Move on people

Let’s pretend I’m new to the Richmond area and know nothing about the history of Douglas Southall Freeman High School.  I’m looking at areas to buy a house and I have kids who will go to high school some day.  I know very little about the Civil War as I did not go to school in a southern state.  I know nothing about the Pulitzer prize winning biographer for whom the school is named.  I just want a good school for my kids.

So I see this image representing this school with pretty good ratings and a long name of some dead guy.

I think, well that’s an unusual mascot.  I wonder what it means.  Clearly the man is running from something,  And his outfit looks dated.  I wonder if he’s a moonshiner running from the law.  Or maybe that is an image of Douglas Southall Freeman.  I look to see the team name, you know,  Tigers or Panthers or some other typical team name.  Rebels??  Well that’s different too.  Like Sandinistas?  Like revolutionary war rebels who became Americans?  Maybe the team name is the Americans?  Or maybe he’s an unwanted suitor running from the girl’s daddy who’s got a shotgun aimed at him? Maybe the team name is the Runners? Seems like a lot of gear for a runner.

I ask my fifth grade son who liked studying the Civil War and went to a Virginia school and he says "duh, mom, that’s a confederate soldier.  Can I have a snack?"

So as I continue my search for a neighborhood with a good school, I keep that in mind.  It’s not a deal breaker, but it does say something revealing about the attitude of this school district.  I'll need to keep an eye on these people if we move into this district.

Look away, look away, look away Dixie Land

Moving jitters

Well, let's see how this bloggy machine works.

The Empty Nest is moving to a new house and this will be my last posting from this venue.  My nutty husband says we will have the intertubes all hooked up when we move in, so I'll report on our perilous river crossing from the new house.

I'm looking forward to moving but I've been plagued with vague, non-specific anxiety for a couple of weeks now.  We are very worried about our pets.  The dog will be OK and the crazy old cat will probably be OK, it's the feral cats we're worried about.  Wonder if they can't take the stress?  New trees to climb, no fence around the yard to scale, no orange bully cat to intimidate them.

We bought them collars with the idea that we'd put name tags on them so if they get lost, a good samaritan will return them.

At the pet store there were too many choices so I grabbed the first black and white collars in one-size fits all size.  The ferals are black and white and I want them to look good as they wander the new neighborhood.  The collar is black with white fish.  Isn't that just too cute?!  I didn't notice until I got home that they are "Martha Stewart" brand collars.  Good lord, I wonder how much I spent on these?  I also bought a litter box with a hood and some weird looking paper litter.   Do you know how many choices there are in litter boxes and types of litter??  You can see why I just grabbed the first collars that I knew would fit around Tux's impressively large neck.

The litter box has been steadfastly ignored.  We had no problem getting Tippy into her collar.  Tux was more challenging.  Anything to do with Tux requires tremendous patience.  We finally got it on and boy was he mad.  He darted around the house trying to get out of it.  Then he hid for about 24 hours.  He did come down for breakfast this morning.  He went outside and it was cold, so he came to the door to come in but when he saw me he'd dart away, shaking his head.  I think the bell is the problem.  Finally I left the door open and walked away.  Then he came in to eat as it had been almost an hour since he had breakfast. 

Here are some kitty photos.  Please humor me and admire them.  I can't handle any more stress.

 Tippy styling in her Martha Stewart collar

 Tux is waiting for his show to come on.  He likes Bones

 Tippy does not have moving stress.

Happy Anniversary

Two years ago today I fell off of a segway and wrecked my shoulder.  I thought about that during the middle of the night as I tossed and turned trying to find a comfortable position on my right side.  Don't ever get on a segway.  Don't even walk near someone riding a segway.  Go the opposite direction when you see a segway coming at you.

Other than an occasionally sore shoulder, life is good.  How about you?

Happy 2013 to all.  Soon I will write about our new house.  Yes, the nest is moving.  Stay tuned.

Hot dogs from heaven

My husband and I decided to partake of America's past-time this evening and mix with the spectators at the local double-A baseball emporium.

We saw some good friends and their 2 grandchildren as we entered the stadium, so that was extra funn.  That's how Nutsy the flying squirrel spells fun.

The game was going along nicely (and people say soccer is boring.  Have they seen a baseball game?) and we were enjoying the between-inning antics provided by the management.  Plus there was a nice breeze and we had dinner as soon as we got there, so I wasn't cranky.  I get cranky when I'm hot and hungry. 

One of the antics was the hot dog toss.  A person dressed as a flamingo walks along the sideline and tosses wrapped hot dogs into the stands.  The flinging flamingo got near us and flung his dog high into the stands.  The flamingo had quite an arm.  I was looking straight up to follow the trajectory of the tightly wrapped dog.  Suddenly something hit my shoulder and I noticed a hot dog lying at my feet.  The lady one seat over seemed interested but old granny janny was on it.  I picked up the hot dog and held it up so everyone around would know of my rad skillz at hot dog grabbing.  A young person approached on my left with his hand out, as though I would give up my hot dog.  I spurned his advance.

I began to unwrap the dog.  The foil was held on by rubber bands, and you'll be glad to know the foil was only slightly torn, and the dog was not soiled or besmirched.

Paul, seeing that I planned to eat the high-flying dog, began to make critical comments.  He does not approve of hot dogs.  And I had already had one, so he was puzzled by my desire to eat another.  Because I earned it, dammit.

So when someone offers you free tickets to a baseball game, you should go because stuff might fall out of the sky and land at your feet.  And it might be edible stuff.  You just never know.

Failed Blogger Resurfaces Briefly

hi there.  Happy Father's Day to whomever this greeting applies.

It's been months since I wrote and I need to write about a huge milestone we recently reached:  last child graduates from college.  Woo hoo.  That feels really good.  We are so proud of him for working hard and getting good grades for four years.  I could study hard for only about 4 days, so I am very impressed with his diligence and attention span.  I hope these traits will bring him good things over the course of his life.

Here's his photo at graduation:

Now, as for the rest of our lives, we have no complaints and no changes to report.  We continue to think about moving and have looked at a few houses, but there doesn't seem to be a perfect house for us to take the time and trouble of selling this house and packing all this stuff, so we will leave well enough alone for now.  But you never know ....

The grand-daughters spent the night with us.  They are, as child-care professionals say, a handful.  But we enjoy them and know that their lives will speed by us quickly, so we take all the sobbing and sassiness in stride.  And beside, they don't actually live with us.  I will add photos here for your enjoyment.

One final bit of amusement.  I have been using Pintrest for a few months.  It's an online scrapbook for those unacquainted with it.  It's amusing to collect funny or interesting photos and assign them to boards that I create and write witty captions and have a few laughs over that.  I have gotten tired of it and decided to sign off, when over the course of 5 or 6 days, I received notification that people were now following my board called "Michelle Obama fan pix".  I admit to feeling like a bit of a creepy stalker collecting and posting photos of the FLOTUS.  However, full participation in the social media world requires a degree of risk-taking.  Just to satisfy my new subscribers, I found some new photos to post on that board.  It's a lot of pressure having "followers".  Good grief people, don't follow me.  I have no idea where I am going.  Stay back 500 feet!

The blog had its 4th anniversary in April.  I started writing just before the college graduate shown above graduated from high school.  For those of you worried about me and my empty nest, we are doing just fine. 

The graduate will be returning home to the nest in August to begin his job search, so I'll likely have some amusing stories about life with an offspring back in the house.  Until then, take time to smell the roses everyone.  Or rosemary.  It smells good too, and is a lot easier to grow.

Let Your Grass Flow

People who follow my writing (OK, person) know I hate grass. I lie awake at night thinking of ways to get rid of it. After multiple attempts to make it look nicer, I've decided that grass is the most difficult and expensive of all perennials to establish and maintain. Not too mention extremely labor intensive.  Last fall I found the remains of a bag of grass seed in my tool shed house of horrors. (Warning: don't open the door. I heard a lot of crashing last time I closed the door.  Hey, did I tell you about the time a hatchet fell from its hook and the handle hit me in the face?)

Back to grass. So I threw all of this grass seed down in the small area of grass I have left in my backyard. I have mulched over and planted over all of the other former grass areas, but I decided to leave this small grass area as seating for humans and pooping space for the dog. Little did I know that the dog will poop anywhere. On top of hellebores, on top of pavers, on top of old smokey, all covered in snow.

Back to grass. Lo and behold, this magic grass seed really took off, and I didn't bother to mow it during my last fall mowing of the wretched front yard grass.  Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I was getting the lawn mower out of the shed-of-death and a hatchet hit me in the face? Now this grass is fabulous. Lush and bright green and wild looking. I really like it this way. I may leave it. It makes me feel like a free spirit. Like a hippie.  I hope you'll like it too. 

 

Bellamy Brothers, 1975, Let your love flow, like a mountain stream

Snow Day

It's snowing. I'd take a photo and post it but that would require me to unseat myself from the sofa. I can't do that right now because Downton Abbey is due to start in about 4 minutes. You already know what snow looks like so you don't actually need me to post a photo. Maybe tomorrow I'll post a photo of the cats when they step out the door. They don't like wet feet so their reaction may be amusing. Stay tuned!! I feel badly about not posting for months now, since Herman Cain was still in the running for President of the United States, or Grand Poobah of the Springfield Moose Lodge. Springfield where the Simpson's live. Aww, shucky ducky that's a good idea. I reckon I could write about the 2 front runners, Mitt and Rick. But hasn't enough been said about these 2 weirdos? And what's happened to Newt? Did he go on another cruise with Callista? I kind of miss the other Rick and Michele. That woman had passion. Have to wrap this up, here comes the Abbey! xoxo, Janet