Thursday Thirteen

I'm the type of person who . . .

1. . . . writes down what she wants to say before she says it.

2. . . . reads everything she sees, even the labels on food, books she doesn't particularly care for, and articles that state the opinions of "the other side," whatever that may be.



My nails don't look quite this bad today.

3. . . . bites her nails when she is bored, tired, or frustrated (and one of my most-viewed pages on my blog is this one, with pictures of my chewed-up nails, though my nails don't look that bad now).


4. . . . loves to live in the country, where the air is sweeter and the sounds are clearer.


5. . . . thinks Halloween is the best holiday ever, because free candy is definitely worth putting on a costume and ringing a bell for.



6. . . . needs to be hugged a lot, and thinks that if more people hugged and said, "I like you," the world would be a much better place.

7. . . .  believes in a safety net, because most people do work hard and want to work, but sometimes bad stuff happens and it's nobody's fault.

8. . . . makes people laugh without actually meaning to by offering wry, witty running commentary on the many facets of life (too bad it doesn't come through in my writing very often).

9. . . .  enjoys her friends and family and is often puzzled as to their actions and reactions about this and that and the other things.

Hollins University, a bastion
of the liberal arts.

10. . . . enjoys history, architecture, geology, psychology, and literature; you know, the liberal arts, those things about half the country believe have no value.


11. . . . wears conservative, nice Alfred Dunner clothing when she really wants to wear cottony bohemian tie-dye and look like this; I need to lose a lot more weight first.

Two of my clocks.

12. . . . collects postcards, Dept. 56 village houses, and clocks.

13. . . . drives too fast, walks too slow, listens well, and loves ferociously.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 214th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Oh Deer! Up Close & Personal

Sometimes I am amazed at what I see out the front door! Check out the close-ups in this video. Have you ever felt so close to a deer?

Our House is a Very Fine House

I don't often post exterior images of our house, mostly because there isn't a very good place to take a decent photo of it. The front yard slopes down a lot and that makes it difficult to take a pretty picture.

However, my house is in the picture. It is not the white one. It is way in the distance. It is directly under the white cloud over the mountain, not quite a third of the way from the left.

Maybe this is better? See, there it is! Our little ranch, hidden on the hill.

And this would be the best I can do from the other side of the farm. The house is hardly visible from the road; most people don't know it is there. We built it ourselves, with our own two hands in 1987.

On a Clear Day

I think it is impossible to take a bad photo on a day like today.

The pollen count is less than 1.

The sky is a pale, lovely blue.

The trees wear their finest colors.

So I went up to the highest point on the farm, and shot a few pictures. I took these with my Canon.

This is the view from the backside of the farm, and it is not one many people get to see. There is only one spot on the place with this scenery; generally it is all wooded and so the forest is all we see. But in one place there is a little opening, and this is the view. The house is as huge as it looks: it belongs to some specialist doctor.



This is the backside of my mother-in-law's house. She has a lovely view of those mountains, doesn't she?

Just a shot of pretty trees.

These homes are on the farm, too, but they are not family. The home on the far left is my husband's old home place; it is where he was raised until my in-laws built the current house. The home on the right was built around 2005; some of the farmland had to be sold after Grandma passed away to satisfy the contents of her will.

The chicken coops, outbuildings, and the first pond. The chicken coops no longer hold chickens; they hold hay. Grandma's house is beside the pond in the midst of those trees. The house was built about 1816.

Godwin Cemetery, Fincastle, Autumn 2011

The top of the hill at Godwin Cemetery, which is in Fincastle near the rear of the town, is one of my favorite spots to take photos. This morning I ventured out to the library and then ran up the hill. It was a chilly but lovely day, with a crisp, clear sky and the remnants of the change of leaves still speckling the mountains.

I used a filter on a few of these photos.

The steeple belongs to the Fincastle Presbyterian Church.

This is pretty much my eternal view, as we've spots in the Firebaugh section awaiting us. Of course my perspective will probably be a little lower. Six feet under instead of five feet above.

Fincastle Methodist Church in the foreground and the Botetourt County Courthouse in the rear. The children's playground equipment, while not new, is an interesting juxtaposition to the tombstones, don't you think?

I love this shot. You can see Fincastle Methodist Church, the Botetourt County Courthouse, and the Fincastle Presbyterian Church.

Fincastle Presbyterian Church. This is one of my favorite scenes, the church steeple with the mountain behind.

The county courthouse on the right and the Presbyterian Church on the left.

The steeples, from left, are the Fincastle Methodist Church, then St. Mark's Episcopal Church, and then the Botetourt County Courthouse in the far right. There's also a cell tower on the left on top of the hill. I can remember when that wasn't there.

The small steeple in the middle of this picture belongs to the old Fincastle Baptist Church building. It is now a private home.

Autumn Colors Have Arrived

Autumn's here! All dressed up and ready for the party!

Thursday Thirteen

Apparently I am brain dead, so today these are things that start with the letter "B."

1. Bitch. This word can be a noun or a verb. It is frequently used as a pejorative word to describe women and men who are perceived as acting as women. It is also the name of a female dog and when used as a verb, it is the act of complaining. The fact that this is the first word that came to my mind for the letter B is somewhat troubling.

2. Bastard. This would be the male version of the above word, used as a noun to describe an illegitimate child and as a verb to describe a mean, despicable person, usually a man. I am also troubled that this is the second word that came to mind this morning. Perhaps my day is starting out rough?

3. B-Complex Vitamin. This is a vitamin that encompasses many of the category of vitamins known as "B" vitamins. "B" vitamins are important in cell metabolism. They are good for healthy skin and hair and help the immune system and the nervous system. They are also supposed to help ward off pancreatic cancer. The B vitamins are Vitamin B1 (thiamine), Vitamin B2 (riboflavin), Vitamin B3 (niacin or niacinamide), Vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid), Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine, pyridoxal, or pyridoxamine, or pyridoxine hydrochloride), Vitamin B7 (biotin), Vitamin B9 (folic acid), and Vitamin B12 (various cobalamins; commonly cyanocobalamin in vitamin supplements).

4. Baggins. Bilbo and Frodo Baggins are the two most famous hobbits from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Bilbo found the ring in The Hobbit (soon to be a major motion picture) and Frodo carried the ring to Mount Doom to destroy it in Lord of the Rings.

5. Bacchanalia. This is a wild gathering or party that involves a lot of drinking and promiscuity. In ancient Greece, wild and crazy boys and girls held such events to honor the god Bacchus (Dionysus). I think I attended a few of these when I was in high school, but my life has been pretty quiet since then.

6. Bag lady. These are those sad looking homeless women who carry their belongings in shopping carts or bags. A 2006 study showed that almost half of all women fear ending up as a bag lady. Ninety percent of women in that study felt financially insecure. What does this say about our society?

7. Barn. This is a place where farmers put things and where animals might live. A barn can hold machinery, hay, cows, chickens, horses, etc., and sometimes people if they have nowhere else to go. Some are red, some are white, some burn down in the dark of night.

8. Bear. Bears are great big carnivorous mammals that we sometimes see on the farm. A bear can also be the state of the stock market (a pessimistic market), something you have or hold, as in to bear a scar or to bear arms, or to hold something up, as in to bear weight, among other things. The bear on the left was in our alfalfa field in 2009.

9. Bewitch. When you bewitch someone, you put a spell or a hex on them, or maybe you magnetize them with your charm. In the late 1960s and early 70s there was a show on called Bewitched that starred Elizabeth Montgomery. She crinkled her nose to cast a spell.



10. Bird. Our warm-blooded feathered friends come in many shapes and sizes. Some can't even fly while others zip around the big blue sky like little mosquitoes. We have many birds around our house, including finches, blue jays, cardinals, robins, and wild turkeys. The picture on the right was shot with a trail camera.

11. Black Death. This was the name given to a period of time in the Middle Ages during which a lot of people died from bubonic plague in Europe. It killed somewhere between 30 and 60 percent of the population. It was thought to have originated in China and then traveled from there along the Silk Road. It took Europe 150 years to recover from this one event.

12. Bleak. How you feel when you have little hope, or maybe how you look if you've been sick for a while. It also is a description for a barren place with little shelter.

13. Bones. Those things that hold up your skin. It is also a color and used as a verb it means to take the bones from, as in boning a fish. Walking bones are called skeletons and you see them a lot around this time as we gear up for Halloween. In Appalachia, you can also play the bones, which is an interesting thing to see and hear.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 213th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Cows

Turkeys!

Turkeys from the trail camera. I enlarged the last shot just to get a better look. I think these are all turkey hens as they do not have a beard.

On the Cusp of Change

The peak time for tree color here on the farm will probably be the middle of this week. It's already peaking on the mountains.

Lovely yellows on the trees.

A little bit of red!

A blushing crimson.

A squirrel on the fence!

Birds of a feather.

Running!

Yesterday in the little town of Fincastle, the Bank of Fincastle 5K and 10K runs took place.

About 900 people were signed up to run. One of them was my nephew, who, unfortunately, is not in this picture. I don't know any of these people. For some reason my camera wasn't working well (or maybe it was operator error) and few of my shots turned out. Oh well.

Anyway, this event is in its 25th year. It is quite popular. The county schools, from elementary school up, usually send teams, so you have some very young children learning the value of exercise on a cool October morning.  Many parents also sign up and walk along (or run) with their offspring.

The first 600 runners to register are guaranteed a T-shirt. The bank has a new design created every year. This year it was a turkey in autumn.

Winners receive medals and/or trophies.

Locals know that this course is very hilly, with steep inclines and descents in places. It is not a trek for the faint of heart, that's for sure.

I stood on the sideline and cheered and clapped for the multitude of runners. Some folks I knew, others I didn't.

Maybe when I've lost my weight and gotten my asthma controlled, I will give the 5K a try. Maybe even next year?

Thursday Thirteen

Here you go, 13 quotes about writing.

1. I'm just another writer, still trapped within my truth . . . Sometimes When We Touch, Written by Dan Hill and sung by Barry Manilow, among others.

2. There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. - Ernest Hemingway

3. Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down - Robert Frost

4. If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.  - Anais Nin

5. True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those who move easiest have learned to dance. - Alexander Pope

6. Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing. - Sylvia Plath

7. I will carry on writing, to be sure. But I don't know if I would want to publish again after Harry Potter. - J K Rowling

8. I look for ambiguity when I'm writing because life is ambiguous.  - Keith Richards

9. The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen. - Lee Iacocca

10. It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it. - W. H. Auden

11. Writing is the supreme solace. - W. Somerset Maugham

12. Writing is hard work and bad for the health. - E. B. White

13. Writing is nothing more than a guided dream. - Jorge Luis Borges

These came from this website: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/writing_5.html

I have had this song on my mind for two days.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 212th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Let's Learn Something

Last night I watched a little bit of Oprah's new show on her channel, OWN.

Her new show is called Oprah's Lifeclass. Essentially she has set out to teach the world how to be better. How to be a better you, a better friend, a better everything. And I don't mean better in a bad way, as in, there is something wrong now, but better in the way that everyone has faults and issues. We can all stand a little self-exploration every now and again.

I really admire her efforts to bring light and focus to television. She is attempting something very positive here. She is trying to turn the idiot box into a teaching tool.

She's doing this by going back into the vast archives of her TV show and bringing forth things that could assist someone with personal growth.

Last night's show focused on ego. Where does your ego get in the way?

In the example I saw, she said her ego focused on her weight issue. She wanted to lose weight for her ego, not for the right reasons.

In conjunction with the TV show, she has set up a life classroom of sorts at her website, oprah.com. Over 1.1 million people have signed up for it, including me. She gave the first one million a free journal. I did not sign up quickly enough to qualify for that, but oh well.

I signed up even though I knew I wouldn't do the exercises or be able to watch all of the TV show, because of my class schedule. I expect most people are not able to devote an hour every night to this, but perhaps the online initiative will make it work. But I thought it might be an interesting and worthwhile exercise when I had a spare moment. I am always trying to do better and be a better person.

The series runs for five weeks, five nights a week.

http://www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/Lesson-1-The-False-Power-of-Ego_1

My Niece Does Her Dance Thing!

This is my niece, Zoe, doing her dance routine at the Vinton Festival on Saturday. Isn't she great?

Is There a Doctor in the House?

I do not like to go to the doctor.

Yet I spend a significant amount of time seeing doctors. I have a lot of health issues.
These issues include:

• obesity
• thyroid problems
• high blood pressure
• high cholesterol
• high triglycerides
• asthma

I am working diligently on the first item in hopes of alleviating some of the others (I'm down 18 pounds!). And yet I keep running into walls.

My general practitioner harps on cholesterol-lowering medicines even though I have told her repeatedly I am not going to take them. Yes, the numbers are high but not, to my mind, significantly so. A decade ago, before they decided they wanted to sell more drugs, I would have been borderline high. I am already taking blood pressure and thyroid medicines. I am not adding another.

You see, I don't trust the health care we have now. It's all about money, not healing. Let's face it. The pharmaceutical industry makes its money masking symptoms, not affecting cures. Do you really think there will be a cure for cancer so long as there is money to be made off of it? Not in my life time. As long as my health is a commodity that someone can constantly try to use to bilk money off of me, I will not ever trust a health care provider. And that includes "alternative care" providers, many of whom I am sure are genuinely interested in caring for me, provided I have the money to pay them.

Yes, I know, they have bills to pay, too. But personally I think $100 for an hour's worth of whatever, be that an acupuncture sticking, a Reiki healing session, or a massage, is a bit much. You can offer the care without gouging people. I guess it costs what it costs, though.

Anyway, the asthma is a new issue for me. I went in July to see if I had a fish allergy and came out with a serious asthma diagnosis and two steroid inhalers, a steroid nasal inhaler, and a nasal antihistamine. I remember walking out there thinking, what just happened here?

Oh, it was obvious from the tests that I had a problem. The breathing tests were quite conclusive. I don't breathe well. That chest pain I keep experiencing is actually asthma - why wasn't I using my rescue inhaler? the doctor wanted to know.

Nobody ever told me when to use it.

That's right. About 20 years a doctor said, "You have asthma," and told me to carry around Primatene Mist, which was available over the counter. I dutifully bought some, but I didn't know when I was supposed to use it.

"When you can't breathe," someone said.

Well, that was pretty much all the time for me, and I was so used to it I didn't realize it was an issue. Those coughing spasms? Asthma. Tight chest and nearly choking after crying? Asthma. Coughing after laughter? Asthma. Really bad chest pains that sent me to hospital thinking I was having a heart attack? Asthma.

And I didn't know.

I'm 48 years old. I have seen a potful of doctors. I have seen general practitioners and specialists, and emergency room doctors.

Why didn't somebody say something?

Every time I have switched general practitioners or gone to a specialist, I have listed an emergency inhaler as one of my medications. For 20 years! "But I don't use it," I would say. And they never commented. They just gave me a prescription for another one.

When I went to the ER in 2009 with chest pains and difficulty breathing, why didn't somebody test me for asthma then? Suggest I use my emergency inhaler? Because they earned more money running me on the treadmill and through their little stress test, that's why.

I thought this way of breathing, this frustrating and unhealthy feeling, was normal. It was normal, for me. You might be wondering why I didn't look it up. Well, because nobody mentioned it as a possible source of some of my problems. Never.

This pretty much proves something I've been saying for a few years now.

This is the Roanoke area. Small city. Small potatoes. Do you really think that the "A" list doctors are going to come to a city of 100,000 to practice medicine? No. We get those physicians who pass by the seat of their pants. The ones who graduate from some medical college in Aruba that exists in a rundown motel room. The ones who speak English with accents so heavy that I can't understand a thing they say. This is second-rate health care here. There are no "A" list doctors in Roanoke. There probably aren't even any in Virginia. Well, maybe at UVA.

According to a headline about an athlete with asthma in today's paper, 1 out of every 12 people has asthma. You'd think someone would think to mention it to me, and suggest I see a specialist.

So anyway, in July, I came home with asthma controller medications.

And I used them.

Six weeks later, in mid-August, I tested great at the asthma doctor's office. Nearly 100 percent lung capacity. I was feeling pretty good, too. Things that used to bother me and make me gasp for air were more tolerable (sensitivities is a big thing for asthma sufferers and I didn't know that, either). I was walking on the treadmill more.

And then I started having side affects. Really bad, life-altering, possibly life-threatening, side affects.

The asthma doctor, of course, said the medications couldn't be causing the symptoms I was experiencing. These aren't normal side effects for this medication.

Nevertheless, he cut back on my asthma medication, just a tiny bit, and sent me home with other medication for the side effects.

And after a week on the side-effect medication, I felt a little better, for about three days.

Then the side affects overrode the helpful medication and I was right back where I started. I went back to the doctor Thursday and basically he threw up his hands. He patted me on the head and said he was sorry, but he didn't know what else he could do for me. He didn't change my asthma medication anymore, either.

I knew what to do.

I stopped taking my asthma medication. I didn't ask the doctor because what was the point? He would say I should take it.

That was 48 hours ago. The side affects are getting better. I feel more hopeful about that than I have in two weeks.

However, my breathing quickly deteriorated. It has moved back to where it was before the steroid asthma inhalers, back to a tightness in the chest. It should be okay, it is what I lived with for many years.

But I have felt what it feels like to feel better.

I wish I didn't know.

Thursday Thirteen

It's the first Thursday of the month, and for me, that means it is time to remember the wonderful things I did last month. So here, in no particular order, are the good things about September 2011.


1. Well, the best thing that happened to me is I didn't get sicker than I could have. I had a really bad infection at the end of the month that I am just getting over. If I hadn't gone to the doctor when I did, I'd have ended up in the hospital. So I am really grateful for that.

2. I had a long talk with one of my undergraduate professors at Hollins University, about writing in general and my thesis in particular, even though she isn't my thesis advisor. It was a helpful discussion.

3. My thesis advisor and I also had a long talk about my thesis, and hopefully something is happening there (as in, I am working on the thing) that will lead to the ultimate goal of graduation in May. Thumbs up!

4. The new TV season started. So far all I've watched are Survivor and the new Charlie's Angels. I think I am the only person watching the new Charlie's Angels. If there are new shows I should be watching, feel free to leave me the titles. I don't watch a lot of TV but I am in the mood to find something I can sink my teeth into for a while.

5. My husband bought a little toy that I can also play with. It's called a Kawasaki Mule and it's a utility terrain vehicle. It is quite fun to drive. I named it Sheba De Mu'le'.

6. We took in a couple of exhibits at the Taubman Art Museum in downtown Roanoke. We went especially to see the photography exhibit from The Roanoke Times, a celebration of the newspaper's 125 years of publication.

7. I bought a Stevie Nicks CD, her latest release, called In Your Dreams, mostly because it has a song on it called Annabel Lee and because I like Stevie Nicks.

8. I went to an author's signing for a book by Amanda Cockrell called What We Keep is not Always What Will Stay. She is a member of the Hollins faculty and my thesis advisor. I am yearning to read the book but unfortunately I have a lot of reading to do for my Detectives in Literature class and I simply haven't had time to get to it.

9. I had lunch and dinner with an old high school friend. It was fun to get together and catch up and reminisce about those days 30 years ago when we were raising hell and misbehaving.

10. The tomato plants continued to spit out tomatoes even as September ended in a chilly spell, with rain and cold. We also picked cucumbers and a green pepper. The garden was good to us this year.

11. I lost four pounds in the month of September (I'm now down 17 pounds since the end of May).

12. The built-in reclining chairs in the sofa broke, but we were able to find the parts on eBay and fix it ourselves for a minimal amount of money. I was quite glad I did not have to spend thousands on a new sectional sofa.

13. I was able to clear out my closet and put away some clothes that are now too big for me. I can't tell you how freeing that felt!



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 211th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Books: The Writing Diet

The Writing Diet: Write Yourself Right-Size
by Julia Cameron
Copyright 2008
234 pages

Julia Cameron is most famous as the author of The Artist's Way, a terrific book about creativity and listening to your inner voice.

She also, apparently, has a little problem with her weight.

Interestingly enough, I picked this book up at the Green Valley Book Fair back in May, just before I started on Weight Watchers. I was with a friend and I had been talking to her on the drive up about how I needed some kind of replacement activity for eating, preferably something to do with writing. When I ran across this book, it seemed like an answer to a prayer and of course I bought it. I put the book in my "to read" pile and it stayed there until after I finished the summer semester at Hollins.

I read it all except the last few chapters, then a client gave me some work and then school started again. I ran across it while I was cleaning my office yesterday and I plopped down and finished it so I could move it to my "done" pile.

Cameron writes that she noticed that many of her students grew slimmer throughout the weeks they worked with her, writing in their journals and working on their creative projects. She determined that this might be a way for some folks to lose weight.

Her system boils down to seven things:

1) Write three "morning pages" every morning. If you're familiar with The Artist's Way, you know what those are. Here is a little video about on Cameron's website, if you're interested.

2) Journal every day. This is different from the morning pages, though they could be combined, I suppose. Essentially, you're writing in a journal twice a day. Whether or not you use different notebooks or platforms is up to you.

3) Walk every day. These can be short walks, or long, but walk. Outdoor walks are preferable.

4) Before you eat something, ask yourself these four questions when you have the munchies: Am I hungry? Is this what I feel like eating? Is this what I feel like eating NOW? Is there something else I could eat instead?

5) Make a food date with yourself. That is, give yourself permission one day a month to visit your favorite restaurant, or to go somewhere new. Give yourself some kind of culinary treat.

6) HALT: Don't get to Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. The book was worth its price just for this acronym.

7) Have a body buddy, someone you can call and discuss your weight loss regimen with on a weekly basis.

She advocates a system of what she calls "clean eating," that is, your basic meats and veggies without added sugar and few processed foods. You know, the healthy stuff we're supposed to be doing anyway.

I think it's a great idea. However, I have never been successful with the "morning pages." I have tried them many times before. I can do them for a little while but I quickly forget the first time I oversleep and have to bound from the bed and head out. And once I skip, I'm done, because I haven't stuck with it long enough to be a habit. I guess I need to just keep trying until it really is a habit.

Journaling used to be something I did every day, but I stopped, and I am finding that it is difficult to get back in the habit. To be honest, I think the computer zaps so much out of me that it is part of the problem. Too much Facebook and email. I am sure social networking is the biggest creativity killer out there.

Anyway, I recommend this book if you're a writer and you're weight conscious. Or if you're weight conscious and are just looking for another way to think about it. I think you will come away with some valuable thoughts.

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.

Books: Portrait of a Killer

Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper Case Closed
By Patricia Cornwell
Copyright 2002
522 VERY LONG pages

For my Detectives in Film and Literature class we are reading detective books, of course.

This is one of those books.

I hated it.

Patricia Cornwell is a good writer, don't get me wrong. But I am not a fan of the content of her novels. I don't like blood and gore. I like my entrails inside the body, and I'm not keen on reading about the mutilation of women's genital areas.

And that's just the first few pages of this particular book.

I will have nightmares for weeks.

Anyway, Patricia Cornwell "applied the rigorous discipline of twenty-first-century police investigation" to all the material she could find about Jack the Ripper. She offers up a zillion reasons why she thinks a man named Walter Sickert was the psychopathic nut who went around cutting women's throats and mutilating their bodies in the last decades of the 19th century in London, England.

I know there are people who enjoy this type of thing, and if you are one of them, then I highly recommend this book to you.

If instead, you prefer a lot less blood and gore, then this is not the book for you.

For those who don't know, Jack the Ripper is the name given to the unidentified person who killed these unfortunate women way back when. The criminal was never caught.

Many other books offer up theories as to the identity of Jack the Ripper. Those theories include medical students, mentally ill persons, and a member of the royal family.

Walter Sickert was a London artist of some note at the turn of the century.

Did Cornwell prove her case? I don't know. She had a lot of circumstantial evidence, some DNA stuff, and much speculation. Does the fact that someone painted a picture of a murdered person make him a murderer?

She did prove to me that Sickert was most likely mentally ill and that he could have been Jack the Ripper.

Somebody give me a handi-wipe for my poor brain. It will never be the same.

A Word on Weight Loss

So in late May I joined Weight Watchers online in hopes of getting some control over my big ol' body.

My weigh-in day is Sunday, and as of today I have lost 16.9 pounds. I jumped up over the 15 pound mark, which was a short-term goal. I am pleased.

The WW program is called "pointsplus" and I don't think you can do it without being in their program. I have yet to figure out how they compute the points. But then, I am not the best with math.

Anyway, the way this works is you have a certain number of points of food you can eat, depending upon your weight and how fast you lose. The least number of points you can get is 29 and I suspect that is what most folks end up with.

Some foods are free, like broccoli and green beans. You can have all of those you want.

Fruit is also a free food, for the most part. So you can have all the bananas, apples, and oranges you want. If you have a sweet tooth this is a good thing.

Meat has more points that I would have thought. White rice is one point fewer than brown rice, and I always thought brown rice was better for you. So I don't know why this is.

An egg is 2 points.  Tea is 0 points, unless you put in a spoon of sugar, then it's 1 point.

The SmartOnes meals are anywhere from 5 to 8 points. Lean Cuisine and Healthy Choice meals zoom on up to 10+ points.

If you want, you can put in your recipes and it will tell you how many points it is. The problem there is defining a "serving." That can be somewhat arbitrary.

The plan manager program also tracks your activity. If you earn activity points, you can eat more if you want, though so far I have not done that. The points rack up throughout the week, but everything reverts to zero on your weigh-in day.

For example, it gave me 18 activity points for spending 5 hours doing "light housework." Who knew vacuuming could burn so many calories? I only get 1 point for every 10 minutes of walking on the treadmill!

You also get a number of points that you can use throughout the week over and above your daily points. So if your daily target is 30 points, and you eat a 7 point piece of cake, you are okay. In fact, you get enough points so that you could eat a 7-point piece of cake every day if you want, but I don't do that either. I have occasionally dipped into this little pile of points but not by much.

I feel sure if I used up all the points allotted, I wouldn't lose a thing. I might not be gaining weight but I don't think I would be losing.

The weight loss is slow on this diet. I am averaging a half-pound a week.  Everyone says that is the best way to lose it, that it will stay off better.

I sure hope so.

The other part of this puzzle is my overall health. In July I learned I had uncontrolled asthma and the doctor indicated that was a big reason for my inability to get healthy. I couldn't exercise long because I grew winded and had to stop.

The asthma inhalers have allowed me to increase my walking time on the treadmill significantly. I am sure this has been a help.

I have my fingers crossed that I can get all of this under control. I would like to be healthier in the next decades of my life than I have been in the previous ones.

We'll see.

Gee, Somebody Likes Me

It has been a while since I've received a blogger award. I've been blogging since 2006 and I confess I don't get out to visit other blogs as much as I would like these days. If you comment on my blog I always try to return the visit, though. I know there are folks who visit hundreds of blogs every week and I admire them for that.

Anyway, Gone Country over at the blog From City Streets to Country Roads very kindly gave me the Versatile Blogger Award the other day. I am very glad she enjoys my blog and I want to thank her and all of my readers for taking a little time out of their day to see what I have to say.

These things generally come with a little hook and something to do, and I am going to break the chain here and not list them. I will list some blogs that I enjoy reading and if they want this award, or if you are blogger and you would like this award, then here it is. Personally, I think if you blog you deserve it just for being you.

So here is a shout-out to some blogs you might enjoy!

A Journal of Days

Autumn Sky Ranch (a brand-new blog!)

The Blue Ridge Gal

Greener Pastures - A City Girl Goes Country (Deb, you need to write more!)

Loose Leaf Notes

News From the Hill

Peevish Pen

Shenandoah Gateway Farm

Sweet Virginia Breeze

Happy reading!

Why I Don't Watch TV

The class I am taking called Detectives in Film & Literature has pointed out to me something I already knew but tend to overlook.

I am not up on popular culture.

Movies are not something I go to, except maybe once a year. I don't sit around and watch them on TV, either. I don't watch very many TV shows. At the moment, the only thing I am making a point of watching is Survivor and the new Charlie's Angels, and neither are overly great. We also watch a lot of shows on History and Discovery Channel, but if I miss them, I don't worry about them.

I stopped watching a lot of TV in 1995. The other day I was trying to figure out what happened in 1995 to make me stop sitting in front of the 'tube, and it hit me. That was when we suddenly had more than three channels.

You see, up until that point, my TV viewing was limited by accessibility. When I was growing up, I could only get one channel - ABC. If a show came on ABC, I watched it. I loved going to my grandmother's because they could get all three channels - and PBS.

When I married, I moved up in the world. We could get CBS and ABC. After we moved to our current home in 1987, we could get all three channels. But not PBS.

The big C-Band satellite came to our house in 1995. You might remember those honkin' big dishes that folks had outside their homes. The thing was huge, about 10 feet across, covered with mesh, with a big pointy nose sticking up into space. It moved about in search of the satellite feeds.

So we suddenly had 250 channels. My husband picked up the remote.

Flip.
Flip.
Flip.
Flip.

And that was the end of my TV watching. I cannot stand to sit there and watch pieces of shows. I'm rather anal in that when I watch a movie, I watch it from beginning to end. Same with a series. If I don't see the pilot, I generally don't watch the show.

But it is not all his fault. That was also the year I began freelancing for a newspaper in another county. I covered all the government meetings over there, and that meant that I was out at least one night a week, if not more, and not generally the same night. That meant I missed shows. Which meant I just stopped watching, because if I couldn't see them all as they were shown, I just wouldn't watch.

These days, I read while he flips through the TV channels. Sometimes he stops on something and watches it. Sometimes I might look up if it is interesting.

I started watching Survivor from the very first episode. My mother had just passed away and I needed a distraction. It came on the one night I did not have something else to do, and it was on CBS, a channel I could easily find on the satellite. It has remained a show I watch just out of, I don't know, some kind of weird icky voyeurism. I know it's stupid and a waste of my time but I watch it anyway. I don't know why.

Since 1995, the series I have watched in their entirety are few. Here are some: JAG, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Xena: Warrior Princess. Also Six Feet Under, The Band of Brothers and John Adams on HBO.

I wanted to watch Lost but I missed the first episode so I never picked it up. I never watched X-Files. I never saw any of the offshoots of Star Trek, except for Voyager, and I only saw that up to season 3, and then it moved to a channel that the C-Band satellite didn't get so I didn't see the rest of it. Actually, I didn't see all of Buffy until I watched it a few years ago on DVD while I was huffing and puffing on the treadmill for the same reason. Something happened with the channel.

I have not seen a single episode of American Idol, So You Can Dance, or 24. I don't know what Mad Men or Modern Parents are about. I have not watched any version of CSI, NCIS, or anything like that.

These days we have one of those small satellite dish and 300 channels.

Flip
Flip
Flip

It's the same thing. Lots of channels. Nothing to watch.

I have missed out on a lot of TV viewing. But I have also read a lot of books, met a lot of people, spent way too much time on the computer, returned to school several times over the last 20 years, and lived what I consider a full life.

If that means I don't have a clue what they're talking about in class, it's something I can live with.

Thursday Thirteen #210

I always knew the Thursday would come when I was completely and absolutely bereft of ideas, and not feeling up to an eclectic Thursday Thirteen. That day is here. So today, I guess I'm going to start out doing things that start with the letter "A" and we'll see where that takes me. I suspect it will be an eclectic TT about things that start with a certain letter!

1. Me! Well, "me" doesn't start with the letter A, but my name does. Anita. That's my name. According to the website Behind the Name (one of my favorites), Anita is a diminutive of Ana, which is a form of Anna, which originally came from Channah, or Hannah. "The name appears briefly in the New Testament belonging to a prophetess who recognized Jesus as the Messiah," the site says.

2. Apple. I love apples. Did you know Johnny Appleseed's birthday is in September? That's right, he was a real person. His real name was John Chapman and he was born on September 26, 1774. He brought apples to the American mid west.

3. Angels. Angels are spiritual beings who serve God, mostly as messengers. They are depicted in the Bible as being important to the Apocalypse. The theological study of angels is called angelology. Many people think we have guardian angels who watch over us and keep us safe.

4. Accordion. An accordion is a musical instrument that has a bellows and a keyboard. Believe it or not, I used to play one. My father had one when I was a teenager, and at that time I could play pretty much any instrument I picked up. I did not particularly care for the accordion because it was very heavy and hard to hang on to and manage.

5. Ankle. When I was 32, I carried some food outside to toss over the fence. I stepped in a big hole and fractured my ankle. I also made a mess of the tendons. I was on crutches for a while and I had a limp for almost a year. For several years after that, my ankle would pop and make crunchy sounds. Thankfully it doesn't do that anymore.

6. Art. I love to look at art, but aside from writing, which is a type of art, I don't really create art. I took a couple of art courses in college, and received decent grades, but I am no artist. My friend Dreama Kattenbraker is a wonderful local artist who has a whimsical style. My Hollins professor was Nancy Dahlstrom. These two wonderful ladies, and many other local artists, will be part of Botetourt County's first-ever Open Studios event on October 29 and 30.

7. Anagram is a form of word play. You take a word or a phrase and then you use all of the letters of that word or phrase to create a completely new word. Example: Antigone = negation. You can find an anagram solver here.

8. Academics. I love academics, that is to say, learning. I enjoy being a student and gaining understanding of new things. I feel better when my brain is getting a workout.

9. Asthma. This is not something I have blogged about much, but back in July I was told my asthma needed to be controlled. In fact, I was only breathing with something like 67 percent of my lung capacity. My doctor put me on two different controller inhalers, and I am breathing much better now. When you have asthma, your lungs swell and the little air tubes narrow, making it hard to breathe. It causes wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and coughing. Apparently there is no cure.

10. Alliteration is the repetition of sounds in words. It is used a lot in poetry. For example, "juiced and jazzed" or "immemorial elms march madly for miles." These are also examples of consonance, that is, alliteration with the consonants.

10. Assonance is alliteration with the vowel sounds, not consonants. For example, "The purple curtain made me uncertain as to why I was hurting."
11. Ancestor. I have long been a student of genealogy, and I can trace my ancestors back to the late 1700s in Botetourt County, Virginia, where I live. My ancestry here goes back at least seven generations. At one time, my ancestors owned part of the Catawba Valley, particularly the area around Catawba Hospital. They came over to America from Scotland and Germany.

12. Aspartame. This is a good time to offer up my occasional rant against this rat poisoning that the government allows as a sweetener. I am not a fan of sucrolose, either, as that is chlorinated sugar. Here is a pro-aspartame website. It will tell you how safe it is. Here is a website that tells you how terrible this drug is. It lists 92 different problems that aspartame can cause, including MS, lupus, cancer, vision problems, and death. I think this is a loathsome chemical. The 'net is full of reports about aspartame and the illnesses it reportedly causes. Just type it in. The government says aspartame does no harm. Since I tend to believe little the government tells me, I guess you can figure what I think about this. I think the stuff is poison. So is sucrolose.
13. Afraid. Something I am a lot more afraid than I care to admit. The older I get, the more a-feared I become, I think. These days I worry about my health and fear becoming even less healthy than I already am. I think I am afraid of my own shadow on some days, but fortunately that does not happen very often. Other things I am afraid of - failure, success, mean people, rabid animals, losing my house, writing, and not writing. I am not afraid of ghosts.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 210th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Books: Hound of the Baskerville

Hound of the Baskerville
By Arthur Conan Doyle
Written in 1901
130 pages
Read the entire work at this link.

This is one of the books we are reading in my Detectives in Film & Literature course at Hollins University.

Dr. Mortimer visits Sherlock Holmes because a supernatural hound has killed the owner of the Baskerville estate. The man's heir is on his way, and Dr. Mortimer wants only to know if he should take the man to the estate or send him back to Canada.

Holmes does not believe the owner died because of a supernatural hound. He sends his pal Dr. Watson with Dr. Mortimer and Henry Baskerville along to the Baskerville estate. Holmes stays in London to tend to other business.

Watson tells the story about odd happenings at the Baskerville estate. Eventually he is joined by Holmes and they solve the mystery.

I have never been a big fan of Sherlock Holmes, though I know others like him. There is little characterization in this story and I find that tedious reading. It's mostly plot.

Also, class bias is quite evident as the the tales of the supernatural hound are given over to the common folk, and they are quickly dismissed.

The story seems to make fun of other books, such as gothic tales, that require a little suspense of reality while there are supernatural things going on.

The author tosses in a red herring or two to throw the reader off, but I had pretty much figured out who the criminal was long before I realized his motive.

However, if you like a detective story and have never read this, check it out. Note that I did not give away the ending!

Ch..ch..changes

So, Facebook has made changes to its newsfeed.

Blogger made changes to its dashboard and the way it posts, which I just this weekend decided to look at it.

It's one thing when you make changes yourself, it is quite another to have them thrust upon you so that you're forced to deal with them.

And these are very minor things, really, in the grand scheme of life.

I mean, life is all about change.

You change your clothes.
You change your mind.
You change your lifestyle.
You change jobs.
You change your brand of cereal.
You change your diet.
You change your shoes.
You change the color of the paint on the walls.
You change your decor all around.
You change your locale if you move.
You change jobs.
You change friends.
You change.

You get the idea. Change is the one constant in the world. It's always out there. The trees are growing, the rain falls or the sun shines. Every day, every minute, every second - it's all about change. Every spin of the earth brings about change, good or bad. Every action has a reaction - you can't stop it.

So there is no arguing against change. It's a-coming whether you want it not. The questions then, are two: What kind of change? And how will you handle it?

Change can only be three things: good, bad or so little that you barely notice it and it is therefore negligible. You can deal with it in a million ways, but essentially it boils down to you handle it well or you don't.

I have been trying to make positive changes in my life of late. In the last year, I've made these positive changes:

returned back to college.
started a diet.
increased my exercise.
returned to playing the guitar.
returned to journaling in a notebook.
looked up some old friends.
learned how to use the digital video camera.
visited a doctor and took care of health issue.

These are all good things. I hope that you have added some good things to your life in the last year, too. It's important to stop, revisit the list, and pat yourself on the back for the achievements every once in a while.

Change is not all bad. So I wish for you today that good changes come your way.

TV: Charlie's Angels

Charlie's Angels (2011)
Starring:
Annie Ilonzeh
Minka Kelly
Rachael Taylor
Ramón Rodríguez
Victor Garbe

I know my regular readers are puzzled. What am I doing watching TV - and actually writing about it?

Well, I do watch some TV, but not a lot. And I cannot remember the last time I made a point of sitting down and watching a pilot of a show.

However, I am a big Charlie's Angels fan from way back. When I was 13 and the original show came on, I never missed an episode. And I liked the first Charlie's Angels movie with Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu. The second one, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, is okay but it went a little over the top, moving from detective to superhero in one gigantic leap.

So I was curious to see what the new incarnation of Charlie's Angels would look like. Plus I am taking this class on detectives in film and literature, so I could plausibly call this homework.

This will be a spoiler, so if you are not keen on knowing what happens, please walk away now.

The three angels, Abby (Rachael Taylor), Kate (Annie Ilonzeh), and Gloria (Nadine Velesquez), are more or less criminals. Abby is from a wealthy family, but she is also a good cat burglar. Kate is a former police officer who went bad. Gloria was in the military but received a court martial. Charlie has given them a second chance.

Bosley (Ramón Rodríguez) is a very handsome young fellow who got caught hacking the IRS's computers.

In this first show, called Angel With a Broken Wing, the three girls go off to save a young girl who is being sold as a sex slave. They accomplish their mission quickly and meet back at headquarters for a pat on the back. Abby and Kate decide to go party, but Gloria says she has something else to do. They all go outside, and Abby and Kate stop to have a chat about some unopened letters from Abby's father that Kate found in the trash. Gloria goes to her car, gets in, and the car explodes. She is dead.

Exterior cameras caught a woman on a motorbike leaving the scene of the crime. Kate and Abby go after her and find her on a boat. The woman in question, Eve, turns out to be a tough catch. As they have a stand-off, a helicopter comes roaring over the water and bullets fly. They all dive in the ocean, and Kate and Abby decide Eve is not the bad guy.

They join forces to find Gloria's killer. Eve is a childhood friend of Gloria's, and she relays a horrible tale of a time when she and Gloria lived together in an orphanage and some men came to take them away to sell as sex slaves. However, they escaped but they could not forget the looks of terror on the faces of their fellow orphans. Of course, the fellow that the Angels were after originally is the very same guy.

The evil sex trader is now a wealthy millionaire, so they infiltrate a ritzy party and capture his woman. Eve gets caught, though, and the evil fellow recognizes her as the little girl who got away. He takes her away for torture.

His woman soon tells them where Eve and other enslaved young girls are, and the Angels go save her.

Charlie asks Eve to join the team as the third angel, and she agrees.

That's the basic story. Not bad, really. This episode reminded me a lot of the Charlie's Angels movie with Drew Barrymore, which is no surprise since Barrymore is an executive producer of this new show.

The show is set in Miami, and I think it was a good idea to move it to the east coast. I thought the girls were pretty, the acting okay. I like the young, sexy fellow as Bosley, though I personally think he should be gay. Just because.

The show offered up a few homages to the original show. First, Kate's name obviously is a nod to Kate Jackson, who played Sabrina Duncan in the original. For those who may not know, the original Charlie's Angels was created as a vehicle specifically for Jackson, who at the time was on her way to becoming a major TV star. She was my favorite Angel and I remember reading that she was Barrymore's, too.

The address of the Townsend Agency was 1976 Ocean Blvd. and that address is obviously a nod to the year the original series began. The original ran from 1976 to 1981.

When Bosley is introduced, Abby says his name and the camera cuts to a fellow who looked very much like David Doyle, who played the original Bosley. I was actually relieved when Bosley turned out to be a hunky Latino with two beautiful women adoring him in a swimming pool.

The idea of killing off the lead angel and bringing in the second sister is what happened with the original show. In the original, Jill Monroe (Farrah Fawcett Majors) left (though she didn't die) and her young sister, Kris Monroe (Cheryl Ladd) took her place.

There were probably more nods to the original that I would see on a second viewing.

The only thing I did not care for was the voice of Charlie. It is far too soft and sexy.

I don't know if this is a show that will stand the test of time - even a few months - because I certainly have no idea what the pulse of the viewing public is these days. I think the show would be a solid medium viewing experience, but these days that is not good enough.

The camera action was interesting and different, very reminiscent of the movies. The show had a lot of fast action and if you like to see girls doing martial arts then this is the show for you.

I did not dislike it. I will watch it again next week to see how it progresses.

You can read a review of it here. This writer calls the show mediocre, neither good nor bad.  Below you can see the trailer for the 2011 TV show.

Thursday Thirteen

I'm taking a class called Detectives in Film & Literature at Hollins University. So today I think I'll list 13 female detectives. They can be from TV, movies, or books. And I am not current on my TV and movie viewing, so some of these go back to the 1980s simply because I haven't really watched that much TV since about 1995.

1. Stephanie Plum. She is the heroine of Janet Evanovich's books, and I have listened to all of these on audio, and read a few of them. She is a bounty hunter/amateur detective, and she doesn't so much detect as have stuff just sort of happen. She's a bumbling detective. The first book is called One for the Money, and the rest of the books have titles that have something to do with the number of the book in the series. A movie based on the first book is scheduled for release soon.

2. Kinsey Milhone. She is the heroine of Sue Grafton's ABC mystery series. These books are interesting in that they continue to be set in the 1980s as opposed to bringing the heroine up to the present day. She is a strong detective, a loner, who enjoys her work and is very serious about it. No bumbling here.

3. Nancy Drew. I grew up reading these stories. Nancy always saved the day. She was very much the amateur detective. These books were written under the pseudonym of Carolyn Keene, and were actually the work of a series of writers.

4. DeeDee McCall. She is a sergeant with the Los Angeles Police Department and the co-star of the 1980s TV series Hunter. She was played by Stepfanie Kramer. Rick Hunter is the other detective in the show. He was played by Fred Dyer.

5. Christine Cagney. She was a detective with the New York Police Department and co-star in the show Cagney & Lacy. She was played most famously by Sharon Gless; the role was first taken by Meg Foster. However, she only lasted a season.

6. Mary Beth Lacey. She was a detective with the New York Police Department and co-star in the show Cagney & Lacey. She was played by Tyne Daly throughout the series.

7. Amelia Peabody. She's a detective, of sorts, in the mystery series by Elizabeth Peters. She's actually an archaeologist, and the mysteries generally surround her work in Egypt.

8. Sabrina Duncan. She was one of three detectives in the original Charlie's Angels TV series. She was played by Kate Jackson.

9. Kelly Garrett. She was one of the three detectives in the original Charlie's Angels TV series, too. She was played by Jacqueline Smith.

10. Precious Ramotswe is a detective in a series of books called The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. The books were made into a series that showed on HBO, too.

11. Kay Scarpetta is the chief medical examiner in Virginia in a series of books by Patricia Cornwell.

12. Buffy Summers is a vampire slayer and solver of mysteries in the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She was played by Sarah Michelle Gellar in the TV series. I read a lot of the books that came out when the show was popular, and they were pretty good, too.

13. Goldy Bear. She is the heroine of the Goldy books, a series by Diane Mott Davidson. Goldy is a chef and so the mysteries tend to have something to do with cooking. There are recipes in the books, too.


PS I was using the amazon associates widget that allowed me to put pictures of the books up on my blog. However, it is no longer working. Anybody have a clue?



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 209th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Books: Pontoon

Pontoon
by Garrison Keillor
Copyright 2007
Read by the author

I enjoy hearing Garrison Keillor read. He has interesting inflection in his voice. His stories are genuine, full of detail, and fun.

Pontoon is another Lake Wobegone tale. Evelyn, who is 82 years old, has died. She wants to be cremated and buried in a bowling ball. This is not acceptable behavior for a conservative, Lutheran town.

Not only that, but Evelyn's daughter, Barbara, is a lush. And someone named Debe wants to get married out on the very lake that Evelyn wants to be plummeted into (while she's in the bowling ball, of course).  Add in a bunch of Norwegian pastors and well, you've got a Keillor tale.

Fun listen.

Art for Art's Sake

Yesterday, my husband and I visited the Taubman Museum in Roanoke.

It was the first time I had been in the building, which was built in 2008. So it took me a long time to get down there.

I love to look at art, but I am not a fan of downtown Roanoke. I always have trouble parking and I don't like the atmosphere of the entire city - I find it smelly and fraught and full of crazy people who seem to always want to accost me for a cigarette or money.

I used to work downtown and I am pretty sure it ruined my idea of the area. I once had a man chase me down three blocks, trying to take my purse and my life, until I ran into a shop and begged the owner to hide me while she called the police. The man wasn't a criminal, he was insane and he thought I was his mother or sister or something. But he scared me and I have never felt safe in downtown Roanoke since that happened. Yes, that was a long time ago, like 1990. No, I haven't gotten over it. It scarred me for life.

So anyway, I try not to go to downtown Roanoke unless I have someone with me.

The Taubman, on the exterior, looks to me like a spaceship that crashed into downtown. The inside looks better, but what a lot of wasted space. I didn't even find it that visually interesting. Oh well. I didn't go to see the building.

We looked at all of the exhibits. We went because I was keenly interested in one called In the Moment: Light, Vision and Memory Celebrating Photography in the 125th year of The Roanoke Times. Being an old newspaper woman, this interested me, as you might imagine.

They had some wonderful photographs on display. Several depicted scenes where Roanoke was on the national list - visits from presidents such as FDR, JFK, and Nixon, for example. There were just a few from the Flood of 1985. There was one of a house burning down earlier this year, and another of a fireman resuscitating a child back in the 1970s.  They were all high quality shots. My biggest complaint was not quality, but quantity. I wanted to see much more. There simply weren't enough of the pictures.

Because of regulations against photography at most of the displays, I did not take many pictures. You could take pictures of things that are on permanent display, and I took a few shots there. Follow the links if you want a better idea of the displays.

My husband enjoyed the Civil War Drawings from the Becker Collection. These were made by special artists on assignment who kept track of the Union soldiers during the war by drawing pictures.

I don't think either of us knew what to make of the Nick Cave: Meet Me at the Center of the Earth exhibit. This is a display of wearable suits that look completely out of this world.

Here a few shots of some of the permanent exhibits.

A very large portrait of a lady. She took up a very big space.

 Some of those pictures that make you scratch your head.

My husband looking at sketches on one of the walls. The picture in the rear, right, is called "Mardi Gras."

A few sculptures. The picture in the right rear, the one with the yellow, was called "Strumming" (or something like that) and I thought it was an artistic depiction of the sound of music. I think it was my favorite piece in the museum.

If you're local or just visiting, you can explore the Taubman Tuesday through Saturdays, 10 a.m - 5 p.m. and from 12 - 5 p.m. on Sunday. General admission is $7.

Moon Set

I snapped this shot earlier in the week as the orange full moon began to fall beneath the horizon. In the shot, the fog has settled in the valley and the trees harbor a tinge of yellow as Autumn sneaks her way in.