Crab Pots

These crab pots live down Redart.  I visited them when Middle Sister was here and we were taking in the local sights.

I'm feeling a little crabby myself today.  It's back to the crazy pace of post-Christmas Normal Life.  Although I've had to work the past week, traffic has been light, and the workplace has been quiet and slow. That will all change today.

There are three basketball games this week.  So, after the long, full days of work, we'll be busy cheering in the stands several evenings this week.

Last but not least, this is my final week of being able to say I'm in my forties.  How in the world it is possible for me to be halfway to 100 years old is well beyond my comprehension.

Sigh.

Buzzard

This dirt lane lives down Redart.

At the end of the dirt lane lives a dock and an overturned boat.

And on this particular day right next to the boat stood a rather befuddled-looking buzzard.

I say he looked befuddled because usually these creatures are loitering in larger groups, bickering over something sizable and dead, focused on eating and boxing out any competition (which also eerily sounds like our 2011 family Thanksgiving at the Golden Corral buffet, but I digress).

Not so on this particular day, at least not from my vantage point. He appeared to be solo, quietly enjoying the peace and solitude.  Perhaps he was just taking a break from all his buzzard-ing.

Also, here's a news flash.  This may not technically be a buzzard, but I am too tired and lack the time to research this buzzard vulture thing.  One of my four  three two readers can chime in on the technically correct term if they see fit.

Anyway.

The word buzzard has always made me sort of smile, for reasons I can't really articulate and don't have the time to analyze--although I could if pressed.  There is, however, a story in particular I now think of whenever I hear the word.

About eight years ago, I was on vacation with a man ten years my senior.  We stopped at a place called Sting-Ray's over near Cape Charles on the Eastern Shore to purchase some gas and wine. He took care of the gas while I perused the wine options. He met me at the counter as the younger female cashier asked to see my ID. Naturally I was thrilled to provide proof that I was not just 21, but, in fact, over 40.

She took my driver's license, studied it, glanced at me, glanced back at the license, handed it back to me and without a word began ringing up the purchase, satisfied.  

My companion, ever the wiseacre, asked, "Don't you want to see my ID?"

Without even looking up from her task of bagging the wine, without a change whatsoever in her countenance, the cashier said, "Nobody needs to see your ID, you old buzzard."

I howled with laughter.

This concludes my story of why cashiers buzzards make me laugh.

The End.

Click here to see what Sting-Ray's is all about, although they fail to highlight the very astute employees in charge of putting old buzzards in their place the cash registers.

Whites Creek Landing

This is the public landing at the end of Route 682, Whites Creek Lane. I stopped here after a failed attempt at running turned into a lengthy walk thanks to my back and its proclivity to give out now and then. It was so cold I had to wear gloves, and even so there were times my fingers were so cold I couldn't press the shutter button on the camera.

(Although most days I feel much younger than the calendar insists--not quite 49--when it's cold, I tend to feel much older--not quite 79.)

Have a wonderful weekend.

Just Playin'

When a person reaches the age of 47 or thereabouts, and someone asks what that 47-year-old did over the weekend, one of the least anticipated answers might be, "I played in a tree house."

This isn't the tree house, but this was on the way to The Tree House
 and is a story for another day.

If Chesapeake Bay Woman happens to be on the receiving end of that question, however, that's her Final Answer that's not entirely outside the realm of possibility, as far as answers go.

The Tree House is hidden in the right  side of this photo.

Once upon a Saturday afternoon, Chesapeake Bay Woman was waiting to see what life would bring next, because it always brings something fun and unusual. And all she has to do is wait for it.

(It's never, ever planned.)

Lo and behold, her high school friend Waterman JP asked if she'd like to take a trip to Bavon to see Something Which Escapes Her Memory but which turned into a side adventure involving tree houses.

Technically these are considered tree stands, from which he hunts. But in my book, no matter what, they're tree houses.

He built the one below stem to stern. The original structure was a tree house for his daughter.

Now that his daughter is in college with no immediate need for a tree house, he has re-purposed it for hunting.


(And random Saturday afternoons with an old friend.)

FYI. A 10 47-year-old with the soul of a 47 10-year-old can scale that ladder like it's nothing.  Coming down is a whole other story.

When someone stands or moves inside this tree house, even with no wind, the structure sways.  When two adults approaching the age of 50 are inside trying to get their bearings and find the quickest way to discern who will still be alive to dial 911 open up the windows for cross ventilation before they cook to a medium rare and the turkey buzzards hunker down for supper...well. 

That thing is swaying way more than is comfortable for CBW.

However, there was one ingredient in this Recipe for Potential Disaster that made CBW realize her fears of impending doom a possible Tree House Catastrophe were unfounded.  

And it was this person.

Waterman JP, who can build, fix or do just about anything. 

If JP was confident that a 911 call was unnecessary, then I was too.

(I did insist that we not be on the ladder at the same time, so that one person would have the sense to dial 911 if the other person slipped and splintered their 47-year-old bones.  Luckily that wasn't necessary.)

Thank you, JP, for reminding me that I am still 10 or 12 years old even though the birth certificate says otherwise.