happy halloween!

Moppet metamorphosis

This is Miss Moppet on the day we adopted her.

Yeah, the picture is bad, but my camera had just died, and I was using my dad's. Anyway, the point is that she was so wee and skinny and she looked like a little ocelot. She doesn't even look old enough to be a mama.

Here she is 3 months later:

Still such a pretty girl! She still looks like a little ocelot, I think, but she's definitely filled out a bit.

In fact, in this picture, she looks downright bunchy:

Try to ignore all the crap in the background, it's our pile of stuff to give to Goodwill.

where does the time go?

Here is Mister Bear, pondering that very question:


I kind of wasted the weekend. Not only did I not write any blog posts, but I also didn't go play outside even though Sunday was pretty spectacular. I watched a lot of TV, and sat in front of the computer, not blogging, and not doing the work-work that I needed to do.

So, here I am with no blog posts for the week (except tomorrow's kitteh post, which I had stockpiled). And, still no big fancy hard drive, which made posting these photos a huge pain because I had to transfer them to the new hard drive, and then email them to myself so I could download them to my work laptop where I have Photoshop, so I could resize them and stuff, and now I have to email them back to myself and store them on my backup hard drive, and blah blah blah.

So, I'm taking the rest of the week off from blogging. Hopefully this weekend I'll have the gumption to write some posts for next week.

But hey, at least the weekend wasn't a total bust - look who visited the backyard!

kid stuff

Look at this happy grubby little kid! He's at the pool, which I didn't realize they had in 1950, and he's got an ice cream bar! Apparently in the 50's they already had that rule where you can't eat in the pool area. Bummer.



Remember how I mentioned that my dad always loved Cowboys and Indians and all manner of western stuff? Toldja. I wonder if that gun is real. I wouldn't be at all surprised. The thing that's surprising is that the pony is real! Where did he come from?



Here's my dad hanging out on a train. I wish I knew the story behind this happy event. I suspect my grandparents took him to some historical place, you know, like how we drag our kids to Mount Vernon these days. But gosh, he looks pleased. I googled Bob Orvil and Bob Orvie, but I didn't find anything that explains the graffiti on the train. Maybe it's the predecessor to this.

update

Sooooo. My hard drive. Apparently, it's this specific brand that made these specifically defective hard drives during the specific range of dates that I decided to buy a new computer. And they're offering free data recovery to make up for it! It's like a recall, but not really because they're just waiting for the hard drives to crap out and then they'll fix them.

So we're mailing our hard drive to Chicago, and we'll get our stuff back in 2 to 4 weeks. Maybe, if the free fix works. If the free fix doesn't work, it's going to turn into the $1000 fix that I predicted. So. Let's keep our fingers crossed, shall we?

But, yeah, 2 to 4 weeks. That's a long time to go without my big fancy computer. I have like 300 photos on my camera with no place to call home. What the heck am I going to blog about if I can't post pictures? (I do at least have a few weeks of Wednesday cat posts queued up and ready to go).

Anyway, in the meantime, here's a video that will be hilarious if you've ever lived in Northern VA:

Mowgli to the rescue

Thank God we have a big strong fearless kitten to save us from the deadly Paper-On-Various-Forms-of-Rolls.

As an aside, it was this very photograph that made me decide to go out and buy a trashcan with a lid for the bathroom, after mulling it over for years.

busted

Remember how, almost exactly one year ago, my computer broke and I bought a new one? A big fancy expensive new one?

Yeah, well, I came home from West Virginia yesterday, and I was greeted with "I don't know how to tell you that your hard drive is broken, so I'll just go ahead and tell you: your hard drive is broken".

He tried valiantly to fix it, and then to call Dell customer service, which as you know was a joke. Also, as you know, my warranty conveniently expired last week. Not suspicious at all.

Anyway, I just don't feel like dealing with photos right now since I don't have my big fancy computer to store them on, so I'm not going to do my West Virginia post until all of this gets situated. Which means a whole new other hard drive, which will most likely be useless, and then a $1000 trip to the computer doctor to get all my stuff off the @#$%^!&* hard drive.

Yay.

til tomorrow

I'm in West Virginia this morning with the Fam. We came here for a long weekend for Lil Sis' birthday, and I'd post about it today but I forgot to pack the little cable thingie that makes it so I can get the pictures off the camera and onto the computer, so I'll just post about it tomorrow.

presents!

This is without a doubt my favorite picture from my dad's childhood. He's on the right, and he just looks so stinkin happy! I love their bikes - I love the basket on my dad's bike, and the fact that the kid on the left, the biggest one, is on a tricycle. I love the patches on their knees! I love their hats; I love the way the ground looks wet and muddy and all the kids are so excited; I love that somebody loved them enough that they wanted to capture their joy for posterity during a time when such things required film and development and waiting and money.



Here's my dad on Christmas morning in the living room. So many things to love about this one as well! It looks like my Granna was always a theme-tree person, decorating a tree with similar colors or shapes. And check out that tinsel! That must have been Pop's handywork (he always liked tinsel, even when Big Sis and I were growing up and he would help us put it on the tree). And the wallpaper! The shiny metallic ottoman! And my dad not only got a cowboy outfit (do kids get costumes for Christmas these days?) but he also got some toy soldiers.



Here we are, back in the living room with the wallpaper, maybe on a birthday. It looks like he's standing in front of a TV, which I think is kind of impressive for a photo that was probably taken before 1955, although the Interwebs say that the television became really popular in American homes toward the end of the 1940's, so what do I know? The magazine rack has a Cosmo in it! And I think the shiny amorphous blob in front of the magazine rack is a doggeh's rearend. Ok, back to my dad: I'm not sure I get the expression on his face. Is he mad? He's got a pretty cool firetruck there. Maybe he wanted something more Western? (He liked the whole Cowboys and Indians thing for his entire life) But also, what is that outfit? Is it some sort of old-timey soldier costume? I bet the soldiers fighting the Civil War would have been happier than that to see that kind of fire truck!

I have several more childhood pictures of my dad, but right now my head hurts and I need to go lie down and stop looking at this screen. More to come next Friday!

stuff and things

First things first: Happy birthday Kathleen! Go check out her blog for the most exciting news of the year!

Now that we've gotten the most important agenda item taken care of, let us proceed:

I am so sick. It's not the swine flu (I don't have a fever) but I have that kind of sinus pain that's almost debilitating, and causes me to shuffle around, moaning and clutching my face.




My NYC pics are up on Flickr!






It's time to panic start thinking about Christmas. I usually start shopping earlier than this so I can spread the spending over a few months and not have to use my savings, but I haven't started and now I'm worried I'm going to get myself into spending trouble. But my family is doing a budget again (this time I think it's going to be even less than last year! Unless my mom's $35 idea gets vetoed) - which is great, but also really challenging to think of good presents.

In the mornings, before I feed her, Moppet is super lovey. She lets me pet her, and more than that, she likes it. Yesterday, she purred! It was a momentous occasion. I would have given her a piece of tuna as a reward for liking me, but I needed to go lie down again because I didn't think my neck was going to be able to hold up my gigantic 500 pound head any longer.




Check out the Story of the Day, which Meana pointed out to me. Hilarious.

Moppetball

*grass* is of the utmost importance.

So, you guys know about our deer, yes? Well, a couple weekends ago, they decided to just settle in and make themselves at home in the middle of the backyard.

These are the 3 babies. That's my balcony rail on the lower left.

Here's one of the moms.
She was way over on the other end of the yard, trying to catch a break already, for the love of God.

I have never seen deer just flop down and chill in the open like that, so I did not hesitate to take 500 pictures. Here's how it went. First, the 3 babies and the one mama were just chillin in the yard (see above), taking some naps and doing some licking....

Then, the other mom came out of the woods, and her two kids were like "snaaaaacks!"

And the other kid felt left out, so he went over to his mom and he was like "snaaaaaacks!"

But his mom was all "I am so not in the mood for this".

So he took his revenge out on the grass, and this is why Bear does not like to mow back there.

UJ was staying with us that day, and he must have gone right over to Gmaw's place and told her the whole story because a few days later, I got this letter in the mail from her:

Clickie to get biggie.

Which should not surprise you because you know how Gmaw feels about wildlife, yes?

zzzzzzzzzzzz

I went to New York this weekend with Andrea and another friend, and I'm too tired to write a real post about it, but I will be posting the pictures on Flickr soon-ish! Back to the real world today!

long ago and far away

These are the only baby pictures I could find of my dad besides that one with the hair. I'm sure there are more, but they're all stuffed in a box somewhere. Someday I'll dig them out and post them. I also have his bronzed baby shoes, which I'll take a picture of and post someday - such a funny custom! I wonder if anyone does that anymore?

In this picture, I'm guessing that my dad was right around 2 years old. That's really the only thing I can guess about this picture because I cannot begin to imagine what that contraption is that he's standing on. Is it a lawn mower? Some sort of odd standy-uppy stroller-sleigh? I just do not know.

Whatever it is, he's pretty happy about it!

Next, we have a more recognizable toy that he is not quite as pleased with. I'm guessing he was expecting it to trot away. Or at least, you know, rock back and forth or something.

Mr. Pouty McGrumpersons

And here he is with Granna, wearing some kind of ridiculous hat:


I wish I knew the timeline of things - if Grandpa was in their lives yet, or if Granna was raising him alone. I was thinking about this on my drive home the other day, and for a second "I'll ask Pop!" floated through my head, and then of course I felt like crap for awhile after that. I wish I would have asked him all of these things when he was here - I don't think there's anyone left in the world to ask.




As an aside, check out this photo of Granna as a little girl! What a great photo, for being so old - it must have been taken in the 1920's. And she just looks so beautiful to me!

come on people now, smile on your brother (and everyone else)

I like manners. Kindness, consideration, common courtesy. These are all good things! Things that are not good:

• spitting in public, especially when you are walking by an outdoor patio full of people eating lunch
• standing right up against the person in front of you in line, especially when you are at the pharmacy
• touching a stranger's belly just because she's preggers
• weed-whacking at 7:00 in the morning
  

These are small things, yet so infuriating and/or creepy and/or disgusting. The good news is that they're so easy to not do! Let's all join together and not do them!

I find that it's also pretty easy to not:

• loudly heckle heads of state in the middle of a speech
• threaten sporting officials with bodily harm
• jump onto a stage in the middle of an acceptance speech, yank the microphone away from the speaker, and start babbling about someone else's awesomeness.

In fact, I think those three things are pretty much some of the easiest things to not do that I've ever heard of. (As an aside, I like Brad Hirschfield's article on these three issues because he makes an excellent point - apologies are owed to all of civilization!)

Which brings me to my final point about things to not do for the sake of common courtesy: one of my favorite pastimes is not taking time out of my day to compose thoughtful and malicious emails laying out all of the reasons why I hate total strangers. I bring this up because I read Dooce, and I think she's a fun writer, and a fun photographer, and I like to vicariously imagine what it's like to be able to live off of a blog. Both she and her husband are bloggers, and that is how they make their living, and I think that's great. Apparently some people do not think that's great. I'm really sort of baffled by her new "Monetizing the Hate" page, although I do think it's a fine idea (if you have to put up with that much hate mail, might as well make a buck off of it, right?)

Who are these people? Some of them really seem to get some pleasure out of sending her hateful emails (these are the ones who call her a "banana head with a chin" and say her husband is gay or butt-ugly and her daughter is "border-line special ed" which makes one wonder if every single one of them is in the 5th grade), and others... they just say things like "I don't like your blog anymore, and I'm going to stop reading it". Why do they feel compelled to say that? Do they imagine that Dooce can do anything about it? It serves no purpose other than to say something crappy that may or may not hurt someone's feelings.

For some reason, it's hard for me to articulate what it is about this phenomenon that is so strange to me. But here's a try: many of these haters say things like "everyone who reads Dooce is such a clone and a loser and will do whatever she tells them", which kind of implies that these people have nothing to live for outside of Dooce's blog. But...what the heck do these really angry hater people have going on in their lives that makes them feel that spewing vitriol is an efficient use of their time? Who are these people? Are they normal at all? Would they treat someone like that in person? Does having a blog somehow dehumanize someone to the point of making it acceptable to target them with hatred? Did their parents not teach them to be nice to people?

It makes me glad that my blog is only read by my friends and family and a few other (really nice) bloggers - even though it would really be nice to be able to make a living off of it! I get the impression that no matter who you are or what you're talking about, if you become well known, people are going to find a reason to hate your guts pretty passionately, and they're going to forget that you're a fellow human being. If I ever get famous (ha!) I'm going to have to remember not to take it personally (ha!).

prim and proper

Look how polite and gentlemanly he can be when he's not attacking dust particles and carpet fibers!

the trip of a lifetime

Bear's mom, aunt, and grandma are, right now, as we speak, somewhere in the world. They could be in Brussels, or Geneva, or Mougins, or Nauplion, or Athens, or Olympia, or Crete, or Santorini, or Mykonos, or Alexandria, or Cairo, or Giza, or Ephesus, or Istanbul. Because they are going to all of those places. They left last week and they will not be back until well into November and I am not jealous at all, no I am not.

On their way over to the rest of the world they stopped at the airport near us, and since we don't get to see them often we thought we'd drive over and spend a few minutes with them while they waited for their next flight.

Bear is bashful. Me? I just look like crap.

It was wonderful to see them, and to see how excited they were for their trip, but boy do I wish I was going with them.

*by the way, I got all the pictures at the top from searching for the city names I mentioned in Google Images. Hope that's a good enough citation!

bluegrass and wine and hayrides

On Saturday, Mr. Bear and I went to a wine and bluegrass festival at Chrysalis Vineyards, because we are in the business of avoiding home improvement. The folks at Chrysalis grow Norton grapes, which are special because:

• They're native to this part of North America, which I'm told is pretty odd.
• In the 1800's, some Norton wine won a big ol' European contest for being pretty awesome, and the Europeans wanted us to ship some Norton grapes to them.
• But then the Civil War started, and the grapes almost went extinct because people were just going around burning everything.
• Some extraordinarily foresighted people saved some of them and grew them for holy wine.
• They're making a comeback.

And now you know more than you ever wanted to know about Norton grapes!


But I like the vineyard. We had a wine tasting and some good food, and watched some fun bluegrass bands (I love bluegrass music). (And by "love", I don't mean "I want a bunch of bluegrass CDs for Christmas", so nobody get any ideas).

And, we went on a hayride! The hayride was interesting because:

• The side rail felt like it was going to fall off really really soon. I'm a little worried that it did.
• We were surrounded by beautiful bright-blonde girls (5 of them) with itty bitty sundresses and gigantic sunglasses, accompanied by their unremarkable boyfriends who all went to my Alma Mater and acted like doofuses.
• We passed several doghouses spaced intermittently throughout the vineyard, and the dogs watched us go by and wagged their tails and grinned at us, and we wondered if they were there to chase away deer or maybe bears because surely they would be useless against humans.
• We made a stop and got out to pick some grapes to taste. They were small, and dark, and sweet, and each one of them had 50,000 seeds. The dogs took the opportunity to solicit belly rubs.

a different kind of childhood

I always liked listening to my dad tell us about his childhood. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that long ago, but our culture has changed so much since then (or maybe it feels more drastic because it's also a difference between semi-rural Ohio and the urban sprawl of Northern VA).

Here are a few snippets that I remember:

When he was a kid in grade school, all the boys would bring their pocketknives to school so they could play mumblety-peg during recess. I totally disapprove.

Also, he said a lot of kids would bring rifles to school so that they could shoot something for supper on the way home. (He referred to 'dinner' as 'supper', and 'dinner' was what happened on Sunday afternoons, but not on any other afternoon of the week, which confused the heck out of me as a kid). I totally disapprove again!



He had a cousin who was afraid of sheep, which my dad thought was so funny, and he would sit there and laaaaaugh as he recalled the poor kid climbing up onto a stump and refusing to come down as long as the sheep were anywhere near him. I doubt I'd ever met a sheep at the time of this story-telling, so I failed to see the humor in the story and I thought my dad was being awfully mean.

In my dad's neighborhood, the milk was delivered by a guy with a horse-drawn wagon. They loved the quaintness of it, so when people started complaining about the horse poop, they hired somebody to follow the wagon and scoop the poop because they (who is they?) thought maybe that would save the horse-drawn milk wagon from fading into the past. It didn't work.

I found this on his website:

Milk delivery came by horse drawn wagon. What fun that was. The horse knew the route and plodded along while the milkman ran in and out of the doors delivering milk to the porches. We could run in and out of the wagon too, until the milkman caught us and made us stop. I wasn’t in Findlay when San-A-Pure stopped using horses. People started complaining about the road apples. They were afraid the children would play with them and possibly eat them. They tried following with a truck and a man with a shovel collecting them as they dropped---but my questions have always been why would people let their kids play in the middle of the street—that’s where the horses dropped their loads—and if they insist on letting the kids play in the street, why not just teach the kids not to play with them. I don’t ever remember having the urge to play with, nor eat a road apple. Back then, most people had gardens and I know my grandfather and uncle would use them for the garden.

This is extra funny to me because when I or my sister started whining about stuff, he would say "why don't you go play in traffic or something?" with his eyes twinkling.

I really miss my dad's stories - they were always fun to listen to, and he always told them with the twinkly eyes. Ack, I miss him so much (sometimes I can't resist saying that, even though I know I say it a lot, and it's obvious... but I can't think of another way to express that strong pang of regret and sadness that I have when I think of my dad. I just don't have the words).