Aaron's Beach

These were taken earlier this summer from Aaron's Beach.  I'm very negligent in my photo-taking duties, but it's been a whirlwind summer that doesn't seem to be letting up.  This is Son's last week at home before returning to UVA, and his 20th (!!) birthday is Thursday.  Daughter is gearing up for her senior year and the whole college application process.  And my work continues to pull me in multiple directions.

Also, our neighbor Sydney died last Friday.  Sydney has been our close neighbor since before I was born, and he was my father's good friend.  His passing is just another reminder that time is passing all too quickly, and our time to enjoy this life is neither guaranteed nor unlimited.

I've been doing my best to enjoy what spare time I have, which has resulted in no pictures and no attention to this blog.  I have been enjoying a lot of the local music scene and have probably seen more bands this summer than I have in my whole life.  Middle Sister is also doing her best to drive me crazy keeping me busy in the evenings, and we try to get out to eat about once a week after work, which is nice.

So, there's lots happening here lately, but at some point I'll venture out to take some new pictures.

I hope all is well in your world.

Beginning and End

My Mother's Day started with Daughter delivering a poster-size dose of happiness that she painted herself.

Along for the ride was a balloon full of love.

Daughter is a child of few, carefully chosen words, so when she says something, she really means it.

She also went to the effort of framing some family pictures, which sounds easy but actually isn't when you live in Mathews.  Creation of this gift required a trip to Gloucester's Walmart, which is 15 miles one way from our house and approximately 2-3 hours of a person's life they'll never get back, when you take into consideration standing in line at the photo thingamajig.

I confess that I cried when she gave me this.

Son, who just finished up his first year at University of Virginia, called from the center of Tropical Storm Ana.  He's spending a few days in Myrtle Beach with friends before returning home for the summer.  I went to retrieve his stuff last Friday, and we had lunch together.  His Mother's Day present to me is he survived an entire year of college and earned A's and B's.  I'm very, very proud of him.

Baby Sis arrived early afternoon, and the Mother's Day festivities continued next door with our parents.  My father's offering for the occasion was a batch of his world-famous (if they aren't world-famous they ought to be) fried oysters and shrimp.  My mother made a world-class salad, mashed potatoes, asparagus and several desserts, and I grilled some salmon.  We ate and ate and ate and ate and then we ate some more very well.

(Yes, it's Mother's Day, and the mothers were cooking.  We don't focus on the details, we focus on the food.)

Just when I thought the Mother's Day festivities were winding down, my across-the-creek neighbor Ann called to say she was having a gathering and wondered if I might like to join in on the fun.

Would I?

Jon and Ann live at the house/property known as Clifton, which is rich in history here in Mathews. The property my family lives on once belonged to Clifton.  Any opportunity I've ever had to go over there has not disappointed.  Jon and Ann, South Africans in the sailing business over in Deltaville, know how to throw a party, and their friends are always the most interesting and fascinating people.

This time was no different.

I met sailors from Austria.  I met sailors from Michigan/Connecticut/Irvington.  I met for the second time a lovely sailing couple who now live on Queens Creek, my creek, just up the way from me.  We share ownership of the Queens Creek eagle.  Technically the eagle lives on their property, but he wades and ponders life down my end of the creek.  He's a much-admired eagle, this one of ours.

Anyway, the party at Jon and Ann's house, which took place outdoors in their back yard gazing right into the inside of my boathouse which clearly needs to be cleaned out Miller's Cove on Queens Creek, was filled with delightful conversation and exceptionally interesting people, some of which I now can visit since they're only a kayak ride away!

(Dear Queens Creek Neighbors Who Co-Own the Eagle, please stop in for a visit the next time you're out boating. Memorial Day weekend I'll be spending lots of time in my back yard, please drop by.)

Below are some pictures I took over at Clifton. Jon and Ann's house sits comfortably on the creek just behind the house below, which you pass as you go down their driveway.  I didn't take pictures of their gorgeous house, but I have admired this one for a long time.  I'll share a few more photos of this house later in the week.

All in all, it was a great Mother's Day.  

From start to finish.

Odometer

The first Mathews High School girls' basketball game of 2015 was Tuesday night at home against King William.  In spite of an ugly first half, which was painfully sluggish likely due to the two-week Christmas break, we came out fighting in the second half and WON.

This is my neighbor Ann, who lives at the home known as Clifton.  She hails from South Africa and brought along some fans who currently live in Australia.  It's a little known secret that Mathews County girls basketball games attract a diverse, international crowd. It's the hottest ticket in town, and at five bucks a pop, what a bargain!  That five-dollar ticket includes musical entertainment in the form of a cow bell, which is fervently rung whenever MHS ties or comes ahead in the score.  

Here Daughter stretches to steal a pass.

Here, Daughter styles and profiles her new Game Do.
One of her BFFs braids it for her. I lack that skill set. 

Here, Daughter gives me the look that says, "Are you done with that camera yet?" But she'd actually say it more politely, as in "Hey, thanks, Mom, but I got this.  You can relax with the camera now. Also, I'm not so sure about that cowbell you've been bringing to games either.
Love you though!" She's nice like that.

In any case, both the JV and varsity teams have been on fire recently.  We also won against formidable Charles City Thursday evening, by a wide margin.  The games are hard-fought and more than a little stressful for those of us in the stands, but the girls are playing a really good game of basketball, and there is lots of potential ahead.

They do need a Chesapeake Bay Woman Rebounding Seminar, because they don't seem to want to jump for a rebound, to fight for a rebound, to go after a rebound like your life depends on it!  And because they stand flat-footed waiting for the ball to magically jump into their hands on the rebound, it makes me do insanely crazy things like holler instructions from the stands as if they (a) care and (b) can hear and (c) see (a).

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In other news.

Last night on the way home from Charles City, the odometer on my Saturn hit 200,000 miles.  This weekend, my personal odometer will hit 50 years of age.  Both of those numbers are absolutely shocking to me, but both of us are chugging along just fine in spite of the numeric horrors.

My sisters have concocted some sort of 200,000th birthday celebration that hopefully will take into consideration the fact that I really need my weekend afternoon nap will find us all safely preserved and intact by the time Middle Sister returns to Georgia Sunday afternoon.

If there are pictures to share, I'll post them here next week.  Knowing my two sisters, however, it's probably best if there isn't too much photographic evidence of whatever it is they're scheming.

In any case, I wish you a wonderful weekend.

The Tree

Once upon a time, a daughter tried to pretend it was an ordinary Saturday.  Instead, after jogging six miles in the Beaverlett area of Mathews, she pulled into her drive to see some major goings-on at her parents' house next door.

A dead tree that for many years towered over her parents' house now looked like an oversized fish skeleton, depending on the angle. (Look at the one below. Fish skeleton, I tell you.)

The Lady of the House was thrilled to see the tree go down.  

It took a village to get this tree down.  

CB Father, B, W, and Mother, debriefing after the tree was safely down.

Because nobody likes to be named around here, we'll just say thank you to B, Jr., and W. for their assistance in getting a huge, completely dead tree down from my parents' front yard.

Safely.

Now if my 70-something father can cut the monstrosity safely into usable pieces, all will be good.

Court House Scenes

Here are a few shots taken about a week ago from Mathews Court House.

Yes, Mathews has one.

Glancing out the window at Southwind Pizza

Southwind's interior

This weekend was rather uneventful, which is not a bad thing, although Friday was very full.  After a long day at work in Williamsburg, I drove to King William for Daughter's soccer game, which they unfortunately lost. I was so exhausted by the time we finally arrived home that I slept through a fox incident that occurred just outside my bedroom.

Evidently the fox was terrorizing my outdoor cats on the balcony outside of my bedroom.  The sounds that come out of this animal can wake the dead, so I'm not sure how I slept through it all.  But Son took our dog outside and scared him off.  All returned to normal. (Whatever that is.)

Saturday I did some yard work.  Saturday evening, after a brief but ferocious storm blew through, Baby Sis joined us for our neighbor's retirement party, which was a blast. Mother's Day Sunday was very calm and very quiet; I slept all day took several naps and watched my favorite movie Pride and Prejudice (the BBC version).  My mother fixed us all a delicious dinner of ginger-coated salmon and one of her world-famous salads.

So, that's it.  A fox, a storm, a visit from Baby Sis, a party, some napping and a great meal.

Not a bad weekend. And now that I think about it, not so uneventful either.

Now it's back to work, where unfortunately they do not condone napping.  Darn it.

Some Questions

This is the evening sun highlighting the dock belonging to my neighbor across the creek.

That cute little shed on the left has always caught my eye.  The former owner of this property (who ran a charter boat operation) used it for all kinds of exciting things--like cleaning fish.

Perched on a pole to the right of the dock this particular evening was Mr. Heron, who spent the better part of a half hour primping and preening at the end of his long day.

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In other news, after the storm the other night, the temperatures dropped drastically.  Yesterday was absolutely stunning even if I did waste it spend the majority of the day trapped in my office toiling away.

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In honor of the middle of the week, and since I have nothing interesting to report to liven things up a bit, how about I ask you some questions?

1.  What's your favorite day of the week and why?

2.  If that cute little shed above were yours, what would you use it for?

3. This heron spent at least half an hour fixing himself up.  If you were trying to spruce up (say for work or a night out), how much time do you require?

Thanks for playing along and have a great day.

Three Things

Is it Thursday again so soon?

On Thursdays we share three things, but I don't think I have three things to share.

Hmm. Let's see.

1. Friday from 4 - 6 I have a book signing at Dilly Dally Emporium in Mathews Court House. Please stop by if you can, not just for the signing but also because Dilly Dally carries great gift ideas such as Catherine Brooks's new book. Worthy of another post entirely, Mrs. Brooks has a very special connection not only to Mathews County, but to the Dilly Dally location in particular.

2. Saturday from 11:30 to 2:30 there's another signing at Twice Told Tales in Gloucester Court House on Main Street. If it's been a while since you've visited Gloucester Court House, you might be surprised at all the changes. Twice Told Tales not only carries books of local interest but has a great selection of children's books.

3. Saturday evening is the Waverly Lane Christmas party, hosted this year by my parents, next door. I just remembered I'm supposed to bring meatballs and am only now realizing how little time there will be between the book signing and the start of the party. Better fire up the crock pot before I leave for the signing--to the extent that a crock pot is actually ever really fired up...

4. At the very opposite end of the crock-pot-meatball culinary spectrum (not that there's one single thing wrong with crock pot meatballs), my blog friend Daryl has been sending me links to possible restaurants we will go to when I visit her  (and her and her and hopefully Maria from NJ) in New York after Christmas. To someone who hasn't spent time in a major city in, oh, ten or more years, the thought of eating anything that is not my own cooking at a place like this or this or this makes me even crazier than usual crazy with excitement and almost allows me to forget about the stress of the next ten days. Almost.

5. The words thank you are entirely inadequate to convey my feelings of gratitude to the community for the support with the book. Thank you for buying the book but also thank you for the kind words in the grocery store, Walmutant, the gas pump, the post office--it's overwhelming, and I truly appreciate it.

And here I thought I had nothing to say. Evidently I had three things to share and two to spare.

What's going on in your world?  Do you have a good recipe for crock pot meatballs?

Conversation

Although all most of my weekend was spent working, I broke away for a few diversions, one of which was a surprise 70th birthday party for a neighbor, Miss Phyllis.

A patchwork quilt of characters was in attendance.  There were many Come Heres, a couple of whom arrived by boat.  There were several From Heres, including the mother of a high school friend. And last but not least there were a few neighbors.  Neighbors who are from here.

The Come Heres struck up charming conversations with anyone who made eye contact.  They spoke about things like home renovations and an overabundance of tart cherries, which make excellent pies, in case anyone should want to stop by and please help themselves to some.

The From Heres carved off their own niche and talked about things like the tornado, and how lucky we were to have been spared.  We talked about gardening and tomatoes and which types of peppers we'd recently planted. My friend's mother and I talked at length about the book I'm working on.  She enjoyed pondering my questions about what Main Street looked like decades ago, and I enjoyed listening to her reminisce.

It was nice talking with the neighbors too. In case I haven't mentioned it before, we're a very eclectic, eccentric, quirky crazy fun-loving bunch around here. Below is an excerpt from a conversation which perhaps illustrates this.

Chesapeake Bay Woman to Neighbor Lady She Has Known Her Entire Life:  "Hey there, your hair is pretty, it's getting so long."

Neighbor Lady:  "Yeeeah.  I've cut it off three times now for Locks of Love. I only cut my bangs now and let the rest grow out."

CBW:  "That's wonderful!  It really grows quickly, I can't believe how long it's grown." (CBW is repetitive and redundant not only in her blog posts but also in her conversations.)

Neighbor Lady, as serious as a heart attack:  "Oh yeah, it's long enough that I can use it for dental floss again."

CBW:  [Insert the sounds of a very blank stare followed by a head cocking to one side and a blink in slow motion.  Add the sound of a brow slowly furrowing. Then add a second and third blink in rapid succession.  Toss in the sound of fingers going to one's chin before they involuntarily move to cover one's mouth. Then add whatever sound is made when a person is trying to process information that she very much was not expecting, all the while trying to hush internal voices and other sounds that are raucous in nature and rather inappropriate for the particular situation at hand.  In  short, there was the very long sound of a pregnant pause coming from the general direction of CBW.]

Neighbor Lady, with a nervous laugh:  "Y'all do that, don't you?"

CBW, who recognizes her inability to focus can be a strength:  "How about that tornado?  Do you have any tomatoes in the ground yet?"

Silent Sunday

This is a sister to Thursday's photo. The swiftness with which the sky changes at sunset (and sunrise for that matter) never ceases to amaze me.

I have much to talk about and no time to write at the moment. Some of the things planned for upcoming posts include Blog Fest 2010 (July 15-18); a quaint little waterfront trailer for sale; the tale of a wonderful gathering of high school friends; and an update on our neighborhood gathering yesterday that may or may not have included Elvis parachuting in.

There is never--ever--a dull moment in Mathews.