Thursday Thirteen

1. Today is National Mole Day. Apparently this is not to celebrate either the growths on the body or the little things that plow burrows in the yard, but instead is a celebration of some kind of math equation. Go figure.




Pelicans on the farm pond
 

2. I read frequently about habitat and how the loss of it is greatly upsetting our ecosystem. The migration of monarch butterflies is one example. The collapse of honey bee hives is another. At one point there was a lot of talk about frogs being a barometer of things gone awry. I've noticed it in some migration patterns. For example, late this spring we had a flock of white pelicans on the pond. It was a first in anybody's memory. We have more Canadian geese in the fall. We also have stink bugs now, which up until about five years ago were things I'd never even heard of.

3. Hunting season has returned to Virginia. I was reminded of this earlier this week when I went trucking through the house without a stitch on, seeking out the clothing I wanted in the laundry room, only to emit a quick screech and slink back into the other part of the house for my robe when I realized there were strange vehicles in the driveway, and hunters standing around in camo. Fortunately, they all had their backs to the house as they were watching the woods. They were my husband's friends, but still. You don't want to give people a heart attack.

4. I have 19 items on my to-do list at the moment. If I get the top three done I will consider it a good day. My suspicion is that I won't, though I may knock a few things off the list.

5. CNN says China is going to the moon. I was disheartened when we began defunding NASA and it saddens me to see our space program in the toilet. I watched every space launch that I could, including the one in 1969 when a human being first stepped on the moon. I have cried when shuttles exploded and lives were lost, but the space program offered us hope as a nation and gave us a common ground for national pride, something we seem to be lacking these days. That is, unless you want to be proud of being first in the world in the number of people per capita you incarcerate, or first in the world in military spending, which I do not and am not.

6. Speaking of space stuff, there is a partial eclipse of the sun late this afternoon, visible in the US. Apparently it begins around 5:50 p.m., close to sunset. Don't look directly at the sun as it can damage your eyes. And looking at through a digital camera is not something I recommend, either.

7. I've been seeing a lot of posts about health care insurance costs. Most of these blame the Affordable Care Act (I refuse to call it by its misnomer, though the media does it), but our health insurance has been rising steadily since the 1990s, and even with an employer picking up the tab for one of us, we pay out more than $9,000 a year just to insure the other one on the same policy. The insurance company was constantly bullying us about medications and doctor visits pre-ACA. I don't think the ACA was a good deal - I think it was a gift to private insurance companies - but I also think the insurance companies have looked for and found every loophole they can to increase premiums and deny claims. I'm grateful we have health insurance - we'd be bankrupt if we didn't, given my poor health and my husband's accident this summer - but yes, it is expensive. It is not, however, as expensive as the $100,000+ it would have cost us out-of-pocket to save my husband's arm. So I guess in the long run, you need to ask yourself if you're worth it or not. Maybe you can do without an arm.

8. In the meantime, we need real health care reform, and for me that means a national single payer system. Yes, Medicare for all. Of course it would not be perfect, but then absolutely nothing dreamed up in the human brain is. I would, however, like for everyone to have the opportunity to keep their limbs should they have an unfortunate accident.

9. I am who I am. I don't need anyone's permission to be me. Nor do I need anyone's permission to dream, big or small, or to do much of anything else for that matter. Unless I am invading someone's personal space, they really don't have much of a say over what I do. But when I am invading personal space - whether with words, too close in body contact, with cigarette smoke, perfume or whatever - then yeah, they - and I - have the right to say something. It's called boundaries. Like Baby said in Dirty Dancing, "This is your dance space, this is my dance space. Spaghetti arms!" Or something to that effect.

10. Some days coming up with 13 somethings is tough. Today is one of them. Can you tell?

11. This is my horoscope for today from tarot.com: "It's not too late to improve your daily routine, even if it's an upgrade you should have made much sooner. Today's Scorpio Solar Eclipse plants the seeds in your 6th House of Habits, indicating sudden changes that can set a series of profound consequences into motion. The potential is greater than you realize, so make every action count as much as possible while you have the planetary magic on your side."

12. Psalm 121: I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. Levavi Oculos in Latin. It's the motto of Hollins University, my alma mater. I've been putting it in my blog header for about two years and not once has anyone asked me about it. But that would be the answer to the question.

13. And speaking of Hollins, I just received a notice in my email that it's Tinker Day. Tinker Day is a day off from classes given each October; only the president of the university knows the date. The students find out about 7 a.m. that classes are cancelled. They dress up, perform skits, and climb to the top of Tinker Mountain, where they are served up fried chicken and Tinker cake trucked up by the college staff. The tradition dates back to the 1880s. Enjoy your day, young ladies. You are our best hope for tomorrow.

Tinker Mountain in the background

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 366th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

from whence cometh my help.

More Purty Pictures

This is looking back at the farm from the Botetourt Sports Complex. 

This is Uncle Bill's house, nestled in the trees.

 

***

Today is another of those weeks where I have some kind of health care appointment nearly every day. Between physical therapy, the chiropractor, the dentist, and my regular doctor, I am burning up the roads.

I am doing better compared to when I was at my worst, but I am still nowhere close to where I was pre-gallbladder surgery in June 2013. I still can't believe that such a "simple" surgery has completely changed my life, and not for the better. My activity level has been reduced significantly, and my pain level remains high. It is tough to walk around with a level 5 pain in your belly all the time. It is especially difficult when it shoots on up there to an 8 and bends you double.

On top of that, scar tissue and adhesions have pulled my hip out of alignment and created a problem in my gait, which has caused severe and chronic tendonitis in my foot. The pain in my ankle feels like someone is hammering hot spikes up my foot and into my calf. I have been using a cane off and on now for nearly a year. I have good days when I don't need it around the house, but I don't dare do something like venture into Walmart without it.

My husband is doing very well following his horrific accident with the hay baler. He still has some mobility issues in his hand, and I am concerned about the cold weather. I fear it will bother him and cause him some pain this winter. However, he is back to work and mostly doing everything he was before, with some modifications. I am so thankful he is recovering well, and grateful his injury was not worse.

The last two years have certainly not turned out like I had hoped. But I guess that is how life happens: when you least expect it, a beer truck comes crashing through your house. Not that this has happened, but it kind of feels like it.

Anyway, I hope that you, dear reader, are well and spending your days feeling loved and comforted, and in good health. Thank you as always for taking a look at my little corner of the world. I am grateful that you take the time to share it.

CountryDew aka Anita

Watching the Weight

It's no secret that I am overweight. I've mentioned it here before and anyone who looks at me can see that I could stand to starve for a few days and it wouldn't kill me.

Dieting is harder for some than others. My weight issues began around the same time I started having trouble with endometriosis. Doctors put me on drugs that they now admit causes terrible hormone imbalances and weight gain. Twenty-five years ago, though, I was told that the medicines had nothing to do with weight gain, even though I put on about 30 pounds in six weeks without changing a thing in my diet.

Drugs change you, and change you forever. I seriously doubt I could ever get back to the weight I was when I married simply because my hormones are so screwy.

Of course, I have picked up some bad eating habits along the way. I also don't care for cooking, which makes convenience foods attractive. And then there are those hours when I grow bored and a perhaps a little lonely, and my friend Mr. Chocolate Bar saves the day.

I used to tell myself that I wasn't *that* overweight - I wasn't one of those women whose body fat droops over the edge of the chair, the ones with bellies hanging out of shirts or whatever. The ones driving around on the little cart in Walmart because they can't haul their own body weight around. And I am not that large, but I am at an unhealthy weight.

Serving sizes are a constant challenge. This morning, for example, I chose to eat a fat-free Pop Tart. I've gone back on Weight Watchers and so that's 5 points gone for today, and I only have 29 points all day long. But there are two Pop Tarts in a baggy in the box. If a serving is one single Pop Tart, why don't they put them in separate baggies? Because of course the other one is going to go stale before I get back around to wanting another 5-point Pop Tart. I don't eat them that often. A box of those will last me a month.

Nobody I know actually eats 1/2 cup of cereal, or drinks a half bottle of pop, or eats just 1/3 of a can of Vienna Sausages. They eat a bowl full of cereal, which is at least a cup if not more, and they drink the whole bottle of soda, and they eat all the little Vienna Sausages in a can.

While I take full responsibility for the state of my health, it would be nice if the food industry would also look over the corn stalks and take responsibility for its role in America's obesity epidemic. They don't have to supersize it, and shouldn't a serving of Pop Tarts, when there are two to a baggy, be listed as two of the darned things?

Virginia has a reported obesity rate of 25-30 percent of the population. Right next door, West Virginia has an obesity rate above 35 percent! Nationwide, about 34 percent (78 million) of Americans are obese. Not just overweight, but obese. If you count the folks who are just a little overweight but not yet obese, at least half of the nation is in need of a diet.

I have lost weight on Weight Watchers before. I manage to make it about 3 months before something happens - a holiday comes up, or I simply tire out, or I become ill and then can't get back on track with the diet. I've had so many new health issues pop up in the last 14 months that dieting has been the least of my concerns, but I need to worry about it now.

People who don't have weight issues have no idea how much of a struggle it is to deal with eating problems. It's not like being an alcoholic - you don't have to drink bourbon in order to live. But you have to eat.

The thing I most dislike about Weight Watchers is that I don't think it teaches you how to eat well or how to eat healthily. If you look at some of the foods they recommend - mostly their own brands of snack foods - they are full of stuff I don't want in my body. Aspartame or sucralose, carrageen - all sorts of things that aren't good for you. So Weight Watchers is really all about the money, like most things in the USA, and not about making people healthy. Weight Watchers does help with portion controls and if you stick to the points and simply stop eating when you hit your daily allowance, it works.

However, I want to learn how to eat well and live a healthy lifestyle. My head knows how to do this, sort of, but there is some disconnect between my brain and the rest of me. I've read enough books on the topic to know to eat fresh veggies and as little processed foods as possible, but that not-liking-to-cook thing gets me every time.

Also, at present I can't exercise much because of pain issues. Whatever is wrong with me simply isn't going away.

If you've been successful at dieting and have any tips, I am open to them.

Autumn Beauty

Sunday Stealing: Let's Talk Travel

From Sunday Stealing

Let's Talk Travel Meme

01. Ok let’s talk travel, do you like to travel?

A. I used to, but the older I get the more I just want to stay home.

02. Where have you been?

A. Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Spain, and France. I may be missing some states in there.

03. Next place you want to go?

A. I would love to visit England, Scotland, and Ireland. I would also like to take my husband to see the Grand Canyon.

04. What is something you MUST take with you when you travel?

A. My medication.

05. How do you like to travel? (mode of transportation)

A. Car. That will make going to Europe a little difficult, won't it.

06. With someone, or alone?

A. With someone.

07. Do you dance in your car when there are other people with you?

A. Um. I can't stand up in my car. But if you mean, do you sing aloud and move about when a good song comes on, then yes.

08. If you're quiet what does it mean?

A. It means I am thinking, I have nothing to say, or I am tired.

09. Favorite scent?

A. Chocolate chip cookies baking.

10. Favorite store?

A. Any bookstore will do.

11. Say you wanted coffee ... what kind is your favorite?

A. I do not drink coffee.

12. Favorite kind of pizza?

A. The round kind.

13. Do you get embarrassed easily?

A. Yes. This question has my face flaming red.

14. Do you mind people asking you personal questions?

A. Apparently not, since I do these meme things every week.

15. You have a tank of gas, $50, and the day off . . . what do you do?

A. Go home and read a book.

16. Favorite TV show?

A. I have recently enjoyed Masters of Sex, and I am looking forward to the final season of The Newsroom. I also like The Big Bang Theory, Bill Maher, and Survivor, which I have watched from its inception and have no idea why I still turn it on.

17. Song you turn the volume up all the way to listen to?

A. Band on the Run, by McCartney and the Wings. Or anything by the Eagles. Actually, I do that for most songs that were performed in the 1970s.

18. Something you keep in your car?

A. A box of tissues.

19. Highlight of your day?

A. Hugging my husband.

20. Something you do everyday that you wish you didn’t have to do?

A. Household chores of any kind.

21. Do you mind if people just show up at your house unannounced?

A. They generally don't, but I don't mind if they do. I might cringe if the living room is a wreck but you can't worry about stuff like that forever.

22. What do you do when you disagree with someone?

A. Shut up and change the subject.

23. Do you enjoy rain?

A. I like it for a while, but not every day.

24. Who’s your favorite person in the whole world . . . besides me?

A. My husband. He's the best.

Saturday 9: The Power of Love

Saturday 9: The Power of Love (1985)


Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.


1) In this song, Huey explains that you don't need a credit card to find love. What's the last thing you charged?

A. Groceries. I have a great card that gives cash back for everything you buy, and I put the groceries on it and pay it off once a month. 

2) This song was written for Back to the Future. At the beginning of the movie, hero Marty McFly traveled around town on his skateboard. Are you good on a skateboard?

A. I broke my foot on a skateboard when I was young, so I would say no.

3) Huey sings lead and his backup group is The News. Was the most recent news you heard bad or good?

A. There's that Ebola stuff in the news. One guy dies from an illness and the nation panics; nearly 10,000 people have been killed by guns since the Newtown shootings, and we can't even talk about it. In state news, the Republican candidate for Virginia senator seems to have run out of cash. Locally, the Town of Fincastle is getting ready to switch over to one-way streets!

4) Huey's mother, Maria, was born in Poland. Who is the first member of your family to be born in the US of A?

A. I am not sure. I've been where I am for at least 8 generations, with relatives who fought in the American Revolution, so it would be one of my many-greats grandparents.

5) Brainy Huey got a perfect score on the math portion of the SAT. Did you take the SAT? How did you do?

A. I did take the SAT. I don't remember the score (it was about 33 years ago!) but I do remember it wasn't as good as it should have been, given that I was an A student who graduated 5th in my class. I didn't test well.

6) This song also hit #1 in Australia, where anzac biscuits are popular. To make them (the recipe is here) you need coconut. Do you have any coconut in your home right now?

A. I despise coconut.

7) Thinking of dessert, would you rather have cookies, cake, pie, ice cream or frozen yogurt?

A. Chocolate cake.

8) We're definitely into autumn now. What will you remember most about Summer 2014?

A. My husband getting his hand caught in a hay baler will definitely be one for the books. He is doing very well now. He still has some mobility issues but the doctor has told him to do whatever he wanted.

9) Tell us your superhero name, as determined by the color of your shirt and an item directly to your right. For example, Sam fights crime as The Gold Kleenex Box!

A. CountryDew fights crime as the Blue Calculator.

How I Met My Husband

This is the week of the anniversary of the day I met my husband.

The day was much like this one - Autumn in full bloom, the trees bursting with color. It was a Friday and I was a year out of high school, still trying to find myself. It was October 15, 1982. Ronald Reagan was president, nobody knew what a cell phone was, and the Internet wasn't on anybody's mind. People actually carried on conversations in person and did not text, if you can believe it.

A friend suggested we go to the annual Lord Botetourt/James River school football game. The two in-county high schools had a keen rivalry, and there was sure to be folks there we knew.

My husband-to-be was standing under the goal posts in the end zone (I don't think they let you do that anymore), hanging out with his buddies. Somehow or another (prearranged by friends, I think), we ended up standing together.

Conversation was slow. I asked questions about the game even though I knew football and didn't need the answers.

Finally, he asked me if I'd go out with him the next night. I told him I couldn't, as I had plans to celebrate my parents' anniversary.

After the game, I went to Mike's Market, located in what is now Bellacino's. He showed up there, too. My friend suddenly told me she had a ride home, and I should go dancing with this new fellow.

And so I did. We went to the dance hall at the Ramada Inn, which is no longer there (though the hotel still stands at the Hollins exit, and I can't remember what it is now). 

We sat and listened to the band, and danced some, but not much (he is not much on dancing) and had our first kiss.

The next day he called me and asked me what I was doing Sunday afternoon. I told him I was taking the Sunday school class to Walden Park off Plantation Road.

He asked if he could come with me. I agreed, and this he did. He didn't complain or anything when one of the kids threw up in the back seat of my mother's car.

And that was how I stopped being single. We were married a year and a month later, when I was 20. He proposed in July 1983 and we married that November.


(Though to be truthful, this was not the first time we'd met. We had ridden the same school bus for a while as children. I remembered him but he did not remember me, which is natural as I was four years younger. Also, he had shown up at our house a few months earlier with the volunteer fire department to help put out a brush fire that started when my father was burning a pile of debris. When I met him that day I was hot and sweaty from trying to help Dad put out the blaze. I don't think he noticed me then, either.)

Thursday Thirteen #365

These are some photos I took yesterday afternoon when I went after the mail. They are shots taken from various locations around the farm.

1. This is from the front yard; it's the view out my office window. The silo off in the distance belongs to my husband's cousins' family.

2. This is the "big hay field" looking back to the west towards our house. The road going up the hill is our driveway.

 

3. This is part of the farm; the hillside is used for pasture. As you can see, the farm on that side is bifurcated by power lines. And then the road cuts the entire place in half yet again.

 4. A closer look at the hillside with a little Autumn color.

5. This is the other part of the hillside, more to the south.

6. The mountain in the background is called Tinker Mountain.

7. Another shot of the woods and our driveway. You can't beat the Blue Ridge Mountains for beauty, regardless of the time of year.

8. A look towards what I believe is North Mountain; that division there where the mountain slopes on the right is called Stone Coal Gap. The next mountain is called Caldwell Mountain. I hope I have that right.

9. This is my father's house, which is about six miles away by car, from the top of one of our fields. Oddly, after 27 years, I just realized that we are actually facing one another on opposing hills; there is vegetation between us that keeps me from seeing the house, plus I think my place is just a bit lower in elevation.

10. The neighbor's barn and cattle as seen from the hayfield. That tiny little house in the far back is where my husband and I first set up housekeeping 31 years ago. Tiny little four-room place, colder than icicles during the winter.

11. A little different angle at the hill where my house is. My house is to the left in the picture.

12. Nice overview shot showing the Blue Ridge Mountains to the west, looking toward Bedford County. That tall mountain in the clouds on the left is the Peaks of Otter. You can see the roof of my house in the woods on the right.

13. A closer shot of the trees.

And an extra picture just because.

Beautiful, isn't it?



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 365th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

The Fat Groundhog

We have an acorn tree near our shed, and the groundhog likes acorns.

It also lives under the shed. Nothing I put in the hole or around it makes it leave. I once poured mothballs down the hole and later found them in a pile a few feet away from the opening.

I worry about the foundation of the outbuilding.

When we had a dog, which was 15 years ago, we didn't have trouble with things like groundhogs, but this one moved in a few years after the dog died, and it, or its offspring, has been there ever since.

More Game Camera Pics

The first one of these photos in this batch is my favorite because it has a raccoon in it. I think the other animal to the rear is a deer.

I always enjoy seeing the different critters. Most of the photos are deer. After you sift through a couple hundred of these shots, the unique ones stand out.

The other interesting thing about game cameras is perspective. These photos always look somewhat surreal to me. The difference between these photos and a photo I might take from the bedroom window (which could be as close, the way the animals look in the window) is that ones I take seem to have personality, while these are more flat.

The difference has to be whatever goes on in my brain and the lack of a brain in the game cameras. Or at least that is what I tell myself. I could be giving my brain too much credit. Maybe they don't look that different to anyone else.

Do Not Go Gentle

Botetourt is fortunate to have its very own local theater, the D. Geraldine Lawson Performing Arts Center.

The community acting crew is known as Attic Productions. They put on five or six plays annually.

Saturday night, my husband and I ventured out to see Do Not Go Gentle, a play by Susan L. Zeder. The Roanoke Times reviewed it here.

Director was Katerina Yancey. I was not familiar with any of the cast this go-round. I thought they did a good job. It is, after all, community theater and I don't expect acting on par with Sandra Bullock or Tom Hanks.

The RT review is rather negative, and I do not agree with it. I greatly enjoyed the play. I think it is a woman's play, and therefore the reviewer was unable to relate to what was going on.

He wasn't able to get the messages. Or rather, the reviewer called the messages "old hat" and dismissed them. 

Those messages were that war is bad, killing is bad, violence is bad. That actions of others have consequences that reverberate in places never even considered by those undertaking them. That love endures, despite differences. That pain and suffering are part of life, but so is healing. That art and words matter - that everyone's voice, whatever that voice may be and however those words come out - matters and can and does make a difference, even if that difference goes unnoticed or commented upon. 

These are messages that we need to hear time and again, because we certainly, as a society, don't live like that. We live as if lives are small and of no consequence, that only money matters. We live as if human beings are but another commodity to be bought and sold.

This play, at its heart, exploded that. So of course it's not the kind of show that certain folks around here might enjoy. They might actually have to think, and we can't have that.

However, I was teary towards the end, and the messages of this play came through loud and clear to me.

In the show, Lillian is an 84-year-old woman who dies. Her son comes home from Germany with his daughter to attend the funeral. He meets his cousin and they go into the house for an estate sale. The walls have been covered with dramatic and sometimes scary paintings, of planes in battle, children shooting one another, and other visions. We don't see these, but the director rightly allows our imagination to fill in these blanks. The family rifts and secrets come out, and Lillian's fears about the upcoming war (the play is set on the brink of the 1991 Gulf War) are discovered. The play covers a lot of ground in two hours.

The show continues on October 16, 17, and 18. For $12, it's a good way to spend some time, and who knows, you might feel a sting in your heart of hearts, like I did.

Bear on the Trail Camera

I was incredibly excited when we downloaded the photos off the trail cam yesterday and these pictures of a bear were on there. This is a fairly big bear, too.

When the trail cams pick up animals other than deer, I am always happy. My husband is only interested in bucks, but I find most of the pictures interesting.

Sunday Stealing: Random

From Sunday Stealing

Random Questions

01. Who were you with yesterday?

A. My husband.

02. What woke you up this morning?

A. The clock radio.

03. Where are you?

A. Physically, I am at my desk at home. Mentally I am all over the place.

04. Is tomorrow going to be a good day?

A. I hope so.

05. What’s on your mind RIGHT NOW?

A. Game camera photos, a troubling disagreement with a health care provider, and the pain in my stomach that just will not go away.

06. Do you listen to music every day?

A. Most days I do.

07. Are you a fast typer?

A. I'm a fast typist.

08. What's your favorite type of soda?

A. Root beer.

09. Have you ever won an award?

A. I have won a number of Virginia Press Association awards for my news writing, as well as couple of poetry and short story contests.

10. Are you listening to music right now?

A. Yes. I am listening to Suite: Judy Blue Eyes by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

11. How long until your birthday?

A. It's next year, now.

12. Do you use ebay to buy or sell?

A. Only infrequently.

13. Who makes you mad?

A. Sometimes everybody on the planet pisses me off.

14. What do you do when you're mad?

A. Sometimes I yell. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I shut up and steam comes out of my ears.

15. Do certain songs make you cry?

A. Some do, yes.

16. Are you usually a happy person?

A. I don't think so.

17. What makes you the happiest?

A. That's a hard question. Being with people I love and yet still having space to do what I want whilst being supported by those who love me makes me happy.

18. Do you believe in yourself?

A. Not really, no. I'm not sure anyone else does, either.

Saturday 9: Single Ladies

Saturday 9: Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) (2008)

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) Are the majority of your friends married or single?

A. Married. Most of the single people I know are widowed. It's what happens when you get older.

2) Rings are one of the items most frequently pawned. Have you ever visited a pawn shop, either to sell or to buy?

A. I've gone in them to look, but not to sell or buy. I watch Pawn Stars sometimes on TV. Does that count for anything?

3) Let's say we want to put a ring on it: What's your ring size?

A. I have no idea. I haven't bought a ring in years.

4) Beyonce does commercials for Pepsi. What's the last beverage you drank?

A. A&W root beer.

5) Beyonce also has a clothing line. What are you wearing right now?

A. Um. A Disney nightie and my robe.

6) Speaking of clothes, Sam was changing hers this morning when she unintentionally flashed her neighbor. She didn't realize he was working along the fence that runs under her bedroom window. Tell us one of your most embarrassing moments.

A. In September 2013, the cows were loose. We had taken a Sunday drive and were an hour away when the neighbors called. By the time we arrived, it was a circus, with a crowd of people standing around and police vehicles on the scene. Only one person, however, was trying to put the cows back in the lot. So my husband and I went down to work on that. I was dressed in good clothes and good shoes. One of the cows turned toward me, and I headed in her direction shrieking "ya ya" with my arms flailing to try to get her to go back toward the gate, and I slipped and fell down. The cow almost ran me over. It was kind of dangerous but I was very embarrassed because I fell. I am always embarrassed when I fall down.

7)  Rumor has it Beyonce is pregnant again. Coincidentally, Sam needs to check the Babys R Us registry for a shower present. Who will receive the next gift you give?

A. I suppose my husband, on our anniversary in November. Or maybe a friend whose birthday is a bit sooner.

8) But Sam doesn't actually want to go to the shower and is trying to come up a good excuse. Tell us a time you fibbed to get out of doing something.

A. Nothing comes to mind at the moment.

9) When did you last go inside the bank and talk to a teller?

A. Just this week. I made a deposit and I asked about the change-over that is happening soon, since our bank has been sold.

Books: Good Faith

Good Faith
By Jane Smiley
Performed by Richard Poe
Copyright 2003
Approximately 13 hours


As I listened to this book, I could easily imagine I was sitting in on negotiations for the demise of one of Botetourt's big farms as developers plotted a golf course and large homes surrounding it.

We have that, of course. It's called Ashley Plantation. It was built in the late 1990s-early 2000s, and construction screeched to a halt there when the economy soured in 2007.

In Good Faith, Joe Stratford is a real estate agent in New Jersey. He's 40 years old, divorced, and has a decent life. He's got $62,000 in the bank and he owns his condo, and he's content.

Then several things happen. One of his developers, Gordon Baldwin, buys up a big estate and farm. Around the same time, a fellow named Marcus Burns moves into the area. Marcus is a big talker, full of big ideas, and full of himself.

Almost everybody likes Marcus. He's a former IRS agent and people trust him. They think he knows things that they don't, because, well, he was in the government. He has big ideas and big theories.

He convinces Joe, Gordon, bankers, and others that they are thinking small in their development of this farm. Gordon's idea is to cut the place into lots, build houses, maybe 100 of them, and sell them. Typical subdivision. But Marcus talks them into setting up a big development company, and creating a golf course with $400,000 homes built around it.

The story is told from Joe's point of view. He sees Marcus as a friend. Joe has an affair with Gordon's daughter, and he's very involved in that family. So the reader goes along with Joe for this part of his life, in all areas. Joe is a good guy. He's you. He's me. He's every man.

The story is not a mystery, but you want to read to the end. You want to know what happens. Does this big idea work? Does it fail? And what happens either way? Whose lives change, and is that change better, or worse?

The story takes place around 1984. The book jacket calls this "a searing indictment of 1980s greed culture" and I would say that is appropriate. Except, of course, that is now our current culture, all the way to its roots, so it's an indictment of our way of life. And it should be, because we're all patsies in this big game being played upon us by the big corporations and the politicians.

Joe is generally a cautious guy but Marcus's talk of making billions - not millions - puts stars in his eyes. Looking back, I could see this kind of thing really happening all over the US as deregulation came into its own - remember the S&L crisis, anyone over the age of 30? Well, this book is a fictionalized tale of how it happened, and it rings true.

This is a tale of the beginning of the fall of the middle class, which did not start in 2007 but back in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan and the following loss of regulatory rules on banks, utilities, and other things that should be strongly regulated.

The book's message is deep, buried in character and story, but it's there nevertheless. That's one thing I've always liked about Jane Smiley. Her books always have a message, but it doesn't come up and hit you in the face. You have to think about it.

Thursday Thirteen: Eclectic

1. A 4.25 oz Hershey's Symphony chocolate bar says that a serving is 5 blocks, with "about" three servings per container. To get five blocks, you have to eat a row of four plus one from the next line. In a Hershey's Symphony giant bar (6.8 oz), It says a serving is three blocks with "about" five servings but there are four across the row, so you have to leave one. The blocks are not the same size in the bars. Why can't they make a serving equal one row of blocks, whatever that is? Is this some kind of marketing ploy, knowing that if you have to leave one, you won't, or if you have to break into a second row to finish out a full serving, you will end up eating the rest of the row?

2. Pop Tarts are smaller than they used to be, but the aluminum-like packaging they come in inside the box is still about the size of Pop Tarts of old, so you have a lot of extra space. Did Kellogg's have too many of the bags to begin with, or has some bean counter not realized they're wasting a little cash with the extra packaging?

3. Speaking of packaging, who invented that plastic from hell that no one can get into? It's especially prevalent in the technology industry, where it surrounds everything from SD cards to cords to software, and everything in between.

4. What used to be 16 oz became 12 ozs, and now it's 11.5 ozs. What used to be 12 ozs in chocolate chips is now 11.5 ozs, for example. Did they think we wouldn't notice? I noticed. Didn't anyone else?

5. A dozen eggs still equals 12 eggs, though I would not be at all surprised to walk up to make a purchase and discover they now come in cartons of 10, but for the same price.

6. One of my banks sold itself to another bank, so I have to switch banks soon. I can stay with the new one that's elbowing its way into town, or I can switch elsewhere. When I called my old bank to ask questions, I told the lady who answered that I was very upset that I would not get to write check #10,000 on my account. I'm up to 9,300 and something in my check numbers. That's how long I've been with my current bank that is no longer going to be my bank. I've never switched buildings. First it was Bank of Troutville, then Sovran Bank, then my current bank. Now it will be some other name. I hate change. Sometimes.

7. Yesterday I gave my father a copy of Beth Macy's new book, Factory Man. I had her inscribe it and sign it. The inscription said, "To Loren, a Roanoke businessman with a story of his own."
 
8. I haven't finished the book. I'm on Chapter 2. I've been slow to start it.

9. Yesterday my backup hard drive had a squeak and then later I couldn't access any of my documents. No lights were on and no information was home. I shut everything down last night, and this morning, all is well. Computers are weird.

10. The other day I had my physical therapist laughing so hard that she literally had to turn her back to me in order to stop giggling and get back to work. And then to keep things a little calmer, we ended up talking about Lord of the Rings and the upcoming Hobbit movie. "Very adult conversation we have in here," she said dryly as I left, and we both cracked up.

11. I reach into a little blue bag and pull out a rune from a little kit I've had for at least a decade. It's called Stones from the Muse and the runes are for the creative journey. This morning I pull out a knapsack. "Some artistic work can only be accomplished through play," says the book interpretation. "Forget the goal for now, and let go of your time schedule. You are right here, right now. Play!" Sounds like good advice to me.

12. Now thoroughly fascinated, even at this dark hour of 7 a.m. in the morning, I reach into my little drawer of "toys" and pull out a deck of Rune Cards. I shuffle, then pick from the top. The card is beautiful, depicting a beach dune covered with greenery, the ocean behind it. It says, "Protection." The accompanying interpretative book says this: "The dunes shift and shift forever, feather grass restless in the wind. Cool your emotions. Follow your path. That is your protection." If you put the two together, it sounds like I need to spend the day at the local playground, sitting on a swing near the sandbox.

13. Last night I dreamed I was dead. No one came to my funeral.

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 364th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Blood moon

This morning there was a total eclipse of the full moon. We had thunderstorms last night and I fully expected a cloudy sky this morning, but when I hopped out of bed at 6:20 a.m., there were stars twinkling and the moon looking very vampirish.

I stood outside with the camera on a tripod to get these photos, in near total darkness. An owl hooted in the distance. Soon, from someplace close to me, a turkey began calling. Cawl cawl cawl. Very loud, and a little unnerving. Luna, hanging low in the sky, continued to darken with that reddish brown color.

The bear in the backyard some weeks ago came to mind so I did not venture far from the door. But the moon was beautiful, the air still warm but fallish. I could smell the rain-dampened earth and feel that blessings of a new day in a way that staying in the house seldom offers.

As the sky began to turn from black to blue, with the sun slowly rising behind me, ol' Apollo there slipping back into his place in the sky, I watched the colors on the trees begin to show. The rains last night made everything that much brighter, and the colors are changing fast.

A beautiful reminder of the spirit of the world.

The Little Frog

I glanced out the kitchen window and at first I thought someone had placed a rock on the side of my little container in the garden where people sometimes leave things.

 

 

Upon further inspection, I discovered it was a frog.

 

 

Cute!

 

 

 

It did not seem happy to have its picture taken, however.

 

 

As the shade disappeared, so did the frog. He slipped backwards.

 

 

I wondered how it got up there in the first place.

 

 

The next morning I flipped open the lid, and the frog was inside the box.

 

 

I left the lid up, and when I checked back later, froggy was gone.