Diane over at Blue Ridge Gal posted about a change Google is making that could impact my blog, and maybe yours. I strongly suggest you read it if you're a blogger interested in traffic and the social networking impact of your blog. Di is really up on the blog stuff and her thoughts and opinions on these things seem to be spot on.
The idea, I gather, is to urge users to head over to Google+ and things will integrate that way.
I personally don't care for Google+, and I think it ultimately will fail like some other Google products. For one thing, it doesn't have a catchy name. Google+ is not even as good a name as My Space or LinkedIn. It's more like a product placeholder name until somebody comes up with something better to call it. I also do not like the interface. It also doesn't have a good feel to it; it does not seem friendly. I am not quite sure how to explain that.
The Roanoke Times this morning offers an article about a junior at Hidden Valley High School who is unplugged - she doesn't have a Facebook account or a cell phone. She knows how to use a spinning wheel. She sews, creates, and is otherwise engaged in the world.
Good for her. Because I am starting to think too much technology is not a good thing. And the changes are coming fast and furious.
Way back in 2002 and 2003, when I first started working in earnest on my master's degree (yes, it is taking me a long time), cellphones were not as hooked into the Internet as they are now. So when we took breaks in class, my classmates talked to one another. Some went outside to smoke, others went to the restroom, but always at least a few of us stood around and discussed the world.
Fast forward not even a decade and I find it is completely different. I was struck by this last spring when I returned to Hollins University to try to complete this degree.
During breaks, people do not connect. They get on their cellphone. They check Facebook. They text home and make sure the kids are doing their homework. As they walk out to their cars, they text, they talk on their phone. They rarely talk to each other. Not even in the bathrooms!
The people from class that I now call "friends" . . . found me on Facebook. We're Facebook friends. But are we "Let's go out and grab a cup of coffee after class" friends?
To be sure, those classmates with whom I am friends on Facebook will probably be my friends longer than some. Most likely, they will be in my line of sight on the computer until the day I hop off the technology bandwagon. Or they "unfriend" me, whichever comes first.
I have made friends from this blog, including Diane and a few others, and I am very glad of that. But do I have the time to Google+, Facebook, blog, be LinkedIn, and still fix dinner?
Don't get me wrong - I'm not giving up my blog. I enjoy this and will keep on. But if the hosting companies, which, I admit, owe me nothing because they host it for free, continually make changes that force me to use up my precious time to learn stuff I don't care to learn, I have to wonder what I am gaining.
The computer eats my time as it is. I sit down to write and the next thing I know I've lost an hour reading email or news stories. Technology is no longer my friend.
Maybe we should all take a lesson from the girl in The Roanoke Times article, and step back from the gadgets and re-engage the world and one another.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Steamrolled!
Friday night, my husband and I took my mother-in-law to the Roanoke Civic Center to see Mannheim Steamroller. Her birthday is coming up and this was an early birthday present.
I am not sure, but I think it might have been her first-ever concert. My husband seemed to think this was the case.
The show was in the Performing Arts Theater, which is a huge auditorium. We had seats near the rear because we didn't decide to go until recently, but they were still fine seats.
Mannheim Steamroller has been around a very long time. The group was started by Chip Davis, who has split the group into separate troupes for touring purposes. We saw the East Coast crew.
Davis began producing classical music albums in the 1970s, but the group found its greatest success in 1984 after it began recording Christmas music. A coworker gave me a tape of their music in 1986 and I have been a fan ever since.
The troupe we saw last week had some very fine musicians. I was particularly taken with the flute player and the violinist. Both were women and they were excellent.
I am not sure, but I think it might have been her first-ever concert. My husband seemed to think this was the case.
The show was in the Performing Arts Theater, which is a huge auditorium. We had seats near the rear because we didn't decide to go until recently, but they were still fine seats.
Mannheim Steamroller has been around a very long time. The group was started by Chip Davis, who has split the group into separate troupes for touring purposes. We saw the East Coast crew.
Davis began producing classical music albums in the 1970s, but the group found its greatest success in 1984 after it began recording Christmas music. A coworker gave me a tape of their music in 1986 and I have been a fan ever since.
The troupe we saw last week had some very fine musicians. I was particularly taken with the flute player and the violinist. Both were women and they were excellent.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Books: The Little Friend
The Little Friend
By Donna Tartt
Copyright 2003
Abridged Audiobook 6 hours
Read by the author
Sometimes I wonder why I pick up particular audiobooks. This one read like a mild mystery on the blurb. In a way it was, but then again, it wasn't. This was a book that in many ways was quite an indictment on today's society.
Harriet is 12 years old. When she was four months old, her brother, Robin, died in a mysterious incident in the family yard. He was found hung from a rope. However, no one was ever convicted of a crime.
The death sent her mother spiraling into a depression. Her father took a job in Nashville and left their Mississippi home, leaving her mother and nursemaid Ida to raise Harriet and her older sister Allison.
Since Harriet is raised virtually unsupervised, at 12 she is willful and, frankly, mean. I had a hard time feeling sorry for the character, though I think I was supposed to.
She decides she will find out who killed her brother. She thinks that if she solves this mystery, her life will be better.
Her sleuthing, though, leaves a lot to be desired. She determines that Danny Ratliff, now grown, killed her brother. She bases her knowledge solely on Ida's word and on the fact that Ratliff grew up and still lives on the wrong side of the tracks. He is, in local parlance, white trash. So of course he must have killed her brother.
This insane logic drove me crazy and it made it hard for me to enjoy the story. Not only was Harriet sure that Ratliff was the murderer, she decided that she had to kill him in order to obtain retribution. This kind of thinking is so out of line with my own value system that I had a very hard time with it. I am not much on an eye-for-an-eye at any time, but to want to kill someone just because you're sure of something, whether it's logically true or not, is just plain wrong.
Her determination leads her to peril and misadventure, none of it particularly pleasant. She even nearly kills Ratliff's grandmother, but shows little remorse over this mistake.
This book offers a lot of things to think about. For example, do you believe in vengeance? If so, why? And what happens if the wrong person pays for a crime he didn't commit?
The book is full of class issues, too. Harriet's family is old money, genteel folk who are no longer wealthy but still have social status. The Ratliff's are painted as drug-dealing ne'er-do-wells, but the author, thankfully, switches point of view to show how much they care for their grandmother and gives them a little humanity.
I just wish I had felt a little more love for Harriet. I found her impossible to like.
By Donna Tartt
Copyright 2003
Abridged Audiobook 6 hours
Read by the author
Sometimes I wonder why I pick up particular audiobooks. This one read like a mild mystery on the blurb. In a way it was, but then again, it wasn't. This was a book that in many ways was quite an indictment on today's society.
Harriet is 12 years old. When she was four months old, her brother, Robin, died in a mysterious incident in the family yard. He was found hung from a rope. However, no one was ever convicted of a crime.
The death sent her mother spiraling into a depression. Her father took a job in Nashville and left their Mississippi home, leaving her mother and nursemaid Ida to raise Harriet and her older sister Allison.
Since Harriet is raised virtually unsupervised, at 12 she is willful and, frankly, mean. I had a hard time feeling sorry for the character, though I think I was supposed to.
She decides she will find out who killed her brother. She thinks that if she solves this mystery, her life will be better.
Her sleuthing, though, leaves a lot to be desired. She determines that Danny Ratliff, now grown, killed her brother. She bases her knowledge solely on Ida's word and on the fact that Ratliff grew up and still lives on the wrong side of the tracks. He is, in local parlance, white trash. So of course he must have killed her brother.
This insane logic drove me crazy and it made it hard for me to enjoy the story. Not only was Harriet sure that Ratliff was the murderer, she decided that she had to kill him in order to obtain retribution. This kind of thinking is so out of line with my own value system that I had a very hard time with it. I am not much on an eye-for-an-eye at any time, but to want to kill someone just because you're sure of something, whether it's logically true or not, is just plain wrong.
Her determination leads her to peril and misadventure, none of it particularly pleasant. She even nearly kills Ratliff's grandmother, but shows little remorse over this mistake.
This book offers a lot of things to think about. For example, do you believe in vengeance? If so, why? And what happens if the wrong person pays for a crime he didn't commit?
The book is full of class issues, too. Harriet's family is old money, genteel folk who are no longer wealthy but still have social status. The Ratliff's are painted as drug-dealing ne'er-do-wells, but the author, thankfully, switches point of view to show how much they care for their grandmother and gives them a little humanity.
I just wish I had felt a little more love for Harriet. I found her impossible to like.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
I Smell Covington
The other day, I stepped outside to enjoy the still, crisp morning air.
A foul, fetid odor greeted my nose. The smell was something like sewage brewing in a coffee maker and I hurried back in the house before the polluted air could trigger an asthma attack. I recognized the stench instantly. I could hear my mother's voice echoing in my brain. "I smell Covington," she was saying. I remember her saying it many times when I was a child.
It has been a while since I smelled Covington, but when I was growing up in the foothills of Caldwell Mountain, I found the odor wafting from the paper mill in that small, rural city to be quite strong even though it was an hour's drive away from my childhood home. Many mornings you could hardly stand to walk outside without retching because the air currents had brought the scent of the industry straight into our valleys and left it there.
Since I moved away (granted, just six miles but apparently enough to make a difference), I have rarely smelled the paper mill, which is now owned by MeadWestVaco. The papermill has been there since 1900. According to Wikipedia, in 2002, MeadWestVaco as a whole (it's a big company with mills and offices and plants all over the United States) was listed as the 57th largest polluter in the US.
I thought perhaps I no longer smelled Covington because better environmental controls on the paper mill in the last 20 years had kept the place from gagging people for a hundred-square-mile area. And this might be so, since, according to Wikipedia, the company has taken steps to ease its environmental impact. The EPA lists pages and pages about the plant on its website if you do a search for it.
The papermill employs about 1,500 people in the Covington area. Covington is in Alleghany County, which was once part of Botetourt County and now lies next door, but further back in the mountains. It is an interesting place, as I have been there a few times.
Covington began as a town around 1817 or so. It became a small city in 1952.
Just so you know, not smelling Covington is just one of the reasons why I am glad there is an EPA.
A foul, fetid odor greeted my nose. The smell was something like sewage brewing in a coffee maker and I hurried back in the house before the polluted air could trigger an asthma attack. I recognized the stench instantly. I could hear my mother's voice echoing in my brain. "I smell Covington," she was saying. I remember her saying it many times when I was a child.
It has been a while since I smelled Covington, but when I was growing up in the foothills of Caldwell Mountain, I found the odor wafting from the paper mill in that small, rural city to be quite strong even though it was an hour's drive away from my childhood home. Many mornings you could hardly stand to walk outside without retching because the air currents had brought the scent of the industry straight into our valleys and left it there.
Since I moved away (granted, just six miles but apparently enough to make a difference), I have rarely smelled the paper mill, which is now owned by MeadWestVaco. The papermill has been there since 1900. According to Wikipedia, in 2002, MeadWestVaco as a whole (it's a big company with mills and offices and plants all over the United States) was listed as the 57th largest polluter in the US.
I thought perhaps I no longer smelled Covington because better environmental controls on the paper mill in the last 20 years had kept the place from gagging people for a hundred-square-mile area. And this might be so, since, according to Wikipedia, the company has taken steps to ease its environmental impact. The EPA lists pages and pages about the plant on its website if you do a search for it.
The papermill employs about 1,500 people in the Covington area. Covington is in Alleghany County, which was once part of Botetourt County and now lies next door, but further back in the mountains. It is an interesting place, as I have been there a few times.
Covington began as a town around 1817 or so. It became a small city in 1952.
Just so you know, not smelling Covington is just one of the reasons why I am glad there is an EPA.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Black Friday Morning, Part II
After I finished my errands at OfficeMax on Black Friday morning, my initial thought was to head back home, but Kmart was right around the corner. Their Black Friday ads had listed some Chicago Cutlery that I thought would make a nice present plus I had seen something I thought I might get my husband. My foot seemed to be holding up well and wasn't hurting so I drove over there.
Kmart is located in what used to be CrossRoads Mall. CrossRoads Mall was one of the area's first shopping centers. I can remember when it was wonderful. This time of year, they put up a display of flying reindeer, complete with Rudolph, and the deer were actually real stuffed deer that someone hung from the ceiling. The mall had a fountain where people threw pennies. The stores were nice, bright, and full of new items. However, the mall began losing its anchors when Valley View (which is but a mile down the road) was built, and it began turning into a weird place.
The Kmart store was not too bad when it opened but it has gone downhill to the point where I very seldom go in there. I personally think it should close.
After my Black Friday morning, it doesn't matter to me what they do with it. I will never go back in that store.
The parking lot was rather full and I drove around twice before I found a space that was close enough for me to handle with my broken foot. I leaned heavily on my cane and went in the store. There was not a single shopping cart in sight.
I hobbled back outside and walked about 50 feet to get a cart. The parking lot had a number of men wandering around. They were obviously homeless. One was picking up cigarettes and sticking them in his mouth. The other was sitting on a bench muttering to himself. Another stood with his arm wrapped around a tree in the parking lot median.
I hurried back inside as quickly as I could.
The store was quite full. Apparently a lot of people had seen the advertisement and liked what they saw. The Chicago Cutlery was sold out, which did not surprise me. A few other items I'd made note of as being good deals were also gone. But it was a little after 9 a.m., after all, so it was to be expected.
The item I wanted for my husband was located at the rear of the store, and there were three left. I picked one up and put it in the shopping cart. It had a security tag wrapped all around it.
Then I wandered around a little more, picking up a half-dozen two-liter bottles of Dr. Pepper that were on sale and a DVD.
The checkout line was very long. In general, I feel sorry for retail people at this time of the year. They have to work odd hours and put up with people like me. I know the public can be rude and horrid. I spent a year working retail. It was a good experience but not one I am keen to repeat.
Anyway, I smiled at the checkout clerk when she caught my eye while I was in line, and she looked tired but smiled back. I thought it bode well.
I was wrong. I got up there and I gave her one of the Dr. Peppers. "Please charge me for six of these," I said, pointing to the remaining items in my cart. I handed her the other items.
"Where's your KMart loyalty card?" she asked.
"I don't have one," I said.
"You need one," she said.
"What is the point of it?" I asked.
"You get some money back," she said. "All I need is your phone number. It's easy."
She brought up a screen on her register. "What's your name?" she asked.
I stood there thinking, she said all she needed was my phone number, but I gave her my name.
"What's your email?" she asked.
"I don't have email," I said. I never give out my email. I receive enough junk already.
"What's your zip code?" I gave it to her, but I was still thinking, that's not my phone number.
"What's your phone number?" she finally asked, and I told her.
"What's your email?"
"I don't have email," I repeated.
"If you don't have email, you can't have the loyalty card," she said.
"Then I guess I don't get a loyalty card," I replied. "Can I still buy this stuff?"
She rang me up then, but after I paid, she rudely slammed the item I was purchasing for my husband into the cart. "Could you please remove the security tag," I asked her.
"I can't remove it. You'll have to go to customer service."
This angered me off, I confess. Customer service had a line a dozen people deep and I'd just stood in line for a long time to pay for this stuff. By this time my foot was starting to ache and I needed a drink of water.
I hobbled over to customer service. One woman was waiting on people while another was standing behind the counter doing nothing obvious. I called to her. "Ma'am, they said I needed to come over here to get this removed," I said, holding up the item and pointing to the security tag.
"I can't remove it," she said. "I don't have the key. You need to find Adele."
"Excuse me? How am I supposed to do that?"
"You need to find Adele," she said again.
All of the people in customer service were looking at me by this time. I had my cane in my cart, and I lifted it up. "Am I supposed to walk all over the store looking for this person?" I asked. "I have no idea who Adele is."
"We'll call her up here," the woman huffed.
I waited. And waited. One woman who had heard me talking to the customer service person suggested that her husband could cut the security tag off with his pocket knife. Another said I should just go on out of the store with it; I had paid for the item and it was mine.
I asked the customer service person, who was still standing around doing nothing obvious (I guess she was a manager), what would happen if I walked on out of the store with the item.
"I'll have you arrested," she said.
The woman behind me gasped when the customer service person said this. As you might imagine, the idea of being arrested for shoplifting when I had already paid for the item was beyond the pale. I was perfectly livid by this time. The line was continuing to move. I was about two people away now from the customer service woman who was actually processing people.
I caught the other woman's eye. "If I get to the front of this line, " I said, "You're going to refund my money for every item in this cart."
Just then someone with the key to the security tag miraculously appeared. She did not ask for my receipt; she just unlocked the security tag.
I got out of that store as quickly as I could.
I will NEVER go back to the Roanoke Crossroads KMart store again.
Kmart is located in what used to be CrossRoads Mall. CrossRoads Mall was one of the area's first shopping centers. I can remember when it was wonderful. This time of year, they put up a display of flying reindeer, complete with Rudolph, and the deer were actually real stuffed deer that someone hung from the ceiling. The mall had a fountain where people threw pennies. The stores were nice, bright, and full of new items. However, the mall began losing its anchors when Valley View (which is but a mile down the road) was built, and it began turning into a weird place.
The Kmart store was not too bad when it opened but it has gone downhill to the point where I very seldom go in there. I personally think it should close.
After my Black Friday morning, it doesn't matter to me what they do with it. I will never go back in that store.
The parking lot was rather full and I drove around twice before I found a space that was close enough for me to handle with my broken foot. I leaned heavily on my cane and went in the store. There was not a single shopping cart in sight.
I hobbled back outside and walked about 50 feet to get a cart. The parking lot had a number of men wandering around. They were obviously homeless. One was picking up cigarettes and sticking them in his mouth. The other was sitting on a bench muttering to himself. Another stood with his arm wrapped around a tree in the parking lot median.
I hurried back inside as quickly as I could.
The store was quite full. Apparently a lot of people had seen the advertisement and liked what they saw. The Chicago Cutlery was sold out, which did not surprise me. A few other items I'd made note of as being good deals were also gone. But it was a little after 9 a.m., after all, so it was to be expected.
The item I wanted for my husband was located at the rear of the store, and there were three left. I picked one up and put it in the shopping cart. It had a security tag wrapped all around it.
Then I wandered around a little more, picking up a half-dozen two-liter bottles of Dr. Pepper that were on sale and a DVD.
The checkout line was very long. In general, I feel sorry for retail people at this time of the year. They have to work odd hours and put up with people like me. I know the public can be rude and horrid. I spent a year working retail. It was a good experience but not one I am keen to repeat.
Anyway, I smiled at the checkout clerk when she caught my eye while I was in line, and she looked tired but smiled back. I thought it bode well.
I was wrong. I got up there and I gave her one of the Dr. Peppers. "Please charge me for six of these," I said, pointing to the remaining items in my cart. I handed her the other items.
"Where's your KMart loyalty card?" she asked.
"I don't have one," I said.
"You need one," she said.
"What is the point of it?" I asked.
"You get some money back," she said. "All I need is your phone number. It's easy."
She brought up a screen on her register. "What's your name?" she asked.
I stood there thinking, she said all she needed was my phone number, but I gave her my name.
"What's your email?" she asked.
"I don't have email," I said. I never give out my email. I receive enough junk already.
"What's your zip code?" I gave it to her, but I was still thinking, that's not my phone number.
"What's your phone number?" she finally asked, and I told her.
"What's your email?"
"I don't have email," I repeated.
"If you don't have email, you can't have the loyalty card," she said.
"Then I guess I don't get a loyalty card," I replied. "Can I still buy this stuff?"
She rang me up then, but after I paid, she rudely slammed the item I was purchasing for my husband into the cart. "Could you please remove the security tag," I asked her.
"I can't remove it. You'll have to go to customer service."
This angered me off, I confess. Customer service had a line a dozen people deep and I'd just stood in line for a long time to pay for this stuff. By this time my foot was starting to ache and I needed a drink of water.
I hobbled over to customer service. One woman was waiting on people while another was standing behind the counter doing nothing obvious. I called to her. "Ma'am, they said I needed to come over here to get this removed," I said, holding up the item and pointing to the security tag.
"I can't remove it," she said. "I don't have the key. You need to find Adele."
"Excuse me? How am I supposed to do that?"
"You need to find Adele," she said again.
All of the people in customer service were looking at me by this time. I had my cane in my cart, and I lifted it up. "Am I supposed to walk all over the store looking for this person?" I asked. "I have no idea who Adele is."
"We'll call her up here," the woman huffed.
I waited. And waited. One woman who had heard me talking to the customer service person suggested that her husband could cut the security tag off with his pocket knife. Another said I should just go on out of the store with it; I had paid for the item and it was mine.
I asked the customer service person, who was still standing around doing nothing obvious (I guess she was a manager), what would happen if I walked on out of the store with the item.
"I'll have you arrested," she said.
The woman behind me gasped when the customer service person said this. As you might imagine, the idea of being arrested for shoplifting when I had already paid for the item was beyond the pale. I was perfectly livid by this time. The line was continuing to move. I was about two people away now from the customer service woman who was actually processing people.
I caught the other woman's eye. "If I get to the front of this line, " I said, "You're going to refund my money for every item in this cart."
Just then someone with the key to the security tag miraculously appeared. She did not ask for my receipt; she just unlocked the security tag.
I got out of that store as quickly as I could.
I will NEVER go back to the Roanoke Crossroads KMart store again.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Black Friday Morning, Part I
I do not generally go to Black Friday sales. There is nothing out there that I am keen to own or give away, generally. I look at the ads hoping for ideas but that's about it.
However, yesterday, after pouring tea on my Microsoft Natural Keyboard and watching in dismay as it fizzled out, I knew I would need to venture out this morning. While I had an old keyboard I could get away with, I had plans to work on my thesis plus I had a paper due on Tuesday. And I knew that a bad keyboard was not the way to spark creativity.
So I rose at 6 a.m. and left the house at 7:45 a.m. My goal was OfficeMax, because it was the most accessible. I put on sturdy shoes and left my broken foot bootie in the car, but carried a cane because I have a horrid limp and cannot put all of my weight on my foot yet.
For those who don't live here, our major shopping area is called the Valley View Mall area. The traffic engineers who created the routes in and out of the area had to be some of the most idiotic on the planet. Traffic backs up literally for miles as people try to get in the place. You can sit for an hour in the parking lot trying to nudge your car an inch into the highway in hopes someone will let you out.
I avoid Valley View unless it's 10 a.m. on an innocuous Thursday. Which means I don't shop there at all in December, generally speaking. Unless OfficeMax did not have a Microsoft Natural Keyboard, I had no plans to go that direction. However, if they did not, then I would have to, because Best Buy and Staples both are located in the mall area.
OfficeMax, however, is located away from that traffic nightmare and is off to itself. The store has been in Roanoke a very long time and, I confess, it is not a favorite. The merchandise is fine but I have had issues with the staff in the past. They either don't help me when I need it, or they mess up when they are checking me out, or try to force warranties on me I don't want. So I don't shop at OfficeMax much.
The parking lot at OfficeMax was not full when I arrived around 8:15. The store had more people wandering about than normal, but it was not crowded. I leaned on a shopping cart and hobbled through the aisles. I quickly found the keyboard and then, because I had a 20 percent off coupon, I picked up ink pens and notebooks, and a telephone answering book to use for messages for my husband. A very nice girl I'd never seen working in there before tried to sell me a coffee maker and gave me a cup of hot cider. I asked if the coffeemaker would work okay if you have hard water (lime water). She didn't know and couldn't find any information on the box. I thanked her for her help and told her I'd see if I could look it up on the Internet.
I ran into an acquaintance and we talked county politics for a while as we stood in the notebook aisle. I hopped over the checkout and was waved over by a sales clerk I've had unfortunate dealings with in the past. I hobbled on over to him as he was free and the others had lines.
He talked very quickly and as he rang me up he said he was giving me an extra year's warranty on my keyboard because that was what they were doing today but it would be on the receipt as a charge. Only he wouldn't charge me for the telephone answering book because it was about the same price. Plus I would get my 20 percent off.
Huh? I asked him to explain again.
He nattered on about what a good deal the warranty was and would I please pay now and thank you very much. He stapled the receipt to the unwanted warranty papers and dropped them into the bag. I put the bag in the cart, still confused as to how I ended up with a warranty I didn't want or ask for. "I am not sure what just happened here, but I think somehow I bought a warranty I didn't want," I muttered.
"I did you a favor," he spat. "I can ring it all up all over again if you want."
I ignored him and walked out of the store. At my car, I pulled out the receipt. He did not charge me at all for the telephone book, as he said, but that also meant that should I have wanted to return it, I could not, because there was no listing for it at all on the receipt. In fact, had some other sales associate stopped me on the way out and asked to check my bags, I could have been arrested for shoplifting.
This was not the way to go about "giving" me a warranty. I am not an accountant, but letting customers walk out with items that aren't listed on the cash receipts does not seem like the appropriate way to check people out of the store. Had I realized the item wasn't on the receipt, I would have made him do it all over again.
I was a little perturbed about this. No wonder I don't like this store, I thought to myself. I will have to remember not to come back.
Then I decided to go to KMart, which was just down the street and still not in Valley View.
This would prove to be a mistake, as you shall read about next time.
However, yesterday, after pouring tea on my Microsoft Natural Keyboard and watching in dismay as it fizzled out, I knew I would need to venture out this morning. While I had an old keyboard I could get away with, I had plans to work on my thesis plus I had a paper due on Tuesday. And I knew that a bad keyboard was not the way to spark creativity.
So I rose at 6 a.m. and left the house at 7:45 a.m. My goal was OfficeMax, because it was the most accessible. I put on sturdy shoes and left my broken foot bootie in the car, but carried a cane because I have a horrid limp and cannot put all of my weight on my foot yet.
For those who don't live here, our major shopping area is called the Valley View Mall area. The traffic engineers who created the routes in and out of the area had to be some of the most idiotic on the planet. Traffic backs up literally for miles as people try to get in the place. You can sit for an hour in the parking lot trying to nudge your car an inch into the highway in hopes someone will let you out.
I avoid Valley View unless it's 10 a.m. on an innocuous Thursday. Which means I don't shop there at all in December, generally speaking. Unless OfficeMax did not have a Microsoft Natural Keyboard, I had no plans to go that direction. However, if they did not, then I would have to, because Best Buy and Staples both are located in the mall area.
OfficeMax, however, is located away from that traffic nightmare and is off to itself. The store has been in Roanoke a very long time and, I confess, it is not a favorite. The merchandise is fine but I have had issues with the staff in the past. They either don't help me when I need it, or they mess up when they are checking me out, or try to force warranties on me I don't want. So I don't shop at OfficeMax much.
The parking lot at OfficeMax was not full when I arrived around 8:15. The store had more people wandering about than normal, but it was not crowded. I leaned on a shopping cart and hobbled through the aisles. I quickly found the keyboard and then, because I had a 20 percent off coupon, I picked up ink pens and notebooks, and a telephone answering book to use for messages for my husband. A very nice girl I'd never seen working in there before tried to sell me a coffee maker and gave me a cup of hot cider. I asked if the coffeemaker would work okay if you have hard water (lime water). She didn't know and couldn't find any information on the box. I thanked her for her help and told her I'd see if I could look it up on the Internet.
I ran into an acquaintance and we talked county politics for a while as we stood in the notebook aisle. I hopped over the checkout and was waved over by a sales clerk I've had unfortunate dealings with in the past. I hobbled on over to him as he was free and the others had lines.
He talked very quickly and as he rang me up he said he was giving me an extra year's warranty on my keyboard because that was what they were doing today but it would be on the receipt as a charge. Only he wouldn't charge me for the telephone answering book because it was about the same price. Plus I would get my 20 percent off.
Huh? I asked him to explain again.
He nattered on about what a good deal the warranty was and would I please pay now and thank you very much. He stapled the receipt to the unwanted warranty papers and dropped them into the bag. I put the bag in the cart, still confused as to how I ended up with a warranty I didn't want or ask for. "I am not sure what just happened here, but I think somehow I bought a warranty I didn't want," I muttered.
"I did you a favor," he spat. "I can ring it all up all over again if you want."
I ignored him and walked out of the store. At my car, I pulled out the receipt. He did not charge me at all for the telephone book, as he said, but that also meant that should I have wanted to return it, I could not, because there was no listing for it at all on the receipt. In fact, had some other sales associate stopped me on the way out and asked to check my bags, I could have been arrested for shoplifting.
This was not the way to go about "giving" me a warranty. I am not an accountant, but letting customers walk out with items that aren't listed on the cash receipts does not seem like the appropriate way to check people out of the store. Had I realized the item wasn't on the receipt, I would have made him do it all over again.
I was a little perturbed about this. No wonder I don't like this store, I thought to myself. I will have to remember not to come back.
Then I decided to go to KMart, which was just down the street and still not in Valley View.
This would prove to be a mistake, as you shall read about next time.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Thanksgiving Thirteen
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| Run turkeys, run! |
First thing this morning, I dumped tea down my keyboard and it is acting erratically. So Happy Thanksgiving to me, and Merry Christmas to myself early because it looks like I will be buying a new keyboard PDQ.
Anyway, I had hoped to be more original, but after that disaster I can't think straight so here are 13 things I am thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day.
1. My wonderful husband. He's a terrific man and we're still in love after all of these years.
2. My health. Well, my health is not the best but I know there are people worse off so I am very grateful for the health I do have.
3. My brains. I'm a pretty smart ol' woman sometimes, though I am often accused of thinking too much.
4. My family. Sometimes they are really a pain in the you-know-what but they're mine.
5. My writing. Even if I am not doing a lot with it at the moment and finding what I am attempting to be damn frustrating, I am thankful that I have the ability (well, sometimes) and that I like doing it.
6. My education. I am very glad that I know stuff and that I love to learn.
7. The Blue Ridge Mountains. I have a lovely view and I love the mountains. They offer me majesty and a reminder to be humble every time I look out the window.
8. My husband's employment. We are very lucky.
9. Our home. It is a small house by some standards but it not just a house, it is a home, full of love and laughter, and I am very content within these walls.
10. My friends. This should have been higher on the list but I had to switch keyboards in the middle of this and lost my train of thought. Anyway, I would be lost without my friends to keep me on track, and I am so very grateful that I have people who love me and whom I love.
11. Chocolate. Okay, don't laugh. This is so different from the other things. But I really, really like chocolate.
12. The Internet. It has changed the world, not necessarily for the better, but I enjoy it and I have made many friends I would not have otherwise, including you, dear reader. So I am also very thankful for you!
13. The world. I am really grateful to all the world, in spite of its many issues and concerns. She's a good ol' earth and I love her dearly.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING.
May you be blessed on this and every day.
Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 217th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Sleigh Ride
This morning I woke up to the song Sleigh Ride (thanks to my once-favorite radio station which has been playing Christmas music for TWO WEEKS prior to Thanksgiving), and I was suddenly cast back to my high school years.
I played flute in the high school band. I started playing in the 6th grade at Breckinridge Elementary School, and then we went on to Botetourt Intermediate (now called Central Academy), where we had two years with a man whose real name I can't remember but we called him "the toad" privately.
During the seventh grade I broke my arm and had to miss about eight weeks of playing time because I was in a cast. I had to be there anyway but it was certainly boring.
Anyway, I became a high school freshman and off I went to Lord Botetourt, where Band Director George Lowe apparently loved the song Sleigh Ride, because every October we started playing it again.
The version we practiced was supposed to sound like the one below. Only of course this is the Boston Pops playing, not a high school band. I guarantee you we sounded nothing like this.
Our little high school band had about 60 members. I think there were about eight flute players, and I was usually either second or first chair most of the time. First chair person got to play the piccolo, which had it's own little line on the score of this song. It makes those high trilling little sounds.
Each year we marched in several Christmas parades. We wore horrid red and black wool suits, huge furry hats, shiny black shoes, and white gloves with the fingers cut out of them so we could play our instruments. We marched in the Fincastle, Vinton, Salem, and Buchanan parades that I remember, and possibly others. It was always extremely cold and windy and I usually became ill after the parade season ended.
Anyway, that's what was on my mind at 6 a.m. this morning. I don't have my flute anymore, which is a pity. The pads rotted out and when a coworker's daughter expressed interest, I gave the instrument to her so she'd only have to pay to have the pads fixed and not buy a whole new flute. I don't know what happened to it after that; the friend has long since moved away and we've lost touch.
Maybe I should buy another one and see if I can remember how to play it.
I played flute in the high school band. I started playing in the 6th grade at Breckinridge Elementary School, and then we went on to Botetourt Intermediate (now called Central Academy), where we had two years with a man whose real name I can't remember but we called him "the toad" privately.
During the seventh grade I broke my arm and had to miss about eight weeks of playing time because I was in a cast. I had to be there anyway but it was certainly boring.
Anyway, I became a high school freshman and off I went to Lord Botetourt, where Band Director George Lowe apparently loved the song Sleigh Ride, because every October we started playing it again.
The version we practiced was supposed to sound like the one below. Only of course this is the Boston Pops playing, not a high school band. I guarantee you we sounded nothing like this.
Our little high school band had about 60 members. I think there were about eight flute players, and I was usually either second or first chair most of the time. First chair person got to play the piccolo, which had it's own little line on the score of this song. It makes those high trilling little sounds.
Each year we marched in several Christmas parades. We wore horrid red and black wool suits, huge furry hats, shiny black shoes, and white gloves with the fingers cut out of them so we could play our instruments. We marched in the Fincastle, Vinton, Salem, and Buchanan parades that I remember, and possibly others. It was always extremely cold and windy and I usually became ill after the parade season ended.
Anyway, that's what was on my mind at 6 a.m. this morning. I don't have my flute anymore, which is a pity. The pads rotted out and when a coworker's daughter expressed interest, I gave the instrument to her so she'd only have to pay to have the pads fixed and not buy a whole new flute. I don't know what happened to it after that; the friend has long since moved away and we've lost touch.
Maybe I should buy another one and see if I can remember how to play it.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Down by the Pond
I took these photos in October.
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| There is a boat in this picture. Do you see it? |
 |
| The sun creates a fairy walk. I could dance across the pond if I had magic shoes. |
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| Cattails along the bank. |
 |
| Fencing kept me from walking out across the dam. |
 |
| Fence row leading down to the water. |
Monday, November 21, 2011
For What It's Worth
I am very disturbed by the video coming out the Occupy movements.
It is not the Occupiers who disturb me in the video. It is the police actions against them that I find most distressing.
The videos of police spraying pepper spray on students who blocking sidewalks at Davis in California is particularly troubling. You can see a short video here and a longer video here. The longer video gives a clearer picture of what was really going on, the relative passivity of the students, and the police actions.
The students and faculty at Davis have called for the resignation of their chancellor. I have no idea if that is appropriate or not; they will have to decide that.
The chancellor took a very long walk down a quiet path on the night of the pepper spraying. A video of that is here. Well worth watching.
If students are raping and beating people, by all means, arrest them. If they're congregating on the sidewalk, that's pretty harmless. It doesn't warrant violence.
Of course I am not there, I can only go by why I've seen and read, but from all indications, there was no need for pepper spray. As far as I'm concerned, the police could have sat down and waited out the students a while. There is never a need for violence against unarmed citizens. We are supposed to be above this in a civilized country.
Are we a civilized country? I'm starting to worry and wonder.
These are not "left" and "right" issues. Regardless of what "side" you're on politically, the process is flawed. Capitalism is not democracy and it does not equal democracy, and the sooner people realize that, the better off we will all be. Purchased votes in Congress do not, by any stretch of the imagination, create an equal playing field for anyone. This is part of what the Occupy movement is about.
One thing to note is that US media is not mentioning is that these Occupy movements are taking place in other parts of the world right now, including England and other areas of Europe. The unrest is great. It's like someone turned a switch.
You might also want to read some other articles about this and related issues. I guarantee you that unless you're looking at multiple news sources, you are not getting the full story.
Check out:
Supercommittee Failure One Reason Why Occupiers are Marching
Occupy Wall Street at a Tipping Point
The Turning Point: The Moral Example of UC Davis Students
An article about police beating up poets at Occupy Berkley
A UC Davis student's story
Davis Police Officer is honored US Marine
Campus Police Chief put on Leave
Exploiting Consumers is the Purpose of Banks
Right-wing journalists beaten by police; assisted by Occupiers
White House Shooter NOT with Occupy Movement
175 arrested in protests on day after Zuccoti Park cleared
Occupy Movement Not Capturing Americans' Attention
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/07/one-per-cent-wealth-destroyers
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/buy-nothing-day-adbusters-role-in-the-global-occupy-movement-6263205.html
http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/161545/retired-philadelphia-police-captain-ray-lewis-arrested-at-ows-calls-nypd-rationale-a-farce/#2
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/what-price-the-new-democracy-goldman-sachs-conquers-europe-6264091.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/15/occupy-london-city-of-london-corporation
http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/12/st-pauls-canon-occupy-protest
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/27-6
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2011/11/21/occupy-toronto-court-decision.html
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2011/10/12/occupy-tokyo-hmm-maybe/
And a little 1960s mood music:
For What it's Worth - Buffalo Springfield (Stop, hey, what's that sound, everybody look what's going down)
It is not the Occupiers who disturb me in the video. It is the police actions against them that I find most distressing.
The videos of police spraying pepper spray on students who blocking sidewalks at Davis in California is particularly troubling. You can see a short video here and a longer video here. The longer video gives a clearer picture of what was really going on, the relative passivity of the students, and the police actions.
The students and faculty at Davis have called for the resignation of their chancellor. I have no idea if that is appropriate or not; they will have to decide that.
The chancellor took a very long walk down a quiet path on the night of the pepper spraying. A video of that is here. Well worth watching.
If students are raping and beating people, by all means, arrest them. If they're congregating on the sidewalk, that's pretty harmless. It doesn't warrant violence.
Of course I am not there, I can only go by why I've seen and read, but from all indications, there was no need for pepper spray. As far as I'm concerned, the police could have sat down and waited out the students a while. There is never a need for violence against unarmed citizens. We are supposed to be above this in a civilized country.
Are we a civilized country? I'm starting to worry and wonder.
These are not "left" and "right" issues. Regardless of what "side" you're on politically, the process is flawed. Capitalism is not democracy and it does not equal democracy, and the sooner people realize that, the better off we will all be. Purchased votes in Congress do not, by any stretch of the imagination, create an equal playing field for anyone. This is part of what the Occupy movement is about.
One thing to note is that US media is not mentioning is that these Occupy movements are taking place in other parts of the world right now, including England and other areas of Europe. The unrest is great. It's like someone turned a switch.
You might also want to read some other articles about this and related issues. I guarantee you that unless you're looking at multiple news sources, you are not getting the full story.
Check out:
Supercommittee Failure One Reason Why Occupiers are Marching
Occupy Wall Street at a Tipping Point
The Turning Point: The Moral Example of UC Davis Students
An article about police beating up poets at Occupy Berkley
A UC Davis student's story
Davis Police Officer is honored US Marine
Campus Police Chief put on Leave
Exploiting Consumers is the Purpose of Banks
Right-wing journalists beaten by police; assisted by Occupiers
White House Shooter NOT with Occupy Movement
175 arrested in protests on day after Zuccoti Park cleared
Occupy Movement Not Capturing Americans' Attention
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/07/one-per-cent-wealth-destroyers
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/buy-nothing-day-adbusters-role-in-the-global-occupy-movement-6263205.html
http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/161545/retired-philadelphia-police-captain-ray-lewis-arrested-at-ows-calls-nypd-rationale-a-farce/#2
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/what-price-the-new-democracy-goldman-sachs-conquers-europe-6264091.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/15/occupy-london-city-of-london-corporation
http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/12/st-pauls-canon-occupy-protest
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/27-6
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2011/11/21/occupy-toronto-court-decision.html
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2011/10/12/occupy-tokyo-hmm-maybe/
And a little 1960s mood music:
For What it's Worth - Buffalo Springfield (Stop, hey, what's that sound, everybody look what's going down)
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Good Eatin'
Last night we went to the Coach and Four for our anniversary dinner. I starved most of the day on Saturday in order to save up my Weight Watchers points.
The Coach and Four has been in business since 1977. It is one of the few nice restaurants left in Roanoke. It now has a bar with a TV, like most of the restaurants in the area do, but it still has fine dining in the rear.
On a July night in 1983, my husband pulled a ring box out of his boot while we sat in a booth in the back. Then he got up and then down on a knee by the table and proposed to me.
We married four months later (which even then was inadvisable for a big wedding of 350 people).
So almost every year for our anniversary, we go back to the Coach and Four for our anniversary dinner.
My husband had prime rib, a baked potato, and bread.
I had a chicken breast in a honey-ginger sauce, rice, and mixed vegetables.
Then we splurged and I had a piece of chocolate-caramel pecan cake and he had a piece of New York Style Cheesecake.
I tried very hard to be good and managed to leave a fourth of the cake on the plate. I don't want to jeopardize my weight loss efforts.
As you may know, with Weight Watchers you have daily points and a pot of weekly points. I rarely use my weekly points, and then if I do only one or two of them. The cake took me over into the weekly points by at least 14 points, but I still stayed within the points allowance for the week. I even weighed this morning and had lost a little bit (though not a lot). With Thanksgiving coming, we'll see how the scales look next Sunday. I think over the holidays my goal will be maintenance of where I am so as not to gain any, and consider any loss a bonus. It is tough to diet at this time of year.
We also decided we should go to the Coach and Four more often. We usually save it for special occasions but the food is good, it's relatively quiet, and the prices are right for the food you eat. But we are thinking now we will add it to our rotation of restaurants and try to hit it more frequently.
After the meal, we came home and watched a movie on HBO, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It was the only thing on we had not seen.
It was a very nice evening. Now we start on year 29 of this marriage!
The Coach and Four has been in business since 1977. It is one of the few nice restaurants left in Roanoke. It now has a bar with a TV, like most of the restaurants in the area do, but it still has fine dining in the rear.
On a July night in 1983, my husband pulled a ring box out of his boot while we sat in a booth in the back. Then he got up and then down on a knee by the table and proposed to me.
We married four months later (which even then was inadvisable for a big wedding of 350 people).
So almost every year for our anniversary, we go back to the Coach and Four for our anniversary dinner.
My husband had prime rib, a baked potato, and bread.
I had a chicken breast in a honey-ginger sauce, rice, and mixed vegetables.
Then we splurged and I had a piece of chocolate-caramel pecan cake and he had a piece of New York Style Cheesecake.
I tried very hard to be good and managed to leave a fourth of the cake on the plate. I don't want to jeopardize my weight loss efforts.
As you may know, with Weight Watchers you have daily points and a pot of weekly points. I rarely use my weekly points, and then if I do only one or two of them. The cake took me over into the weekly points by at least 14 points, but I still stayed within the points allowance for the week. I even weighed this morning and had lost a little bit (though not a lot). With Thanksgiving coming, we'll see how the scales look next Sunday. I think over the holidays my goal will be maintenance of where I am so as not to gain any, and consider any loss a bonus. It is tough to diet at this time of year.
We also decided we should go to the Coach and Four more often. We usually save it for special occasions but the food is good, it's relatively quiet, and the prices are right for the food you eat. But we are thinking now we will add it to our rotation of restaurants and try to hit it more frequently.
After the meal, we came home and watched a movie on HBO, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It was the only thing on we had not seen.
It was a very nice evening. Now we start on year 29 of this marriage!
Friday, November 18, 2011
28 Years
Twenty-eight years ago, on another Friday, I said my "I dos" and became a Mrs.
It's hard to believe, really. Such a long time! But it seems like just yesterday.
I can't believe we're heading on the other side of the hill now, my love and I. We've had some interesting times. He has remained a steady force in my life and a big constant.
He joined the fire department six months before we married. Prior to that he had been helping his father with his backhoe business and his farm. He continued to do both of those jobs, too, while working at the fire department.
He moved up the career ladder there and is now a Battalion Chief. I am so proud of him. And he has continued to work those three jobs all this time.
We built a home together, literally, and have enjoyed living in the same house for 24 years. I worked my way through school, first getting my BA at Hollins in 1993 and now I will have my MA next year.
Our biggest heartbreak was our inability to have children, but we have our siblings' children to love and pamper. I tried to open my heart to the world and offer up information through my writing. I think I was successful at that for a while. Maybe still, I don't know. He's been a kind of dad to the whole fire department.
It's been a good, quiet life, and I am grateful to have lived it with him.
Thanks baby!
(P.S., The last picture is actually two years old, but I don't have a more current one with both of us in it.)
It's hard to believe, really. Such a long time! But it seems like just yesterday.
 |
| Here we are then! |
 |
| Open wide! |
 |
| Here we are now. |
I can't believe we're heading on the other side of the hill now, my love and I. We've had some interesting times. He has remained a steady force in my life and a big constant.
He joined the fire department six months before we married. Prior to that he had been helping his father with his backhoe business and his farm. He continued to do both of those jobs, too, while working at the fire department.
He moved up the career ladder there and is now a Battalion Chief. I am so proud of him. And he has continued to work those three jobs all this time.
We built a home together, literally, and have enjoyed living in the same house for 24 years. I worked my way through school, first getting my BA at Hollins in 1993 and now I will have my MA next year.
Our biggest heartbreak was our inability to have children, but we have our siblings' children to love and pamper. I tried to open my heart to the world and offer up information through my writing. I think I was successful at that for a while. Maybe still, I don't know. He's been a kind of dad to the whole fire department.
It's been a good, quiet life, and I am grateful to have lived it with him.
Thanks baby!
(P.S., The last picture is actually two years old, but I don't have a more current one with both of us in it.)
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Thursday Thirteen
Today I thought I'd share with you some noninvasive health tips.
Acupressure points are places on the body that you can press or massage in order to relieve symptoms. They have been used for thousands of years on Chinese Medicine and go hand in hand with acupuncture. This is the same principle that some of those wrist bands use for motion sickness; they are pushing on particular points.
To use these pressure points, you should massage the area with a firm pressure for at least a minute. It might hurt a little.
Frequently you will find that the pressure point is more tender than surrounding areas. That is a good indicator that you are massaging the right place.
Here are a few that I use:
1. To relieve leg cramps, pinch together the ridges between the end of your nose and your upper lip. Hold it for a few seconds - it might hurt just a little - but your leg cramp will instantly release.
2. To help a headache, pinch the web of skin in between the thumb and first finger.
3. You can also help a headache by pressing points on each temple.
4. The spot right in between your eyebrows just above your nose will release tension and pressure in your sinuses. It also helps with anxiety.
5. For lung issues (coughs, congestion, etc), massage the area just beneath your collar bones.
6. For sinusitus, massage the area behind each nostril.
7. Sleeping issues can be addressed by massaging the points directly beneath your skull along the backside of your spine. Massage down toward your shoulders.
8. Relieve heartburn by massaging the area halfway between your belly button and your breastbone.
9. Treat allergies by pushing on the area between the big toe and second toe. You can also treat them by pushing on the area on the outside of your arm just above your elbow joint and below the muscle.
10. Anxiety and nervousness may be treated by pushing on the inside of the arm, in between the bones, about three fingers above the wrist line.
11. For asthma, push on the center of the breastbone, midway between the breasts.
12. Earaches may be treated by massaging the area at the front of the ears.
13. For general overall health, massage the entire ear. It has points that relate to all of the body systems and stimulating it will promote well being.
I am not an acupuncturist, doctor, or medical practitioner, so try these at your own risk. I see an acupuncturist and have read up on acpressure, and as I said, I find some of these spots beneficial. But I urge you to research your condition before using them. Pregnant women probably shouldn't try any of them at all.
Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 216th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.
Acupressure points are places on the body that you can press or massage in order to relieve symptoms. They have been used for thousands of years on Chinese Medicine and go hand in hand with acupuncture. This is the same principle that some of those wrist bands use for motion sickness; they are pushing on particular points.
To use these pressure points, you should massage the area with a firm pressure for at least a minute. It might hurt a little.
Frequently you will find that the pressure point is more tender than surrounding areas. That is a good indicator that you are massaging the right place.
Here are a few that I use:
1. To relieve leg cramps, pinch together the ridges between the end of your nose and your upper lip. Hold it for a few seconds - it might hurt just a little - but your leg cramp will instantly release.
2. To help a headache, pinch the web of skin in between the thumb and first finger.
3. You can also help a headache by pressing points on each temple.
4. The spot right in between your eyebrows just above your nose will release tension and pressure in your sinuses. It also helps with anxiety.
5. For lung issues (coughs, congestion, etc), massage the area just beneath your collar bones.
6. For sinusitus, massage the area behind each nostril.
7. Sleeping issues can be addressed by massaging the points directly beneath your skull along the backside of your spine. Massage down toward your shoulders.
8. Relieve heartburn by massaging the area halfway between your belly button and your breastbone.
9. Treat allergies by pushing on the area between the big toe and second toe. You can also treat them by pushing on the area on the outside of your arm just above your elbow joint and below the muscle.
10. Anxiety and nervousness may be treated by pushing on the inside of the arm, in between the bones, about three fingers above the wrist line.
11. For asthma, push on the center of the breastbone, midway between the breasts.
12. Earaches may be treated by massaging the area at the front of the ears.
13. For general overall health, massage the entire ear. It has points that relate to all of the body systems and stimulating it will promote well being.
I am not an acupuncturist, doctor, or medical practitioner, so try these at your own risk. I see an acupuncturist and have read up on acpressure, and as I said, I find some of these spots beneficial. But I urge you to research your condition before using them. Pregnant women probably shouldn't try any of them at all.
Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 216th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Outside, Looking In
Brown leaves blow against glass tap silently for entrance. 
Titmice shuffle, hoard beechnuts,
eyes squinting, wary. Inside
a summer cabin safe from snow
and ice, the rocker sways
in winter's draft, unconcerned.
Wolves whine, tails tucked,
and run from the night.
The hearth and ashes heave
with life; the rug lies bunched
in a corner, warm as a cub
in sunshine. A lamp lights
a rolltop desk. On its top
a book lies open, pages
smudged with damp caresses,
the back worn down with care.
The clock chimes time
to twilight, its white face
a somber hour, safe
from outer waters
which try to rust its gears.
At the door, the lock
clasps firmly, holds
when the knob is twisted.
In the wind, leaves
around me, my face tight
against the window,
I stand, guarding empty
havens, outside,
looking in.
****
I wrote the above poem back in the 1980s, while I was an undergraduate at Hollins. The somewhat desolate day and the oak leaves clinging to the trees made me think of it. I may have revised once since I first wrote it, but I have made no changes to it in years. On reflection, I don't think it's the best poem I ever wrote, but it isn't the worst, either. I think I liked it more when I was younger and in a different place in my life.
Titmice shuffle, hoard beechnuts,
eyes squinting, wary. Inside
a summer cabin safe from snow
and ice, the rocker sways
in winter's draft, unconcerned.
Wolves whine, tails tucked,
and run from the night.
The hearth and ashes heave
with life; the rug lies bunched
in a corner, warm as a cub
in sunshine. A lamp lights
a rolltop desk. On its top
a book lies open, pages
smudged with damp caresses,
the back worn down with care.
The clock chimes time
to twilight, its white face
a somber hour, safe
from outer waters
which try to rust its gears.
At the door, the lock
clasps firmly, holds
when the knob is twisted.
In the wind, leaves
around me, my face tight
against the window,
I stand, guarding empty
havens, outside,
looking in.
****
I wrote the above poem back in the 1980s, while I was an undergraduate at Hollins. The somewhat desolate day and the oak leaves clinging to the trees made me think of it. I may have revised once since I first wrote it, but I have made no changes to it in years. On reflection, I don't think it's the best poem I ever wrote, but it isn't the worst, either. I think I liked it more when I was younger and in a different place in my life.
Monday, November 14, 2011
The Sun Rises Over the Shed
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| Sunrise, Monday, November 14, 2011 6:50 a.m. |
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| Closeup of Sunrise, Monday, November 14, 2011 6:50 a.m. |
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Thesis Dreams
I dreamed about my thesis last night. Or rather, about not writing my thesis.
For those who may not know, I have to write a thesis in order to obtain my masters of arts in liberal studies degree at Hollins University. It is the last thing I have to do. It must be at least 50 pages long and it must be completed in March.
It has been haunting me since I returned to school in February. So it is no wonder that now I dream about it.
In my dream, I visited someone named Mary Prophet, and she told me to go see Dr. Charles Fuller, the pastor at the chapel, because he would help me. (Local folks who have lived here for a while will recognize the name. A pastor at one of the churches in downtown Roanoke had that name; he used to do God's Minute or something like that on the radio. I have no idea why the name came to me in this dream.)
For the longest time I wandered around the Hollins campus trying to find the chapel, and along the way I realized the problem wasn't that I couldn't write, but that I was fearful of writing things that would bother other people, like if I wrote about something terrible I did as a teenager it would tip off my mother that I had done that bad thing, or what-have-you, and as I pondered this new revelation, I finally found the chapel.
A big burly man stopped me and asked me if I had an appointment to see Dr. Fuller. I said no, but Mary Prophet sent me. He bade me sit in the entryway on a very hard bench, and he disappeared and then came back. I told him he looked like a Gestapo policeman, and he folded his arms and said, "Hmmph."
Then a very small man tossing flowers behind his back came in, and the Gestapo man nodded and said there he is. And I was surprised because Dr. Fuller was absolutely crazy; he was like a nice version of Gollum (from Lord of the Rings), with a bit of Yoda (from Star Wars)thrown in for good measure, and he talked about his daffodils. A small child was also with him, a young boy about 9. The man prodded me forward, and Dr. Fuller looked at me expectantly, and I finally told him I was having trouble with my thesis.
"Smell the flowers!" Dr. Fuller cried, and he ran away. The small boy took my hand and led me toward the gate.
"Why doesn't anyone know about this? This isn't right," I asked the boy as he led me away. I was distressed that this man who was supposed to be helping me and other people was, for all intents and purposes, a lunatic.
"We have to keep our secrets," he said.
"But this isn't a good secret," I cried. "This hurts people."
And the boy nodded, shut the gate behind me, and I stood facing a daffodil-covered meadow at the edge of a forest.
For those who may not know, I have to write a thesis in order to obtain my masters of arts in liberal studies degree at Hollins University. It is the last thing I have to do. It must be at least 50 pages long and it must be completed in March.
It has been haunting me since I returned to school in February. So it is no wonder that now I dream about it.
In my dream, I visited someone named Mary Prophet, and she told me to go see Dr. Charles Fuller, the pastor at the chapel, because he would help me. (Local folks who have lived here for a while will recognize the name. A pastor at one of the churches in downtown Roanoke had that name; he used to do God's Minute or something like that on the radio. I have no idea why the name came to me in this dream.)
For the longest time I wandered around the Hollins campus trying to find the chapel, and along the way I realized the problem wasn't that I couldn't write, but that I was fearful of writing things that would bother other people, like if I wrote about something terrible I did as a teenager it would tip off my mother that I had done that bad thing, or what-have-you, and as I pondered this new revelation, I finally found the chapel.
A big burly man stopped me and asked me if I had an appointment to see Dr. Fuller. I said no, but Mary Prophet sent me. He bade me sit in the entryway on a very hard bench, and he disappeared and then came back. I told him he looked like a Gestapo policeman, and he folded his arms and said, "Hmmph."
Then a very small man tossing flowers behind his back came in, and the Gestapo man nodded and said there he is. And I was surprised because Dr. Fuller was absolutely crazy; he was like a nice version of Gollum (from Lord of the Rings), with a bit of Yoda (from Star Wars)thrown in for good measure, and he talked about his daffodils. A small child was also with him, a young boy about 9. The man prodded me forward, and Dr. Fuller looked at me expectantly, and I finally told him I was having trouble with my thesis.
"Smell the flowers!" Dr. Fuller cried, and he ran away. The small boy took my hand and led me toward the gate.
"Why doesn't anyone know about this? This isn't right," I asked the boy as he led me away. I was distressed that this man who was supposed to be helping me and other people was, for all intents and purposes, a lunatic.
"We have to keep our secrets," he said.
"But this isn't a good secret," I cried. "This hurts people."
And the boy nodded, shut the gate behind me, and I stood facing a daffodil-covered meadow at the edge of a forest.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Books: Long Time No See
Long Time No See
By Susan Isaacs
Copyright 2004
Audiobook 6 hours
Abridged
Judith Singer is a Doctor of History with a penchant for solving crimes. When we catch up with her, it has been 20 years since she last solved a crime.
I love that this heroine is 54 years old. She is widowed and lives alone. She has an old love affair in her background. She serves on the local library board.
In this mystery, she decides to try to figure out what happened to a missing woman. Courtney Logan disappears on Halloween. Her body turns up in the family swimming pool in April. The police are sure the husband did it, mostly because his father is a local mafia dude. Fancy Phil, the mafia dad, decides to ask Judith for help after he learns of her interest.
She follows the clues and eventually figures out the crime. Along the way she rekindles an old love.
A nice, smooth novel with an intriguing character!
By Susan Isaacs
Copyright 2004
Audiobook 6 hours
Abridged
Judith Singer is a Doctor of History with a penchant for solving crimes. When we catch up with her, it has been 20 years since she last solved a crime.
I love that this heroine is 54 years old. She is widowed and lives alone. She has an old love affair in her background. She serves on the local library board.
In this mystery, she decides to try to figure out what happened to a missing woman. Courtney Logan disappears on Halloween. Her body turns up in the family swimming pool in April. The police are sure the husband did it, mostly because his father is a local mafia dude. Fancy Phil, the mafia dad, decides to ask Judith for help after he learns of her interest.
She follows the clues and eventually figures out the crime. Along the way she rekindles an old love.
A nice, smooth novel with an intriguing character!
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Thursday Thirteen
On Sunday, we took the utility vehicle and drove around the farm. While we were riding, I held up my little Nikon pocket camera and my Canon with the zoom and snapped all kinds of pictures. So I thought I'd share with you photos of the farm as it looked on 11/6/2011.
1. My husband's hunting stand.
2. The power lines that bisect the farm. I am not sure when they went in; probably in the 1940s or 1950s. Mostly they cross fields used for pasture. They attract a lot of lightning in the summer, though.
3. Our house taken from the other side of the farm with the Canon. I have been surprised at how long the color has stayed on the trees this year.
4. The farm in the foreground. My house is hidden in the woods to the right of the house on the left.
5. The farm from the northern side. The buildings are the old chicken coop and barn sheds. My husband's grandfather raised thousands of chickens in the 1950s.
6. One of the barns as seen from the northern field.
7. A view of the Botetourt County Sports Complex from the highest point on the farm. Those are our cows in the foreground. They look like little ants!
8. A shot of some color still on the trees.
9. The pond in the foreground, Tinker Mountain to the left. You remember that book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek? Well, this pond is the start of one of the tributaries that marks its headwaters.
10. I love the way the trees look in this picture.
11. This is a sycamore tree.
12. More color.
13. A lonely little pile of firewood.
Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 216th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.
1. My husband's hunting stand.
2. The power lines that bisect the farm. I am not sure when they went in; probably in the 1940s or 1950s. Mostly they cross fields used for pasture. They attract a lot of lightning in the summer, though.
3. Our house taken from the other side of the farm with the Canon. I have been surprised at how long the color has stayed on the trees this year.
4. The farm in the foreground. My house is hidden in the woods to the right of the house on the left.
5. The farm from the northern side. The buildings are the old chicken coop and barn sheds. My husband's grandfather raised thousands of chickens in the 1950s.
6. One of the barns as seen from the northern field.
7. A view of the Botetourt County Sports Complex from the highest point on the farm. Those are our cows in the foreground. They look like little ants!
8. A shot of some color still on the trees.
9. The pond in the foreground, Tinker Mountain to the left. You remember that book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek? Well, this pond is the start of one of the tributaries that marks its headwaters.
10. I love the way the trees look in this picture.
11. This is a sycamore tree.
12. More color.
13. A lonely little pile of firewood.
Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 216th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
The Geology of Botetourt County
A very long time ago, I thought about being a geologist. When I was around 10, I collected rocks, mostly quartz, and hoarded them in a little crevice in a rock shelf along the creek of my father's farm. For all I know, they are still there.
That career has gone on by me, but I am still fascinated by rocks. Unfortunately, I do not know all of the geological time periods or the proper language to speak about such things. It has been a long time since I had any kind of Earth Science class.
Botetourt County is surrounded by and includes mountains. I look out my windows every day at Tinker Mountain, North Mountain, Stone Coal Gap, and Caldwell Mountain.
The mountains are rugged and heavily forested. In our area, we have a lot of limestone and something called "karst" topography.
It looks like this:
Karst topography is characterized by sinkholes and caves. The rock is usually limestone. Groundwater carves out the caverns. Water aquifers beneath the rocks often contribute to sinkholes.
That career has gone on by me, but I am still fascinated by rocks. Unfortunately, I do not know all of the geological time periods or the proper language to speak about such things. It has been a long time since I had any kind of Earth Science class.
Botetourt County is surrounded by and includes mountains. I look out my windows every day at Tinker Mountain, North Mountain, Stone Coal Gap, and Caldwell Mountain.
The mountains are rugged and heavily forested. In our area, we have a lot of limestone and something called "karst" topography.
It looks like this:
Karst topography is characterized by sinkholes and caves. The rock is usually limestone. Groundwater carves out the caverns. Water aquifers beneath the rocks often contribute to sinkholes.
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
The Bucks Stop Here
Saturday was the opening day of black powder season in the world of deer hunting.
My nephew and my husband both took eight-point bucks. Those who are aversive to dead deer photos, please avert your eyes. However, do check out the video below the photo if you want to see the deer on the right as he was when he was alive.
The deer are both in freezers and will be eaten. We don't waste them.
I prefer to shoot deer with my Nikon or the video camera. The deer James shot has been wandering around the farm since August. I have video of the deer in velvet as well as the following video that I shot in October one evening when the buck found its way into the front yard. It's a little long, for which I apologize, but he was fascinating to watch.
My nephew and my husband both took eight-point bucks. Those who are aversive to dead deer photos, please avert your eyes. However, do check out the video below the photo if you want to see the deer on the right as he was when he was alive.
The deer are both in freezers and will be eaten. We don't waste them.
I prefer to shoot deer with my Nikon or the video camera. The deer James shot has been wandering around the farm since August. I have video of the deer in velvet as well as the following video that I shot in October one evening when the buck found its way into the front yard. It's a little long, for which I apologize, but he was fascinating to watch.
Sunday, November 06, 2011
Open Studios, Botetourt, Part IV
For my last installment of the Open Studios, Botetourt, series, I present to you Willie Simmons.
Willie is a personal friend and a woodmaker of note. He lives in Fincastle.
The following is a revision of an article I wrote about him that appeared in the October 26, 2011 edition of The Fincastle Herald.
It's almost a lost art, the idea of taking a piece of wood and turning it to create the leg of a stool or an intricate architectural piece. But Botetourt native Willie Simmons has kept this craft alive and in the public eye.
Simmons' wood creations include stools, pepper mills, bottle stoppers, wooden bowls, and Christmas ornaments, to name just a few.The woodworker's pieces are well known to those who follow the arts and crafts shows in the Roanoke valley and beyond. He spends his autumn weekends at these events where he sells the creations he has painstakingly made at his shop.
He has spent 31 years working with wood, and 25 of those as a wood turner. He started out helping his father, Bill Simmons, at the same location when it was Castle Crafts, a furniture and antique repair shop that opened in the mid-1970s. When his father needed a piece of oak turned into a chair rung, for example, he asked his son to make it. And Simmons obliged.
"I worked for him a while, and then went back to teaching," Simmons, a graduate of Virginia Tech, said. He later returned to open up his own woodworking studio in the same building as his father. For the last 15 years, he has also worked as a county magistrate, having long ago given up the classroom.
While all of Simmons' work is functional, some of it is so beautiful that it might be found on display in someone's home instead of hidden in a cabinet. His bowls in particular convey an elegance of design that draws out the wood grain and conveys a since of the majesty of the native hardwood from which it came.
Most of his wood is local. He likes to work in walnut, cherry, oak, and maple. He also works with pine, but has found it to be less durable than hardwoods. "I do use some exotic woods, but it's not as much fun as a native wood," he said.
He also likes to use old wood and has in the past turned wood from barns or someone's old home place into keepsake ink pens. Those pens tend to be cherished by their owners. One person told him that a Simmons pen was the one pen he would never lend out, Simmons said.
Kurt Hertzog is a wood turner in Henrietta, NY who serves on the Board of Directors for the American Association of Woodturners. That group oversees most of the woodturning organizations in the country, and Simmons is a member.
"He's very skilled," Hertzog said of Simmons. "As a wood turner he excels at peppermills and spindle turning. I have taken classes from Willie, and he's a superb teacher. He shares his skills."
He likened Simmons' work to the ancient arts found in the Foxfire books, which harbor ancestral secrets such as how to weave a chair seat, another skill Simmons has mastered.
"I still have the stool I made in his class," Hertzog said. Those footstools are of a kind seldom found commercially, with woven tops and spindle legs.
Simmons is the program director for the Blue Ridge Woodturners, a local wood turning organization. He brings in expert turners for demonstrations. At the end of October, Richard Raffan, whom Simmons called "one of the top five turners in the country," demonstrated for the group. "It's a good coup for me and the club," Simmons said. "He's in demand worldwide."
Simmons also builds furniture on commission, but he is choosy about his work and the assignments he accepts. He will have a few select large pieces for sale during the Open Studios event, including a jelly cupboard and a 30-year-old baker's cabinet, one of his early works. That piece was in his home but he recently built a new house and has decided to let the cabinet go.
His work is never finished, he said. He is always striving for better, a new way to improve a technique, a different and better cut. He works with four or five tools, but his shop is filled with an array of metal and wood, some of it stacked, some not. Clamps, hammers, and chisels line the walls. A big pile of sawdust rests at his feet.
During a recent interview, he looked rested and content even though he had spent the previous three days working at an arts and crafts show at the Roanoke Civic Center. He is honored to know that his work graces the homes of not just his friends, but friends of friends, some of whom live in other countries. His work is in England, Australia, and other nations. "A few times I have gone in and seen something in people's homes and realized I made it," he said, adding that he found it gratifying to know that his work is enjoyed.
Reflecting on his career, Simmons smiled and summed it up this way: "I'm better than those people who are cheaper, and cheaper than those people who are better." His work is always for sale; if you can't make the Open Studios event, stop in when his lights are on, and check him out.
Willie is a personal friend and a woodmaker of note. He lives in Fincastle.
The following is a revision of an article I wrote about him that appeared in the October 26, 2011 edition of The Fincastle Herald.
It's almost a lost art, the idea of taking a piece of wood and turning it to create the leg of a stool or an intricate architectural piece. But Botetourt native Willie Simmons has kept this craft alive and in the public eye.
 |
| Bottle stoppers made by Willie Simmons |
Simmons' wood creations include stools, pepper mills, bottle stoppers, wooden bowls, and Christmas ornaments, to name just a few.The woodworker's pieces are well known to those who follow the arts and crafts shows in the Roanoke valley and beyond. He spends his autumn weekends at these events where he sells the creations he has painstakingly made at his shop.
He has spent 31 years working with wood, and 25 of those as a wood turner. He started out helping his father, Bill Simmons, at the same location when it was Castle Crafts, a furniture and antique repair shop that opened in the mid-1970s. When his father needed a piece of oak turned into a chair rung, for example, he asked his son to make it. And Simmons obliged.
 |
| Pepper mills made by Willie Simmons |
"I worked for him a while, and then went back to teaching," Simmons, a graduate of Virginia Tech, said. He later returned to open up his own woodworking studio in the same building as his father. For the last 15 years, he has also worked as a county magistrate, having long ago given up the classroom.
While all of Simmons' work is functional, some of it is so beautiful that it might be found on display in someone's home instead of hidden in a cabinet. His bowls in particular convey an elegance of design that draws out the wood grain and conveys a since of the majesty of the native hardwood from which it came.
Most of his wood is local. He likes to work in walnut, cherry, oak, and maple. He also works with pine, but has found it to be less durable than hardwoods. "I do use some exotic woods, but it's not as much fun as a native wood," he said.
 |
| Handcrafted bowls made by Willie Simmons |
Kurt Hertzog is a wood turner in Henrietta, NY who serves on the Board of Directors for the American Association of Woodturners. That group oversees most of the woodturning organizations in the country, and Simmons is a member.
"He's very skilled," Hertzog said of Simmons. "As a wood turner he excels at peppermills and spindle turning. I have taken classes from Willie, and he's a superb teacher. He shares his skills."
He likened Simmons' work to the ancient arts found in the Foxfire books, which harbor ancestral secrets such as how to weave a chair seat, another skill Simmons has mastered.
 |
| Willie Simmons, woodturner extraordinnaire |
"I still have the stool I made in his class," Hertzog said. Those footstools are of a kind seldom found commercially, with woven tops and spindle legs.
Simmons is the program director for the Blue Ridge Woodturners, a local wood turning organization. He brings in expert turners for demonstrations. At the end of October, Richard Raffan, whom Simmons called "one of the top five turners in the country," demonstrated for the group. "It's a good coup for me and the club," Simmons said. "He's in demand worldwide."
Simmons also builds furniture on commission, but he is choosy about his work and the assignments he accepts. He will have a few select large pieces for sale during the Open Studios event, including a jelly cupboard and a 30-year-old baker's cabinet, one of his early works. That piece was in his home but he recently built a new house and has decided to let the cabinet go.
His work is never finished, he said. He is always striving for better, a new way to improve a technique, a different and better cut. He works with four or five tools, but his shop is filled with an array of metal and wood, some of it stacked, some not. Clamps, hammers, and chisels line the walls. A big pile of sawdust rests at his feet.
During a recent interview, he looked rested and content even though he had spent the previous three days working at an arts and crafts show at the Roanoke Civic Center. He is honored to know that his work graces the homes of not just his friends, but friends of friends, some of whom live in other countries. His work is in England, Australia, and other nations. "A few times I have gone in and seen something in people's homes and realized I made it," he said, adding that he found it gratifying to know that his work is enjoyed.Reflecting on his career, Simmons smiled and summed it up this way: "I'm better than those people who are cheaper, and cheaper than those people who are better." His work is always for sale; if you can't make the Open Studios event, stop in when his lights are on, and check him out.
Saturday, November 05, 2011
Open Studios, Botetourt, Part III
Dreama Kattenbraker is another Fincastle artist who is a personal friend. She creates what I call "whimsical" art, in that it is not realistic paintings. Her work appeals to the heart and the mind. It makes you think and gives you a different point of view.
She works in mixed media of all kinds. I think her work is very "Alice in Wonderland."
She works in mixed media of all kinds. I think her work is very "Alice in Wonderland."
 |
| Some of Dreama Kattenbraker's work. |
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| A cabinet and a statue. The cabinet reminds me of Punch & Judy shows. |
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| From left, artist Dreama Kattenbraker, her aunt, and her sister, Donna. |
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| A Dreama Kattenbraker statue. |
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| My favorite Dreama Kattenbraker picture. I have a print of this one. |
Friday, November 04, 2011
Open Studios, Botetourt, Part II
You can read about artist Ed Bordett here.
Nancy Dahlstrom is another Fincastle artist.
She is also a professor at Hollins University. I took a couple of art classes from her when I was working on my undergraduate degree.
Nancy does printmaking, drawing, and painting. I remember when I was one of her students how kind she was. I cannot draw worth a damn but she was always encouraging. "That's a great line on that leg," she would say. Nevermind that the rest of the piece looked like child's scribbles.
She won the 2011 Perry F. Kendig Award, which is a prestigious honor.
I overheard Nancy telling another Open Studios visitor that she was having a hard time showing the above painting, because "beauty and loveliness" is not in vogue at the moment. Everybody wants to see darkness and angst, she said. I thought that was pretty sad.
For some reason, the above piece just calls out to me. I think it's a lovely piece of art.
Nancy Dahlstrom is another Fincastle artist.
She is also a professor at Hollins University. I took a couple of art classes from her when I was working on my undergraduate degree.
 |
| That's me on the left and Professor Nancy Dahlstrom on the right. |
Nancy does printmaking, drawing, and painting. I remember when I was one of her students how kind she was. I cannot draw worth a damn but she was always encouraging. "That's a great line on that leg," she would say. Nevermind that the rest of the piece looked like child's scribbles.
 |
| Some of Nancy Dahlstrom's more delicate artwork. |
She won the 2011 Perry F. Kendig Award, which is a prestigious honor.
 |
| A lovely flower painted by Nancy Dahlstrom. |
I overheard Nancy telling another Open Studios visitor that she was having a hard time showing the above painting, because "beauty and loveliness" is not in vogue at the moment. Everybody wants to see darkness and angst, she said. I thought that was pretty sad.
 |
| My favorite of Nancy Dahlstrom's artwork at the Open Studios event. |
Thursday, November 03, 2011
Thursday Thirteen #215
It is the first Thursday in November, and as such I will go back over October and list 13 things I am really grateful for or happy about or just want to remember.
1. We had snow on October 28. This was not the first time I've seen snow in October; I remember one year on October 10 we had a crack of thunder and snow began to fall. Thundersnow, they called it. But I don't remember it snowing just to snow.
2. I read (or listened to) these books: Promise Me, by Richard Paul Evans, A is for Alibi, by Sue Grafton, One for the Money, by Janet Evanovich, and a lot of detective short stories for my class.
3. The leaves on the trees turned and created a wonderful patchwork quilt of beauty for all to enjoy and clasp close their hearts.
4. We purchased another herd of cows to add to our existing herd. Almost all of them had babies by their side.
5. The turkeys and deer have been plentiful around the house, and I have enjoyed watching them. The turkeys strut and bob and the deer look in the windows.
6. I went to Fincastle to watch my nephew run in the Bank of Fincastle 10K. Go nephew!
7. My thesis finally took on a voice and I moved it forward a little bit. I only need about, um, 50 more pages and I can graduate with that masters degree.
8. My pounds lost numbers continued to climb and I have now lost over 20 pounds. I lost about 7 pounds in October alone. I'm going to have to clean out my closet again!
9. I did not get sicker and finally toward the end of the month I began feeling better. I've had a terrible infection but I think I am over it now (fingers crossed). I also found out on Halloween that I have a stress fracture in my foot. But hey, it could have been worse!
10. My oral project for my Detectives in Fiction class went well. I talked about the TV show Hunter which was on in the 1980s.
11. I went to the Roanoke Arts & Crafts show at the Roanoke Civic Center and had a nice time walking around and getting out of the house.
12. My aunt came down for a visit. She lives in Salem, which is not so far away, but still a long drive.
13. I went to a meeting of the Roanoke Branch of the National League of American Pen Women, where I am the secretary, and had a good time.
Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 215th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.
 |
| Snow in the mountain, golden leaves on the trees. |
2. I read (or listened to) these books: Promise Me, by Richard Paul Evans, A is for Alibi, by Sue Grafton, One for the Money, by Janet Evanovich, and a lot of detective short stories for my class.
3. The leaves on the trees turned and created a wonderful patchwork quilt of beauty for all to enjoy and clasp close their hearts.
 |
| Moo! |
 |
| Li'l Miss Deer comes to visit often. |
6. I went to Fincastle to watch my nephew run in the Bank of Fincastle 10K. Go nephew!
7. My thesis finally took on a voice and I moved it forward a little bit. I only need about, um, 50 more pages and I can graduate with that masters degree.
8. My pounds lost numbers continued to climb and I have now lost over 20 pounds. I lost about 7 pounds in October alone. I'm going to have to clean out my closet again!
9. I did not get sicker and finally toward the end of the month I began feeling better. I've had a terrible infection but I think I am over it now (fingers crossed). I also found out on Halloween that I have a stress fracture in my foot. But hey, it could have been worse!
10. My oral project for my Detectives in Fiction class went well. I talked about the TV show Hunter which was on in the 1980s.
11. I went to the Roanoke Arts & Crafts show at the Roanoke Civic Center and had a nice time walking around and getting out of the house.
12. My aunt came down for a visit. She lives in Salem, which is not so far away, but still a long drive.
13. I went to a meeting of the Roanoke Branch of the National League of American Pen Women, where I am the secretary, and had a good time.
Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 215th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
Open Studios: Botetourt, Part I
Botetourt County held its first "Open Studios" event over the Halloween weekend. Sixteen artists opened up their studios and homes to the public so that art lovers could get a glimpse of their workspace and purchase their wares.
My husband and I were able to take in a few of the artists' studios on Sunday. I feel sure if you're interested in the artwork, these artists would love to sell you something.
Ed Bordett is a Fincastle artist. The following information is an updated revision of an article I wrote about him for The Fincastle Herald in 2005.
Ed Bordett, a folksy Fincastle town councilman, has his studio in the back of his own gallery, Art Images.
His shop on Main Street was the town’s first art gallery, if you don’t count woodworking shops and other non-painting creative endeavors scattered about the area. He took over an old garage about ten years ago, giving him lots of space in which to paint and collect antiques and curiosities, which he is fond of doing.
Bordett’s been a member of the Fincastle community for about 25 years. He paints scenes from the locality and from his native New York.
Fincastle sculpturer Joyce Hilliou says Fincastle is lucky to have artists of Bordett’s caliber in the area. “Ed’s work is great,” she says. “I think Ed is indisputably a master of serigraph paintings.”
Serigraph paintings are original works of art that are similar yet unique. They are created with a silk-screen process that separates colors and transfers them onto a screen. When the screen contacts paper, the color is forced through a stencil. The process is repeated up to 40 times for color.
That’s just one of the things Bordett does. He also creates oil paintings, etchings, monotypes, and some commercial artwork. He has won many awards and honors for his work and businesses commission paintings from him.
He has always been an artist. Bordett attended the National Academy of Fine Arts in New York City and graduated from the Ringling School of Art. He’s been in the area since 1975; he moved to Fincastle in the mid-1980s. He’s been on town council since 1997. He’s chaired the Fincastle Festival’s art show, served on the board of Alleghany Highlands Art Center, has been a member of the grant review board for the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and co-president of Market Gallery & Studios cooperative in Roanoke.
He takes his artwork on the road 12-15 times a year, showing at juried shows on the east coast. He’s also husband to wife Becky and father of two.
His artwork focuses on color and light, what he calls a visual mix of the activity around him. He attempts to convey his emotions and feelings toward his subject when he paints.
Fincastle, he says, doesn’t have the same high energy as New York, but he sees a lot of similar geometric shapes and patterns. This comes through in his use of light across the surface of his art.
He paints from photos and sketches, depending on the subject and the way the subject matter caught his fancy. He sometimes creates small studies of a subject before moving onto a larger painting.
He works among a jumble of antiques, with the cracks in the walls of the old building as a backdrop and a partially-played chess game near an old sofa. The room is littered with easels, large and small, and half-finished canvases. He doesn’t keep regular hours, though that could change if the town begins to have a cultural climate change that indicates an interest in local arts.
"Buying isn’t the only thing,” he says of the arts and their work. He wants folks to look, too, and contemplate the artist’s vision.
That vision has sustained him well for a very long time, and he has no plans to give it up.
“I’ve just always been lucky enough to pursue what I want to do,” Bordett says as he cradles an ancient yet beautifully painted box he picked up at auction. “I’m extremely fortunate.”
My husband and I were able to take in a few of the artists' studios on Sunday. I feel sure if you're interested in the artwork, these artists would love to sell you something.
Ed Bordett is a Fincastle artist. The following information is an updated revision of an article I wrote about him for The Fincastle Herald in 2005.
Ed Bordett, a folksy Fincastle town councilman, has his studio in the back of his own gallery, Art Images.
 |
| Ed Bordett's artwork. |
His shop on Main Street was the town’s first art gallery, if you don’t count woodworking shops and other non-painting creative endeavors scattered about the area. He took over an old garage about ten years ago, giving him lots of space in which to paint and collect antiques and curiosities, which he is fond of doing.
Bordett’s been a member of the Fincastle community for about 25 years. He paints scenes from the locality and from his native New York.
Fincastle sculpturer Joyce Hilliou says Fincastle is lucky to have artists of Bordett’s caliber in the area. “Ed’s work is great,” she says. “I think Ed is indisputably a master of serigraph paintings.”
Serigraph paintings are original works of art that are similar yet unique. They are created with a silk-screen process that separates colors and transfers them onto a screen. When the screen contacts paper, the color is forced through a stencil. The process is repeated up to 40 times for color.
That’s just one of the things Bordett does. He also creates oil paintings, etchings, monotypes, and some commercial artwork. He has won many awards and honors for his work and businesses commission paintings from him.
 |
| My husband really liked Ed Bordett's version of a cow. |
He has always been an artist. Bordett attended the National Academy of Fine Arts in New York City and graduated from the Ringling School of Art. He’s been in the area since 1975; he moved to Fincastle in the mid-1980s. He’s been on town council since 1997. He’s chaired the Fincastle Festival’s art show, served on the board of Alleghany Highlands Art Center, has been a member of the grant review board for the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and co-president of Market Gallery & Studios cooperative in Roanoke.
He takes his artwork on the road 12-15 times a year, showing at juried shows on the east coast. He’s also husband to wife Becky and father of two.
His artwork focuses on color and light, what he calls a visual mix of the activity around him. He attempts to convey his emotions and feelings toward his subject when he paints.
 |
| Ed Bordett's image of Fincastle at Christmas. |
Fincastle, he says, doesn’t have the same high energy as New York, but he sees a lot of similar geometric shapes and patterns. This comes through in his use of light across the surface of his art.
He paints from photos and sketches, depending on the subject and the way the subject matter caught his fancy. He sometimes creates small studies of a subject before moving onto a larger painting.
He works among a jumble of antiques, with the cracks in the walls of the old building as a backdrop and a partially-played chess game near an old sofa. The room is littered with easels, large and small, and half-finished canvases. He doesn’t keep regular hours, though that could change if the town begins to have a cultural climate change that indicates an interest in local arts.
"Buying isn’t the only thing,” he says of the arts and their work. He wants folks to look, too, and contemplate the artist’s vision.
That vision has sustained him well for a very long time, and he has no plans to give it up.
“I’ve just always been lucky enough to pursue what I want to do,” Bordett says as he cradles an ancient yet beautifully painted box he picked up at auction. “I’m extremely fortunate.”
 |
| Another Ed Bordett view of Fincastle at Christmas. |
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