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.