Day 265/365 Road Trip

This was the scene early this morning. One of our empty rural roads that eventually (3 hours later) gave way to....

the traffic outside of Richmond, which gave way to...

spaghetti interstates with traffic running at 75-80 mph....

the famous Phillip Morris smokestack (the tobacco rep in me couldn't resist)....

flying trucks....

all found along this road.

Our final destination and at least for the next four days...

we're being spoiled.

But we still checked for bedbugs on account of there being an epidemic of the little suckers...

Tomorrow -the Holocaust Museum and every freaking war monument on the Mall. My daughter is planning the itinerary.

P.S. For those of you I said I'd be able to contact through FB - never mind -for some reason it isn't working and so you will have to hold those lovely thoughts till I'm home again.

Day 264/365 More Appalachia....

Pocahontas County, West Virginia, photo by Wyatt Green

"I remember the drive to West Virginia from the Pittsburgh airport, the impossible corkscrew of the roads and the dented iron railings that lined them. I remember how dense the leaves of August were, how dark it could look in the holler even at noon. I remember the metallic scent of land raped by industry and how it rattled your teeth. I remember bony dogs running free down the highway, clotheslines strung heavy with overalls, the sound of gravel under the tires, the cool of the air, the supple dapple of the light, and how my grandmother's voice rose and sang like a bell above it all as she sang on the drive home, the piercing white clarity of her song lending the whole worn scene a delicious flavor, a purpose.

"I wanted to go anywhere my grandmother was, because my grandmother sang songs and made men blush and fed me graham crackers with honey and showed me how to walk in heels and how to braid my hair and how to be more than I thought I was in the world.

"Grandmother, my braid is uneven!"

"A man on a flying horse wouldn't see that."

"From her, I learned how to tell when a cake is cooked, how to cock my head to appear interested in someone else even when I wasn't, how to make macrame plant holders, how to tell a joke, and, during one brash moment in a truck stop ladies' room, how to smoke gracefully.

"Exhale like you're bored. And look up. Always look up." *

A friend asked me this evening, in a moment of miscommunication, "Your grandmother is still alive?", and in that moment I was suddenly and painfully reminded that she is not. I hate those moments. And I am never prepared for how much I miss her.

*Excerpt from Beauty Before Comfort, by Allison Glock, published 2003.

Day 263/365 Welcome to the South

We live in the South. Upper South. Today the first snow of the season is falling.

It's really coming down and we're suppose to get an accumulation up to 2". Probably won't be here long. (And having lived in Minnesota, where 2" of snow is called "summer", we're snickering a little).

However, now we live in the South. Upper South. And that's the reason it's snowing like crazy and ...

Our neighbor is.....

Mowing his lawn. Cause that's what people do here, on Saturday, year 'round.

Day 262/365 Holding Hands

UK release.... November 29, 1963...




and everything changed.



November 29, 2001.....



and everything changed.

What a long strange trip.

Thank you. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Day 261/365 Secret Passages

I've always wanted one of these....

And with all the bookcases in my house, I'd need a GPS to find my way through all the secret passages.

One particular passageway exists in a convent in Italy. A convent that found some 1,100 particularily vintage volumes missing from its bookshelves a few years ago. Each time another book vanished, the police were called, however, there was no evidence of forced entry and no traces of the thief.

It was obviously someone borrowing Harry Potter's Invisibility Cloak.

Not until a hidden security camera was installed was the thief revealed to be a simple booklover, who was afraid the older antiquarian volumes were not being stored properly, much less being read.

He had studied an 8th century map of the convent and discovered a long-forgotten passageway thought to be used to spy on medieval monks. By first climbing up an exterior wall to the attic, a steep, narrow stairway could be reached. The dark stairway led to a secret chamber directly in back of a cupboard in the library where a hidden mechanism released an access panel.

Said booklover then spent leisurely hours perusing the ancient volumes by candlelight, choosing some to store in the attic and some to remove to his home.

Some of the books date back to the fifteenth century. Our booklover took excellent care of the books in his possession, even restoring some of the volumes.

His own words to the court:

"I'm afraid my burning passion overrode my conscience. It may appear selfish, but I felt the books had been abandoned. They were covered with dust and pigeon droppings and I felt no one consulted them any more."

I can so sympathize with this man. If I ever found a map with a secret passage into a library, let's just say I'd end up in the cell next to him. I am so tired of seeing books ignored while endless rows of computer terminals are installed..... but that's another post....

At any rate, the convent's lawyers asked only for community service, recognizing the extraordinary care our booklover had extended to the collection. But the court imposed a monetary fine (the whole making-an-example thing I guess).

Afterwards, the convent hired him as a teacher. He is now free to come and go in the library at anytime.

Mostly through the front door.

Day 260/365 Are you a Good Witch... or A Bad Witch?

While everyone else is Black-Fridaying....I'm enjoying my traditional Thanksgiving viewing of the Wizard of Oz. People that know me from waaaaaaayback know what a peculiar little Wizard of Oz freak I am.

Starting with the early 1960s with Danny Kaye introducing the Easter showing on CBS, I was an Oz fanatic.

Fanatic - as in - I know almost every single line of dialogue for every character. I've read every interview and every behind-the-scenes book there is (the flying witch who scrawls SURRENDER DOROTHY is actually a tiny wooden silhouette, glued to the end of a pen, and then handheld in a glass pan of soapy water, and photographed from below, as the holder wrote out those infamous words).

I've read every one of the original books (there are 14 by L. Frank Baum, 26 additional by other authors, and hundreds of twists on the Oz idea). Once I almost got my hands on a first edition complete set, but had trouble scraping up the $100 (I was a broke college student at the time.) Now that set is worth thousands.

As that same college student I was a card-carrying member of the International Wizard of Oz club and spent more than a few hours writing letters (yes,letters) arguing Oz political philosophy (and yes, there is a political philosophy behind Oz - mostly socialist).

I remember the day I reached into my post office box and pulled out an hand-written letter from Margaret Hamilton, along with an autographed 8x10 of the Wicked Witch. Still have it.

And there was also the legendary 1972 theater release of the film, and the marathon 24 hour showing at my favorite Baton Rouge movie palace....the Wizard of Oz runs 103 minutes....this means with a short intermission between each showing, an addict can easily watch 12 complete showings, or 36 on a long three day weekend. Especially with a blanket, a couple pillows and huge bags of popcorn brought from home.

Outside of this odd obsession of mine, I can easily trace the influences on my life directly to Dorothy's feet....

How to get through life? Follow the yellow brick road...

Just like other little girls, I had a short-lived dream of becoming a ballerina. Not so I could dance onstage, but so I could go to Oz and join the Lullabye League....


When I was very young, I was convinced my hometown of New Orleans was the Emerald City.

Probably because I mixed this scene up with Mardi Gras and the Krewe of Rex - it does resemble a parade float...

About the same time I was taking riding lessons. I drove the teacher crazy asking her if I could ride the horse of a different color. For some reason, she kept giving me the brown one.

Should I admit how many hours I spent clicking my heels together and muttering under my breath? I know for a fact this didn't work only because my parents were good Southern Baptists and refused to buy their 9 year old daughter red sequined shoes. Otherwise, I know it would have worked.

Even later in college, Dorothy led me down more than a few paths with mystical leanings.Complete with snow.

When I graduated and received my degree, I remembered the scarecrow and his Doctorate of Thinkology. About that same time, I had occasion to remember the Tin Woodman and his heart that could not be broken. I was never that lucky.

Oz never deserted me, even as a parent. What mom hasn't uttered that immortal line: DO NOT MAKE ME COME IN THERE AND BRING THE FLYING MONKEYS!

Of course the movie had to conform with the 1939 Hayes Motion Picture Code. And that code demanded that the Oz fantasy be re-written so that children would clearly understand it was only a dream.

But see, I read the original books. And it never was a dream.

Just pure undiluted magic.

Day 259/365 Less Than Spectacular Housekeeping

This is our house.

Okay not really. It's the Weasley's house. (If you need to ask who the Weasley's are, turn to another page while we talk amongst ourselves).

The Burrow is famous for its topsy-turvy, homey, cluttered look.


Our real house is very, very much like the Weasley's, minus the magic. And the magical housekeeping. But we have just as much clutter. Actually, here's a secret clue: I sell on ebay (and Amazon). All of you out there who sell on ebay immediately grasp this situation.

Not only do we have an old house, with tiny rooms designed for women in hoopskirts, but I also fit inventory for a business into my home. I am also a booklover. This is an exasperating combination. Particularily for the long-suffering husband.

There is no -I repeat- *no* way to know what you will run across in our home.

The literal Lamp of Knowledge...

Stuffed bookshelves with a framed charcoal of "Unfinished Gothic Arches"...

Unsorted boxes from this weekends booksale....

My book gnome....

My office isn't any better. Just momentarily better organized....with books from floor to ceiling (these are my personal collection)

So are these....

And these....

These too...

And this corner up by the ceiling (this is the paranormal and serial killer corner. It's okay, it was my college major).

At any rate, as it has been pointed out to me rather frequently lately, things could probably be tidier. And less cluttered.

In all fairness, I'd like to point out there aren't many livingrooms where you can find the Lady of Shalotte, an 1880 edition of The Christmas Carol, a stuffed black raven a la Edgar Allan Poe,the Lamp of Knowledge, and a original watercolor of the Black Mountain of Scotland.

All sitting next to Lurch's Walking Hand from the Munsters.

And that's just the stuff we're keeping.