Birdhouse

These houses and trees live down Mobjack.

(That one trip to Mobjack a few weeks back sure produced a lot of photos.)

A bird was resting comfortably on the front stoop 

of his house as I slowed down to take his picture.

Although this particular little bird stayed on his front stoop, the bird known as Chesapeake Bay Woman flew the coop this past weekend.  I traveled to Delaware to visit my friend Iris. It was great to get away for a much-needed break, but Life didn't seem to want to let me have too much of a diversion.  I came down with what sounds like walking pneumonia bronchitis on Saturday.  (Insert the sound of a heavy sigh--abruptly interrupted by a hacking cough--here.)

In other news, Daughter made the high school varsity soccer team. She is one of five girls on the team of twenty-two.  There are two home games this week: Tuesday and Friday nights.

I hope my (self-diagnosed) bronchitis improves by Tuesday, so I can assume my proper place in the stands screaming and hollering at full capacity.

Have a great, cough-free week.

A Tale of Two Post Offices

This is Foster Post Office, conveniently located at Foster, Virginia.

Foster is the post office in Mathews you drop by if you want to start the process of obtaining a passport.

(I had to go here to pick up the application years ago when Son's class took a trip to Canada.)

(That paper machine on the left looks like it has eyes and a head.
And it's wearing a red coat.
It especially looks like this if you're suffering from sunlight deprivation.)

Yep, Foster is a full-service post office.

Below is the Mobjack Post Office.

Can't see it? Why it's right there. Next to the sign which declares it to be so.

The sign is taller than the (so-called) post office.
Also, if I wanted to buy some stamps here, I am assuming
I'd work with the pine tree to complete that transaction.

From a different angle.
(Nope, that building is not the post office.)

Anyway, this comparison of two post offices, one of which I'd like to suggest* might be more of a cluster of mailboxes near some very tall pine trees, is now coming to a close.

Have a fantastic weekend.

*I'm no expert on post offices.  But I'm pretty sure most people would expect there to be an actual office or at least a counter (?) if one is going to assign the label "post office" to anything.  Perhaps I'm just old-fashioned and stuck in my ways.  Either way, have a nice weekend.

Grace Providence

Grace Providence Church overlooks the Mobjack Bay, where the North and East rivers converge.

Click here for a 2010 post about this quaint church and the lovely lot on which it lives.

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The winter weather they were calling for arrived yesterday.  We saw rain, sleet and snow.  School was cancelled, and I was dismissed from work at 11:00.  It only took me two hours to drive home.  Son managed to work his car into a ditch in front of the Gwynn's Island bridge.  The story behind that is better left untold for now, mostly because I'm trying to forget it ever happened I need to go to sleep soon.  He's fine, nobody was hurt.

The End.

Other than that it was just another day in paradise around here.

Serenity now.

The Gate

Today's riveting topic has to do with lanes.

Or driveways.

Specifically, the entrance to a driveway or lane.

Which my friend from high school

always called the gate.

(She'd call the entrance to this driveway a gate, even though it's not gated
and you can barely see the driveway--or the deserted house.)

It was a gate whether or not an actual gate existed.

My high school basketball teammate LaRue (aka Smith, real name Tammy LaRue Smith) lived down the way from me and occasionally needed a ride home from practice.  She lived along Route 198 just around the bend in the road between Mathews Chapel United Methodist Church and Ebenezer Baptist Church.  (She now lives in Richmond, but every time I go by her house--which is between five and fifteen times a week--I think of her.)

Her driveway had no gate or fence; in fact, there was barely a driveway.  There was just enough space to pull in and back out onto Route 198.

No matter.

Each and every time I took her home, she said, "Vogel.  Drop me off at the gate."

Well, she meant drop her off at the end of the driveway and keep on going, but I had to pull completely into her driveway to turn around and go back in the other direction. Every time.  So there was no dropping off except into her front yard--after pulling well past what she would consider "the gate."

No matter.

She still insisted I drop her off at the gate.

These pictures were taken in the Mobjack/Bohannon/North area of the county, where there are many long driveways with very pretty gates.  I tell this story because I don't know anyone in my midst these days who equates the end of a driveway with a gate, whether it has one or not.  I find it all fascinating.

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In unrelated news, the Mathews boys are all done with their season after losing to Surry Friday night at Lancaster.  Although it was a tough loss, they had a tremendous season.  I had fun at the game even if we didn't walk away victorious.  On Saturday, Daughter and I spent several hours at the Intermediate School (aka Thomas Hunter) watching rec league basketball.  Daughter kept stats for my friend Alda's daughter's game, which was great fun to watch.

In still more unrelated news, yesterday's temperatures reached the 70s, but today we're under a winter storm warning.

Community Store

Today we continue with the theme of  Places I Visited On My Drive Down Mobjack.

This senescent structure sits at an intersection in the middle of a neighborhood 

of many houses no doubt filled with people simultaneously tending to their lives

while keeping a close eye on the wild-haired woman hanging 

out her car window taking pictures on such a cold day.

There are many old gas stations/stores like this sprinkled throughout the county.

If I ever get a break from life and a chance to catch my breath,

I'll have to go around and take all their portraits. 

But, as best as I can tell, I won't get any sort of break

until the summer of 2016

for months to come.

The regional basketball game has been moved to Wednesday night at Appomatox Regional Governor's School, which means lots of driving will be involved. That's OK. Luckily I've had lots of practice working long days and driving miles and miles into the night. It's all worth it.  Somehow.

But I would like to state for the record, however, that even though I have a whole third season of sports to get through with Daughter's soccer, and even though Son will be graduating this year, Lord knows I cannot wait for school to be out and for there to be some sort of a break and/or vacation to look forward to.

For now, though, I'll just have to be content with the occasional outing to take pictures--in this case of a quaint little store in a quiet little neighborhood that appears to be extremely tolerant of strange people strangers.

Mobjack

Yesterday, after enjoying a leisurely morning of not having to rush anywhere,

I went to the grocery store, and then, on a whim, decided to drive to Mobjack.

I needed some new photos; I am tired of going to the same places.

Mobjack is out of the way for me.  I only make it down here three or four times a year.

Yesterday's bright sunshine made it a worthwhile visit.

If it were warmer, that bench would be very inviting.

But it is still very, very cold.  Way too cold to sit on a waterfront bench.

Good news about this seemingly never ending, depressing state of cold is in sight, however.

Last night I attended the high school's spring sports meeting, where they herd parents and students into the cafeteria to talk about concussions and forms and schedules and how schedules will definitely change and how your student must attend school in order to play and other informative details relating to the next round of sports.  Then they herd you into a smaller room specific to your spring sport--in our case that is soccer.

So, in spite of the fact that winter and basketball season are ongoing--with a game Thursday at West Point and at Charles City on Saturday--and in spite of the fact that there will be no rest for the weary in between basketball and soccer, the good news is SOMEBODY SAID THE WORD SPRING!

Three Things

Gateposts near Mobjack

Welcome to Three Thing Thursday, where I share three things and hopefully you do to.  Those three things can be related, unrelated, interesting, boring, troubling, soothing, irksome or entertaining. Really, there are no rules--even the number three is only a suggestion to keep Chesapeake Bay Woman from listing three thousand random things, which she could very easily do if left to her own devices.

Let's begin.

1.The Mathews High School cross country teams won the district championship yesterday at Eastern State in Williamsburg.  For once there was no horizontal rain or frigid temperatures. For this alone, I am eternally grateful; winning the championship was the cherry on the sundae. While I was standing around snapping photos, I heard a familiar voice behind me.  It was my high school track coach, whose grandson is on the team with my son.  We exchanged pleasantries, and during the course of the ensuing conversation he said, "No pain no gain." I recoiled in horror as I was transported back to those never ending track practices where I was forced to do sprint after sprint and clear hurdle after hurdle all to the background music of, "No pain, no gain, Vogel!"

As I said, at least there wasn't frigid, horizontal rain today.

There was that.

Serenity now.

2. I'm already through with the whole "It's dark when I wake up and dark when I get home" business. How in the world I'll ever survive the months of November, December, January and February is beyond me.

Note to self: Double up on the Vitamin D pills, fill out the paperwork to renew your passport, and start researching cheap ways to get to Bora Bora sunshine. Ain't no way you're gonna make it through that many months of darkness.

3. On the way home from does it really matter when all I ever do is drive, drive, drive? yet another away sporting event, I was informed by Chesapeake Bay Daughter, who is in 8th grade, that her class is having a dance with three other schools' 8th grade classes. "You mean it's a mixer??"  I said in disbelief, as much for remembering that term from college days as in the fact that my precious girl was going to a dance where there'd be (gasp!) strangers from other counties!

Note to self: First of all, neither of your children have ever heard the term mixer unless it was related to making a cake, and even then yours is broken. Second of all, get used to the fact that your kids have social lives and you have a blog and that's about it as far as contact with other human beings.

Now it's your turn to share three things. Anything at all.

Don't you want to know what's at the end of this driveway?
I do.

Mobjack, Part II

At the very end of East River Road, 

right at the intersection 

of Land, Water and Sky 

is Mobjack.

May your day
be as serene and  undisturbed
as the sky and water
here in Mobjack.

Mobjack Birds

Flock of Seagulls on Mobjack Dock.
I had a Flock of Seagulls album back in the 1980s.
That was around the same time the woolly mammoth roamed the Earth.

An Assortment of Water Birds, Mostly Gulls
Whenever I see "assortment" I always think of Whitman's Chocolates.
Which of course makes me think of Forrest Gump and, "You never know what you're gonna get."

Cormorants
I'm not sure what it is about these birds, but they refuse to acknowledge your presence.
They act as if you're not even there.  
This can be aggravating to those who are patiently waiting to snap a photograph.
Also, there's something about the name cormorants that bugs me, not sure what.
Maybe it's that the word "ants" is embedded in their name, and ants and I do not get along well. 
At all.

This concludes today's glimpse into Chesapeake Bay Woman's troubled mind Mobjack Bay wildlife as well as the lesson in free association and stream of consciousness.

Feel free to leave a free association comment of your own.

Or feel free to use the word free way too many times in a sentence.  Whatever you want. 

Most of all, have a great weekend.

*******************

p.s. Click here for Chesapeake Bay Mother's account of the singing group she belonged to back in the days of bobby socks and WDDY radio in neighboring Gloucester County.

Mobjack

Last week on my way home from running errands, I veered off Route 14 and headed down to Mobjack.

Mobjack is one of those places you don't really pass through.  If you're headed to Mobjack you're most likely lost on a mission.  Mine was to take some photographs.

Ordinarily there's lots of wind down here. The North and East Rivers spill out into the Mobjack Bay which then blends in with the Chesapeake Bay, making it an exceptional spot for sailing, if you're into that sort of thing.

On this particular morning, however, there was almost no wind.  It was almost eerie.

But mostly it was beautiful.

I'll share more pictures from this little side trip in the coming days.  In the interim, today will be another action-packed day filled with driving, working, driving, and simultaneous sporting events.

I wish I was spending the day on one of these boats (with someone who knows how to sail--since I don't--and perhaps a little bit of wind to push us along.  Oh, and some food.  And wine water. And a GPS system that could navigate to Bora Bora. Is that asking too much? I'm hoping if I repeat these words enough each week they may actually come true one of these days.  Who knows, stranger things have happened. Although I will say, I'd rather fly to Bora Bora than sail there, but beggars can't really be choosers, can they?)

Enjoy the day, and I'll enjoy my daydreams.

***********************************

p.s. Yesterday I dropped in on my parents next door to communicate some logistical information relating to a soccer game and cross country practice and noticed my mother is working on quite the project.  Her whole dining room is overflowing with old family photographs which she intends to scan and turn into blog posts.  So while the writing on this blog continues to spin in its death spiral will be sparse due to all the runnin' to and from various activities, her blog will soon be loaded with fun-filled stories about the extended Chesapeake Bay Family and their associated antics, of which there is a seemingly endless supply.