Grey Gardens

I watched an HBO production of Grey Gardens just over a week ago.

I am still haunted by this picture.

The true story of Jackie O's aunt and first cousin had eluded me. I never heard of the 1970s documentary and knew absolutely nothing about these people. I watched the film because I have always enjoyed Drew Barrymore's work, though I have on occasion wondered about her choice of film.

She was absolutely fantastic in this role. Scarily so, actually. This was acting at its finest. She played opposite Jessica Lange and they were an incredible team.

In the 1930s, these two ladies were used to wealth and servants and the good life.

Somewhere along the line, things went terribly wrong.

The movie did not really give an indication to me as to what happened. They feel upon misfortune and lost their money because Dad left the house and didn't give Mom any allimony. Perhaps the documentary makes it clearer, I don't know.

The filth the women lived in, complete with cats and racoons, troubled me greatly. Obviously they were both mentally ill, but that for me needed to be clearer in the movie. The movie almost made it seem as if they thought that picking up their own trash was beneath them. So they'd rather live in squalor. There wasn't enough focus on the reasons to suit me, I suppose.

Which is the scary part, isn't it? That it can just happen... one minute you're living the good life and the next you're eating cat food. Sometimes there aren't any reasons and that makes it all the more terrifying.

The mother, played by Jessica Lange, was overbearing and dominating. She had her daughter under her fist, and the younger Edie never stood a chance. Mother Dearest was a rather scary woman as Lange portrayed her. Her daughter Edie had lots of sympathy from me but after a while I wanted to shake her into action. Obviously she could not take action, though.

In some discussions of young Edie I have read online, there is talk of schizophrenia, etc., and I can accept that. For both of the women.

That's because there was something deficit in the souls of these characters. Something strangely amiss.

By the 1970s the two were living alone in a falling-down ramshackled mansion. The city wanted to condemn the place. Jackie O and her sister stepped in and fixed the home back up.

And then some fellows came along and made a documentary, which from what I've read was an eye-opener that brought some modest fame to the younger Edie, at any rate.

I am always disturbed when I learn of people living in poor conditions, for whatever reason. It happens with greater frequency than most folks realize. I would hazard a guess that in every neighborhood in the US there is at least one home that has someone in similar circumstances. It might not be visible from the outside, but inside ... what a disaster.

But I believe these people are doing the best they can. It just doesn't live up to societal standards.

There are lists of homes with city health officials where people like firefighters are told they should not enter the home. I have seen them.

I think I live in fear of becoming a person like this. Someone beyond eccentric.

Anyway, I haven't been able to shake Grey Gardens from my brain. I am hoping this post will knock it loose from my skull.

Bloggers Meet Up

Ever wanted to meet the person behind this blog? Or maybe some other local blog?

There will be a local bloggers meet up on May 7 at 1 p.m. at Bellacino's in Daleville in Botetourt County.

I will be there and so will The Blue Ridge Gal. I hope that many of you who write the blogs I read regularly will be able to come, also.

We thought it would be fun to get together and meet.

Please come, buy yourself a sub or a pizza, and sit down and get to know other bloggers in real life!

Bellacino's is located not far from Exit 150 on Interstate 81. Take the north US 220 exit from the interstate and head toward Fincastle. After you get through the mess at the intersection, go through one more light - there's a Kroger on the left. Bellacino's is on a hill on the right just a little bit beyond that traffic light.

If you get to Lord Botetourt High School, you've gone too far.

Hope to see you there.

Books: Orchid Blues

Orchid Blues
By Stuart Woods
Copyright 2002
Audiobook
Read by Dick Hill & Susie Breck
7 hours


I picked this up simply because it was read by Dick Hill. Good story.

Holly is chief of police at Orchid Beach. On her wedding day her fiancee is shot and killed in a bank robbery.

Ham, Holly's father, volunteers to help her out when things start getting weird with the robbery investigation.

Holly follows a hunch and finds out an extremist group (think that Tim McVey guy who blew up the Oklahoma federal building in the early 1990s) is responsible. The FBI is already involved but Ham ends up infiltrating the group because as an ex-super-army dude he has sharp shooter skills.

The characters involved with the group are a very scary lot. They want to take over the country.

My only quibble with the book was Holly's superficial reaction to her boyfriend getting blown away. She also has been in the Army and that was supposed to explain it but I felt like that wasn't handled as well as it could have been. But once we got away from that and into Ham's infiltration of this group the book moved along.

My husband would have liked this book, I think.

Thursday Thirteen

On this day:

1. April 23, 1985. Coca-Cola released New Coke, a product that lasted only three months. At the time I was a big Coke drinker and I tried it only to reject it. New Coke was so much like a Pepsi that any true Coke lover could do nothing but reject it. I remember my relief when they brought back the old formula as Coke Classic. Is that the last time a corporation used common sense, I wonder?

2. According to Isaac Newton, April 23 is really the day Jesus died. I think it's kind of nice to have that pinned down, since Easter moves around so much.

3. This is also the day William Shakespeare died. I used to know most of Macbeth by heart but these days I do good to remember "toil and trouble" and "out out damned spot." I haven't read Shakespeare since high school and probably should rectify that at some point.

4. In 1983, I started my first day of work at a law firm in Fincastle. I had previously worked as the "parts manager" at a machinery and tools shop in Roanoke (since I had refused to go on to college, which was stupid on my part), but I lost the job because I developed mono and had to be off work for six weeks. The boss laid me off instead of firing me but also informed me that someone who was so sickly wasn't wanted back. I hated the job so it was no loss.

5. Lee Majors was born in 1939. I had no idea he was that old. He was the Six Million Dollar Man in the 1970s and I adored that show, though not as much as the spin-off, The Bionic Woman.

6. Michael Moore was also born on this day in 1954. Moore is not the person I would have chosen as spokesperson for the poor way America has been managed of late but I have to admit he's brought out some very interesting facts and pointed out problems more so than most of us.

7. In 1635 the first public school in the United States was founded, somewhere up north (Boston). So THAT's where it all started.

8. In 1988 Pink Floyd's album Dark Side of the Moon leaves the Billboard charts for the first time in more than 14 years. I don't own this album and have no idea what is on it.

9. This is the 113th day of the year. Got your Christmas shopping started yet?

10. This is Canada Book Day. I think every day should be a book day, myself. Go Books!

11. Oh wait, this is also World Book and Copyright Day according to the U.N. I can go for that.

12. On this day I will be working. How about you?

13. It's also the night Survivor comes on in the USA. This is the only reality show I watch. This season I seem to be rooting for an Alabama cattle farmer and a former pop music star.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; you can learn more about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here. This is my 94nd one.

Those Missing Days

I have missed a day here and there in posting because I've been too busy to blog.

Having said that you'd think I'd have something exciting to be blogging about, being busy and all, but no.

I have been bogged down with work. Last week I put in several 13-hour days, thanks to evening meetings (including one town council meeting that I thought would never end).

Thankfully the extra work is interesting but nothing I can actually write about for several weeks still. The nature of the work, I guess, means I feel I must keep quiet about what I've been doing until the newspaper hits the streets.

What I can tell you is that the new "convenience center" is open at the county landfill, the supervisors have a light agenda for April (they meet April 28 at 2 p.m., at the Greenfield Education Center if anyone is interested and I personally think everyone who lives here should be), people are still filing lawsuits for various and sundry things, criminals have been caught, crimes have been committed, the library construction in Eagle Rock is on-going, the kids are in school, the grass is greening, the cattle are pretty happy, the Easter bunny came and went and apparently decided to take up residence in my yard in hopes of eating my kale, and I have a dental appointment today.

By the end of next week I will be finished with my extra work and I will be able to look around and see where to go from there.

In the meantime, thanks for sticking with me and I'll try to do better with the blogging. You're great readers, even the really quiet ones!

Love Birds

Stay Out of my Garden

Jane and Fred

When I was small, I had a Disney jukebox toy.

It played popular Disney songs, including
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and Do Re Mi.

I tried to find a picture of the jukebox online but failed.

At any rate, I sang these songs at the top of my lungs, and with great gusto. I am sure I drove my parents crazy.

In the Do Re Mi song, I sang one line incorrectly.

Instead of:

Te, a drink with jam and bread

I sang it

Te, a drink with Jane and Fred.

Jane and Fred made perfect sense to me. Of course you would want to have tea with your friends, Jane and Fred. Why drink alone?

Even after someone told me I was singing it wrong, I didn't believe them. I was an adult before I realized I really was singing the line wrong.

I have no idea what that means but my last entry, the Do Re Mi dance thing on youtube, made me think about it.

Do Re Me

Click on the link for more about this video.

Easter Surprise

When I went into the Herald office last week, a basket sat on my editor's desk.

He nodded at it. "That's for you," he said.

It was not from him.

The Friends of the Park, which would be a civic group that works at the Troutville Town Park, offered up this basket of goodies as a thanks for the publicity and good press I have given the group in the past.

I was pleased and grateful because truly writing for a newspaper is generally a thankless job.

I am overcome when someone notices and appreciates the hard work that what I do often entails.

Many thanks.



*I generally don't accept gifts from people I write about as I don't think it's ethical (though verbal or written thanks and praise is always welcome). But since my editor accepted this first and passed it on, I figured it must be okay.*



*Added a little later.

Daybreak, Easter Monday

Happy Easter

25 Random Things

1. After I was born, I pushed my mother away with my little feet when I was stretching and made her cry.

2. I am the eldest of two children.

3. I try to keep my religion a private matter but sometimes my spirituality pours out anyway.

4. When I was young, I wanted to be an astronomer, an archaeologist, and a geologist. I am none of these.

5. I had an invisible friend named James and I was first kissed in the fifth grade by a boy named James. I married a James but it isn't the same person.

6. I enjoy playing the guitar but I don't do it as often as I would like anymore.

7. I like scary things so long as they aren't too gory.

8. I like 68-72 degree weather. I don't like it too cold or too hot and I do not like being in the wind at all.

9. I haven't been in an airplane since 1993, when we flew to Florida to go to Disney for four days.

10. As a small child I liked to go camping when my parents took me but now that I am adult I prefer room service.

11. I am content to be at home by myself but I am happy when my husband is home.

12. My heroes are my husband, my grandmothers, and women who overcome adversity.

13. Chocolate is my favorite food.

14. I used to be a big fan of Xena: Warrior Princess and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I would probably still be watching if the shows were on.

15. I am loyal to my friends.

16. I take things personally, even when I shouldn't, so I say "I'm sorry" too much.

17. I am a romantic realist. I see things through colored spectacles but I realize that I don't always see the truth of the matter.

18. My biggest regret has been my inability to have children.

19. Just because I love someone, it doesn't necessarily mean I like them, although in most instances I do.

20. When I was 16 years old, I hit a deer with my car. Sometimes I still have nightmares about it.

21. Gardening makes me smile. I like the feel of the soil in my hands.

22. I had surgery to remove a huge mole from my chest when I was 5 years old.

23. I miss friends I haven't seen in years sometimes.

24. I cry over happy movie endings.

25. Retirement is not on my near horizons. I think I will be working until I am 70 or older.

Books: Sue Grafton

"A" is for Alibi
"B" is for Burglar
"C" is for Corpse
"D" is for Deadbeat
By Sue Grafton
Audio books
Copyrights 1983-1987

I just finished listening to these four audio books. I somehow had missed Sue Grafton's work in my reading/listening.

Private investigator Kinsie Millhone lives in Santa Theresa in California, where she has adventures.

These audios are ably read by Judy Kaye, who does a nice job.

I enjoy the reporterish style, the play by play of what Kinsey is doing (the books are in first person, as most of these things are).

These early books could do with a re-write and a re-release if they haven't already had that happen just to update them so that the detective is using cellphones and laptops, but aside from noticing that I really liked these stories. I have checked out four more of these from the library so I guess I will be catching up on them.

The author calls this the alphabet series so I suppose there will 26 of them; she is still writing them and just released another.

Thursday Thirteen

Reasons I have a headache:

1. The tulips, the redbuds, the daffodils, the grass, the mustard in the hayfield, the hayfield...

2. The changing weather as a storm front begins to move in.

3. The hip hop that suddenly came on the radio when I was expecting to hear Adult Contemporary earlier today (my husband had changed the station on me).

4. Missing lunch because I was working.

5. Not sleeping well because my husband was a work last night.

6. Dry sinuses because the whole-house steam humidifier is not working properly.

7. Stress from deadlines.

8. An increase in my blood pressure.

9. Stress from work caused by deadlines and issues that demand my immediate attention.

10. Mold, mildew, dust mites and other invisible creepy crawlies that set off my allergies.

11. Less hair from a cut today that left my tresses seriously shorter than they once were.

12. A $989 bill from the hospital for an overnight stay in the emergency room in February.

13. Glare from the computer screen.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; you can learn more about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here. This is my 93nd one.

The Eagle Rock Library

This is the site of the new library in Eagle Rock. It will open in 2010.

Botetourt County is paying just over $1 million for the building. The cost is about $500,000 less than they had budgeted for because contractors were hungry for work and so bid low.

The facility will be about 9,000 square feet, making it the largest library in the county.

Someday there will be a basketball court and community center to the rear of the lot.

The library will sit in front of Eagle Rock Elementary School. Library officials expect a lot of school children will visit when the bell rings in the afternoon.

It will be the fourth library in the county.

Botetourt County covers 548 square miles of territory and it takes an hour to drive from Glen Wilton to the north to Blue Ridge to the south.

That's why there will be four libraries, so folks in the northern end will have some county service.

The other libraries are in Blue Ridge, Fincastle, and Buchanan.

I am vice-chairman of the Botetourt County Library Board of Trustees. I was appointed by the supervisor for the Amsterdam District to serve on this board. My term ends in 2010, at which point I cannot serve again under the Library by-laws. I'll have to sit out a term or two.

Adventures in Reporting #2

Regular readers might think I dislike hot air balloons, but truly that is not so. I only have problems with one particular balloonist, which is a different matter entirely.

Hot air balloons are quite lovely as they float in the sky. They are quite breathtaking and I love to watch them when they aren't scaring my cows.

In November 1986, I went up in one.

Several weeks earlier I had witnessed what, from the ground, looked liked an aircraft harrassing a hot air balloonist. I don't recall if I was at home watching this or somewhere else; at any event, it worried me enough that I wrote a column about it for The Herald. (Yes, I have been writing for them that long.) At that time I had a lifestyle column similiar to the one I have now, only it was under a different name.

Anyway, after I wrote the column expressing my concern for the balloonist, I received a note in the mail (regular mail back then, no email) from Natalie Haley. She was the balloonist I had seen. She offered me a free ride.

I couldn't turn that down, so with camera in hand and husband in tow, I met up with her one Sunday morning at what used to be Howard Johnsons (now it's a Mexican restaurant and a Super 8).

After determining wind direction with a helium balloon, Mrs. Haley decided we would set off from behind Lee's Market (now Bellacino's) in Dr. Fralin's field. She said the wind would take us along US 220 toward Fincastle.

Her balloon was called Skylark, and it was a spectacle of color whether it was on the ground or in the sky.

My husband refused to fly with me. He watched from the ground as I rose up into the clouds.

I wrote about that adventure in a first person article published on December 3, 1986, and for which I won one of the first of my several Virginia Press Association awards.

Here are some excerpts:

"The ground crew released its grip on the massive bulge of air, and suddenly we were going up! I watched my husband grow smaller and smaller as the balloon sailed high into the sky."

"Daleville and Amsterdam look like tiny towns in an HO scale train set from 800 feet in the air. The dogs and cattle sound as if they are right in the air with you. The curve of the earth looks sharp enough to cut you, and suddenly you are one with the clouds."

"The orchards looked small and naked from our vantage point. If the highway hadn't been below us, I would have been lost. The familiar was unrecognizable from our position within the clouds."

"You can't feel the wind, because you are the wind," Natalie Haley said. That aspect is part of the romanticism of the big balloons. There is nothing between the earth and you except a basket, and it was insignificant enough not to matter. Floating is not descriptive enough to describe the feeling you get when you're up there alone."

"It's so quiet and peaceful, it's easy to forget the world exists below."

We landed in a field near Trinity. After putting the balloon away, Mrs. Haley poured champaigne over my head for my maiden voyage, and presented me with a certificate as she recited what she said was the balloonist's prayer:

May the winds welcome you with softness.
May the sun bless you with his warm hands.
May you fly so high and so well that God joins you in laughter.
And may he set you back again into the loving arms of mother earth.

My House

This is my house as seen from the other side of the farm.

The house is difficult to see from the road; you have to be looking for it to find it.

The vinyl siding is brown. Originally the house had cedar siding on it, but that proved difficult to maintain. So we covered it with vinyl.

My husband built this house in 1987. When I say "he built it" I mean just that. He measured and hammered. He spent an entire summer putting our home together, him and his friends.

It is a packaged home or "kit house" made by Timber Truss. I think it is this plan, only we reversed the blueprints and turned the garage doors to the rear. Because we do not have a basement we turned the garage into a single car garage so we would have some place to put the furnace.

We don't have a basement because we built on a rock pile and didn't have the money then to blast it out. Sometimes I am sorry we don't have a basement because it would be a good place to dump stuff.

The house is not very big but for the two of us it is fine. We had plans to add on had we had children, but since that never happened we have never made changes.

We moved in in November, in time for the holidays. We've been here ever since and have no plans to go anywhere else.

This is home.

Help! My boxwoods are dying

About five years ago, I noticed a dead branch on one of my boxwoods as we came out of winter.



I cut the dead branch, thinking perhaps the snow had weighed it down and broken it.



The dying continued. And so it continues to this day, a branch at a time.

These are current photos, taken Monday. The first boxwood has long since died and been removed.



I had five boxwoods and now I have four. The one on the end is half dead.

Grandma Firebaugh gave us these boxwoods 20 years ago. I planted them and they thrived. Then the branches began dying one by one.

She has passed away. She was the one person who might have known what was wrong with my plants. She was a great gardener.

The only thing I could come up with was mites. I have sprayed and sprayed and put down all sorts of pesticides for mites.

It hasn't helped.



I found some information that indicates it could something called English Boxwood Decline that affects boxwoods after they are 20 years old. It says there is no cure, though.

It also says it can be caused by drought, which actually is when this started appearing, after the drought earlier this century.

The death has spread to yet another boxwood and I am loathe to give up on my lovely shrubs. Does anyone have any ideas?

Thursday Thirteen: When the Internet is Down

Things to do when the Internet is down:

1. Call the service provider several times to find out when it will be fixed.

2. Work without researching things on the Internet.

3. Listen to the radio instead of Pandora.com.

4. Watch TV instead of hulu.com.

5. Read a book. Or two.

6. Go shopping.

7. Wonder how many emails you're missing, and if any of them are important.

8. Ponder the speed at which your garden grows at Farm Town on Facebook and wonder if your virtual potato field will rot before you get back to check on it.

9. Clean the house, including drawers and closets.

10. Call the friends you usually email and have a real conversation over the telephone.

11. Have a little unexpected interlude with the husband in the middle of the day.

12. Exercise more than normal.

13. Go to the library to use the free wi-fi with the laptop!


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; you can learn more about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here. This is my 92nd one.