More Merroir

Since all I have to say today is, "Here are some more pictures from Saturday's visit to Merroir," I'd like to direct your attention to my mother's recent blog post which describes my parents' hilarious foray into snow skiing.

Click here to read all about that.

Neighborhood Party

Neighbors C. and M.

Saturday night was the annual Waverly Lane Christmas party, 

hosted by our almost-next-door-neighbors, shown above.

For whatever reason, even though we live close to one another, the neighbors rarely get together except for this one time of year--and have been doing so for for the past ten or so years.  We always say, "We should do this more often, " or "It's been so long since we've seen you," but our busy lives always seem to get in the way of getting together.

Each year it's held at a different neighbor's house.

Speaking of houses, there are three vacant houses on our lane, one of which is for sale if anyone's interested.

Middle Sister, who lives in Georgia, drove up with her husband just in time for the festivities.

Middle Sis, Husband, CB Father and Hostess M.

The house was beautifully decorated.

And a good time was had by all.

Speaking of good times, Son, Daughter, and I are headed out for a little adventure for the next several days.  

This blog will be on vacation until Monday, when I hope to report back all the fun we've had.

Have a great rest of the week!

Three Things

Once again we find ourselves in the midst of the day called Thursday, which is when we're encouraged to share three (or more) things, no matter what they are.

I'll go first.

1. As it turns out, after that little hike through the woods last week, I don't have poison ivy. I have CHIGGERS, or rather chigger bites. If you don't know what chiggers are, I'll devote a separate blog post to them at a later date. However, even if you do know what chiggers are? You don't know what this year's graduating class from Mathews County post-hurricane is like. In short, they're horrendous. Much like our mosquitoes, this year they have morphed into some killer, mutant breed that is relentless and dead set on causing hysteria, paranoia, incessant itching and the uttering of more than a few choice words.

Hey, at least my record against poison ivy still stands.  I am not allergic to it, at all. By the way, this is only mildly comforting as I scratch myself to death over these killer chigger bites. 

2. The Mathews High School cross country teams are undefeated. They won again Tuesday night against Northampton, Lancaster, and Middlesex. I am woefully behind in every possible aspect of my life on updating the cross country blog, but hope to tend to that this weekend. Chesapeake Bay Son's time has been improving, and it's such a pleasure to watch these kids run.

3. Saturday there's an invitational cross country meet at Maymont in Richmond (a mere 70 miles away! one way! on Saturday!) which I will attend in between working on proofreading and editing the first draft of the book, which was recently sent to me by the publisher and due back with all edits (that's 100+ pages at last count) by Tuesday.

(In between driving to sporting events and editing book submissions,  I also work  at that little place called The Paying Job, so not sure how I will squeeze everything into an already frenetic schedule, but we don't worry about such things, what with all the scratching from the chigger bites and all.)

3b. In short, every spare minute of my life time has been spoken for this weekend.

3c. Regardless, Sunday I will spend some time reminiscing with Ann Marie, whose great- great- great- GrandSomeOne, Elzy Burroughs, built the New Point Light. Next weekend, she's moving away from Mathews on to a place called Greener Pastures, which is a spectacularly gorgeous beach community huddled near the Atlantic Ocean.

By the way, she can expect frequent visits from CBW who has absolutely no problem inviting herself to friends' houses, especially when those friends have houses near the beach.

4. Please click here to read my mother's experience with beauty pageants. She's a very gifted, very beautiful writer.

Now it's your turn to share three things. Feel free to share more things unless, of course, those things happen to be chiggers and/or mosquitoes.

Thanks!

[**scratch***scratch**]

What's Up

It's been so long, I forget where this is.  It's what's up. Off Gwynn's Island, I believe.

So much has happened since I completely stopped slowed down from blogging.  There's much to report, but there hasn't been any time to do so.  Here's a not-so-succinct overview of the highlights.

First, last week was devoted exclusively to work on the book about Mathews County.

The format, dictated very strictly by the publisher, involves approximately 80 old photos of Mathews County scenes matched with 80 current photos of the exact same scenes, and a 60-80 word caption under each pair.

Who else is tired of the number 80 already besides CBW, who has aged 80 years while having 80 nightmares about 59-word captions when there isn't one. single. word. left to say about a picture of something that could be summarized in 10 words or fewer? Because this book cannot be written in her usual Free Form/Stream of Unconsciousness Consciousness Style of Writing, which has no filter caption limit.  This book is supposed to be halfway coherent. 

(CBW clings to the word "halfway" above like a flotation device she just found as she bobs up and down in the frigid waters surrounding the Titanic.)

For my own sanity, we won't discuss how many captions are still unwritten and how many more photos need to be taken.  Or the files that need to be renamed and copied to whatever they need to be copied to. And lots of other things that, as I say, we cannot face won't discuss.

Thank you.

Confederate Statue from early 1900s. (The statue, not the photo.)
Historic Court Green  

Here are some really bad shots, but don't worry they are not representative of what's going in the book, she says, with a nervous laugh random scenes from the Court House, which will be the main focus of the book, not because that's how I planned it, but because that's where the majority of the old photos procured were taken.

Richardson's, corner of Church and Main Streets.
These are terrible shots, and I will do better.  The particular day these were taken I was under duress.
It was the annual County Wide Yard Sale Maniacs On the Loose Day AND the Farmers Market AND people doing their Saturday morning shopping.
Sheer lunacy, I tell you.

I'm so brainwashed by doing nothing but book work for a year ten or eleven days straight, every time I go to the Court House now I am dating things.

Richardson's...early 1920s.

The Westville Theater, 1930s.

Be-Jo Theater, 1940s and '50s.

Bank of Mathews merges with Farmers and Fishermen's Bank to become Farmer's Bank of Mathews, late 1930s.

CBW finally loses her marbles, 2011.

All of a sudden, I am temporarily filled with sheer lunacy facts and figures.

(Temporarily because I'll forget all the details tomorrow as soon as my focus shifts back onto normal life, whatever that looked like, when the book is done. If the book is done.)

All this knowledge, however short-lived, has triggered a few ridiculous ideas.

The dreamer in me, always searching for a way to earn a living without a commute, wants to create a reality TV show has pondered a tour business.  Horse and buggy rides through the Court House!  I guess I'd be the one feeding and watering the horse, that would live where exactly? driving the buggy spewing forth all sorts of hot air stories and snippets and historical tidbits, while the people sitting in the back would roll their eyes and wonder when the Crazy Lady will ever stop talking. (Her blog readers wonders the same thing.)

Or maybe I'd purchase a mini bus with a microphone and I'd wear a crab hat while giving humorous overviews of places of interest, riding around the county on a bus that exactly who is going to purchase? take people on broader, county-wide tours that include the public beaches and all the other hot spots around here.

(Stop laughing.  There are too hot spots around here.)

In the meantime, I'm not quitting my only job that pays day job any time soon. 

In other news, Chesapeake Bay Daughter grew up and went away to college.

Rather, that's what flashed through my mind when I saw how grown up and beautiful she looked at a recent sports banquet (below, left, with her friend Rachel, also beautiful).

Wasn't I just picking her up from preschool? Yesterday?

CBD and Rachel at 7th Grade Event aka Mother's Minor Cardiac Event

Moving right along.

At some point last week I dared to blink, and not only did Chesapeake Bay Daughter look like a young lady instead of a child, summer--and the month of June--decided to make an appearance.

It's June.

June?

June. Halfway to Christmas.

Things have really turned green and lush all of a sudden.

The trumpet creepers are in bloom.

Stuff is growing.

On fence posts and in the garden.

And in the yard.

And in my gutters. 

This fencepost lives very close to Sandpiper Reef in Hallieford.

Last but not least, in the report of highlights from the Chesapeake Bay Family Compound....

Yesterday I called Chesapeake Bay Mother from my paying job to remind her about something.

As I am sitting in my office trying to keep my voice low because it's so quiet everyone can hear, she commenced to tellin' me about a possum that somehow or another managed to get his, shall we say, more delicate yet masculine parts hung up in the plastic pull cinch of a very full trash bag after a (presumably) very enthusiastic and animated night of foraging for leftovers in their trash. Animal Control was dispatched, and let's just say that the Hefty Cinch Sak (sic) brand of trash bags now takes on a whole new meaning.

Click here for some of my mother's recent blog posts. Hopefully with some encouragement she'll tell The Unfortunate Possum story.  Don't worry--the possum is still alive.  Whether or not his dignity will remain intact is questionable, according to Animal Control anyway.

And that's all the news that's fit to print around here.