lean times. During the Great Depression no one had money, but the mills gave you "script" you could spend at the company store. It was better than nothing, which was another option of the day..

Here is my theory -- I'm sure those more learned than I can argue, but, from what I've read, it seems that maybe white people in the Upstate were not as dependent on slaves as they were in the Lowcountry prior to the Civil War. They had them, but they worked on farms, not the vast "plantations" more common on the coast. After the War when slavery collapsed,Upstate farmers were able to downsized their operations until they were manageable and pretty soon the railroads starting bringing business to town -- and then those textile mills got going.

People in the Lowcountry couldn't manage the huge indigo, cotton, and rice operations with just family. They certainly weren't going to go wading out in the swamp and fight the mosquitoes, so they mostly just wrung their hands and despaired. Really, not much helped until air conditioning and tourists came along and if you were inland from the coast, you still aren't in great shape.

So, there you go, a one-minute overview of South Carolina, past and present.

Here is one more odd little happening on our trip. We met this Blue and Gold Macaw by the name of Co-Pilot at a restaurant in Landrum where we were having lunch on the patio. Apparently everyone in Landrum knows him and he goes out to eat frequently. He had just returned from a vacation to Dollywood (definitely fall under the category of "You can't make this stuff up.")

When Co-Pilot realized we were friendly, he moved right in on us. Below, Kerri's daughter Katie is standing beside her mom with her arms crossed while Co-Pilot checks out our leftovers. Katie's chair was Co-Pilot's quickest path between his own table and ours. She decided she wasn't going to stand between a parrot and the potato chips.

It's good to be home. The next thing we're looking forward to is Mom's visit next week.

Personal Grounds

2010-10-03T17:55:00.001-04:00

A friend and I went downtown today and saw Personal Grounds, an exhibit at the City Gallery by Susan Lenz, a fiber artist who lives in Columbia. I was much more intrigued with the ideas in the exhibit than I was in the art process, although, this woman is definitely very creative, talented and prolific. She must stitch in her sleep!

Personal Grounds was a series of nearly 100 portraits -- photographs transferred to muslin with hand embroidery, embellishments, and stitched text -- each representing a decision that person made.

To be confronted with such a large number of individuals who made one choice or another somehow honors the integrity in making a clear choice. Sometimes one person's decision was the exact opposite of the decision represented by the portrait right beside it (Atheist - Born Again Christian, Refused to Put My Father in a Nursing Home - Placed My Father in a Nursing Home). The whole exhibit brought awareness and personalized the huge number of the big and small decisions we make all the time.

Here is one of the first portraits and choices that grabbed me. . .

I've always had this thing about "Voting as a Feminist Issue." Now here's this woman with very little time or energy left in her life, and she chooses to spend some of each casting her vote, having her say, influencing the future. Wow.

This one is called Illegal Immigrant. Susan's notes said all the portraits were taken from photographs, obviously, of real people. This man is shielding his face because it would be dangerous for him to be recognized. As an American, I can't even imagine that going to another country and living there illegally would offer me more opportunities than staying here. Wow.

Many of the decision points illustrated were related to health issues. . . mastectomy rather than chemotherapy, pursuing aggressive treatment, opting to end treatment, a man going public with his battle with breast cancer I like this one, called Warrior, about choosing to do everything possible to stay healthy after a battle with cancer. Look at how complicated life gets for a Survivor Warrior:

Other big areas of decision included choices about family -- to marry, to have children, to marry when one really wants children and the other really doesn't, to adopt, to give a child up for adoption, to search for a birth parent. . . Other decisions didn't seem as big -- one woman choose not to have a television, someone else chose not to own a car. Lots of choices related to personal appearance -- hair dying, head shaving, losing weight, a drag queen. . . here's a woman who chose tattoos. . .

All that body art is done with machine stitching.

There were several about ways people chose to do good in the world. A volunteer who gave 3 1/2 hours a week to a museum for something like 34 years, a woman who visits and writes letters to prisoners, a very moving one about a child who declared, after noticing her mother's driver's license, that she too, wanted to be an organ donor. She was killed in a car accident when she was 11, and her organs saved the lives of seven other people. Fittingly, this one was called The Gift of Life and the portrait included everyone in her family.

I like the representation of the blood donor with the little red sequins mounting up the frame.

There was more. In the middle of the gallery, all these sheer panels hung from the ceiling with questions stitched on them -- all the little questions that run through your mind all day every day. . . should I wear the dress or the pants suit for my court appearance?, send a letter or an e-mail?, let me daughter go the party when I haven't met the parents?, decaf or regular?, Mac or PC?, how can I say this tactfully? This list is endless -- there were about 30 panels, two stories high, each with probably 25 questions. . . See what I mean? When does this woman sleep?!

I'm glad I got downtown to see this one.

Bringing Meaning to Our Lives

2010-09-18T11:19:00.005-04:00

Funny. The topic of replacement windows is much on our minds these days. I think a new sliding glass door is in our future.

Fall is Coming

2010-09-10T17:53:00.000-04:00

Here are a few random images captured during the last week or so. Clearly, nothing imperative to impart. . .

I saw these cute little ducks in the window of a shop downtown.

This was the sign in the window. Typical artist? Typical Charleston business mentality? I don't know, but I still really like the ducks.

And on an unrelated note: This is Tripod -- the stray cat we regularly feed. You can see his missing paw. It is only because of this handicap that Eloise tolerates his presence on her deck. In her own haughty way she is kind to him and sometimes sits guard at the top of the steps while he eats.

He comes to eat with us regularly, but is skittish and will not let us touch him. He is all-boy and cannot behave inside the house (we've tried). We've talked to the pet shelter about him and they will not take him because there is little likelihood that he would be adopted. We should get him to a vet, but we haven't undertaken an attempt to catch him . All we do is put food out for him and try to make him feel safe here. That he let me close enough to take this picture is sort of a break-through.

We also call him Tripodius, TP, and Hiya Handsome.

Looking Out My Back Door

2010-08-29T19:24:00.000-04:00

Earlier in the spring, Sandy Witman took a picture of the marsh from our back deck and went home and painted this lovely oil from the photo. I wheedled it out of her this week and it is now hanging on the wall in the living room in such a way that you can look at the painting, then look out the door, and if the tide is in, -- same view! Now, how cool is that?! I love it.

I am lucky to have so many very talented people in my life.

Our Pretty Church

2010-08-27T22:23:00.001-04:00

There's a fellow in town photographing all the churches in Charleston. No small task in a place that calls itself "the Holy City". Go here to see his beautiful photos. I've directed the link to take you to our church first, but you can surf around and see seven or eight others that are all quite special. The collection grows and he's beginning to add churches from other places as well. I think he hopes to publish a book.

Ours is Circular Congregational Church and it was the founded by the early settlers in 1681 as the first non-Anglican Church in Charleston. Because they weren't part of the Church of England they were looked down upon and considered "dissenters". Not to be encouraged, they weren't allowed to call themselves a church – only a "Meeting" and that's how the main avenue through downtown Charleston came to be known as Meeting Street – because it was the location of the Meeting House. This building is the church's third; built in 1890.

Circular started out and continues to be a denominational mishmash. In 1775, it was said to be "called either Presbyterian, Congregational, or Independent, sometimes by one of the names, sometimes by two of them and at other times by all three."

The Scottish immigrants who wanted a "truer" Presbyterian experience split off early on and formed First Scots Presbyterian down the street in 1731.

Another group left in 1817 and went around the corner to worship as Unitarians on Archdale St. And finally, the black memebers withdrew in 1867 and founded Plymouth Congregational Church. All of these are still active congregations.

Here is one of my favorite church pictures, taken by a member of the church sometime last year. It is our recently retired pastor, Bert Keller, weaving a newly baptised child "into the life of the congregation." Even without seeing the architecture, this photo somehow gives a sense of the circle that is our worship space.

Swimming Lessons

2010-08-20T22:02:00.000-04:00

Last Summer we all just sort of floated around aimlessly. This year, Duncan is determined to teach Fiona to swim. I sort of miss the aimless floating, but Fiona does want to be able to "Do it myself!"

Across the Rockies to Banff, Lake Louise, and Glaciers!

2010-08-07T19:58:00.002-04:00

Leaving Vancouver, we traveled for two days on the Rocky Mountaineer excursion train across the most impressive Rocky Mountains to Banff National Park. None of us - even Duncan - had ever been closer to the Rockies than a fly-over, so the awesome views out the window were captivating for all of us.

Our traveling companion doesn't look very happy, but we enjoyed her company throughout the trip. It's a good picture of the rest of us and the only one we ended up with of all three of us.

We were not lucky enough to see much wildlife -- no bears or elk or moose. From the train, we saw osprey and eagles, some deer, and a big horned sheep. At one of our stops, this little guy practically posed for us. I thought he was a really fat chipmunk, but learned he is a type of squirrel.

By the end of the second day on the train, we were at the edge of the "Alpine Tundra" -- above the 7,200 ft. treeline. Many mountains reached 10,000+ feet. The color of the rivers changed from dull green to bright aquamarine, indicating they were fed by glacial ice-melt.

Before we visited glaciers, we fortified ourselves with lunch at the Fairmont Chateau at Lake Louise. It is just as elegant as the more well-known Banff Springs Hotel and had this nice view of the gardens (gardens everywhere!), the lake, and the mountains.

A two-hour drive from Lake Louise got us to the Columbia Ice Field at Jasper National Park. Mom is in front of the Athabasca Glacier where the ice is between 270 and 1000 feet thick.

This bus with monster tires actually took us out onto the glacier. They told us the ice under us was as deep as the Empire State Building is high and the riverlets of running water we could see were from melted ice that fell as snow up to 150 years ago.

It was a bit windy, but otherwise a mild day. As you can see, lots of kids out in shorts.

The next day we did a bit more touring around the Banff area. We had lunch here, at the Banff Springs Hotel, built in the late 1800s to entice the rich and famous to visit using the new transcontinental railroad. In a display of old photographs, we learned that in the late 1920s, the wealthy would arrive with "letters of credit" for $50,000 to cover their 3 - 4 month stay. One photo showed a waiter serving "Lithium bromides" to a group of smiling ladies at the swimming pool. Well, no wonder everyone was happy!

Everything inside was on such a large scale, it is impossible to depict the grandeur and elegance. I would love to go and stay a week. Let's see, if a 4 month stay cost $50K in the 1920s, a one week stay would have run just over $3,000. In today's dollars, that would be ??? What would you guess?

Of course we admired gardens here, too.

Here is a map showing our route for the trip, beginning at Seattle and ending in Calgary.

What a great time for all of us!

Canadian Rockies -- Victoria & Vancouver

2010-08-06T15:31:00.045-04:00

We are home from our big Rocky Mountain excursion -- here are a few highlights from the Victoria - Vancouver leg.

Here are Victoria's signature hanging baskets.Victoria is on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, the capital of British Columbia, and a retirement and tourist haven. I had no idea the climate was so temperate here. I thought you had to be a polar bear to live this close to Alaska. But it doesn't get too cold in the winter or too hot in the summer. Flowers thrive!

We're in one of the water taxis that scoot all over the harbor, and we're going down a "street" of houseboats. One of these floating houses was in the movie, Sleepless in Seattle.

Here is British Columbia's Parliament Building -- it is outlined in lights in the evenings, giving it a definite Disney glow.

Duncan, just being himself, as we visited a Victoria city garden. Butchart's Garden, one of the stops we (well, Mom and I) looked forward to the most, comes next.

Rose Arbor

Fuchsias -- my favorites. They make me think of tiny dancers in tutus.

Tuberous begonias. This is definitely one of the things that does well in these cooler temperatures. We saw them everywhere, huge, and in every color.

And here we have the tuberous begonias, a profusion of fuchsias and hydrangeas to boot.. Butchart Garden did not disappoint. We loved every minute we spent there.

Another day, another ferry ride to Vancouver. This was a bigger, more sophisticated city than we were expecting. Lots of modern architecture -- skyscrapers of glass and steel dominated the downtown. But it is on the water, with a marina, and a paved boardwalk stretches the length of waterfront.

I was quite taken with this fairly new public library building. It is a square glass and steel structure within a concrete structure that has curved walls and lots of arches -- reminiscent of Roman ruins.

Here it is from outside -- you can see the building within a building. We were told the design and scale of this as a public facility is controversial in Vancouver.

The roof peaks are fabric sails. This venue was built for the World Expo in 1986 and now serves as the cruise ship terminal.

This is the Olympic torch for the most recent winter games. It is only lit, we were told, for very special occasions. Apparently, they weren't told we were in town.

Tai Chi in the park on the waterfront. The red, squatting figures are an installation of public art. They made great photo props.

Here, as well as in Victoria, the harbors are busy helioports. There is steady traffic of float planes taking off and landing and for some reason, I found it relaxing to sit and watch.

Stanley Park is to Vancouver as Central Park is to New York -- a vast, multipurpose green space within the city. Here is a display of old and new totem poles carved by First Nations artists. Some of these poles tell a family's history and stories. We discussed what our family's totem pole would look like. We thought we'd have some wise owls in ours, because we have some pretty smart people in our family!

My Summer So Far. . .

2010-07-12T20:54:00.067-04:00

On our fourth anniversary in June, we went out to eat and took a walk on the docks at City Marina, looking at other people's boats.

After Adam's graduation from Wake Forest, The Parker Boys spent 10 days in France, mostly Paris. Here are Jeffrey and Adam looking a little ragged after climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower. I love these boys!

A favorite Residential College professor's wife, Helen Ashby, was the first weaver-artist (as opposed to weaver of useful things) I knew. By coincidence, in that way that makes you wonder if anything is just a coincidence, I have gotten to know the Ashby's daughter, Ann, this year. She does not weave or knit but has had her mother's yarn packed away for many years. She recently gave it to me -- and I became a wealthy woman. Cones and skeins of beautiful wools, textured cottons, silks, jute. . . It has taken quite a bit of reorganization, but I have found a home in my loom room for nearly all of it. The picture above is tag ends of multicolored mohairs.

The crypt myrtles have been really pretty this summer.

With temperatures up in the high 90s everyday, this has been one of the hottest Junes on record in Charleston. This is a popular way to cool off among natives and tourists alike for the under-8 set. This is downtown, at Waterfront Park.

By the 4th of July, Morris and Christy had been aboard their 36-foot sailboat, Coda, for six weeks. They sailed from New Bern down to Florida, went snorkeling in the Keys, and then stopped in Charleston for several days on their return trip to NC.On Friday, I took off work and Christy and I went and got massages. Ahhhhh

The temperatures miraculously dropped down into the mid 80s and we were able to act like tourists comfortably. They had done historic tours in Savannah and St. Augustine, so we continued with that theme and trouped out to Fort Moultrie on Sullivans Island.

Here you can see a bit of Coda's cabin I'll never complain about a small kitchen again. But we managed to pull together a great traditional 4th of July dinner -- hamburgers on the grill, potato salad, baked beans, watermelon and brownies – and watched fireworks all around us from the dock. We gave the Best Show Award to the ones that erupted over the Joe at the end of the RiverDogs game.

I took this picture on the 4th of July, standing beside Coda and watching the sun set behind the bridge over the Ashley River. You may recognize the round Holiday Inn on the left.

Claire McGuffey, a really special friend of Debbie's, and of our whole family, made this "nap quilt" for me and it just arrived last week. She asked me to choose colors and she knew I love her quilt that is on the back of the couch at GreenPeace. Her note said she chose this pattern to honor the year of mourning that I've just experienced. There are 12 stars – one for each month of the year, held together in a group by the black border. The red and black checked border represents equal parts of happiness and sadness in life. What a special and beautiful gift this is! And, Claire reminds me, the first person to sleep under a new quilt makes a wish. . .

This picture was taken downtown on Sunday morning. The heat is back, but we've had more rain than have some places, so the window boxes are looking pretty lush.

Well, those are the highlights of our summer so far -- I'm getting better at remembering to take the camera with me whether or not I think I need it. Coming up, a trip with Mom to Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia. We'll take an excursion train across the Canadian Rockies and end with a few days around Banff and Lake Louise. We have our passports and packing lists. We'll be leaving Raleigh, July 25.

Prayers for the People and the Fishes in the Deep Blue Sea

2010-06-08T21:27:00.002-04:00

We are now officially without a minister at Circular Church. A fellow who lives on Sullivan's Island offered this as our prayer of confession and renewal on Sunday.

I drove to church today
In my car, my beautiful Infiniti G35
With six speed manual and 265 horsepower
And balance weight front to back.
An engineer in Kyoto tuned the exhaust:
It growls; it purrs; it does what I want
It goes where I want and as fast as I want
Dare I say, I love this object?

And the oil seeps into the marshes
Of Martinbox Bayou, Christmas Camp Lake
and Mosquito Bight.
The dead pelican smells rotten and oiled.
Its mirrored black eye accuses.
The tar balls beach on Dry Tortugas
Like runaway balloons around Florida
On their way to the Charleston Gyer
To eddy inshore and pop like paint balls on Sullivans,
At my front door

Just desserts; ironic; reaping what is sown --
such obvious cliche; a sophomore's plot --
a send up of early clint eastwood spaghetti

We are thrust into this world
Organized around hydrocarbons
Six billion sucking on the same straw
Six billion driving the Baja without a spare --
We lack the imagination to envision
Another life that does not require genocide for us
to enjoy.
So shamed by our own culpability
We lack the passion to change.

Dear God, make us mindful
of the sacrifices we have required of others to live as we do
Dear God, give us the strength to forgo our privilege
Dear God, let us live in community with all our fellow
creatures, to apprehend the richness of life that is
available to us.
Amen

I think we'll be OK for another few weeks until the new Interim arrives.

The Best Place to Eat in Calabash - 2010

2010-06-01T20:55:00.001-04:00

Duncan has fond memories of going with big crowds from Elizabeth Town to Calabash for huge piles of fried seafood and hushpuppies. We have stopped there to eat several times on our annual trek to Holden Beach and he says it just ain't the same.

That old fish camp ambiance is gone for good, I'm afraid. New restaurants with brightly lighted signs now entice patrons in with dishes like shrimp and liguini with wasabi ginger sauce.

On our trip this week, we stopped for lunch and among all the restaurants there, picked out Tony's Pizza. It was a great little family owned joint -- obviously popular with the locals. Just what you go to Calabash for!

Off to the Beach!

2010-05-29T20:06:00.002-04:00

This is my newest home project. I've been looking for something to swap out with my beloved grandmother's crazy quilt over the fireplace because I'm concerned that the strong light in the room is fading it too much. So here's what I've come up with -- also from my grandmother.

This is an enlargement of a envelope she addressed to granddaddy, in 1913, before they were married. When Mom cleaned out the house on Van Dyke she needed to decide what to do with a stack of letters from grandmother that granddaddy had saved -- so I brought them home. Guess when my house is cleaned out, there they will be. Anyway, we haven't found anything terribly compelling in the letters themselves -- they are mostly chit-chat -- but the envelope, enlarged and framed, is enticing, I think.

Our young friend Fiona and her dad are gardening this summer. Tomatoes, beans, squash, melons, herbs. Here she is in her Tilley Hat.

We are off to the beach. Duncan's Aunt Emilia from Kansas City rents a house at Holden every year, and gathers as much family in as possible over two weeks. She has three children in three states and this year, a grandchild is bringing his new baby, so there will be four generations.

These are cousins Duncan would otherwise only see at funerals, so it is nice we always get invited and nice that we have always been able to go.

Stray Bits

2010-05-19T21:32:00.009-04:00

These are Fire Pinks and they were THE wildflower blooming in the mountains in April when we went for a long hike up the old US 70 roadbed up around Old Fort. What a good, long, but fairly easy walk on a paved road through such wildness it took your breath away. My amazing Mom, a week after her 82nd birthday, kept pace the entire way.

May 5 -- I saw a magnolia tree in full bloom.

I am crazy busy, always working on a list - but all projects are pleasant and interesting, so it is just old habit to complain. Church committees, fiber guild board, a weaving study group, and running back and forth to NC, with some tiny bit of gardening thrown in. Really don't have time to work, but earlier in this very place, I promised never to complain about work again. Ever. So, I won't.

The economy is getting better, the environment is getting worse.

Miners were killed in a mine accident in West Virginia, there's been big earthquakes in Indonesia and Chile, a volcano erupted in Iceland that spewed so much ash that airports in Europe were shut down for a week and periodically since, and then a BP oil rig collapsed in the Gulf of Mexico and has been gushing thousands of gallons of oil each day into the ocean for four weeks now. Think of it. Thousands of gallons a day for four weeks and no fix in sight. All of this makes me sad and worried for our planet. What to do? Envision a world without cars and air conditioners and WI-FI?

I talked to a woman here who works for NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration) -- she says she working extra hours on oil spill clean-up and has to track her hours like a lawyer because Fed. Govt. is serious about making BP pay. And Claire left to go to her beach house in Florida, planning to take an EPA class for anyone who wants to help prepare their beach for the coming oil. Last night, she wrote and said there's no oil there yet. Yet.

On a more hopeful note, Adam graduated from Wake Forest on Monday. We were in Winston to celebrate with him over the weekend. Check out the much-loved graduate and check out this awesome cake:

I haven't been able to make it to many of the most recent family celebrations so I thoroughly enjoyed being at this one. It was great to see Jeffrey again, too. He's gearing up to enter his doctorate program at Chicago so I expect he'll be pretty busy for the next few years. Chances to see him may become even fewer and further between.

And while I was in Greensboro I stopped in at the Residential College Reunion. Debbie's class entered as freshmen 40 years ago -- Murray and Fran Ardnt were the faculty couple who lived in the dorm. I came along two years later. Fran is retiring this year, so she was roasted and toasted. She is the last faculty person I had any connection to -- so I was glad I could make it. I enjoyed lunch at my favorite Greensboro restaurant; Elizabeth's Pizza, with several others who showed up from my class -- here's Pat Weathers and me, Helen Harris Cryan who's been in Greensboro all these years, Debbie Jones Kenyon, who I've recently reconnected with, and Carol Densmore who came from Boston..

And here's a nice picture of the dorm we lived in from 1973 - 1975.

It's true, time does fly. Why it's almost Bob Dylan's birthday again. You won't believe this. He'll be 69 this year!!

Happy Easter

2010-03-31T18:41:00.002-04:00

Debbie sent me this card last Easter. It still cracks me up.

Fried Green Tomatoes has been pretty quiet lately. I've been trying to keep the Fiber Guild's blog somewhat current and interesting -- it's been hard to find time to even do that.

We went to Black Mountain a couple of weeks ago to inter Debbie's ashes at the columbarium at Christmont. Sad, but also good to do that in that way sad things can be good.

A funny thing from that weekend was that we asked our neighbors Dennis and Becky to feed Eloise while we were gone. Of course, Eloise wouldn't come in the house when we were ready to leave, so Duncan called Dennis and told him she was outside, but would probably be waiting on the step when they went to feed her. After we had been home for a few days, Dennis admitted to Duncan that he came over and there was a cat on the steps, but he realized he didn't know what Eloise looked like! This first cat ran off along the creek bank and then Eloise appeared and somehow acted enough like she owned the place for Dennis to let her in. We'll have to start leaving a picture on the refrigerator. This is a nice one.

Mom came back to Charleston with us after the weekend in the mountains. We didn't do much to show her the town, but she spruced up my flower pots and ferns, cooked some wonderful meals, and had a taste of early spring before leaving yesterday in time to see early spring in Cary.

I'm hoping we'll get to Person County in late April and maybe get to see early spring there as well. There is a method to our madness.

Happy Birthday Jeffrey

2010-02-27T15:28:00.002-05:00

Today is Jeffrey's 25th birthday and that brings to mind our family's story of global warming.

The story was told over and over again of Wilson driving to the hospital on the day Jeffrey was born, twenty-five years ago, and miraculously seeing a daffodil in bloom. A daffodil in February! Surely a good omen for new life blossoming!

Now, daffodils bloom all over the place in January and February. By the middle of March, they're done with. The leaves haven't even come out and the daffodils are here and gone.

I liked it better when daffodils were part of spring and spring was a big splash of tulips and hyacinths, and redbud trees, azaleas, and dogwoods. And if there was a rare daffodil sighting in the depths of winter, it really was a harbinger of good things to come -- as it was on February 27, 1985.

Old and Out of It

2010-02-05T23:54:00.002-05:00

The Grammys were last week and remind me I am clueless about popular culture. There is a singer named Pink and a Lady GaGa that I gather you either love or hate. I heard something about Ringo Starr reading the nominees for an award and apparently Elton John is still banging around in weird glasses but otherwise, it's a whole new generation with a whole new apocalyptic, slutty look.

This "left behind" state actually began for me when I started graduate school while working full-time. I didn't have time for anything but classes and papers and work for four years. I later became aware that my mother-in-law, at the time, was very worried about a health issue and I was completely oblivious to it. I've always felt bad about that, but really, I don't think it's unreasonable to think a man will keep up with health threats to his own mother. Do I have to do everything?

So, I blinked and Rap had gone mainstream, Grunge had become fashionable, and the standby response had become "Whatever" with "Google it" a close second. And I was just done to death with television. When I left my marriage and moved to my own apartment, one of my goals was to live my life in such a way that I would never see another Will & Grace rerun again. So far, I've been successful.

Music and TV have just gotten completely away from me, and I hang by a frayed thread to movies. The good news is we've seen Julie and Julia, Invictus and Young Victoria in the theatre recently and it really doesn't bother me to wait to get them from Netflix. The bad news is they're getting ready to announce the nominees for this year's Oscars and I still haven't seen Slumdog Millionaire.

Blindside and Up in the Air are still here and Crazyheart opens this weekend. Maybe we'll go a little crazy and see all of them back to back.

Best Places to be When Disaster Strikes

2010-01-18T17:49:00.000-05:00

For the last week, everytime I've been in the car, I've listened to the radio coverage of the devastation in Haiti and usually arrived at my distination in tears. Today, I heard a story that made me smile. Yesterday, a husband a wife were found alive in the rubble of a grocery store that collapsed around them while they were shopping. They survived by eating food that was piled all around them.

What aisle do you want to be on when the earthquake strikes? Not pet food. Not baking goods. Lunch meats would work -- how far away is a bread display?

January Starts

2010-01-16T11:53:00.001-05:00

We started the year with a record-breaking cold snap -- 13 or 14 nights in a row with temperatures below freezing. People around here don't have any stamina for these bitter days and in this, I have become one of them.

Finally, yesterday Duncan and I took a walk after work and watched the sky go light pink as the sun faded and it was a great relief to be outside and think it was pleasant. And to notice that it was after work and not dark yet. The days get longer by nearly a minute every day, I heard. It's beginning to make a difference.

Claire gave me a wonderful book for my birthday -- When Wanderers Cease to Roam by Vivian Swift. It is a creative woman's journal notations and water color sketches for a year. Vivian says January is the Warrior month because it takes a warrior to soldier through these cold, dark, harsh January days. She goes on to say this must be why the Romans put January at the head of the calendar, the better to teach the most important lesson of the year, that: What it takes to get through January is what it takes to get through Life.

That may well be, but it was Duncan who saved my bacon on Sunday morning when we woke up with frozen pipes. He used a heat gun (who knew we even had a heat gun?) and thawed them out in about 10 minutes.

Tuesday a strong earthquake erupted in Port-au-Prince in Haiti. Most of the island is in rubble. That is all the news and heartbreaking.

Five Christmases in Charleston

2009-12-29T20:38:00.001-05:00

2009 -- It is hard to believe this is our 5th Christmas in Charleston. Our tradition is to take a walk on Folly Beach on Christmas day -- rain or shine. It is fun to find out if the beach is naughty or nice each year.

This year, it had been quite bad for several weeks leading up to Christmas. There were record amounts of rain throughout December. Then, there were torrents of rain earlier in the day Christmas morning. When we arrived at the beach around 2 pm, it was only misting, but it was high tide and there was hardly any beach to walk on. The sky was dramatically dark, the waves were churning and the wind was ripping. It was a short walk. We finally retreated to the road to return to the car. We met a man on holiday from Richmond Virginia. He was very nice and pleasant, but clearly needed to get out of the house and talk to someone besides his own family members.

Santa heard me and brought a new camera -- so hopefully I won't find myself out with a camera that won't cooperate as I have so often in this last year.

2008 -- This was our nicest Christmas Day on the beach so far. It was warm enough for shorts and we took full advantage. We brought walking shoes, snacks, a kite, books, and beach chairs for naps. We walked and walked -- from almost the pier, all the way to the point across from Morris Island and the lighthouse. We never did get the hang of the kite, but we came close and had fun trying. Maybe we need a easier kite?
We were hardly alone on the beach today. Lots of walkers -- a smattering of surfers and lots of dogs romping off the leash..

2007 -- Another blustery, not too nice day at the beach. Dad died in April this year and Mom spent Christmas with us in Charleston. She wisely decided not to join us for the traditional walk on the beach -- and believe me, we didn't stay long either! The binoculars were one of Duncan's Christmas presents -- he was trying to try them out, but the wind was awfully stiff.

The day after Christmas, Debbie, Wilson, Adam, Jeffrey, Laurie and Brandon all came for a few days. It's hard to see why Charleston is so popular when it's damp, cold, and gray -- but they gave us the benefit of the doubt. Laurie gave Debbie and Wilson a night at a downtown B&B which for some reason they were not able to use for more than a year. But in March of 2009, they came for their night at the Inn and then extended their stay through a house-swap with us. We went to their house in Black Mountain and they spent some days here. I love presents that last.

2006 -- We were newlyweds! The forecast was for Rain Rain Rain on Christmas Day, so we took our walk a day early this year. The beach turned out to be pretty nice on Christmas Eve.We took a long walk and as long as the wind was at our back, we did great. But on the way back, we were walking into the wind and it took about twice as long. We had been to Raleigh before Christmas and the peanuts and Thirteen Moons were Duncan's Christmas gifts from Mom and Dad.

This was the year he gave me my first digital camera -- which was wonderful because I was missing Greensboro friends so much and I found I could send a picture in an e-mail and people almost always responded right away. Duncan has proved himself to have a knack for the right gift at the right time.

2005 -- This was the year before the digital camera -- so I have no picture! Duncan had moved to Charleston in August -- and I was still living in Greensboro, so, of course we spent Christmas in Charleston. We went to the candlelight service at Circular Church on Christmas Eve and spent the night at the Ansonborough Inn downtown. -- In the morning, we took a walk downtown and then decided to go over to the beach. A tradition was born.

My memory is that it was another blustery, overcast day at the beach -- and all terribly romantic. Duncan thought it was hilarious that the young woman working the desk at the Inn was wearing flip flops on a sort of raw, December day. We were just beginning to get to know Charleston.Today, we might not take any notice of flip flops in any season or any setting.

55 and Still Kicking

2009-12-24T15:27:00.001-05:00

This is the birthday gift that greeted me when I came down the stairs yesterday morning. Nice presentation, Duncan! After a year that has pretty much kicked my ass, it's nice to have my husband give me something to kick back with next year!

And here is another special birthday gift, from Mom. I have admired and coveted and begged for this ring for oh, about 25 years now. Mom and Dad bought the stone when they went to Brazil in 1979 and Mom had a jeweler design and make the ring using the gold from her mother's and grandmother's wedding bands.

I think because I loved it from the minute I first saw it, Mom always meant to give it to me "at some point." This year has reminded us to ask "What are you waiting for??" and I love that she has made it a gift to me now.

On Sunday, Bert preached about "temples of memory" where you "harvest meaning from the seeds of experience." He said Christmas -- or a birthday or any anniversary -- is a temple of memory. Mary, when she learned she was pregnant, remembered her grandmother Hannah -- and The Magnificat -- the "My soul doth magnify the Lord" part are similar to words of Hannah. Anyway, if bread and wine can be Christ, I don't see why this ring can't connect me to the spirit of my mother and grandmothers in a sustaining way.

I wonder what my grandmothers would make of red cowboy boots?. Probably in their lives, they would shake their heads -- or scratch their heads!. But hopefully, from the vantage point they now have -- they are cheering me on..

Getting Ready for Christmas

2009-12-18T21:58:00.002-05:00

This is the early stages of Christmas at our house. It is hard to find time to compose thoughts, but generally these days of Christmas preparation are passing pleasantly.

NC is getting socked with a snow storm right now. We are drowning in rain here in the Lowcountry but it is 60 degrees and is supposed to be in the 60s for Christmas. Bodes well for our annual walk on the beach.

Tomorrow, I'm going to a holiday brunch for the fiber guild. I have agreed to be President of that group next year. Why did I say yes to that? The same project is on my loom that I started last January. Amazing how life fills up with jobs. Hmmmm.

What I'm Thankful For. . .

2009-11-23T21:15:00.011-05:00

This year's big thing is that Debbie died in April, suddenly, unexpectedly, and pretty much inexplicably. Even in that, there are a million tender mercies, circumstances that aligned in the best possible way, people who have been unbelievably kind, an entire family of relatives and friends who have found ways to help each other through. All I will say here is that I am profoundly grateful for her -- for my life as her sister, for the gifts that shone in her, and the good work she did so well in the world.

I am thankful that we now have a President who speaks in complete sentences and paragraphs. I just feel better when the person in charge has a command of the English language.

I have a job, a good job, a fun job, an interesting job. It has a decent salary, health benefits and 401(k) with employer match. Plus free parking. And I can leave it there. When I get home I can “kick off my shoes and waltz around my kitchen singing “I am a piece of work!”

One of the things you miss when you don’t “work outside the home” is – office parties. Where else can you eat brownies and artichoke dip before lunch? In my four short months of employment, I have attended two birthday celebrations and a very elaborate baby shower.

Mom and I traded cars this summer and I now enjoy cruise control and automatic locks.

Maybe the most enduring gift that came this year was when Debbie took Mom and Uncle Bill into a StoryCorps booth in Ashville and got them talking about their memories of growing up and of WWII. We now have a 1-hour CD that is a special, priceless record of family history. I’m also thankful for the afternoon the whole family gathered in Chapel Hill to listen to it for the first time, together.

As always, old and dear friends have been so important. Christy and I got a weekend away this year. I spent several days in Greensboro, staying with Julie Knight and playing mad Banana-gram. I got in an overnight visit with Pat Weathers, and a recent girls’ weekend at Lake Gaston with Lee and Kathy – board games also a fun part of that visit. Is there a theme developing here? The miracle, though, was when it finally made it through my thick skull what good friends I have right here in Charleston. Life is good!

We have especially enjoyed the good friendship that has developed over the year with Marcus and DeDee and 2 year-old Fiona. They live very close by and during the summer we got into the nice habit of meeting at the swimming pool after dinner and just floating and talking and playing with Fiona. It was so lovely for all of us and now, I think, we are just all very special to each other. And, there is nothing quite like being special to a 2 year-old.

I bit the bullet and got a real, grown-up cell phone this year and like it more than I thought I would. We’re still holding out on cable, but for entertainment are thankful for CNN.com, Netflix, and Hulu.com -- and friends.

It is Thanksgiving, and impatiens are still blooming in Charleston and in my yard.

Duncan. I’m eternally thankful for Duncan. He has been patient with and supportive of me in my unemployment, in my grief, and in my incessant travels. He often makes me laugh before breakfast and every time I leave the house he always tells me to “Be careful.” which is his code language for he loves me. Like I said, life is good.

Church at the Beach

2009-11-17T20:18:00.005-05:00

Sunday morning Duncan announced he thought he'd like to worship at Folly Beach this week and he didn't get any argument from me. The temperature was in the mid 70s, the sky was blue, and we both felt the need to just be and listen to the surf.

So we broke bread at the Lost Dog and took our beach chairs and books and stilled our minds and bodies while watching an incredibly steady stream of young and old going into the water with surfboards. I had no idea there were so many people who owned wet suits. Before it was over, we took a short walk, but mostly we just sat and read and napped and listened to waves and gulls and felt the breeze. It was a good service.

Fiona the Alligator

2009-11-10T21:37:00.003-05:00

Is she cute or what?

check out the
"crocs"

Girlfriends' Weekend #4

2009-11-04T18:44:00.012-05:00

Well, this is hardly a picture of Kathy, Lee and me, but while my camera continues to be the most erratic piece of equipment I own, I must be creative with finding illustrations for these musings. I have been very clear with Santa about the importance of a working camera.

I've known Kathy and Lee since the summer after freshman year. There were years and years when seeing each other was a rare event. Now, we are not especially good at staying in touch -- not even through e-mail, but for the last few years, we have managed a nice weekend together in a different location. This year, Kathy drove from Manassas, Lee came from Staunton and we converged at the house at Lake Gaston.

What a great, comfortable house this is. It is much the same as it has always been, but spruced up a bit (freshly painted this summer in wonderful colors!) and just well cared for.

We first knew it as Dr. & Mrs. Taylor's house. Then, we came to think of it as Uncle Vic and Doris' house -- now time has marched on and Mark and Margie have stepped up to the plate to be the ones to deal with upkeep, spider nests, and guests who leave wet towels to mildew on the bathroom floor.

Over the years I have had a few mishaps as a houseguest there. Most that remain in my memory now were run-ins with snakes. But thank goodness it was not me who flipped off the breaker for the refrigerator on my way out the door at the end of a stay some years ago. That's all I'll say about that until I am sure Mark and Margie don't walk into a flooded basement next time they go up there.

As usual Lee and Kathy and I had an easy, fun weekend. Kathy always likes to plan menus and cook interesting things. Part of her challenge, aside from Lee being vegetarian, is to make the most of some key ingredients so that our grocery list isn't too long just for one weekend.

This time it all worked out perfectly with one meal a roasted cauliflower in cream sauce over whole wheat penne pasta (way better than it sounds, due to the addition of walnuts), and another dinner of cheese ravioli with salsa and black beans and a very dense, moist cornbread. Extra nice salads with everything and generous servings of wines. All good.

When we weren't eating, we walked dogs, caught up with each other's lives, discussed Obama's first term, Lee's plan to run for county council again next year, and played board games -- when have I done that?? It was relaxing and just a lot of fun! They were good enough to listen to the StoryCorps CD Mom and Uncle Bill made earlier this year. That generated a lot of stories about their parents and grandparents and how everyone survived The Depression and what they did in The War. The premise of the StoryCorps project is absolutely true. Everyone, everyone has a story -- and hearing each other's stories is better entertainment than anything else that is offered to us.

We had such a good relaxing time, it has made me realize how backed-up I am feeling all the time these days. To violate my own "No Whining" rule for a brief moment, I have a pile of summer clothes on the chair in the bedroom that need to go in the attic, and there is a large group of winter clothes somewhere and I'm not remembering where. I have a printer that is connected but won't print, we have a major leak in the shower that we can't seem to coordinate with the plumber to see about, there's a roll of very cool paper that I ordered for origami boxes that I haven't even opened yet. Oh yeah, and I hit a stray key while paying bills on-line and they deducted $4, 516.40 from our account instead of $451.64. That took some dancing. And the cat needs to go to the vet. And the cat doesn't want to go to the vet. Is everyone's life like this?

And Debbie is still dead. It is inexplicable that this is such a huge weight that it slows everything down to a slogging through the mud pace. It cannot last forever, but it is that way for now.

Even in this state of discombobulation, I am using drive time to mentally compose my annual list of all I am thankful for. An annual weekend with friends of 30+ years definitely makes the list.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Not Eloise

2009-10-26T21:24:00.011-04:00

I'm looking forward to Halloween weekend at Lake Gaston with Kathy and Lee. This will be our 4th annual get-together. Very therapeutic for us all.

The Frustration of Not Knowing. . .

2009-10-21T18:46:00.025-04:00

165px;" src="http://c0389161.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/dyn/str_strip/298561.full.gif" border="0" alt="Pearls Before Swine" />

My co-workers are Rat. "Google It" is a quick response to almost any question that comes up. I hear it several times a day. I hate to say it, but between Google, Wikipedia, and YouTube, it really is amazing what you can learn. Never mind newspapers, will Universities become obsolete?

Best Houseguest Ever!

2009-10-10T14:22:00.019-04:00

A couple of people have told me they've been looking here for updates about Mom's visit. I haven't taken the time to write anything and I'm sorry to say, we didn't take any pictures. It was so nice having her here, I did not want to spend the time at the computer. If 2 weeks was too long of a visit for her, she was too kind to let on.

She was totally a good sport about everything. She did not complain about being left at home with Eloise every day while we went off to work. She brought a fresh eye to my attempts at flower beds and pot gardening and she fixed almost all of our evening meals. I was in heaven eating my mother's cooking again! -- and so was Duncan.

Otherwise, we went to Charlestowne Landing and Folly Beach for walks, spotted a 12' alligator going into the pond behind Duncan's office building, had friends over for a dinner of fresh-caught flounder and mullet, went to the Farmer's Market at Marion Square, watched some movies, and just generally hung out.

One long day we went on a SCIway roadtrip to Hilton Head/Bluffton. It was a whirlwind trip -- not enough to do or see even a portion of what we would have liked to -- but enough to see that it was a really pretty area and know we'd like to go back.

While I was at work one day, mom greatly improved the appearance of this little bed at the bottom of our steps -- though the picture doesn't do it justice. She moved a very unhappy knockout rose to a place where we hope it gets more sun -- and put in this sweet grass, a pot of pansies, and some catnip especially for Eloise.

Despite every kindness, Eloise was her usual rude and aloof self until the last 4 days of the the visit. Finally, she condescended to spend part of her night on Mom's bed and let Mom scratch her ears. I would not nominate Eloise to work for the visitor's bureau.

Living Off the Land

2009-09-20T21:48:00.005-04:00

September is "shrimp baiting" season -- when regular people, as opposed to just the commercial fisherman, try to fill their freezers with enough shrimp to last through the winter. The bait is a ground up fish meal mixed with clay -- pretty disgusting, but the shrimp like it and I choose not to think about it too much.

Duncan has had pretty good luck with his cast net in our tidal creek -- though you can never have enough shrimp in the freezer. One night this week, he brought the net in and found a nice flounder. Life is pretty good when you can have crab stuffed flounder with shrimp on the side and not even have to go to the grocery store.

Weekend in Savannah

2009-09-16T20:25:00.019-04:00

As a late birthday experience for Duncan, we did a quick trip to Savannah over the weekend. We've lived here all this time and have never made it down there.

To my mind, it's a lot like Charleston -- historic neighborhoods, live oaks, Spanish Moss, pralines, shrimp and oysters. We did a couple of tours and felt Charleston tour guides needed to give theirs some lessons in customer service and general pizzazz. Have we already become lowcountry snobs? My favorite thing was just walking and wandering through old neighborhoods on Sunday morning.

Very pretty tree-canopied streets.

Gardens tucked away down alleys behind gates.

And of course, the famous "squares" -- this one; "To the heroic memory of Sergeant William Jasper who though mortally wounded, rescued the colors of his regiment in the assault on the British line about this city, Oct. 1779. Time has not dimmed the glory of the Irish American soldier whose last tribute to civil liberty was his noble life."

Wow, bet he wouldn't have called George Washington a liar during a speech to a joint session of Congress.

We drove a little further to the beach at Tybee Island and liked that a lot. We thought if we were to go back, we would want to go stay at the beach for a few days and make a day trip into Savannah instead of the other way around.

Tybee has an old fashioned feel to it, which I suppose means that there are houses on the beach instead of hotels and condos -- and some of the houses are older and smaller than what, sadly, has become the norm in such a fragile environment.

We were surprised by the incongruity of parking meters at an Arby's. Had not encountered that outside of a major metropolitan area, which I think Tybee Island prides inself in not being.

On the way home, we stopped at the Old Sheldon Prince William Parish Church about half way between Savannah and Charleston just off of 17. Though only a ruin, it was still very impressive.

Built between 1745 - 1755, burned by the British in 1779 and again by "the Federal Army" in 1865. Lots of civil war era graves surrounding the church and several with birth dates in the 1600s. It was a beautiful, quiet place, deep in the trees.

All in all, a fun, interesting little get away. We should do it more often.

Labor Day 2009

2009-09-05T14:00:00.020-04:00

I can't tell you how glad I am to be ensconced in the American workforce this Labor Day.

My job with SCIway.net -- take a look if you haven't already -- is like working for the encyclopedia. Everyday I dip into random topics related to South Carolina history and/or culture. Everything from waterfalls in the Upstate, to historical churches in the Midlands, to keeping up with football results for Clemson and what they call "Carolina".

I write -- notices to advertisers, notes to anyone who contributes ideas, descriptions for the photo gallery, short newsletter articles AND I figure out how to translate nearly everything I do into computer code.

I get to ponder things like when to use an endash instead of an emdash, the proper use of semicolons, how to say something substantive in 140 characters or less, and how to load text with the words that help us in Google rankings without being too obvious or repetitious.

You have to wonder how the really crack English teachers are teaching writing these days.

For those of us who came of age in the 70s, there was The Prophet by Kahil Gibran. He had something to say about nearly everything, and about work he said:
". . . And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

And what is it to work with love?

It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching. . .

Often have I heard you say, "He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil. . ."
But I say, the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.

Work is love made visible. "

I know I am fortunate to have found work at all, but to have found work that is interesting and satisfying and offers me opportunities to learn everyday is what I will celebrate on this holiday.

Good News Bad News

2009-08-29T15:07:00.017-04:00

The bad news is that my cousin Donnie has died. He was a little older than Debbie and me and the "boy cousin" we saw the most. He grew up to be a real Carolina fan and sports nut. In many ways, neither of us ever had much in common with him, but for Mom and Dad he was a link back to Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Evelyn and precious for that alone. When he moved to Raleigh to teach, he joined Mom and Dad's church, which I always took as a nod to his esteem for them.

He has been very sick for a long time but has repeatedly rallied like the energizer bunny. But lately, he had outlived the possibility of regaining any measure of quality in his life, so I'm OK to let him go on to The Next Place.

Another cousin says so many people they know have died since Debbie, in April, that her children have asked if this is the season for it. I can see where they would ask. I was watching Ted Kennedy's funeral mass on TV today and found myself missing Walter Cronkite.

The good news is that my nephew, Jeffrey, graduated from his master's program at University of Chicago yesterday. I'm not sure exactly what he's going to do next, but I'm sure he's on his way to becoming Dr. Parker.

Work continues to be good and interesting. I love coming home across the James Island connector that swings over the downtown marina before it takes you onto Ashley River Road back into West Ashley. First I cross a vast expanse of marsh, which is bright green right now. Then the marina comes into view with huge yatchts and a mass of lesser sailboats. One day this week there was a group of what could have been Lasers clustered together in a spread-out circle; a sailing class, I imagine. One more turn of the road and you have to pay attention to traffic backing up again, but there's a nice stretch there where you get to really enjoy the view.

My Personal News of the Weird

2009-08-18T18:52:00.017-04:00

Weird little things from my daily life these days:

The pool is closed by order of the health department. What's that about?

Duncan, who never goes anywhere on his own, will be out of town for his birthday. Since he's going south of Atlanta, it only seems to make sense that he should take the car -- that leaves me with The White Rocket for the weekend. It's been a really long time since I've had to use a clutch -- especially one that's nearly 20 years old.

Speaking of which, I've found a wine called White Truck that I've decided should be our standard house wine.

Last Sunday, a family at our church had their three sons baptized. I don't know the mom at all, but she is an artist and a yoga instructor. In my typical judgmental way, I had her cast as a groovy earth mother. Then someone told me that before she had a family she was a -- deep sea diving shark hunter! Wow!

At the exact moment of Debbie's death, I was getting my hair cut. Now, I find myself very reluctant to make that appointment. My hair is not quite out of control, but getting there.

At some point during the night, everyone in my house takes a turn snoring like a drunken sailor -- including Eloise.

When I was on my origami box tear, I made a pretty little triangular box from some very good quality, but old, wallpaper found in a closet during a clean-up day at church. A friend saw it, and said she knew the daughter of the person who bought that wallpaper. She took the box to her friend, who, in turn, gave it to her mother and sure enough, the paper was recognized and the box is prized. Tonight, I met the daughter.

Her mother was an interior decorator and remembers the house and room where she used that paper. She loves the little box -- Lucy said she looks at it and says "How is the world did she make that???"

Her mother is 93. She went to design school in New York City in the late 30s and worked in the city through the 40s before moving to Charleston. Lucy recently took her back to NYC for a few days and mom thoroughly enjoyed herself.

My little blog has turned 1 year old. Happy Birthday Fried Green Tomatoes -- and Duncan -- and Eloise!

Woof! Woof!

2009-08-15T14:21:00.006-04:00

Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

Even though this picture represents one of my preferred states, for the last couple of weeks I have learned so much that I am seeing html code in my dreams.

Not only am I learning computer code, but I'm also learning a whole new business (again), and getting to know a new group of co-workers.

Plus, Duncan and I are having to work out a new routine just to cover the home-front basics. I know we look like we've been together forever, but this is brand new for us. We haven't both worked full-time since we got married.

My brain is getting lots of new wrinkles with all this change going on. That's supposed to keep you young. Good.

My new office is in a not-much-to-look-at house on James Island, but the view out the kitchen window is pretty. The dock, I believe, is at the business owner's family home and the water is the Clark Sound that wraps around the bottom of James Island and then opens out to the ocean. It's pretty.

Gainful Employment -- Hooray!

2009-07-24T11:31:00.005-04:00

Sandy Leonard Hutchinson,

grossly underemployed if employed at all

for 3 years and 2 months,
humbly announces she has a job,
starting Thursday, July 30, 2009.

A real full-time job with a decent salary, health and dental insurance, a 401(k) with employer match, paid time-off, and free parking. It is with a progressive, stable Internet business, so what I learn will increase my marketability going forward. That was pretty much my entire list of requirements for the next job.

The transition from Greensboro to Charleston has not been easy, and this employment piece has been the hardest nut to crack. I would like to think that we can all live with flexibility and mobility and take time out to help family, travel, pursue dreams that may not immediately produce income, but I'm not sure I could, in good conscious, tell another woman approaching age 50 to go for it. I am so lucky that Duncan has been able to keep us afloat and insured. These are tough times and many people have no cushion at all.

I sent out a celebratory e-mail to almost everyone I knew and while I got back congratulations and good wishes, I also got back notes telling me how hard work is right now. One friend wants to retire and can't. Another is not ready to retire but is being forced out. Someone else has had to lay people off. And more than one tells me that because of laptops, cell phones and blackberries, the boundaries between being at work and not being at work have all but disappeared and the result is stress, doctors, medication, and therapy. Aye Yi Yi. What am I jumping back into?

I just know I've been missing the things everyone else complains about -- having to get up on Monday morning, going to the office, a department- a "team", meetings, a mission statement and a strategic plan with deadlines. I'm looking forward to being involved with someone else's projects again!

Good Eatin'

2009-07-12T23:21:00.001-04:00

We had a cook-out at our pool this afternoon for the middle and senior-highs from church. They had a lot of fun crabbing with strings and chicken necks and were very successful -- so we added crabs to the menu. We just steamed them and ate them out of the shell. A little messy, but nothing better.

Today's paper had recipes for shrimp and crab dishes -- but nothing that sounded like it could beat this one from Kathy Wulf.

Hearty Crab Casserole

1 1/2 lb. crabmeat
4 shallots, chopped fine
4 tender celery stalks, chopped fine
8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
4 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
1 C. Milk
1/4 C. dry sherry
2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
2 tsp. Worcestershire
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
dash of red pepper
1 tsp. chicken bouillon granules
4 oz. grated Swiss cheese
Parmesan cheese
Dried bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 325. Place crab in well buttered 2 quart baking dish. Cook shallots, celery & mushrooms in butter. Stir in flour and add milk and sherry. Bring to a boil. Add lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, parsley and bouillon. Remove from heat and stir in Swiss cheese until melted. Pour over crab. Cover top w/ Parmesan and bread crumbs. Bake for 30 mins. until bubbly.

I'm accumulating crab meat in the freezer now to make this one. Hmmm. . . . who will be the lucky dinner guests that night?

Happy 4th of July

2009-07-04T10:00:00.002-04:00

Holidays are always good. D had Friday off and we tooled down to Seabrook Island and took a look at Camp St. Christopher as a possible place for a church youth retreat. I could just feel the summer church camp vibe emanating from those shack-y buildings and bunk beds. But what a pretty place right on the water. The sand had mica in it, so it sparkled and my feet looked like they'd been dipped in golden glitter. It was a beach you could walk for hours. I kept wanting to see what was beyond the next curve, but the sky was that washed-out blue color it gets when it's just impossibly hot so we kept it short.

My niece Laurel is getting married today at St. Simon's Island. She wanted to have the most private of ceremonies in a beautiful setting. I hope it fits the dream and I hope no one melts. I got married once on the beach in July. My memory of it is not all about how hot it was, but several years later we went back around the time of our anniversary and I almost died. What were we thinking?? Who knows, maybe global warming made its way to South Carolina between 1988 and 1994. Anyway, here's to Laurel and Brandon with best wishes.

We are going to a dinner tonight and taking potato salad. How did I get to be this middle-age woman who actually wears red, white and blue to cookouts on the 4th of July? I understand there will be young children and backyard fireworks. I'm going to hum Sousa snippets and enjoy.

Wanderings

2009-06-26T17:42:00.028-04:00

Since I wrote last I have done some South Carolina traveling north and south. We spent one afternoon tooling up 17 with Jim and Vicki with no real destination since we started too late to go to Brookgreen Garden. We stopped outside of McClellanville at Hampton Plantation just before a big thunderstorm. This is a state historical site because it is an old rice plantation and former home of several prominent lowcountry families -- Rutledges, Horrys and Pinckneys. Families of freed slaves continued to live there for several generations after emancipation. There is a huge oak tree there that was slated to be cut down, but as he was passing through, George Washington suggested they leave it, so it grows on. It hosts lots of resurrection fern that was furled out and lush the day we saw it. We got chased away by a hard and fast thunderstorm which was a daily occurance around that time.

Closer to Georgetown we took a left on a dirt toad and determined we were on the King's Highway -- the original route 61 that went between Charleston and Boston back in the day. We stopped at St. James Santee Parish -- established in 1706 at the request of the French Huguenots, it was the 2nd parish in this area for the Church of England with the first being St. Philips,in downtown Charleston. The present building was built in 1768. (Vicki was once a Charleston tour guide.) The interior is very plain with beautiful pine worn smooth to the touch. The cemetery had many very old graves -- one was for an "overseer" -- but also some rather recent ones. One from the 80s, I believe, was for a journalist in Charleston with the inscription: "Raise a toast for Jack" -- or something along those lines.

I spent a day in Florence at an engineering day camp for middle school students (don't ask) and in the following week visited another in Aiken. The group in Florence was in a chemistry lab, doing all kinds of acid/base experiments that get dramatic results -- color changes, smoke, popping noises. All 12 year olds think dry ice is pretty darn amazing. I stopped by the Farmers Market and bought some peaches before I got back on I95.

The group in Aiken was building Lego robots. Each group had a box of parts and a booklet with the assembly steps illustrated. It reminded me of putting together a bookcase, but smaller and harder. I think some of the kids were loving it and some were pretty stymied by it.

I can't believe I have lived here this long and not made it to Aiken yet. What a pretty place, once you finally get there. I think "the haves" in Aiken live the gracious southern life. The "have-nots", not so much. The land started to roll as soon as I drove into the county. I checked out the downtown area and a residential neighborhood right behind it where a lot of yard crews were sprucing things up for the weekend. I didn't really see anything "horsey" so I guess we have to go again.

Driving along, I enjoyed the changing landscape. In some places it looked so overgrown and wild I could just imagine Francis Marion himself slogging through the swamp. In other places, lantana, crype myrtle and palm trees were profuse and gave the view a more inhibited look. Houses were old and big, with wide porches and big magnolia trees in the yards. It was the the picture of southern rural summertime beauty.

We are determined to overcome our enertia and get out and see a bit more of what is within a day's drive of us. We want to go to Congaree, but it's gonna be pretty hot at the swamp these days. I think a drink on the beach at Edisto would fill the bill, today.

Mom's Garden Spot

2009-06-12T16:33:00.007-04:00

This is the view my Mom has created for herself (and for her neighbors) at Glenaire, the retirement community in Cary where she moved over a year ago. The wooded area out her back door was one of the selling points on this particular apartment -- and to get it, she probably moved sooner after Dad's death than she would have liked.

But, as things turned out, we are glad she moved when she did. It is good to have that big transition behind her and the house sold easily just before the economy completely collapsed last year. She has really transformed this little glade from underbrush completely overgrowing the azaleas and camellias that were there -- to this pretty little area where the plants have room to breathe and flowers offer spots of color as well. She has always had a green thumb.

Spoleto on the Cheap

2009-06-09T10:35:00.009-04:00

I don't have much this week.

Duncan and I did Spoleto on the cheap this year by volunteering to usher and we will definitely do that again -- as we have realized many locals do every year. You don't have much control over what you see, so your experience is a little random, but that's sort of the point of Spoleto, anyway.

We ushered for Don John -- very interesting staging, but overall, a bit dark and gritty for our tastes, and Good Cop Bad Cop, which was a lot of fun. We took tickets at the Finale at Middleton Plantation Sunday night and that turned out to be a really nice experience. People went all out with the picnic dinners -- some carted in dollies with tables, chairs, china, silver candelabras, table linens, flower arrangements and cooler after cooler of food. (We took a blanket and chicken from the Colonel.) The program included no introductions, no speeches, no thanking the sponsors, no previews of next year. Just beautiful music for more than an hour and spectacular fireworks.

Otherwise, I have a new "client" for writing services and several projects stretching into the summer. Today is Debbie and Wilson's 25th anniversary -- a well earned milestone for them. The plan was to be on a walking tour in France. I wish it were so.

"You are clear to Hamilton and Godspeed!"

2009-05-30T11:43:00.017-04:00

For some reason, my fascination has been grabbed by the Charleston to Bermuda (C2B) race that started from the Charleston Harbor yesterday. Five sailboats along with the 140' schooner, The Spirit of South Carolina, are expected to arrive in Bermuda in five or six days -- so Wednesday or Thursday.

The Spirit of South Carolina, sailing in an exhibition category, is going to participate in a tall ship event in Bermuda next week, so it is just going along for show. This is the7th run of the bi-annual race, and apparently, participation is down because of the economy -- 20 - 30 boats is what they hope for. The idea is to highlight the historical connection between the two places and boost tourism.

The racing boats are: Nova, a 56' Swan (pictured in front of the Ravenel Bridge and in the other picture, to the right of The Spirit of SC), Cadence, a 51' Able Apogee 50 (to the left of The Spirit of SC), The Spray, a 63' Little Harbor, Tohidu, a 43' Beneteau from Charleston, and Grateful Red, a 40' Tartan C&C. Pictures are from the Post & Courier.

The coarse is 777 miles. After a day on the water, the C2B website shows Nova with a nice lead.

In other news. Spoleto is in town, Jay Leno did his last Tonight Show last night, Duncan and I will be celebrating our 3rd wedding anniversary on Wednesday night and they really need a stoplight at the intersection of Henry Tecklenburg and Savage.

Happy Birthday Bob!

2009-05-23T08:47:00.007-04:00

I can remember laying on the floor in the dining room, in that miserable teenage way, listening to Rainy Day Women playing on the cabinet-style Hi-Fi, thinking that if I did not get out of that house, I would never discover my true self or. . . or anything. I was probably right.

Bob Dylan's music has carried me through almost everything since. I tip my hat to Bob on his birthday tomorrow. I may just go out and buy his newest CD to celebrate.

Driving West in 1970
Robert Bly

My dear children, do you remember the morning
When we climbed into the old Plymouth
And drove west straight toward the Pacific?

We were all the people there were.
We followed Dylan's songs all the way west.
It was Seventy; the war was over, almost;

And we were driving to the sea.
We had closed the farm, tucked in
The flap, and we were eating the honey

Of distance and the word "there."
Oh whee, we're gonna fly
Down into the easy chair. We sang that

Over and over. That's what the early
Seventies were like. We weren't afraid.
And a hole opened in the world.

We laughed at Las Vagas.
There was enough gaiety
For all of us, and ahead of us was

The ocean. Tomorrow's
The day my bride's gonna come.
And the war was over, almost.

Prairie Home Companion with Musical Guests, Polecat Creek

2009-05-15T12:02:00.028-04:00

Tickets to Prairie Home Companion were one of Duncan's Christmas presents and the show in Durham, with musical guests Polecat Creek was last Saturday night. Except for the music, it turned out to be not the greatest show I've ever heard them do -- but it was a whole lot of fun to see. As they read through their scripts, they just let pages fall to the floor -- but they cleaned up each batch before the next sketch. And I've always liked Fred Newman, the sound effects man. Homegirls, Laurelyn and Kari were just great -- relaxed, in perfect tune and by all appearances, having a good time. They did four songs and sang along on several others.

After the show, Duncan, of course, wanted to prowl around and see what he could see, hoping to see Laurelyn, so we were lurking around the back entrance when Garrison Keillor came out. I fumbled around and pulled out the picture Duncan had insisted that we bring that was made of me with GK 3 years ago when he was at Guilford -- and he signed it and graciously showed us to Laurelyn's dressing room. She wasn't there, but I wrote her a note while Duncan prowled around backstage some more and snacked on leftover peanuts and grapes in the green room. That man can sniff out free food a mile away.
Julie Knight has the contract with Guilford College to photograph campus events, so when Garrison Keillor did a show there in the spring of 2006, I went along as her "key grip" for the evening -- which means that I carried her camera bag and sometimes held the lens she wasn't using. That night, the show was a long monologue with some music -- and the music was Polecat Creek.

After the performance, Julie was getting pictures in the dressing room and there was a Polecat Creek CD laying on the ironing board. I asked him how he liked them. He said he thought they were great and hoped he could get them on the show sometime.

Shortly afterwards, I sat down with Laurelyn to plan music for our upcoming wedding and I told her this story and she loved it. She kept saying: "No, he did not! What did he say?? Tell me that again! He said he wanted us on the show?!! Tell me the whole thing again. What did you say, what did he say? Get out!" We had a lot of fun with it that day, and I guess Saturday night's show was the culmination of that little story.

On the show they played: Kiss Me Over the Garden Gate and Cardinal Pair from Or di n ary Seasons, Surry County's Burning off of Salt Sea Bound, and my all-time Polecat Creek favorite; Mama from Leaving Eden.

Mama, I know you can't stop the pain,
like no hard wish can stop the rain.
Mama, like you said, there's not much stays the same.
Better figure on another day of change,
We'll figure on another day of change. . .

Long rocking hugs of long gone yesterdays
when I thought I'd cry my life away.
Your long rocking hugs of long gone yesterdays,
Mama, they rock me through my troubles today.

Our Family's Experience with Story Corps

2009-05-14T10:42:00.008-04:00

Somehow, Debbie made a connection with someone who works for StoryCorps and one thing led to another and Debbie got an appointment on the day after Mom's 81st birthday with the project in Asheville. The plan evolved for Uncle Bill to go too, and for them to talk about whatever they wanted to.

Debbie said they got to her house in Black Mountain and said "What will we talk about?" and then they didn't stop talking for the rest of the weekend. From all accounts, it was a golden weekend with lots of time for Mom and Uncle Bill to sit on the porch, looking out over the mountains, and remember the course of their long, good lives and tell their stories – some very familiar and some new. Sometimes, same story, two versions – you know how that goes :-)

The only thing missing was Uncle Vic, the oldest of these 3 siblings. He is almost 91 and lives in Chapel Hill. Between the three of them, they have a lot of life experience and memories are in good working order -- so story telling sessions can be quite lively.

For the actual taping, Debbie interviewed Mom and Uncle Bill and guided their conversation from memories of growing up on a depression-era, Piedmont tobacco farm before electricity and running water (Uncle Bill said “Sure we had running water – you took a bucket to the spring, filled it with water and then you’d run back to the house with it!”) to their memories of their own parents, to their favorite foods and least favorite chores when they were young.

They talked about WWII where Uncle Bill ended up as a prisoner of war in Germany. My mother was a teenager at home where scant news traveled slowly and a whole rural community sweated it out with them not knowing his fate and the whole community celebrated with them when they got word of his safety and release.

Mom and Uncle Bill spoke briefly of their marriages and of their feelings of love and appreciation for each other. At the very end, you hear Debbie thank them both for talking with her and she tells them she loves them. –It's Priceless.

On Mother’s Day, Mom and Duncan and I went to Chapel Hill and gathered with the Uncles, one remaining aunt, all the cousins and their children – to listen together and receive this final gift that Debbie instigated and orchestrated. It was good to be together to share our sadness over losing her, and at the very same time to celebrate our family’s story of strength, surviving and thriving, and always at the very end, loving each other.

This picture was taken last summer at Uncle Vic's 90th Birthday party. He's on the left, then Mom and Uncle Bill. Standing behind are the cousins: Mark Bowles, Me, Jo Ann Wilson, Debbie, and Marie Schmitt.

Just a Reminder

2009-05-12T09:15:00.010-04:00

165px;" src="http://c0389161.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/dyn/str_strip/281028.full.gif" border="0" alt="Pearls Before Swine" />

Wonderful Visit from Greensboro Friends

2009-04-17T09:33:00.019-04:00

Early this week we enjoyed a short visit from Karen and her 11 year old daughter Clare, who I'm afraid I bore with stories about remembering the day she was born. She is a great little girl. We share a fascination with origami. She folded this eagle, which I had long ago given up on, in about 10 minutes.

Karen is a wonderful gardener and brought me daffodil and canna bulbs, purple cone-flower and black-eyed susan plants. This will inspire me to quit waiting on the homeowner's association and go ahead and make a bed down the side of the condo.

This was a perfect opportunity to go to Magnolia Plantation on a not-too-hot day with someone who would really enjoy the gardens. Karen had a new camera and she took tons of pictures which was good because mine was balky all day.

The azaleas and camillas were well past their peak, but there were enough left to be amazed at all the varieties scattered throughout. This garden has so many nooks and crannies -- it is maintained in a very natural style but there are nice surprises around every bend in the path. We loved coming upon a spectacular bamboo archway -- lots of iris and lilies gave the area a very Asian feel.

The Aquarium was on Clare's list of things to do, so we went there Wednesday AM before they had to head back to Greensboro.

It did me good to have quality time with Karen who has been a good friend for over 20 years. It's nice to live in a place where friends can come to visit and feel they've had a real treat.

Happy Easter!

2009-04-11T11:07:00.010-04:00

We don't have kids or grandkids to do Easter baskets for -- so we had to do one for the kids in us. We had our supper group for dinner here last night and I noticed every single grown-up person dug into the bowl of jelly beans.

Here's our one pretty azalea bush. The temps went down to near freezing again this week and I didn't cover it up. I was afraid I would wake up to a muddy brown azalea bush, but I don't think we get the coldest temperatures here on the marsh.

Another Woman Joins the Ranks of Wise Crones

2009-03-28T09:10:00.023-04:00

It is the height of spring in Charleston -- we had our first clutch of ducks hatch on the pond this week and the azaleas are in full bloom. This picture of the very picturesque Pineapple Fountain next to Waterfront Park was the picture of the week on SCIWAY . It taken in 2007 by a fellow named Alan Tobey who was visiting from California.

Last weekend I attended a "Croning Ceremony" -- the 60th birthday party for a friend who is also named Sandy. Sandy's life has taken her many places -- Her husband served in Nepal in the Peace Corps and they have returned there several times. They have traveled widely throughout Southeast Asia. Sandy was the first person I met in Charleston and she became my first Facebook "friend". She is one of those adventurous, open-hearted, extroverts who attracts interesting people around her. She has good and true friends all over the world. I am honored to be a part of her local orbit.

Apparently, a formal Croning Ceremony is common is some cultures -- a recognition of a woman's third life stage -- after the Maiden and the Mother, comes the Wise Crone. Guess I skipped the Mother part. Anyway, this was a celebration of the wisdom that comes with deep knowledge of self and of the world, the freedom and the fearlessness to love well what is true and real and the grandmother's sacred role of storyteller for her family, her community and her culture. In the picture, Sandy is being welcomed into the sisterhood of wise crones by Renate, who at age 87 was the most senior woman among us that night.

It was a wonderful celebration with women of all ages, ritual, blessings and prayers, food and wine and gifts given and received. I left with a lovely silk scarf and a henna tattoo on my ankle -- a strangely empowering embellishment. Later in the week, I was sitting on a bench downtown waiting for someone when a woman walking down the street stopped and told me she liked my tattoo. File that in the category of "Things I Never Thought Anyone Would Ever Say to Me."

Signs of Spring Everywhere

2009-03-21T09:51:00.014-04:00

This is the bluebird who has taken to frequenting our deck. I think (s)he comes to drink water from the cat's dish (dangerous!) and then looks up and sees her/his reflection in the glass door, so (s)he goes on the the attack and charges at the rival bird, slamming her/his little body into the door. (S)he does this repeatedly until (s)he has to go sit on the railing and shake her/his little head to clear the stars. It's Spring and everyone is acting a little crazy.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to You

2009-03-17T09:56:00.008-04:00

Today I have blatantly stolen a picture off of someone else's blog -- I'm sure there is blog protocol that harshly discourages this practice -- but I am pleading ignorance. It is just too good a St. Patrick's Day picture! I can't even remember the name of the person or the blog I stole it from -- but she's local, so I hope I don't get caught.

Since I was on a crime spree, I also took a picture off Joan Perry's Charleston Daily Photo blog of the alligators at the pond at Roper St. Francis I wrote about earlier. I added the picture to that earlier post about alligator sightings to make it more interesting. I need to get better about taking my camera everywhere. I enjoy Joan's photos and commentary. She gets great shots of all that Charleston has to offer and also notices the small, quirky things. She is the Director of Volunteers at Roper St. Francis. Maybe I will get to know her.

Now, I must get out of jammies and find something to wear that is appropriately green and Irish-like.

Change of Plans

2009-03-06T23:01:00.002-05:00

It's going to be a nice warm weekend. Three days ago it was 21 degrees in the AM. Sunday it's going to be 80. Christy and Morris were going to visit this weekend, but Morris' mother is critically ill and they are going to Kansas instead -- So-o-o instead, we'll go over to Vicki and Jim's Saturday evening and see their daughter who is visiting from Toronto before she leaves for a time to study in Spain -- and maybe get to the beach. Knowing people who travel but not traveling much myself seems to be an on-going theme for me.

A Missed Opportunity

2009-02-28T13:32:00.008-05:00

I saw an incredible sight yesterday but didn't have a camera so it makes for a much less effective blog post. But. . . while walking at Charlestowne Landing, I saw a huge 6 or 7 foot alligator sunning on the bank of the pond right in front of a huge, variegated and in full-bloom Camellia. The alligator was brown/grey blah colored, scaly, inert and prehistoric looking -- they are so ugly. And this Camellia was tall and wide and just full of blooms. It was truly beauty and the beast.

On the scintillating topic of weather; yesterday was beautiful; sun was out, temperature was in the 70s. Azaleas are blooming all over town along with quince, daffodils and the camellias. But today, the temps are dropping and it's supposed to get rainy and very cold again. I think it is winter's last hurrah. Signs of spring are everywhere.

Much later -- Joan Perry posted this wonderful photo of 2 alligators at the pond at Roper St. Francis. Duncan and I saw 3 on a recent warm Saturday walk. Joan is a great local photographer and does the Charleston Daily Photo blog. I always enjoy seeing what she's seeing.

Story Quilts

2009-02-21T09:56:00.021-05:00

Our presenters at the Fiber Guild's meeting today were Cookie Washington and Catherine Lamkin, 2 incredible quilters who make art quilts reflecting their experience as African-American women. They and other local AA quilters were featured in a fall issue of Charleston magazine -- and several of them were asked to make quilts for a special exhibit in Washington DC celebrating Obama's inauguration. Catherine Lamkin is a health educator with DHEC by day, and this incredible, powerful artist on the side. The quilt above is her contribution to the exhibit in Washington. Wow! Her quilts include a lot of "embellishments" -- cowrie shells, beads, postage stamps, photo transfers -- and often remember historical events -- some personal like the one celebrating her aunt getting a driver's license back before I-95 between SC and NY was completed (-- did you know the traffic light was invented by an African American?) or more pubic history like the one below, honoring Rosa Parks.

Cookie Washington is also an amazing quilter and also a doll maker. Below is a picture of her with a mermaid doll she has made for a friend but first it's going to the exhibit currently at the Avery Research Center called Mermaids and Merwomen in Black Folklore. I definitely want to get over there and see the whole exhibit.

I was very moved at the creativity and beauty that just pours forth from both of these women. It was a treat to get to see their work in such an intimate setting.

Full of love

2009-02-15T12:58:00.008-05:00

I'm a little slow on the draw for Valentine's Day. After bragging in my last post about "I'm so healthy. . . I never even get colds. . ." I came down with a big head cold Tuesday night. I am one pitiful puppy when I can't breathe.

Debbie sent a wonderful e-mail to Mom and me -- sort of on the fly, but she heard a piece on the radio about Rogers and Hammerstein's love songs and she was just remembering how much we heard all those songs from the all the Broadway musicals when we were growing up and remembered how much Daddy really liked them. He used to tell us about seeing South Pacific in New York and the actress who sang "I'm gonna wash that man right outta my hair!".

How did we hear all these songs often enough to now know them in our bones as if they were hymns. . . . Some Enchanted Evening. . . Nothing Like a Dame. . . Oh, What a Beautiful Morning. . . Getting to Know You. . . Bali Hai. . . If I Loved You. . .This Nearly Was Mine. . . If Ever I Would Leave You. . . A Wonderful Guy. . .

Debbie says ". . . I love thinking about that part of our shared lives, and I especially love that Daddy's such a lively part of thoses memories. . ." I think this is more in the spirit of Valentine's Day than anything Hallmark has to offer.

25 Random Things

2009-02-05T10:41:00.006-05:00

I am definitely a cat, not a dog, person.
I like all things organizational -- lists, calendars, boxes baskets, files, bins, cubbies, anything color-coded. You can Christmas shop for me at Office Depot.
I have always been very healthy. No broken bones, major illnesses or surgeries. I don't even get colds very often (knock on wood) but when I do, I am very pitiful.
I can fold fitted sheets into perfect rectangles. I told you it would be random things.
Sometimes, Chinese takeout is the very thing.
Daffodils are my favorite.
Oprah and I share a birthday.
I do our taxes.
I have a good family and they are all important to me, but I don't know what I would have done all these years without my friends.
I believe there are two kinds of people. Those who turn the TV on and leave it on all the time, and those who turn it on to watch something specific and turn it off when that show is over. My theory is that these people ALWAYS marry each other. Eventually, one of them turns into the other kind.
I am a Bob Dylan fan. Old Bob, new Bob. Admittedly, there was a bad stretch in the 80s.
In my mind, Rainy Sunday Afternoon=Nap.
I would like to cook up an economic theory that supports eating out all the time over grocery shopping and cooking at home. The high value of time makes it impractical to use it shredding cabbage, fishing spoons out of the garbage disposal and sorting good food/bad food in the refrigerator.
I think people should say what they mean and mean what they say. Spit it out!
I cry more when things are incredibly wonderful than when things are sad. Well, I cry at sad things too. OK, I cry easily.
I think one of the reasons women don't run the world is because they take a month off every year to decorate for Christmas.
The "Dancer Pose" continues to elude me.
On recycling collection days, I've noticed our neighbors dispose of more beer, wine and liquor bottles than we do. Significantly more.
Usually I think the book is better than the movie.
I think planning who is going to bring what to a potluck dinner is ridiculous.
I have noticed the things I worry about are not the things that happen.
One of the things I miss since I've moved to Charleston is -- gossip. I still don't know enough people well enough to get the real low-down. And if I ever did, the likelihood of running into someone else who would care is remote. Your secrets are safe with me.
I cannot believe I am not working.
Whoever designed the envelope Netflix are mailed and returned in was very clever. I'll bet she or he did origami as a child.
I love playing Scrabble, Scramble and Word Whomp.

Risky to say, but my hopes are up

2009-01-22T09:23:00.018-05:00

Watching the incredible inauguration was a lot of fun on Tuesday. I went over to my friend Vicki's house because she has a TV (ours is a big DVD player -- no cable) and we went over to her neighbors' Bob and Dorothy's because they have a really big TV. Dorothy had fixed a beautiful lunch spread and served champagne so it was quite celebratory.

It took my breath away to see all the people who were there.

I thought Obama's speech was not great, but certainly good.

I loved the performance of Simple Gifts by Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman -- the evocation of sacredness in the Quaker style.

I loved hearing Aretha Franklin give My Country Tis of Thee its due and could not help but think of how far outside the the established mainstream she was when I first knew of her -- and how much I love "Pink Cadillac".

I loved the tender, humble benediction at the end and the light touch of its closing -- ". . . in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around. . . when yellow will be mellow. . . when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen."

Amen.

Oh yeah, and I think Michelle just rocks.

Winter Days

2009-01-17T11:02:00.007-05:00

This week I started a study at MUSC that is looking at how Weight Watchers offers food choices. Essentially, I will be doing Weight Watchers for 12 weeks -- counting points and going to their meetings once a week. And at the end of it, they pay me $150 for my trouble instead of the other way around. I am obviously in their "study group" because my meal plan involves not just point values for foods but also a color code that reflects nutritional value -- so a cup of couscous has 4 points and is color coded as Green- indicating it is will be satisfying and will stave off hunger longer than say -- Chinese fried rice, which is 10 points for a cup and is color coded in purple meaning it is something I should only eat in moderation if I want to lose weight. My daily point target is 29 -- but there are 49 points a week I can play with -- increase my daily intake to 36 or just go over the 29 once or twice -- splurge on dessert or red wine. . . or not. It seems pretty doable.

We are having our winter weather now. The last two nights' low temperature has been down below 20 degrees. I brought the plants in and we've left the faucets dripping at night. This will last a few more days and then the coldest temps will be in the 40s and 50s with not much sun. This gives people a chance to get out their wool and fleece winter gear. for the most part, Ugh boots just aren't necessary in Charleston. Our two story condo is too hot upstairs and way too cold downstairs. I am grateful that the wireless connection for the computer is working again and I can work upstairs. It is pretty bitter downstairs when you are just sitting still.

I have lost one of the plastic balls that floats around in the dryer. How many places could it be?

I took two test this week to qualify for employment with the Census Bureau in a room as cold as meat locker. Because they tested a group all at once, and they have their process they will not deviate from -- it took 2 hours to take a 30 minute test. Jeez.

I have successfully loaded music onto the MP3 player I got for Christmas and I have learned to tune into radio stations so I can pick up Jeopardy on TV while I walk on the treadmill at the gym.

Duncan and I are reading Wesley the Owl The Remarkable Story of an Owl and His Girl aloud to each other at night. It is a very sweet story about a woman who adopts an injured barn owlet when it is just a few days old -- so it imprints on her rather than on a bird. It is full of "who knew?" kind of information about all kinds of critters and a very nice contemplation of the ways humans interact with animals in general. Plus, there are great pictures. Is he cute, or what?

Reading Is Fun

2009-01-10T21:22:00.008-05:00

Duncan is away tonight at a "sleep-over" with middle school students from church. He is a braver man than I. And the moon is full.

I thought I was done with origami boxes, but then I found easy directions to make this pretty star box This one is done with 12" square paper I bought at an art supply store and cut to size myself. I am going to use it as a bowl when we serve food after church tomorrow.

My year is underway with new books. I have one to read now called I Was Told There Would Be Cake -- you got to love that title. And The Last Campaign about RFKs presidential campaign is on reserve at the library. In excessive payment for origami boxes, Laurie Evans sent me a Barnes and Nobles gift card so I went over there tonight thinking I would indulge in a good biography. I ended up with something called The Big House which seems to be a family memoir told from the perspective of a summer home at Cape Cod "that watched over weddings, divorces, deaths, anniversaries, birthdays, breakdowns and love affairs for five generations. . ." I like that the author is male. I have been creating a list of books I've read for my Facebook profile and notice a preponderance of "women's books". I need to branch out. While at B&N, I found a hardback copy of Mary Pipher's Writing to Change the World on the sale table for less than $3! I have read it before, but am happy to own it. It is good examples of techniques for writing letters, op-eds, speeches -- even blogs!

Since I have always enjoyed reading so much, it seems natural to get involved in a reading program with 1st graders that I heard about at church. Everything I do these days has to be prefaced with "If I get a job, I won't be able to. . ." but until I get a job, I'm extremely flexible and ought to be of some use to someone else. And who knows. . . my next job might be right around the corner from the school and my boss might be very supportive of me continuing with this. I can't sit on my hands just so I won't have to quit something when I go to work.

This particular program appeals to me because it is1st graders -- very nonthreatening -- and it is quite structured. I will go twice a week and meet with the the same child for 45 minutes. We will read familiar things, make lists of words the child knows, write some sentences and finally read something new. There will be a reading specialist in the room if I have trouble. It seems to have more potential than waiting until children are in middle school and not reading. By then, not reading is only one problem. I went to one of two training sessions this week. I think I will actually meet the student I will be paired with right after the MLK holiday.

And when IS the inaguration, exactly?

End of One Year and the Beginning of Another

2009-01-05T12:52:00.012-05:00

For our 4th annual Christmas walk on the beach we had our nicest day yet. We wore shorts, had a picnic, flew a kite and walked for miles.

The New Year has begun with warm days, foggy mornings, and an overnight visit from Kathy's nephew, Luke who fixed my computer so that the wireless connection is back and I can move the laptop around the house again. Yea!
Luke is a serious cyclist and before he left town, he wanted to ride the Ravenel Bridge. He got this great picture of the bridge in the fog.

My resolutions are fairly standard. They have to do with weight, exercise, and thrift. There's also get a good job, learn something brand new and no whining! Let the games begin!

Christmas is Upon Us

2008-12-22T14:46:00.007-05:00

Well, Christmas is almost upon us and the weather prophets say it will be 70 degrees for our annual walk on the beach.

GreenPeace with Kathy and Lee

2008-12-13T10:17:00.013-05:00

It was a great weekend in Black Mountain and Asheville with Kathy and Lee and their dogs at GreenPeace. We've known each other since 1974 and it's still a lot of fun to be together. We tracked down Rick and Joy Icenhower who they knew at State. Rick and Joy got married in school and went back to Rick's family farm in Leiscester and had a thriving greenhouse business until just recently. We were impressed by the pristine state of their home -- built by Rick's grandfather -- their big farm and cows and pastures and fish ponds -- they have to work hard to maintain all that. Their nursury business is greatly downsized now, due to drought, major storm damage to the greenhouses accompanied by the dramatic rise in the price of oil to heat the houses. But they are being resourceful and are selling water collection devices and active in addressing the regional crisis in water supply. You've got to admire them and wish them the best. It's never has been easy to be a farmer and it's not now.

We also had Kathy's nephew Luke over for dinner a couple of times. Kathy is an excellent, creative cook and Luke was a wonderful guy -- a serious bicycler and student at UNC-A. He will be in Charleston after the New Year. I invited him to stay with us and I think he's going to take me up on it . It will be nice to see him again. Here's a picture of Kathy and Luke and a good shot of Lee and Lucy.

Thanksgiving is my favorite

2008-12-03T20:54:00.007-05:00

Before we leave Thanksgiving and dive headlong into Christmas, let me just say our Thanksgiving was wonderful this year. We visited lots of family in lots of places, and everyone was pretty much in a good place in their life. Everything was easy and relaxed and we had some wonderful meals, and did not wash dishes but once. We attended the famous Thanksgiving Breakfast at the Pilot, NC Fire Station -- and it was indeed, a great gathering. I enjoyed our somewhat circuitous route through Franklin County Thanksgiving morning. It is pretty and rural through there -- fields and woods going bare with the last remains of fall color -- covered in frost. It reminded me of Grandmother and Granddaddy's and I enjoyed seeing it.
Mom and I went shopping on Friday for my birthday and Christmas presents. For my birthday I got a beautiful, beautiful reversible jacket I can wear all year. She picked out one present for me to give to her for Christmas, as well. In the afternoon, we went to see Australia! -- a grand epic tale. On to Winston Salem -- very easy and relaxed time there. I had not been to W-S in I don't know how long and Duncan had never been to Debbie and Wilson's house. I got to see the rug from Grandmother Bowles' living room now in Debbie's living room after being in Uncle Bill's attic for 30+ years. And she has had grandmother's sewing machine cabinet refinished, too. We got to see Jeffrey and Adam, too. It was great. Now, if we can just manage for Christmas to be as warm and comfortable and nice.

What I'm Thankful For:

2008-11-21T08:59:00.025-05:00

That Mom is healthy and doing well. We've come a long way since last year at Thanksgiving when Glenaire had first contacted her about the apartment and I made her cook that all-out holiday dinner and use all the china one last time.

In these uncertain times, for having at least one job between us, health insurance, cars that are paid for and a little money in the bank

For crockpots, ATMs and Pay-at-the Pump gas stations

Gerald's Tire Service

For an incredible view out my window every morning; for the cranes and egrets, but not so much for the racoons

Gas at $1.78/gal

For the constant entertainment, if not the affection, of Eloise

For Duncan's affection which more than makes up for Eloise's lack thereof

Two good women I know beat off breast cancer this year. Yea!

For the loom, the sewing machine, origami paper and my library card

For the fixed heat vent in the bathroom so that now, when we stand at the vanity, heat blows on our feet. Ahhhhh!

For living in a place that doesn't get too cold, too often

For work, when I can get it

Duncan has said over and over that he is thankful he doesn't have to mow the yard anymore

Morning coffee

In the category of "Thankful for small favors" last week a refund check arrived from IRS for our 2006 return in the amount of $1.37

The State of My Things

2008-11-12T16:28:00.010-05:00

There was a 2nd interview a couple of weeks ago and I didn't hear anything and didn't hear anything. Last week I interviewed for a development position at a legal aide-type office. The whole thing was like a legal aid office on a TV sitcom-- creepy office, creepy man, sketchy story about potential of continued funding. And I heard that hated line: "This job doesn't have benefits, and of course we are a non-profit so, the salary's not great." OK, no thanks. So I called the Senior Center where I had 2 interviews and they had indeed, offered their job to someone else who, while I was great and had great skills, was just a little more qualified. Whatever that means.

The stock market is tanking. Unemployment is at a 14 year high. Today's paper says retail stores have more applications for part-time holiday positions than they have jobs. You have a greater chance of "getting into Harvard than you do getting a part-time job in a store this Christmas". How did this get to be my life? Well, I don't know, but it is. It is very discouraging. Everyone is telling me to keep my spirits up -- that the right job is out there for me. And you know, I guess that is true. It makes no sense to operate on any other premise. So, keep looking.

The holidays are coming. Get ready for that. I am about to finish the Annual Report for the Silver Crescent Foundation -- for which I will get paid a nice sum because I've been working on it forever. I need to work on the Fiber Guild's website. We have some very good programs planned for 2009 -- including an African-American quilter featured in the last issue of Charleston magazine who does "story quilts". We will go to NC for Thanksgiving, and then I will spend a long weekend in Black Mountain with Kathy and Lee. A small craft show in Dec. at St. Francis. Things to do, people to see. Chin up.

The Day After

2008-11-05T14:28:00.013-05:00

I worked the polls yesterday which turned out to be rather grueling duty. At our place, we had 2 precincts and a steady 2-hour line all day. I pretty much kept my head down and focused on what was right in front of me the entire 12 hours. We felt lucky that we did not have people in line when the polls closed at 7 PM so we did not have to stay late. I came home exhausted and followed a little news. I called friends who were at a raucous party hosted by die-hard Democrats in their neighborhood and was on the phone with them when they announced Pennsylvania for Obama -- but I soon went to bed. The clock radio went off this morning about 4:30 (??) and I half-asleep listened to NPR for an hour. It registered in my dreamy brain that Obama had clinched it and I went back to sleep until time to get up. Rather anti-climatic for such a big event but it's OK.

Inauguration day will be a moving because of all of the historical significance and oh yeah, because the war in Iraq will end sooner, and we might start negotiating and working with the UN and we might begin to address global warming and change the deal where the richest 1/2% of the country absorbs any economic progress we manage to make and healthcare might stop eating us alive and the Supreme Court might uphold that the Government should not accompany me when I visit my doctor and you know, stuff like that.

Since nothing happened in South Carolina yesterday that couldn't have been predicted a year ago, I have enjoyed watching what is happening in North Carolina. Beverly Perdue! Kay Hagen -- from Greensboro! At play in the Presidential race and ultimately going for Obama! These are huge changes!

The big disappointment is that Suzanne Reynolds did not win her race for Supreme Court Judge. Apparently she ran a great campaign in what should not have been a competitive race and she came very close to winning, so I'm sure great opportunities are ahead for her. But still. . .

Catch Up

2008-10-31T17:06:00.006-04:00

It was nice to have Mom and Joan visit. The first day they were here it rained by the bucket load. When Duncan took them to their hotel he realized the streets were flooding and our ponds were overflowing. Turned out to be double the record rainfall for a day's time here -- but Saturday was nice and the rest of the weekend was great. We visited Mepkin Abbey, the Tea Plantation and went to church at a sweet little Presbyterian church built in 1850 in the very quaint little village of Rockville on the Edisto River. We also ate a lot and tried to coax Eloise into being more friendly and watched great white cranes in the marsh. I hope it was a nice visit for them and that they will come back. I love having guests - and they are very easy guests to have.

What I Want

2008-10-20T08:32:00.010-04:00

She just wants to be employed
for eight hours a day. She is not
interested in a career; she wants a job
with a paycheck and free parking. She
does not want to carry a briefcase filled
with important papers to read after
dinner; she does not want to return
phone calls. When she gets home, she
wants to kick off her shoes and waltz
around her kitchen singing, "I am a piece
of work."

Beverly Rollwagen

Tomorrow, an interview. They are few and far between. Blow on the dice, light a candle, say a pray, cross your fingers and toes and surround me in light. If I don't get a job, I'm going to have to make my own Christmas presents just to have something to do and no one wants that!

East Cooper's Crafter's Guild Fall Show

2008-10-12T20:55:00.012-04:00

The Craft Show was an interesting experience, if not profitable. Most people walked right by me, obviously there for the jewelry, lighthouses painted on oyster shells and Santa Clauses made from dish towels. A lot of people stopped and looked at all the boxes, sometimes picked one up and looked inside, then looked over at me and said "This is really neat!" And then moved on. But some few people took a look, lit up and said "I have to have one!" Those were the people I liked the best.

I was definitely one of the rookies at this show. Most people came in with very elaborate display set ups with the exact right cart of move it in on. They had professional signage and their own cash registers. I felt a little bit like the kid with a lemonade stand on the sidewalk in front of the house.

I had good conversations with people who gave me ideas about ways to go about it in the future. #1 Don't pay such high entrance fees. Look for shows that cost $10 or less. #2 Configure "floors" for boxes so they serve better as gift boxes. #3 Get business cards made at dot.print.com. #4 Fewer boxes -- the most distinctive ones are the ones that sell. #5 I need bags next time. It was a rainy weekend and I needed to help people protect their purchase from dissolving before they got it home.

I think my bargain basement prices were about right.

Origami Boxes

2008-10-06T21:48:00.007-04:00

I have a booth at a craft show in Mt. Pleasant this weekend. All energy has turned to getting ready for that! Will anyone be shopping for crafts with the stock market crashing??? Put that on the worry list.

Our newly painted living room

2008-10-01T07:36:00.000-04:00

". . . I had a nice tan color in mind, but May latched on to this sample called Caribbean Pink. She said it made her feel like dancing a Spanish flamenco. I thought, 'Well, this is the tackiest color I've ever seen, and we'll have half the town talking about us, but if it can lift May's heart like that, I guess she ought to live inside it.'"

". . .Some things don't matter that much. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person's heart -- now, that matters. The whole problem with people is. . . they know what matters, but they don't choose it. You know how hard that is?. . . I love May, but it was still so hard to choose Caribbean Pink. The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters."

August Boatwright in The Secret Life of Bees

These colors lift my heart.

Before and After -- Ta Da!

2008-09-30T13:13:00.002-04:00

And Eloise has her own problems

2008-09-25T15:27:00.020-04:00

After not ever noticing many cats in this neighborhood before, suddenly this spring, we started to feel like we had a very popular teenager at our house. Lots of cats were coming by in the evening to chat up Eloise. Some she would talk to and share space with, others she would chase away. There is a fluffy orange cat that lives down the street she doesn't like and a mean black and white one. One cat she seems to tolerate is missing a front paw and walks with a decided limp. Assuming he is a stray and feeling he is at a disadvantage in the natural world, Duncan puts food out on the deck whenever this "tripod" visits. One night, there was a terrible row outside involving several of Eloise's regular visitors that left blood on the deck and little tuffs of fur floating in the air. Eloise was inside, yowling and swatting the glass door with her paw. We all rushed outside and the last thing we saw was Black and White Cat shooting around the corner and Tripod hobbling off down the creekbank.

Several days passed before Tripod appeared again. Duncan put a bowl of food out and Eloise went and sat on the back steps, appearing to stand guard so he could eat in peace. Awww. Too sweet. Cat friends. Buds.

Things sort of settled into a quiet routine with Queen Eloise as the indoor cat and Tripod, the outdoor cat. Not politically correct, but it was working. Then, one day recently Tripod showed up with a new friend. A little black and white female -- different from the black and white thug cat. She has a little swoosh across her face, so Duncan calls her Paintbrush. And apparently she and Tripod are best buds now. He brings her to eat on Eloise's deck. They eat out of the same bowl. Sometimes she licks his head while he eats. Eloise is horrified. She regrets she was ever nice and feels Tripod has taken advantage of her kindness. She cannot believe their flagrant noodling on her deck. She cannot understand why we seem to encourage them.

So her outside territory has been defiled and now workers are inside the house, making noise and doing all kinds of unexpected things so she can't find a good place to nap. She has retreated under the bed -- and resorted to stress eating. What else can she do??