Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts

Friday, July 06, 2012

The Bird Nest

When I was picking up sticks in recent days following the demon wind storm known as a derecho, I came across a bird's nest.

I picked it up and placed it gently on my boxwood.





It fit into the palm of my hand. As you can see, it is very small.


Such a delicate creation! It is soft inside, lined with brown, black, and gray hairs.



I hope the baby birds had all grown up and flown away before the winds came.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Derecho

Last night we had a weather event that this area had never experienced before. It is called a derecho, a straight-line severe windstorm. I had never heard of it.

We had no warning. We had been out to dinner, and when we returned we turned the TV to HBO. About 9 p.m., suddenly the air around us burst into a roar; it sounded like the house had suddenly imploded.

We jumped up and raced to look outside. The clouds were dark and foreboding, and the wind was fierce. The Roanoke Airport recorded 81 mph winds, which are hurricane force.

This is the damage just around the house:

Tree limbs down, my wishing well destroyed.

Tree broken off.

A redbud twisted and destroyed.


Two more trees down.

Debris and limbs in the yard.

Poplars, which had died and needed to be cut down,
are now mostly down.

Large pine tree down.

Another large pine tree down.

An ash tree with the top gone.

Debris in the yard.

What is left of my garden.

I have no idea what the rest of the farm looks like, but I am sure there are many more trees down.

Thousands are without power, and the temperatures here today are expected to reach 102. I have, somehow, been fortunate to keep my electricity, and I have already invited a few folks to come use my shower and stay out of the heat here if they have to.

Hopefully the county will open a shelter, but I have not heard if they have done this yet. UPDATE: The county has opened as a shelter at Lord Botetourt High School, and Fincastle Baptist Church is also offering its space as a shelter.

Please everyone, be safe. Stay out of the heat.

Saturday, June 02, 2012

After the Storm

Yesterday the area experienced severe thunderstorms. We were under a tornado watch. My friend Cathy, with whom I used to work and who is a reporter for The Roanoke Times, caught a picture of something that looks like a tornado. Click on the link to see it.

After the bad weather passed through, I went outside to take photos of the storm as it was heading off into Bedford.


My favorite fence with dark skies in the background.


The storm moving toward the Peaks of Otter and into Bedford.



My rock lilies (or yucca) with the storm as a backdrop.


An hour or so later, a rainbow.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

What's Next?

Almost as soon as I had the diploma in my hands, the thought hit me: what's next?

Others echoed that. "What are you going to do now?" asked my stepmother.

The truth?

I don't know. I have considered more school. I love college. I enjoy learning. I like the atmosphere. I like big ideas. I like being able to discuss books, theories, and facts with logical passion. I find the young people stimulating, the professors exhilarating.

Hollins offers other advanced degrees - MFAs in creative writing or children's literature, and something called a Certificate of Advanced Studies. That is 10 more classes - or over $13,000 - for a higher degree.

The children's literature MFA is offered during the summer only. The creative writing MFA is quite competitive, but to be honest I've never really wanted the creative writing MFA. That sounds odd, perhaps, coming from someone who considers herself to be a writer, but the truth is as a Hollins undergraduate I had many writing classes, and many of my recent Hollins MA classes were writing classes. I don't know that either of these MFAs would offer me anything more.

That leaves a degree from some other university. Locally, Virginia Tech and UVA are the closest with PhD programs. Radford University has a number of masters programs and one PhD program in psychology.

When I was a very young girl, I wanted to be many things. Those I can remember include geologist, archaeologist, investigator, newspaper reporter, psychologist, rock star, historian, lawyer, and writer of mysteries a la Nancy Drew. Somewhere along the way I realized that writing gave me the opportunity to explore any career I wanted. It also allowed me the freedom to take part in things without actually being a part of them. The anonymity of being a newspaper reporter was something I quickly embraced. As a reporter (at least the way I have always been a reporter) I sat in the back, I observed, and I wrote the facts of what I saw. I seldom embellished - I had no need to - because the words of others generally speak for themselves. I didn't see a need to explain what was so obviously already said.

I know that other reporters thrust themselves into the stories - they became a part of it, rather than an observer. That was not - is not - my style. But it slipped into the industry, and soon became the rule. My way became antiquated. I still think it is better.

In the last two decades the landscape has changed. Newspaper writing is not what it was - the industry has shot itself in the foot by giving away its news on the Internet and by allowing greed to run amok among the upper levels of management. Newspapers were never meant to be for-profit businesses and those who wanted more than a decent salary and breaking even should have looked elsewhere for their dollar bills.

For me, it has never been about the money. It's been about the story, the self-satisfaction, and what I could live with.

Which brings me back to today. I look at the current landscape and it looks like something from another galaxy. Self-publishing looms large and I suspect that is the way of the future, though it scares me. I am not big on the self-marketing aspect of that - the social networking, the push to sell.

I have read a few self-published ebooks on my Nook, and all of them have suffered from a lack of editing. They had typos, places where they repeated themselves, trains of thought that went on and then ended nowhere, or gave too much information. Every single one of them would have been a better story if the author had taken the time to review the work with a critical eye, or had someone else do that for them. Sometimes stories need to sit for years before they see the light of day. But now it is easy to put something up, place a price on it, and hope it sells. Few people have the patience to wait for perfection.

Putting up something for sale that is less than it could be scares me. I suppose in that regard I am anal, a perfectionist, a book snob. Just last night I was in Barnes and Noble. I picked up a book on writing that looked interesting. I turned to a random page. There was a misplaced period and a poorly written sentence. I put the book back and didn't buy it. It might have had the greatest advice ever but if the author, editor, and publisher couldn't figure out that a sentence needs a noun and verb and that periods do not belong in between clauses, then it wasn't advice I wanted to read.

So what's next? I don't know. I don't know where I am going. I can look back at where I have been. I have made mistakes, of course. I wouldn't be human if I hadn't. And I will make mistakes in the future. We all do.

For now, I am going to take a little time to enjoy life. It is almost June, and in a few weeks I will be adding another year to the chronicle of my life. I will be 49 years old. I am at an age when finding work, changing careers, and reinventing yourself is not as easy as it was at 20, or even 40. My hair is graying, my face is wrinkling, and parts are wearing out. I'm solidly middle-aged. And I am okay with that.

I'm even okay with not knowing what is next.

For surely, something will come.

Monday, April 30, 2012

Luck of the Irish


Earlier this week I found this four-leaf clover in my mother-in-law's yard.

It had been a long time since I'd found a four-leaf clover. For a long time, I found them everywhere I went, no matter the yard.

But then I stopped looking. So I didn't find them.

My husband says he has never found a four-leaf clover. But then, he has never really looked.

Perspective is all in what we make of it. If we look for four-leaf clovers, we will likely find them, provided we're looking in the right place.

Of course we won't find a four-leaf clover just waiting for us on the living room floor. But out in the yard, amongst the clover, odds are better that you might find what you're looking for.

If we look for bad things in people, then of course, bad things we will find. If we look for good, then we will find good.

The world is full of people who are quite willing to point out the bad things. You're lazy, you're fat, you're not fast enough, you're old, you're young, you're too skinny, you're a workaholic, you're too quick and don't think.

See, it's all a matter of perspective and in how you look at it. What's fat to you might be pleasing to someone else. Someone who's too old might be a fountain of wisdom to another.

I wonder what the world would be like if we all practiced looking for the good things. What if instead of telling people what was wrong with them, we told them what was right?

Perspective. Looking in the right place, at the right time, through the right lenses.

I have been accused of looking at the world through rose-colored glasses - from the perspective of someone else, I see too much promise in the world sometimes.

But the world needs a little promise, don't you think? Someone who looks for the four-leaf clovers - and finds them - and doesn't just trod them over and squash them beneath her heel.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Bye Bye Britannica

A story yesterday on a New York Times blog says that Encyclopedia Britannica will cease publication of its print editions. Here's a link to a Reuters story about it, too.

Excuse me while I wipe away a very real tear. This makes me sad.

I do not own a set of encyclopedias, and I guess now I never will. At least, not a new set. I once bought a used set from the library book sale, but they were already musty and dusty and after a while, I took them off my shelves and gave them back for a resale.

My grandmother had a set of World Book Encyclopedias* that I loved to sit and read. They lined up beautifully on the book shelf and were a sight to behold. I loved the colored pictures, the black and whites, the even lines of type. I loved the words, the information, the ideas. So much knowledge. So much to learn.

I have, of course, always wanted a brand new set of encyclopedias of my very own. That desire waned with the advent of the Internet, though. And when, about 15 years ago, a CD with an encyclopedia found its way into my home, I was ecstatic. All of that information on a little disc. It was amazing.

Britannica will continue to be available online. It is good news that the knowledge will be available. But my problem with this is the same as it is with all things digital: it's availability can be snatched away in the blink of an eye.

The permanence of books cannot be denied while the fleeting ephemeral quality of digital also cannot be denied. Websites come and go. Just look at the geocities or my spaces of the world. Digital also has little respect for the past, and I fear gaping holes of history in a hundred years. That's a loss no one can put a price on.

All of the knowledge that is on Britannica's website might be available elsewhere, but I doubt it. Certainly it is not in that format. If the website folds, there goes all of that information.

I love books. I think print is better than digital. Digital has its place, and it is useful. But it should not replace print.

And that's all I have to say about that.


Update:

*World Book is a different company from Britannica, and I understand their books will still be available.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Have A Seat

A couple of weeks ago, I did a major clean-out of my office. This was necessitated by the quantity of stuff I had piled up, as well as the purchase of a new all-in-one printer/scanner/fax that I had to buy. I had to make the purchase because my old fax machine came under a recall and I was sent an email to unplug it immediately or it might catch fire.

On top of that, my second desk had been confiscated by my husband over a year ago. He took over the small spare room for his office and computer. Yes, we are like a little office building with living space.

Anyway, I decided I missed my second desk, so I bought another. I also frequently need a second seat in here. I was using a stool but the thing had wheels on it. It thought nothing of scooting away and leaving me in the floor when I went to sit on it.

During my clean, I pitched the thing out the door. I wanted no more part of that!

My husband very accommodatingly went to the office supply store and brought home a desk chair for me. He found a great bargain with a 70 percent mark down.

It is a lovely chair.

It also fits him perfectly and me not at all. You see, he is 6' 2" tall and I'm 5' 2" tall. So a chair that is perfect for him makes me look like a little child sitting on a grand throne.

After a few attempts to sit in the chair, I determined it would not do. Since he was using a kitchen chair at his desk, I suggested he take this wonderful chair he had purchased for his very own, and I buy me another.

So last night we went to dinner and stopped in one of the two office supply stores. I tried out several chairs. The really comfortable ones were out of my price range, but I finally found a small, yet durable-looking one, that I thought would work fine.

We brought it home in a box, for it had to be assembled. My husband patiently sat with the directions and put the chair to together.

When he finished, we stood and looked at it.

The chair looked drunk.

Somehow it was completely off kilter, with the right side pushed forward and the left side to the rear. I sat in and it there was no way it was usable. Well, at least not as I am presently proportioned.

This morning we loaded the chair back into the car and drove to Roanoke to the store. We explained the problem to the sales clerk, who agreed that the chair looked crooked.

He fetched another from the rear. When he began opening the box, I thought he might put it together to ensure that it was just an anomaly with the chair we'd hauled home. And that was what he suggested, as he handed out some parts, that we put the chair together before we left to see if it would be satisfactory.

However, by "we" he did not mean himself or someone else in the store. He meant us. And us alone, without a smidgeon of assistance from any one there.

So we sat in the floor at the front door of Staples and put the chair together.

The clerk wandered off and left us to mull over the parts and figure out how to assemble the chair. I was miffed at this terrible lack of service, to be sure. After all, they were getting a completely assembled chair out of the deal, even if it was a crooked one. Plus we had driven no short distance to make this return.

I made a point of spreading things out all over the front of the store. It was, though, about 11:15 on a Sunday morning, and there were not many shoppers.

I am sure we were quite the spectacle, my white-headed husband on his knees trying to put the chair together while I read the instructions to him (he did not have his glasses) and handed him parts. However, we assembled the chair and pronounced it serviceable.

Customer service at all of the national chain office supply stores in this area is abysmal. I am an office supply junkie and have always loved going to look at stationary, ink pens, planners, and the like. I still like to do that but I find myself shying away from purchases or asking questions of the employees. Unfortunately, the help is either nonexistent because there aren't enough people on the floor, or the people who are there are among the most sour and unhelpful in the valley.

I realize that the economy is tough, but it's tough all over. I don't necessarily expect service with a smile, though it would be nice. But at least make some effort to do the job.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

How Do I Look?

I do not consider myself a stylish dresser. In fact, I think the word "frumpy" probably covers it better. I try to dress nice, but I lean toward a conservative look.

Most of my clothes are by Alfred Dunner, purchased at JC Penneys. In part, this is because of my fat butt and my pear-shaped body. I have a hard time finding clothes that fit.

While my weight loss has stalled, I am still attempting to keep the eating in check and trying to lose. I am down over 20 pounds.

At some point, I will need some new clothes. Actually I will need a new outfit or two sooner rather than later.

I want a make over. A complete, total "gosh who is that" kind of makeover.

Sunday night I found myself entranced with a show called How Do I Look? This is not something I normally watch. Indeed, I had never seen it before and didn't konw it existed. But it came on after reruns of Sex and the City and I was reading, so I didn't change the channel. And then the next thing I knew, the book was forgotten and I was watching slovenly women being transformed into lovelies.

I want to be a lovely.

However, it hard to be a lovely when you don't know how to be a lovely. I also have some bad habits. For example, I chew my nails, still, though not as much as I once did. I am overweight, of course, and I tend to lean toward comfort over fashion. I do not like things that bind, and I need good, sturdy shoes. I need my glasses, too.

Every one of these women in these make overs lost the glasses, turned blond, and put on high heels. They looked good, but they did not look comfortable.

Sexy, yes. But not comfortable, or very practical. And definitely not me.

When I was about 14, my father hauled me off to a beautician, I guess because he was tired of my shaggy hair. This is the only time I remember him taking an interest in my appearance and I don't know what precipitated it; maybe someone said something. Anyway, the cut was way out there, for me, so much so that later that day, when I ran into my cousins at the mall, they did not recognize me.

Photos of me throughout the years show a woman who never knew what to do with her hair. I had perms that were wild; when I see the pictures I can't believe I looked like that. These days my hair lays against my head, no perm, and the gray shows. But it is gray and unpermed because I discovered I couldn't deal with the chemicals in the hair coloring and permanent solution. They made me ill.

When the time comes to buy new clothes, that time some months away when I have lost another 20 pounds and absolutely nothing in my closet fits, I hope I have the courage to step out of the Alfred Dunner section of the department store and try something else. Even if I don't get a different hair cut, or stop chewing my nails, I can purchase different clothes.

Maybe it is time I decide who I want to be, eh? It's only taken an entire lifetime! Time to find my personal style so that the answer to "How do I look?" is ... SMASHING.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Mark This One Off the Bucket List

Last night, my husband and I went to the Roanoke Civic Center to watch Guns and Hoses. This was a hockey game played by members of local police and fire departments, with all proceeds going to MDA.

It was my first-ever hockey game. The only thing I know about hockey is that players are supposed to put a puck into a net.

That I had never been to a hockey game will not surprise regular readers, who know I don't spend much time with sports or attend venues with large crowds.


The announcer said there were 8,000 people in attendance at this game.

It was a family event, and there were little children running everywhere. Loud rock music played at various intervals, and I fear it must do something to the little tot's nervous system, as there was much twitching and shaking every time the music came on. I enjoyed watching them. I didn't take any photos of them because, well, they weren't my children and I didn't want to put pictures up of kids I don't know on my blog without permission.



The firefighters wore red, while the policemen wore black.



The showdown began!



The police team took the first point.


During an intermission, the firefighters did the chicken dance out on the ice.




During a second intermission, this firefighter did a little striptease to win the "sexiest player" title, as demonstrated by much yelling from the crowd.

We left with four minutes left in the game; the firefighters were losing and I assume they did not take home a trophy.

Still, everyone had a good time for a good cause! And we did something besides stay home on a Saturday night.

Thursday, January 05, 2012

Burning the Bad

So on the first day of the year, I wrote down on a piece of paper four items that I considered to be bad habits that I wanted to do away with.

Then I burned the paper.


It took a long time for this to turn to ash!

The idea behind this is that I am leaving these bad habits behind me. With the new year, these problem behaviors or activities will vanish, up the chimney with the smoke from the paper.

Now, it is five days later, and I cannot remember all four items on the paper. I can only remember three of them.

Does that mean I no longer have the bad habits?

Or does it mean I have old timer's at an early age?

What could the fourth have been?!?

Any guesses?

Monday, January 02, 2012

Power Words

Last Thursday, Yolanda left a comment on my blog. She was a new visitor, so I checked out her blog in return.

She had noted that she was going to use EXPLORE as her word for the new year.

I loved this idea. And then I read a Guidepost article by author Debbie Macomber who said she does the same thing. She takes a word for the year. An interview with her can be found at this link.

This was enough for me to figure I was being led to find a word for myself. A power word.

But a single word? I am finding this difficult.

I have four words on my mind, instead. Those words are PASSION, INTUITION, COURAGE, and CREATIVITY.

They are all related, at least in my mind, so I wondered if there might be a single word that I missing.

One that covers all four.

PASSION means any powerful emotion, want, or desire. I chose this word because, while there are many things I enjoy doing, there are very few things that I absolutely must do or I will feel like I've lost a part of myself. Writing seems to be something I am passionate about, but I am not sure I am passionate enough about it. Certainly I am not passionate enough about a specific project, and I think that is what I am looking for. That writing project that I absolutely have to work on, every day.

INTUITION means perception of truth without reasoning, or quick insight. This word came to me when I was doing some reading over the New Year's Eve, and then it turned up again in a tarot card reading yesterday. My intuition is something I generally do not trust, but I also think the things I write from intuition are generally much better than the things I write from a different space.

COURAGE means able to face difficulty or danger with firmness and without fear. I chose this word because it seems to me that fear stops me in my tracks with alarming regularity. Sometimes I think it wouldn't take much for me to become agoraphobic and never leave the house. So I want to be stronger and feel more able to stand up to the breath of the world, instead of letting it blow me over.

CREATIVITY means original thought or expression, able to create. As in, writing a poem, or making a drawing. I chose this word because it something that means a great deal to me, but it, like courage, is something that seems elusive to me.

I don't think there is one word that covers all of that. Perhaps what I need is a power sentence instead of a power word.

Something like:

For 2012, I will have the COURAGE to find my PASSION and I will use my INTUITION and CREATIVITY.

Words have power; they can be as hard as a fist when used improperly.

If you have a power word or a power sentence, I hope you will share.

More power to you!

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Technologied Out

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

The Beat Goes On

I have never been to a protest.

Occasionally, when I was working as a news reporter, I covered small political rallies, but they were not protests.

As a child in the 1960s, I saw students marching in protest against the Vietnam War on the nightly news.

I saw civil rights protests and marches, but I was too young to understand them.

Kent State and the massacre that took place there in 1970 seemed like something that happened in a far-off country. Certainly it happened in a world quite different from mine, country girl of seven years that I was. Living isolated on a farm with only one TV station and my parent's radio always tuned to country music, I was definitely not mainstream.

By the time I was old enough to drive, the Vietnam War was over. The late 1970s was the "me" generation, all about me me me. I remember no one marching for much of anything.

To be sure, I don't recall too many protests in this country between 1980 and 2000.

There were riots over the Rodney King verdict, but I am not sure that is a protest. I guess it is in a more violent sort of way.

I don't know of any protests up until 2001, when people began protesting the United States' war efforts in the Middle East. Which isn't to say there aren't any, as I am sure there are. They just didn't stick with me, whatever they may have been.

Interestingly, this Wiki page here lists 59 protests that have occurred in the U.S. Out of that number, four begin with "tea party."

I could not have been a tea party protester because they were not protesting for much that I believed in. Their protests seemed to me to be along the lines of "I've got mine, screw you and go away because you're not getting it." I am not a subscriber to that kind of thinking. I have a thing about generousity and taking care of my fellow human being. I try not to look down on anyone and I work hard at being accepting of people, even if I don't understand them. I wish no one harm.

But those protests apparently are so last decade.  Now we have the folks who are occupying Wall Street. Here's a CNN story if you're interested in reading more.

These folks are more in line with my kind of thinking. They're calling this a "leaderless resistance" - a true people's movement. Disenfranchised Americans taking a stand against greed.

So what are they protesting? They're protesting things like banks, which are hanging onto money instead of fronting businesses and development. They're protesting Wall Street, where insiders get rich because hard-working Americans want to save their money in an IRA. They're drawing attention to the rest of us, to you and me, those of us who work every day to earn a paycheck. We're having a harder and harder time because prices of everything are rising, but our earnings are stagnant. They're protesting a system that rewards theivery and kills honesty.

They want leaders who can lead, not adults who throw childish temper tantrums. They want to be heard. They want jobs, a house, a future.

They want a strong middle class.

It is fitting that it began in New York City. It had to start there. Do you honestly think such a movement would gain momentum if it started in Roanoke? or even Richmond? No, such a protest required the great city as its birth place.

But it is spreading, I hear. Protests are popping up all over. Maybe one day there will be one close by.

Go people! I hope your voices are heard from sea to shining sea.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

30 Years Ago . . . Today

So last night was my 30th class reunion. When the class graduated, there were about 230 people marching for their diplomas.

We had  44 classmates and 23 guests sign up, and a few people dropped in, for a total of around 70-75 people for our big evening.

The event was held at the Kyle House in Fincastle. This is an old structure that once was a grocery store. It is now used for weddings, reunions, and other events.

The food was catered appetizers consisting of some fish things, BBQ biscuits, cheeses, crackers, spinach dip, etc.



This will be my favorite picture from the evening, I think. Not because I am in it (I'm the one in the pink) but because all of us went to Breckinridge Elementary School together. So we have known each other since we were small children. From left: Alan, Chris, Ramona, Me, Kathy, and Ann.


This is Ann. We talked a lot about our days in the rock band, Almost Famous, and our misadventures.


Ramona. I was quite impressed with how wonderful she looked. I give her many thumbs up for making positive changes in her life.


Donna and I shared a few adventures in high school, too.


Greetings at the door.


Gale (in black) saying hello to Ramona.


The memory table featured the yearbooks, a copy of The Interloper, which was a school paper of sorts, somebody's report cards, photos, etc.


We went outside to take a picture. Originally they wanted us on this balcony but some of us worried that we'd end up crashing it to the ground if we all gathered on it. Not wanting to die or be injured, we insisted on moving the photo op to the courtyard below.


This was accomplished via a circular staircase at the rear. I did not get a group picture but am hoping to steal one from someone's Facebook page later.



Our classmates who have passed on. There are 8 that we know of.

The event was very nice. I behaved myself, except for dancing. Greg wanted to dance and no one was dancing with him, so I did. The only thing is, I can't dance. I look a bit like Elaine from Friends when I dance. This has immediately gone onto my bucket list as something I want to do - learn to dance.

It was a nice time. I was home by 10 p.m. I hope to keep in touch with a few of these old friends. Back to the present day now.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Picky, Picky

As a general rule, I am fairly easy going. I don't have a lot of preferences for myself and I try very hard not to project onto others.
So imagine my surprise when by 11 a.m. this morning, I had two spats of pickiness.

The first occurred when my husband came home from work. He handed me a pack of report covers he'd purchased for me while he was in town.

They were rolled up.

I gave them back. "I can't use these," I said.

"Why not?"

"They're not flat and pristine. I am not putting my papers in something that will roll back up," I told him.

He looked at me like I was crazy, but I have a real thing about my office supplies. My notebooks have to be carried home gingerly, because if the paper gets a little crimped or the cover gets bent, as far as I am concerned, it's trash. Or it might as well be, because I certainly won't use it.

Apparently, I have managed to keep this little quirk to myself fairly well.

My other picky thing is my feet.

I am not a fan of feet. I hate to go barefoot. I dislike looking at my tootsies. And I despise getting anything at all on my feet.

So imagine my dismay when, long after the sun was up, I slipped on a pair of clogs and went outside to toss some things in the compost pile, and found the grass was wet.

The dew got on my dainty little feet. My heels were wet. I couldn't stand it.

I had to come in and wash my feet off, and once dried, I put on my socks and sneakers to ensure that those feet did not come into contact with anything else today.

Picky me.

Friday, July 08, 2011

Lost in Space

I was six years old on that hot day in July, 1969. We were outside playing - myself, my brother, and my two young uncles - when my grandmother called us in the house.

The men were going to walk on the moon.

We were lucky enough to be able to watch this amazing feat and to hear those historic words: "One giant leap for mankind." And so it was on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and his fellow astronauts stepped foot on another planet.

I was 23 years old in 1986 and driving down Interstate 581 on my way to my part-time job after taking a class at Virginia Western Community College. I was listening to the radio report of the launch of the Challenger, a space shuttle which would be taking a teacher into space.

I nearly wrecked the car as I heard the horror in the announcer's voice as he cried, "It's breaking up, it's breaking up! Oh my God!"

I was 40 years old and had the TV on while I was cleaning house. I wanted to watch the landing of Columbia, a space shuttle returning from a successful mission. I was horrified all over again as the shuttle disintegrated over Texas. I remember I called my brother to tell him to keep the nephew away from the TV so he wouldn't see the tragedy.

All of my life I have taken time to watch the rockets and space shuttles launch when they showed the events on TV - these three I remember best because thankfully, the others were quite routine. When I was young, I even though I might work for NASA, but fate had other plans. But I watched the space program with great pride and admiration.

The idea of it! Exploring the vast unknown. Moving through space and time in a way no other people ever have done before. Opening up the heavens to find - who knew what - and learning for sure that the moon was not made of green cheese. Seeing for sure that the earth is really a big, blue round ball orbiting the sun.

The space program moved the thinking of humanity forward like nothing else. It eliminated myths. It brought home the reality of how small and insignificant we really are. It gave us great inventions and changed the way we looked at ourselves as a nation and as a people.

Because of the space program, we have a progressive weather alert system complete with rather accurate and amazing radar that let's us see the thunderstorms heading our way. Because of the space program, we have water and air purification systems that allow people to breathe in small spaces and which cleanse the air in our homes and drink water from the sea if need be.

Because of the space program, we have GPS, heart pumps, better microwaves, KEVLAR, enriched baby formula, scratch and glare coatings, athletic shoes, helmets and padding, wireless stuff, video stabilization, heat protection, ... it's a long list. These and many other things came about because of the space program. They invented what they needed and then someone else took the applications and created a public use for the item. It's about as innovative as you can get.

The space program gives back about $8 for every $1 spent. The billions spent on the space program are merely pennies per person when it comes to tax dollars.

And yet there are folks who would end this program. Cut off the exploration, stop the inventions, cease the forward momentum. They do this in the name of money. Money, at this time in history, has become more precious than time, more precious than innovation, more important than life itself. Thank God this is not a morality I subscribe to.

While the space program isn't ending, this door closing sure feels like a final slam on the America I once knew. It's the feeling I get all over - let's close the doors, turn the lock, hide our faces so we can't see the reality of what we're facing, much less where we're going.

Today is the day of the last space shuttle launch. Godspeed to those on board. Thank you, NASA, for all you have given us.