On So Much Info, So Little Time:

I had a really good time listening to my father’s tales of when he was younger.

He used to go the dump where the factories would get rid of miss-made products and regularly get pink pencil erasers for school by the pounds, along with a variety of other things that he and his friends or family could use.

I learned that my grandfather was a professional Roller Derby skater for a time.

And that my uncle, when he was in the navy, was stationed on the aircraft carrier ‘Enterprise’ before and during World War II.

(For those of you who don’t know. The ‘Enterprise’ was the most decorated ship of that war, if not ever. Wikipedia link here. History Channel link here. Battle 360 links here.)

Now I know where my father got all those scars from. My father was attacked by dogs more than once. Most were minor leg bites while delivering news papers.

But the worst one: My father, in his own back yard when he was only about 8 years old, was attacked by a dog and bitten 11 times before his brother managed to hit the dog with a hammer to get it off of him. He has a long, jagged scar that goes from the corner of his eyebrow and over his head, along with others he wouldn‘t talk about when we were kids.

There were tales of misadventure along with childish bad judgment. But he and the others survived those days of not enough to go around. They made it to adulthood and some of the old group still meet a few times a year even though the group gets smaller each year.

He may be the last of his family’s generation. His brothers and sisters are all gone now and his parents died when I was a child.

So he tells the tales that only he is left to pass down to the generations he has fathered and grandfathered hoping that some of those stories will live on when he is gone. It is family history and it should not get lost.

On If You Can’t Say Something Nice:

My silence was brought about by lack of good things to say. And not wanting to be a total Gloomy Gus, I just didn’t blog.

So now, the dog is doing much better after a very bad illness from what, we think, was something he found and ate after the lights went out in the Irene storm.

Most of the canning of the crops that were felled from the vine in storm Irene have been dealt with.

Rain, rain go away! We have managed to stop most of the leaks in the roof. When the rain finally stops we will be able to get to the others.

And now we await news of the flooding, brought about by the storms named Lee and Katia, of the Wyoming Valley and surrounding areas. Even if the Susquehanna River stays within the levee system of the Wilkes-Barre/Kingston area, towns up and down both the north and west branches of the river are getting flooded and all the streams and rivers running into it are over their banks. There are of course other rivers flooding, but none as close to my neck of the woods.

Once the river reaches a certain point only pumping stations will be keeping the water on the other side of the levees. Projected level is 39.6 feet. And if the water comes higher than the levees, some 40.7 feet high as it is projected to come very near to, it will over top the levee system flooding miles of residential areas. So the people of the valley are being evacuated as I write this.

The added flood walls and sand bagging are being placed and we all wait it out. Hoping and praying for friends and loved ones to be safe, helpless to do anything to stop what may become the worst flooding in recorded history here in this part of Pennsylvania.

I broke my self imposed silence because if the flooding does happen I will be far too busy helping with the flooded out homeless to write for a while. And I had wanted to let you know that we will be okay where we are, living on top of the mountain.

For those interested here is a link to a local TV News channel with the coverage.

On Checking Facts:

On further checking my facts it was Knit Yoga that meme-ed me.

Not that I don't like or find Darkside of Knitting a good blogger, because I do, but credit should go were credit is due.

And so please give Knit Yoga a look see.

She makes wonderful crafts besides her knitting.

And thanks for putting up with my memory troubles. I'd loose my head if it wasn't stuck on.

On A Shout Out:

Back a few weeks ago when I was going through that bad time of my dogs dieing, Darkside of Knitting tagged me for a meme. And I thank her because every peek into my blog helps.

It was a meme I had done a few months before, the Stylish Blogger Award, and I just couldn’t bring myself to get into it at that time.

But I really like her blog and didn’t want her to loose my adding to her traffic by nhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifot playing along. So please go and check out Darkside of Knitting. You just might like it too.

On Update:

Now I’m not saying that my life is going down hill, or that I really can complain about anything. Because I do have it good all things considered. And I’m not overly upset about any of it. Life has its ups and downs. And I’m in for the ride.

Puppy discovered bugs and worms. To chase, catch, and bring into the house.

Rain and wind storm, lights out. Reading by candle light.

Yoga-ed too much, too soon and strained my back a bit.

Rained hard and some came in under the door. Wet floors and damp rugs.

Sunshine and growth and budding happening all around. Trees rufus with buds, husta’s doubling in growth daily, grass will need mowing very soon.

Rain and more rain. Puppy comes in after each walk and no white fur can be found on him, only brown drippy mud. Bath time for puppy many times a day.

My computer key board is dieing and I just got it last November. Dell is going to hear about this!

Rain and rain and more rain. Ran down the chimneys and onto the floors, under the doors and onto the floors. Took up most of the rugs days before.

Funeral for wife of Mountain Man’s friend, cancer. Sad. Very vanilla people so had to find some ‘not’ Goth clothing. And me with a closet full of Victorian Mourning garb. (What a waste of good Gothiness!)

Got some great deals at the dollar store on the way home from the funeral.

There is a rodent in the house and the puppy shows no signs of being a mouser. Mountain Man is setting traps in the bedroom where last it was heard scratching under a dresser.

On Being at the Spa:

Okay friends and fiends. We’re going to play a little game of deception.
(I’ll not tell you I was sick yet again and you will believe I was in a spa for the last week.)

So, I've been at the spa and I had a ‘good’ time, I lost 15 pounds. It was quiet and I did read quite a bit. I lounged around in bed quite a lot also. But mostly I just slept the days away.

The puppy learned a few new tricks while I was busy pampering myself.
How to unravel a throw rug to the point it couldn’t be saved.
How to repeatedly run down a patch of flowers flat, instead of ‘doing his business’ outside.
How to chew a hole in a pillow and pull out all the stuffing.

Sir Handsome also unlearned some things he use to be good at.
How to ‘do his business’ outside.
How to run around outside instead of inside the house like a crazy thing until exhausted.
How to scratch at he door instead of howl and yowl to wake the dead until someone lets him outside.

All things considered it was a good week and we have so many new things to learn and undo it will keep us busy for weeks to come.

I just hope I can keep most of the weight off after all I went through to have it gone in the first place. Now I have to replace lost muscle first. I’m about as good as a wet dishrag when I try to get further than a room length at the moment. But my stomach needs have shrunk to almost nothing. I’m eating like a bird. A peck here, a peck there.

I expect that we will be back to normal here in just a few days. If not I just may find a ‘real’ nice spa out of state to hide in for a while.

On Looking at Looks:

I am not beautiful. To look at that is. I am proud of the beauty I have within. I do look more like Grandma Addams then any other character in that wonderful show. I have a baby picture of myself looking so much like Uncle Fester that I thought it must be a mistake when I was younger and wanted to be a beautiful people too.

I did have a cute phase in which I looked some what like Shirley Temple, curly hair and all, enough to be asked by smiling strangers if I could dance and sing like her. But alas, I was only two years old and could not. The smiles went away from their faces.

Most of my life I was not skinny or fat, just middlin. The rest of my family are tall and I am short, being slightly dwarfed in my arms and legs. (When I sit next to my tallest brother we are the same height. But when we stand I am more than a head shorter, over a foot in fact.)

As a kid I was smart and had a good imagination. I was not good at book learning or in school work. I was interested in things that made others moan and groan. I liked what others shunned. I was a misfit.

I saw through their sham lives. The lies they told themselves so that they were not left behind the crowd. The hoops that they jumped through, the disguises that they hid behind with smiles so practiced that they didn’t look fake any longer. I distrust smiles.

I found faces with wrinkles and the people behind them far more interesting than the smooth faced ’pretty’ liars around me.

The wrinkled people didn’t lie nearly as much. They didn’t have to pretend that things were different than it really was. They were old and only the people that really loved them or were really interested in what they had to say paid them any attention.

My mother would say, “Don’t stare!” And I’d think to myself that I wasn’t. I was committing them to memory and that there was so much more to remember in an interesting wrinkled face.

Wrinkled faces are soft and comfortable. You can read their eyes so much better. They have a patchwork of interesting roads mapped out on their faces. Leading to questions about all that experience hidden beneath.

I was lucky to have lived as a child before all this accessible eternal youth. To have discovered this treasure before it was harder to find and it rarely disappoints me even now that I‘m a wrinkly too.

On Never Ending Winter or ‘Time for Spring I Say‘:

Not that I‘m complaining, because I’m not. I’m not a summer person. If I ever have to move, it will be north not south.

Mountain Man does not like this year of the never ending Winter. He can’t wait to see green things growing and play outside all day again.

We had Spring for a day on Spring the first. And woke to inches of white stuff on every outdoor surface the next morning.

Today wet and tomorrow more snow of the plow-able kind.

I refer you to the cartoon that we watch ever year on the first of Spring. I hope it helps you through the days until Spring is finally here for good.

(It might be cut off on the side in my blog so if it is just click on it and you will go to YouTube and see the whole thing.)

On Inching Myself Back:

I had to just get away for a while. I was spending way too much time watching that what was going on in Japan. And feeling so inadequate for not being able to help more.

I needed perspective.

I took long walks in the newly wakening woods. I didn’t even take my camera. Just me, the powers that be, and nature. I needed to get my thankfulness back, too.

The crocuses are starting to push their heads up through the softer places in the still frozen earth.

Fresh air came into my lungs, revitalizing me.

It was slow going picking my way through the frozen leaves and underbrush, but that was all for the better.

More time to think, more time to breath, more time to find my way back to my place in this world.

I’m still hurting for the people of Japan, and doing what I can in my small ways. But it is enough for now.

On Earth Shaking:

I like so many other have been mesmerized for days by the earthquake in Japan.

Morbidly, my mind reels with the many ways a body can die at such a time.

The loss to us all in just creativity and history of all those people has made the world a less fruitful place to live.

The fact that the Island Nation was moved eastward by about 8 inches in places and earth was shaken off its axis by a few inches is hard to comprehend.

It was just another push, pull and bump of the earths crust, moving as always toward its final resting place, once the earth has finished is cooling long after we are gone.

For days I couldn’t get near my computer without hunting for more info and hopes of miraculous rescues. My video games left forgotten and my TV reruns on hulu still waiting for my return.

I didn’t want to know how many people I was once chatting with on line would not be there any longer or that others had friends and or family missing. I didn’t want it to get that close. I hope for the best to all who have come into my sphere of my existence, no matter how briefly the space or time.

And then there is the ‘me’ factor. I’m safe here in Northeastern Pennsylvania right? These are older mountains I live on. Rounded and shortened by time. No, not so much. I’ve lied through and felt tremors from small insignificant earthquakes even here.

I hope and pray that all who have or are destined to die from this slip of the earths crust do so with little or no pain, discomfort or suffering and that those who live through it recover in as short a time as possible. I have little else I can offer at this time, and that hurts me too.

On Hide and Seek:

I’ve been hiding from the cookie jar and seeking a snow free walkway.

Yes, I’m back on the exercise and eating less trail again after a party day.

One more pound off my short frame this last week. I got back into my largest dress this morning. Not that it helped me with clothing to wear to shovel the walkway.

Yes, we were some of the people who got caught in that snow storm on Sunday night. We got exactly eight inches. And just when we could see some bare ground the day before.

So I alternately shoveled and rested with my Sims 3 game to keep me from eating the exercise points away. (Yes, I used a cheat so that they didn’t have to eat either.) I just couldn’t watch them eat things like crepes or cookies, and even the mac and cheese looked good.

Mountain Man plowed for hours yesterday, both here and at the neighbors houses.

It was a cold night and it felt good to see the ice drip like rain from the roof edges this afternoon.

It feels good to get back to walking and using the stair stepper again. My knee is doing good. I’m not over doing it. But I am using it like normal once again.

And there is a added thing that I don’t have to work the upper body quite as much. My arms were getting just plain tired.

I’m still thankful for all the good in my life. When I see all those pages full of happy thoughts it makes me smile. I’ve had some bad times in my life, but I won’t let them out weigh the good. Not that I’m keeping score.

But bad stuff does come without you having to ask for it. Why not counter that with taking the time to practice looking at the good.

Those, ‘I know that there is good times in my life somewhere… Come out, come out where ever you are?’ days are fewer when you look at and for good times more often.

On None To Soon:

My laptop Gladys is dieing. Some days she just won’t start, others she goes all wonky and she doesn‘t let me on line.

I’ve been missing what all of you have been up to for the last two days. I do try to keep up when she lets me.

I guess I ordered my new computer just in time. It should be here in a week and a half, I’m told. And I can’t wait.

So if I go missing again know that this was Gladys’s last gasp. I do hope she isn’t just intimidated by the new one coming here to live.

But I’ll be back as soon as my new computer, (Yet to be named.) will get me where I need to go, and in shiny new style.

On Autumn Prep Time:

Day light savings time is now off the table, or clocks at the case may be. And the days are darker here in the northern hemisphere.

As a Goth I’m in heaven.

The trees are getting all skeletal and stark. The nights are longer then the days. Those vivid colors are almost gone, leaving a black and white and gray world.

I kind of missed Halloween this year. With the new baby, traveling to Boston and all, it kind of got lost. It has made me concentrate on the autumn time itself.

One of the things I love about Autumn is that it is the prep time for Winter, with out the deep cold. You get to enjoy the naked trees and bushes, baron fields, open empty forests in monotone. The open loneliness of the out of doors as people move inside to get out of the cold.

The breeze is chilly and crisp. It pulls at you, to hurry you along. Warmth inside the house is awaiting. You can hibernate more and people don’t blame your Gothiness.

Not that there isn’t work to do. Because there is quite a lot of it. Buttoning down the house for Winter. Clearing the leave away from the house. Preparing the garden for next growing season. Setting up the wood pile for easy Winter access. Getting out the Winter things.

From blankets to thick woolen socks, sweaters to mittens, cocoa supplies to baking goodies, things must be prepared for the long Winter to come.

It is a nesting thing I think. Comfy and cozy. Safe and warm.

But I still get to go outside into the stark cold lonely view from my window and dream while I walk around without freezing my ears off. Heaven.

On Another Day Wasted, But In A Good Way:

Well, the snow never came so I didn’t make cookies. Not that my waist line needed them.

Today was very blustery. The wind didn’t know which way it wanted to go and whipped around all helter-skelter. It was a good day to have a fire in the wood stove and keep a cup of tea close by. That is when it wasn’t belching smoke forced in by the fickle wind.

I managed to waste time playing a video game called Ranch Rush. I fed fake cows, sheep, and ostriches, planted crops, collected honey, and made jam, bread and ketchup. I did this for far too many hours, but it felt good because I hadn’t been playing my other games since my computer broke.

I got a lot of house cleaning done in between days farming in the game. I like to get the dust and dirt out before I close up the house for the Winter.

I keep on waiting for the phone to ring. It is getting closer to baby time.

There is still weeks to go, but you know how it is when you’re waiting for something. You want it now.

I’m off to bed early to read and snuggle under the covers. The wind is still making noise outside and I just want to feel all warm and cozy.

On Looking Upward:

Today was a lovely Autumn day. I was looking at the last of the color in the trees. And guess what I saw?

An Eagle! Flying over head. It skimmed the trees just north of the house.

We have had them moved into a State Park a few years ago. This park is a few miles away so I would look skyward every time I got a chance.

And just when I was thinking that they just weren’t going to come my way for whatever reason eagles reason with… There it was just flying low and circling higher.

I watched it for over an hour doing its lazy circle dance in the sky. Before it got too high to see any longer, it turned off toward the park and home.

This is not my first bald eagle sighting, but it was one of the longest and the closest.

They are intimidating in their largeness. It felt like if it had landed on my house with its wings still spread, it would have more than covered the roof, front to back, of my ranch style house.

I felt a bit like a hobbit must have felt in the Lord of the Rings at the part where the eagles swoop down and flies off with the main characters in their claws. I got that shivery feeling down my back.

I hope it comes back to visit again.

On Roof Repairs Today:

So far, Ms Mousie of the Knotty Mouse Blog took me up on my tagging. She commented to say she would post it there. A great blogging friend and wonderful person.

If you heard any kind of news on yesterday, you know about the rain and flooding we were/are having on the east coast. Here, we got more rain in a day and a half then we usually get in a whole summer season.

Over five inches here in my garden. In a word, Wet!

It rained in my parlor too. Pots, pans, and plastic wastepaper baskets were placed about to catch the many drips.

And the water came down the chimneys. Stinky, black, creosote water. We have chimney caps, but they weren’t enough for the rain and wind we had.

Mountain Man was away for the day and I was on my own until he could make it back home at two in the morning. (He would have gotten back by ten if not for the detours.) Did you know that Pennsylvania has more bridges than any other state? Bridges that get flooded in weather like we had yesterday.

The water is going down and we needed the rain for the water table. We have well water here, no rain - no water.

Mountain Man will be up on the roof today fixing the leak and I will be nervous knitting until he is safely on the ground again.

On Rainy Day Hush:

Today was rainy day slow. I cleaned up around here, made soup on the wood stove, and knitted, but I didn’t get much done. I kept on finding myself looking out the window at the rain falling and remembering.

Some of my earliest memories are of Autumn afternoons watching the kids come home from school. Of leaves swirling in the breeze around their ankles. Giggles on the cool clear wind.

I wanted to be out there and one of them. My mother would catch me not napping and put me back to bed. But I could still hear them outside on the side walk. Even on the rainy days the children would walk in the afternoons past the house in Autumn and find the fallen leaves fun.

My children liked to walk in the autumn and collect leave each year. We would tape them on the refrigerator and around the door frames. And we would press them in old telephone books for crafts and picture fun. Turkeys, and fans, and birds on wing.

Colored paper, paste, crayons, and togetherness.

I missed those times, and I sniffed at a box of crayons, and remembered.

I remembered the rainy day afternoon hush.

On Breathing My Last Mall:

Well the humidity has broken last night and I have been going great guns cleaning and getting things done. No more Malls for me.

Projects - I opened the end seams on two feather comforters. After shaking the feathers to the other end. One was not as full as I’d have liked and the other had a few holes in the cover. It was leaking.

So I opened the end seams about 12 inches. And sewed the two together so that the feathers from the leaking one could get into the other.

After a lot of fluffing, outside by the way, I got all the feathers into the good ticking. I sewed it closed again and tossed the holey cover away. Still sticky with feather detritus. Not worth trying to collect.

I also did a little fun knitting. I started a stained glass window throw. I got the info from a segment of the TV show ‘Knit and Crochet Now.’ The instructions were suppose to be free on the web, but I couldn’t get the download to work. I improvised and I like what I got. Long, knitted, colored, six sided shapes held together with black crochet. With a few squares in between and triangles on the ends and corners to fill it in and make the throw a rectangle in shape when finished.

And by the way, the shopping at the mall over the weekend was at Hot Topic. (First time there.) I found it a bit vanilla. I raided the Clearance rack. Got a few wrist cuff pretties and a gray tank top. Oh, and more then a few ideas for other projects.

On Under Cover of Mall:

I have been missing in action again. The humidity just got too much for me and I felt like I couldn’t breath.

I ran away to the Mall. Air-conditioning! Breathable air!

Now, I don’t generally do the mall. In fact I have only been there once since 9-11. And I was, in fact, at the mall when 9-11 happened. Or I should say when I heard about it early that morning.

Yes, I was at the mall before it officially opened for the day. I had a pick up, but that doesn’t matter. And the once in between, was to get my Doc Martian boots.

This time, I was chased by the high humidity into the ‘Shopping Mall’ just to breath. You just can’t spend the whole day in Kmart type stores without going mad. In the mall you can move around from place to place and still be inside.

Though it is an interesting place. Many sparklies and odd people to watch, it is not my kind of place, mainly because it has many sparklies and odd people inside.

I did not get to go there in my Gothic full Lady Euphoria Deathwatch mourning garb. Heck, I didn’t even have my black nail polish on, as it had been chipped away by myself in my nervousness at my lack of breathing capacity. And no makeup as it had been melting off my face at home. (No, I didn’t bring my makeup kit, I was thinking about breathing.)

I did wear black as that is what most of my clothing choices are. I felt naked and woefully under dressed. And so far as mall persons go, I was just one of the crowd. Not a comfortable situation for one such as me. I like the wide space around me that my look generally provides me.

Nor did I have my computer. I did by a book and read for a while, but I couldn’t give myself over to the book because I had to have an eye out for any who would take advantage of the situation. (Like grabbing my purse or packages.) Yes, I did it. I couldn’t resist some of the sparklies.

The night in between was hell. The heat and humidity seemed all the worse once I was away from it for a while. So I’m going to try not to go back. I do know more then ever, that I do not like shopping malls. Just not my kind of place.

Now, How scary would I be if Gothy me just showed up at the senior center for a breath of air today?

On How Not to Scare the Kid:

A have been working on an idea for the baby. Some books about the baby’s family. (Both sides) Trying to keep memories of dead relatives alive and passed on without being morbid. Or ‘How to be Goth to a grandchild and not let your Goth show too much, so the parents don’t hide it away from the kid.’

Using 10 page/20 sided, 6 x 6 plastic pocket photo albums, I’m making picture books of the family, live and dead, with small child captions and info about the people in the family.

I put in colored card stock paper in the plastic pages and making it like a simple style, mini scrap book with the plastic keeping the pages safer from and for the kiddle.

And I’m hoping it will be a nice parent/child ‘read to me’ time for all of them.

Sorry for the grandma moment, there won’t be many, but the idea was too good for me not to pass it on. I’ll show you some pictures when I get it/them put together.

That is, when I’m up and around so I can work the printer and get it put together.