We had a fairly good Atomicon, despite being utterly exhausted from allergies and coughing. We arrived in Helen Thursday afternoon just about four, when several of our friends were checking in, offloaded our junk, and then lay down until I started texting to find out where we were going to dinner. Spice55, the Thai place, was the choice, and we had the usual yummy dinner. I wait for this every year, as they make the best pad thai.

Something sweet happened after dinner: Jessie and some of the others were enchanted by the black-and-white stray cats hanging outside the shopping center where the restaurant was. A lady was also interested in the cats and she and James started talking; she was ex-Navy and also had been a Marine. Now, we had had an appetizer, so I still a lunch-sized portion of leftovers, and it was supposed to rain on Friday. I suggested we stop at the Dollar General, which has frozen foods, to see if we could find him something for lunch there. We did find some taquitos. The same lady also was in the store, and she was quite disturbed by how cluttered the aisles were and that James could not get around in his power chair. She told us she was going to report the store for ADA violations. And on the way out she paid for his taquitos!

Thursday night I was feeling well enough to play some games, and we played Uno No Mercy, which is fiendish. I got kicked out of the first game almost immediately, and ended up winning the last one.

It did indeed rain almost all day Friday. It was probably good because James and I were both stuffy and miserable, and we stayed in with anyone else who didn't want to go out in the rain, talking, farkling around on the computer. I found Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent available and watched that, and last night's Law & Order as well.

For supper the weather cleared well enough to go to the Nachoochee Tavern and have some pretty good pizza. I had to share with James, so I had to eat cheese [bleah], but it was still okay.

One of the things James and I have begun doing since Atomicon has been held at the Country Inn and Suites is to have a daily walk downtown after breakfast. It's about a half a mile, and then we stroll around the little downtown area, maybe walk down to Hofer's Bakery, and then return to the crossroads of downtown and head toward the parking lots, strolling a road in the back down to the hotel. Total it's about a mile and a half, maybe more.

I was feeling so short of air from the congestion that on Saturday morning we took the truck instead; we haven't done that in years and I felt like I was regressing. But I did manage to totter around downtown. We visited the glassblower's shop, bought our annual candy from Hansel & Gretel, and visited the history museum that we missed last year due to food poisoning. This is in a building that used to be the City Hall. Helen was a tiny little logging town at one time, outside of what became Unicoi Park, and when the logging left, so did a lot of the population. Helen became basically a gas and food stop, so they turned the town into a "Little Bavaria" to attract tourists. We've been going to Helen with our friends for...well, Jessie and Aubrey both turned thirty last year, so...longer than that!

We also bought more white peach balsamic vinegar (love this stuff) and some blackberry ginger as well from the Alpine Olive Tree. I got James a neat gift: someone gave us a little turntable/light gadget: you plug it in and put a statue or something on it and it lights it up and revolves. They had laser-etched lucite items, and I got James a U.S. Navy one, with an aircraft carrier and destroyer and planes flying overhead. (I was going to get him a smaller one, but he said the planes weren't correct!) It looks really pretty on the turntable.

We then drove down to the Mount Yonah Bookstore—the owner always puts out a "Welcome, Atomicon!" poster and gives us a discount—and I found a brand-new copy of the annotated version of The Phantom Tollbooth, one of my favorite books in the whole world (seriously, what my life would have been without the Stadium School and Hugh B. Bain libraries I will never know). I also found a book about a woman FBI agent, a book by Robert Ressler (one of the first FBI profilers), and the book that inspired the series Homicide: Life on the Streets, which introduced Richard Beltzer's John Munch character.

And it was back to Spice55 for supper with Alice and Juanita. I had pad cashew this time, which was exquisite.

Sunday I was feeling strong enough to do the walk downtown, if a bit slowly, and we made it to the Christmas store before I started to be nagged by lower GI problems. It was a good walk, anyway. We spent the afternoon reminiscing about old television series, and had supper at Rib Country in Cleveland, GA. The ribs are so good and half the price of any ribs in the Atlanta metro area.

Alas, neither of us slept well, so we staggered up, ate the hotel breakfast, and packed up and left. Stopped at the outlet mall because I so much needed new socks. We also stopped at a knife shop where James went in; I sat and read. And finally, by the vet—$1300 for exams and boarding! Oliver apparently seems to be okay to them; it looks like they don't have an avian vet again. ::sigh:: Yes, they noticed he's shy.

Labels: Atomicon, books, events, food, friends, games, gifts, history, kindness, shopping, travel, walking

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:47:00 PM

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So after looking at all the DragonCon literature online, I could still not find out what time the DragonCon Store opened. I wanted to buy a streaming membership, only sold at the Store this year and not at registration as last year, and see if they had any stuffed baby dragons or T-shirts left for James. Finally poked around the website, which said the Store at the Marriott opened at eight, so I headed downtown early. A call of nature sent me rushing from the garage to the Marriott, and the first ladies' room was closed for cleaning. Took the escalator up to the next floor. Same here!!! Argh! Trotted past the DragonCon Store, which was not open at well after eight (so much for the website; bad webmaster!) and found that the much-discussed gender-neutral bathrooms were thankfully not being cleaned. A guy started to walk in next to me, saw me, started to turn away, and I said cheerfully, "It's gender-neutral! Come on in!"

(These bathrooms are not the usual awful type of American toilet stalls that have wide gaps on either side of the door, so that by careful posing you could be a creepy peeping tom and see people "doing their business," but are individual little stalls with walls between them and good solid wooden doors with louvers for air. I had no problem using them with guys wandering around. I really appreciate the European-style toilet stall, which they have at Lidl, which are quite gap-free, although rather coffin-like. I did hear one objection to them, from a guy using the other gender-neutral bathroom which was originally a men's room; he didn't want women staring at him using the urinal! Dude, women aren't interested in your dangly bits as much as you seem to think they are. However, a screen there would probably be nice.)

So the store wasn't open, so I trudged over to the Sheraton, picked up two memberships for next year, and stopped at the info booth to see what time the Store did open. Ten. Sigh. So I went back to the Marriott and got in line. They opened pretty promptly and during the wait I chatted with people in line. Alas, the cute sleeping baby dragons were sold out, as well as the T-shirts with the dragon looking remarkably like the Batman logo. I got the streaming membership, and picked up a DragonCon magnet for James' truck, then beat feet to the Hilton so I could at least see the rest of the Elementary vs. Sherlock panel.

This was very egalitarian; at most of these I've been to everyone loves Sherlock and if Elementary isn't sneered at, it's at least given short shrift and a shrug (unless Louis Robinson is on the panel, and then you get a run for your money). This panel had a couple of people who loved both series equally and talked about the pros and cons of each, so when it ended and they proposed to take a vote, I said, "Why? They both stand on their own merits." And so we didn't vote—hurrah!

So this is what I did on my final day at DragonCon: spent all of it at BritTrack, in the basement of the Hilton, with my "peeps." Now, I'd thought about going to the final Orville panel, but only J. Lee and Mark Jackson were left, and I would  have had to hike to the Hyatt. Not today. I stayed instead for "Doctor Who: Mind the Gaps," about all the gap years there have been in the series (the one during Colin Baker, the long long gap after the classic series was cancelled and when the new series appeared, etc.). Alan Siler and the two Robs were on this panel, and we chatted about how we survived during the gaps, including during the big one when Virgin Books "New Adventures" and "Missing Adventures" books kept the series alive. Ah, I remember those days, perusing the new ones at the Science Fiction and Mystery Bookstore (otherwise known to old Atlanta fandom as "Mark's store), and at the late and so lamented Oxford Books.

The third panel of the day was a history geek's (me! me!) dream: "Just Another Monarch Monday." They had a slide presentation of English kings and queens by era (Angevin, Plantagenet, Stuart, etc.) and what movies or television series you might find them in (for instance, in the Plantagenet era you would range from Robin Hood films like Prince of Thieves (and Men in Tights) and Robin and Marian, to Braveheart (Edward Longshanks), the Tudors everything from Charles Laughton's Henry VIII to things like Shakespeare in Love, with the Georges you get into everything from the comic prince in Blackadder III to Queen Victoria, and thus to modern day and The Crown. Really informative and fun panel. Didn't know there was a new movie out about Queen Anne's court.

And then finally, inevitably, what's always traditionally been my last DragonCon panel: the wrap-up, "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish." The trackrunners and volunteers are dead tired, they don't want to take things home, so there are snacks for all while everyone talks about what worked and what didn't. Some of the night stuff sounds like a blast, but we simply can't afford to stay at the con hotels (even the overflow hotels) and take a rest before the nightly revelry. (We stayed at the hotel twice for Timegate/WHOlanta so we could participate in the late-night programming, only to wearily climb up to our room both times after the cabaret/masquerade was over and go to sleep instead, and that was over five years ago!) I snacked on ranch Doritos and plain Fritos, brought crunchy Cheetos and a Coke Zero home for James, tried ham and mustard flavored British "crisps," chatted with folks, and simply enjoyed one more hour with friends until it was time for Butch and I to make tracks for home.

So, no visit to the Dealer's Room for me this year at all. Couldn't really afford it, but regret that I didn't get to go to Artist's Alley (also in the same building; liked it better when they were near the art show) and say hi to Andy Runton and see if there was a new "Owly" book or print out. Heck, never even made it to the art show. As my retirement has proved, even with what seems like all the time in the world, you can't do everything.

Maybe next year...

Doctor Who Gap Years panel: Alan Siler, Robert Alsopp, ?

Doctor Who Gap Years panel: Robert Bowen at right

"So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish..." Rob Bowen in the hat, Caro M. Tidwell (Brittrack director) at his left

And as the Marriott Carpet TARDIS prepares to dematerialize...

Labels: books, conventions, Doctor Who, friends, history, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:57:00 PM

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Here are the "moon brownies" we took to Hair Day. The "moon rocks" are edible, candy-coated like M&Ms. (Lunch was roast chicken and pork roast, James' green beans, and scalloped potatoes. Lin bought Moonpies and moon themed Oreos, which we also brought.)


Spent the afternoon watching the ABC news coverage of Apollo 11 that I found the other day on YouTube. We'd already watched NBC's coverage, with all the familiar faces I remember: David Brinkley and Frank McGee, and even Floyd Kalber. The ABC coverage was interesting. While the assembled NBC coverage pretty much stuck to covering the launch, spacewalk, and recovery, with a few things like Floyd Kalber interviewing a guy who was down on Merritt Island for the launch, ABC's combined footage has a whole bunch of interesting things besides monitoring the flight: Peter Jennings doing the news (Chappaquiddick), a conversation between Bill Moyers and Marshall McLuhan and another guy whose name I didn't catch about the worth of the space program, a minister praying, Duke Ellington performing an original moon song, and Rod Serling interviewing SF Frederick Pohl, Isaac Asimov, and John Pierce (who I'd never heard of), and interviews with the public: people watching on the streets of NYC, listening on the beach in LA, and the White Sox stopping their game to announce the moon landing and to say a prayer for the astronauts. ABC's animations were better, though.

Labels: events, food, friends, history

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:06:00 PM

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Things are in a comfortable groove right now, although we are still keeping a hawk's eye on James' health. His creatitine was very low on a previous blood test, but went up .3 on the last test. It doesn't sound like much, but when the bad score is 5, there's not much give there. We are hoping it was the poor health he was suffering due to the pain in his legs, which has lessened a bit. He is going to see his GP tomorrow about it, as the rheumatologist is concerned it might be a circulation problem. I assume this means another leg sonogram will be in order. However, the rheumatologist also believes his knee pain that started at his doctor's appointment on March 29 was a Baker's cyst that burst. It's possible the knee pain before that was also due to the cyst. Cross fingers.

We are also waiting on two biopsies James had on skin moles. If they are positive, he will have to go back for more MOHS surgery. ::sigh::

I've been trying to get back into decluttering mode, but these little things are still bothering me. It's hard to work when James is teleworking, not because he's in my way, but because I'd rather spend time with him, even if it's just going in and out of the room.

However, he was able to go in yesterday and today, and I've gone back to trying to get rid of, as Marie Kondo says, "things that do not spark joy." And, boy, oh, boy, there are more and more of them every day.

One thing that hasn't been sparking joy has been my craft room. I did a cleaning job on it last year, including sorting all the Christmas cards I've bought on discount, then Christmas came and all sorts of things that are in the way of decorating ended up in my craft room (except for the hassock of the rocking chair, which got stowed in the spare room for the duration). It doesn't help that miscellaneous items have wandered in to live as well: videotapes I was sent, my videotape masters for Remember WENN, miscellaneous magazines, CD and DVD cases, and that loveseat sleeper that has become a thorn in my side because no charity seems to want it. Not to mention the ironing board, the iron, and things to keep clothing in repair (which to me is certainly not a craft, but mending is immensely necessary). Plus I used to love to use my stereo system to play records and cassettes while I was in there, and out of nowhere the dual cassette players just died. I have only one cassette player left: my 1974 graduation gift! And I need to keep it safe or I'll have to buy a cassette player from the Vermont Country Store, because the stuff I have on cassette is irreplaceable.

So yesterday I made a decision: if no one wants the loveseat, I'm going to have to repurpose it. (Otherwise it will cost $50 to have a junkman take it away, and I hate to have that happen, because it is still it good shape—it is not junk.) I had containers of things in front of the stereo and the bookcase next to it. I cleared those out as much as I could. This makes more room. The folding table I have in there now is just a little smaller than the desk I want to put in there. So I will get rid of the folding table and butt the desk up against the loveseat and use the seat for a storage spot, which will leave more room on the floor. It will be a little crowded, but I can make it work. I guess. Today I cleaned off the desk, which I used to use for teleworking, and put a couple of the things that used to be on top of it (like the portable chargers and backup drives) into the chifforobe. The office supplies can go on the shelf on the bottom. I will leave some in a container in the bedroom for notes, and they can go on top of the chest that I can finally assemble after a couple of years of it sitting in the downstairs hall in its box. We still need blanket storage; the blanket chest at the foot of the bed is chock full.

Alas, the small armchair I also hoped to put into the bedroom is no longer made by Ikea. They've gone back to that gut-ugly Swedish modern furniture that was so trendy in the 1960s. Ugh. I'm glad they were making decent furniture when we first moved into this house!

This morning I made a trip to Walmart. Picked up some corn on the cob for Easter dinner (we're having shrimp), bought more sugarless candy for James, picked up more vinegar since I cleaned out the drains, other things we needed. On the way home I stopped at Lidl (for bread, of course) and found two women about my age cleaning out the bakery bins! I waited my turn for the dinner rolls ("buns"), which were almost gone, and said, "Wow, these are popular today!" The lady responded in a German accent that she had driven a long way to get them! They must have had a dozen rolls, other kinds of bread and pastry, and several loaves of rye bread which they had sliced! I'm not the only one who loves the bakery!

Also found some thick pork chops on discount, so did another pork chop bake for supper like I did a few weeks ago. This time I browned the chops in onion and garlic powder and Lighthouse salad blend herbs, then baked them in cream of onion (instead of mushroom) soup with cut-up potatoes. Last time the potatoes came out very soft, so I cut them a little bigger. Well, the pork and the soup gravy was magnifique, but the potatoes were still crunchy. Ah, well.

Speaking of magnifique, it is hard to believe that beautiful Notre Dame Cathedral caught fire the other day. I was working so hard I didn't know until James got home from work, and then we watched in horror for half the night. It's not just a Catholic icon, it's a beautiful relic of the medieval era with workmanship that cannot be duplicated. (They were talking about this today on NPR, about restoring the burned areas—remarkably, pews, altars, and most of the beautiful stained-glass windows survived the inferno! and volunteers rushed in during the fire to save the holy relics—because craftsmen like those who built the cathedral almost no longer exist today. The Dean of the cathedral in Washington, DC, said there are only two stonemasons left who actually do hand-carving for the cathedral; no one learns this any longer. What a shame.) But wealthy French have already pledged money and the mayor of Paris vows to have the building restored in five years. I hope they can. It's like other irreplaceable structures: the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, Tikal, the Sphinx.

Labels: crafts, decluttering, food, health, history, retirement, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:01:00 PM

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a.k.a. "Anachrocon Ate My Weekend and I Loved It."

Normally we would have been at Anachrocon when it opened on Friday afternoon; however James had an iron infusion scheduled and didn't want to cancel it. So I spent the morning and early afternoon making chicken cacciatore out of a leftover chicken leg quarter and some thighs, and making sandwiches with the bread I'd just run out to get that morning. This will keep us from having to go to the hotel restaurant, if there is one, or out for supper. My sandwiches were plain; I made James' with some cheese and just an hint of pepper or Mrs. Dash.

All this domesticity tired me out—while I have been experimenting with cooking other dishes besides baked chicken and homemade gravy, I'm never going to like the process—and I took a nap until Life360 tweedled at me through my cellphone and I knew James was on his way, then got dressed. I followed his journey on Life360 and the traffic map; there was horrendous traffic as always on Friday. Once he was here, we had to fight our way to the hotel, which thankfully was at Wyndham just beyond Cumberland Mall. All we had to do was get past the traffic sink that's the mall.

It was lightly raining, so we didn't bring the power chair inside. We'd missed all the panels we might have been interested in, so we simply met up with Clay and Maggi, took a brief look around the hotel, and then had supper at the hotel restaurant. Like previous old hotel, this is a restaurant that basically caters to business people, and it's "southern fusion" or something like that which means they charge you out the nose for plain food that has been gussied up with some spices. $20 for meatloaf? Are you kidding me? Maggi and James had chicken gumbo soup and Clay had some shrimp and I had a salad. (James and I ate our sandwiches when we got home.)

We had not attended a convention here for years, from back when it was a Holiday Inn or something like that, mostly because I remember this hotel as being very small and the cons finally outgrew it. Well, even remodeled, it still is. There are some small meeting rooms on one side (where the literature, history, and science panels will be), then the lobby and a restaurant, then two bigger meeting rooms on the other side, and then opened up rooms that are for the dealers (mostly steampunk this year) and main programming. There's also a little side room where the authors are selling their wares.

So they headed for their room and we headed for home; to pop up at 7:45 a.m. on Saturday morning and do all our usual morning ablutions (and terrier attendance) before heading back to the hotel. We did have the hotel breakfast buffet, which is more reasonable than the previous hotel (except for the cook making omelets, it's no better than the buffet Drury Inn, Staybridge Suites or Country Inn and Suites serves). James did avail himself of the omelet guy, who is what my mother would term "a hot sketch."

So I wandered in only a little late for the Battle of Hastings panel. The overall theme this year is Vikings, and there are a lot of Viking crafts and costuming and some panels. This one ties in because the Normans led by William the Conquerer were actually Norsemen way, way back, ones who settled in northern France and who were now French. The battle was described very well and I felt I understood more about what caused the battle and how Harold was outwitted, although his defensive position was well thought out.

Next I went to Lee Martindale's bardcraft panel. Lee talked about some of the duties of a bard; they did not just sing and entertain; they were the oral historians for the region and also resolved conflicts and brought the news from place to place. You apprenticed as a bard for seven to fifteen years, which means it wasn't just memorizing a bunch of songs, but a sense of fair play along with showmanship.

I sat with Caran Wilbanks during the 17th century medicine panel, which was a comparison between Eastern European and Western European disciplines; the Eastern usually had "wise women" and midwives while Western had doctors and barber-surgeons. They used medical methods that we would consider a bit gross, but that are still being used today —leeches and maggots, for instance—but under more sanitary conditions, because they are still the best for the job. The panel kept the dialog amusing so not to gross anyone out too much, and they passed around some cochineal beetles which are still used to make red dye. I was re-reading about them just recently in St. Clair's The Secret Lives of Color.

Jeremiah Mitchell, who did such a good panel about the Kennedy and Lincoln assassinations last year, did the first of four panels next. This was about the Titanic, and it turns out he had a distant family member on the ship, Ann Elizabeth Isham. There is a theory she didn't make it off the ship because she went back for her dog. He talked about the unhappy fate of Charles Lightoller, the Second Officer of Titanic, who survived and was reviled much of his life. I did not know he was one of the small craft owners who went to the aid of the soldiers at Dunkirk.

Next I went to a panel about writing diverse characters. I've been working on a story about a fannish teenager. Now when I was a teenager I grew up in a pretty much Italian Catholic neighborhood and didn't even have a Protestant friend until I was in fifth grade. I know a child today would probably not grow up in that kind of atmosphere, but I want to make sure if I create a character of another race or culture in the story that I am not writing a stereotype. The panel concurred that research was your friend.

The Great Story Shift was a panel by a professor in Humanities who was even more entertaining than the stories she was relating. She talked very fast and was very funny as well as informative, and discussed myths like Jason and the Golden Fleece, Tristan and Isolde, and even Beowulf. (Since I never had to read Beowulf in school, I was interested to hear the story.)

Never could find what I wanted to see next, so I wandered about a bit and then found James half-dozing in the "Microbes in Our Food" (about fermentation) panel because it was so hot in the room. The Science and Literature rooms were overheated most of the weekend while the History room was freezing. We brought flannel shirts with us today and were glad of it when we were in Stratford!

The next panel I went to, "Researching What Never Was," was a bit of a misnomer. It was described as a panel about how to do research for details of the past. However, it turned out to be Stephanie Osborn's discoveries about how they dressed, lived, etc. in the time of Sherlock Holmes as portrayed in her novels. It was still interesting, but not what I expected.

Mitchell's second panel was one I had particularly wanted to see: the story of the murder of Leo Frank. In 1913, an 11-year-old mill girl named Mary Phagan was raped and murdered at the Atlanta pencil factory where she worked. The factory accountant, Leo Frank, a "Yankee Jew," was accused, tried, and convicted of killing her on the testimony of the janitor. He was sentenced to prison, but was removed from said prison by a bunch of "upstanding citizens" (including a sheriff) and lynched not far from where we live, off Frey's Gin Road near Roswell Road. There used to be a dentist's office there that had a plaque for Leo Frank, but the building was bulldozed to make way for a freeway project. I had read somewhere that when they finish the project, they are intending to put up a memorial, but God only knows when that will be, since we stay in a perpetual state of construction.

(In the 1980s, a man who had been an office boy at the pencil factory said he saw the janitor carrying Phagan's body into the basement, and the janitor threatened to kill him if he said anything, so it is now strongly suspected that the janitor was the real killer. But there is no evidence left to prove it.)

Finally on Saturday night was the panel I was really waiting for. Ever since my teen years I have been crazy about anthropology, from when I read Robert Silverberg's The Morning of Mankind in the Bain library. Anyone who has read anthropology books knows the story of the Neanderthals, the "nasty, brutish" cavemen who were finally overwhelmed by nice intelligent Homo Sapiens (us). Well, things have changed a lot from 1971. New studies have proven that Neanderthal man lived in communities, cared for their elderly and infirm, buried their dead, could speak, and did all this before Homo Sapiens. I remember Jean Auel made quite a stir in Clan of the Cave Bear when she pronounced all these, except for the speech, with her Neanderthal characters raising the human child Ayla, including Ayla having a "half breed" child. One of the things they believed back when I was in school was that Neanderthal and human never had offspring together (or never had offspring that survived). Today they can tell you that almost everyone of European ancestry has a little bit of Neanderthal genes. (The only ones who do not are people whose ancestors are strictly from Africa.) Red hair and blue eyes, in fact, came from the Neanderthal. (Apparently so did Type 2 diabetes.) But they were not stupid and brutish; however, they were strong. Fossil records now show that they had twice as many muscles in some parts of their body along with thicker, stronger bones, so they were much stronger than any human, even today. The speaker, Dr. Dea Mozingo Gorman (who was positively fascinating), recommended this book, which I am definitely going to get! I read Brian Fagan's Cro-Magnon a few years back, which had some of this info, but was disappointed by it.

Anyway, the room was SRO and we loved the pael so much that when the hour was over Dr. Gorman kept going and we stayed on until almost another hour had gone by. Both Phyllis and Oreta, sitting behind me, asked questions. James rolled in, having seen two panels (New Madrid fault and rebuilding after the Apocalypse) in this time, to find us still talking, so we had to make haste to get home to get Tucker "aired."

This morning we also got up at 7:45, even though neither of us had a 10 o'clock panel. We had the buffet again and James tipped the omelet cook as much for his humor as for his cooking. Then we just started wandering about, and as we approached the costuming and fabrication panel rooms, we saw Clay in one of them. It turned out he had come for a panel about female warriors, but it had been cancelled. Instead, they were holding demonstrations of how to do cording to go with a costume. We stayed. I got to do Viking whip cording, which involved four spools of yarn fastened to a vertical pole and another person. You held a spool in each hand, and basically tossed spools to each other, left to left, then right to right, and once you had a rhythm, you could even talk. Clay and Caran, who walked into the room during the spool-tossing, did finger looping (which I'd like to try if I can remember the steps), and then James worked on something called "shoopido" (?) which is the thing they taught you in camp with vinyl cording. It was fun!

Jeremiah Mitchell did a panel at eleven about Eliot Ness and how, despite all the work he did to catch Al Capone, the canny gangster never attached his name to anything and Ness couldn't pin anything on him. As everyone knows, Capone was eventually convicted, but for tax evasion, and only because a careless accountant labeled an account book "Al" and was willing to "sing." Ness himself wasn't perfect, but he was "untouchable" about bribes.

Walked the dealer's room one more time and bought memberships for last year, said goodbye to Clay and Maggi (she wasn't feeling well because she'd been unable to get some medication she needed), then finally went to the rest of the "Mining Urban Legends for Story Ideas" panel.

Finally, James went off to see the escape pod panel and I went to the last of Mitchell's panels, this one about the O.K. Corral. I'd already seen the Time Traveling With Brian Unger about this, so I knew it wasn't this black-and-white good-guys-bad-guys 40s Western movie thing that was commonly portrayed. The Earps weren't knights in white satin and the Clanton "gang" wasn't one, and what started the big trouble was a nervous Ike Clanton misinterpreting something he overheard about the Earps.

And finally it was time for closing ceremonies. This was very short, with the two con chairs thanking everyone; Lee Martindale said she had a swell time as Guest of Honor, and farewells were said. We came home and, tiresomely, had to stop at CVS and Kroger for a couple of things we needed before we could do so. Supper was comfort food, chicken soup with stellini (James had chili), and then it was time to get ready for another week after a nice weekend of time traveling.

I really must get that Neanderthal book; just hoping I can wait till I get another coupon!

Labels: conventions, crafts, food, friends, history, science

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:32:00 PM

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It started out a little dicky, however; James woke up feeling a little odd, but it turned out to be low blood sugar and a serving of juice straightened it out. This got us up earlier than we'd planned, so we were able to have a slow breakfast and then get on the road. It was spritzing lightly, so we covered the power chair and got on the road. Hurricane Nate [neé Tropical Storm Nate] has put a crimp in the weekend, leaving heavy clouds everywhere, although it's good for James and I, as neither of us are supposed to be out in the sun.

By the time we got to Peachtree-DeKalb Airport, the spritz had gone on the fritz and we were able to have a good time at the Warbird Weekend. This year they were celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Tuskegee Airmen, and two of the gentlemen were actually here!

We were greeted practically at the gate by the IPMS folks, including two of the guys from IPMS Marietta who had sent James a get well card. There were several exhibition booths there, including a display about service chaplains that looks like it was borrowed from the Tennessee Air Museum, and then we walked out to the flightline. There were a good dozen planes out there, and I'm starting to be able to recognize some of them (but then Corsairs and Stearmans are very recognizable, and the DC3 said "Douglas" right on the side).

We walked about and took photographs of all of the planes, plus a World War II-era ambulance and fire truck. Some folks were dressed in period dress, and there were other vintage items dotted about. (One "Rosie" had her little boys in caps and shorts and they were adorable! There was also a General MacArthur; as he walked by I whispered to James "He has returned!") There was a film you could see about the Tuskegee Airmen, but there was a long line and no way for James to step up into the theatre. Then I took a seat on my folding cane and James tooled around a bit on his own, taking photographs himself. We also had a tangerine ice that was very orange flavored (colored an orange not found in nature) and listened to a trio of women sing World War II tunes!

However, we were able to listen to one of the Tuskegee Airmen talk about his career. This was Lieutenant Colonel Harry Stewart, who played with wooden airplane models as a boy and fought imaginary World War I battles with his friends. He volunteered for the service instead of being drafted so he could choose where he went (if you were drafted you went where they sent you). He had already heard they were choosing young African American men to learn to fly, and that's what he did. He made a record three kills in one day (he shot down two planes, and the third crashed trying to follow him) and won a Distinguished Service Cross. After the war, when the Air Force was incorporated, they decided to reinstate "Top Gun" wargames to keep up the flyers' expertise, he and his Tuskegee companions came in first!

He also had a very funny story about when he was training in a P-47 during the war. The rule was that if another fighter plane entered the training area, he was to engage it as if in a dogfight. Whichever plane got on the tail of the other plane was the "winner" and the other plane had to acknowledge being "shot down." So he was doing training maneuvers in his fighter when another P-47 appeared. He waggled his wings at it and then engaged the other P-47 in "combat." Well, two "Lufbery" (tight turn) moves later, this other P-47 was on his tail! He acknowledged the "kill" with a wag of his wings, then turned back to the airfield. The other P-47 turned back to the airfield. He landed. The other pilot landed. He rolled to a stop and got out of his P-47. The other pilot rolled to a stop and got out of his P47. Stewart took off his helmet to face the guy who'd beaten him. The guy took off his helmet and he saw flaming red hair...

...fall down around the pilot's shoulders.

The P-47 was being transported by a WAAF!

About this time the sun came out and we had to beat a retreat into the shade since neither of us can be in the sun, so we missed the final five minutes of his interview. We left after that and went in search of further lunch (James had a sandwich with him, but I had just had a Kind bar and a juice box) and ate a bit at Wendy's, then went to Trader Joe's to pick up pumpkin fruit bars before they are gone (they are only sold in the fall and James likes to have them all year long). We brought some salad greens as well.

Finally got to the planned event of the day, the October Hallmark Ornament Premiere so James could get his Sherman tank. He also bought the Airplane! airplane, plus bought me a cute little silver bird with a cheeky look on his face and a little resin Christmas tree that was on discount.

On the way home James waited outside at Sprouts while I ran inside and got more shredded chicken. We had it for supper in a salad while watching Father Brown, and later watched the first episode of the new season of This Old House (featuring Mike Rowe, as this year is dedicated to advising young people to go into trades). Then it was back to Britcoms.

Labels: events, food, history, television, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:19:00 PM

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Hark, hark, the dog must bark! After the lights go out. At three a.m. For God's sake, shut up!

Needless to say, not a lot of sleep last night, and had to get up at 7:30. But we did look after the fids and get packed up and on the road in time to make breakfast at nine, so we could make a panel at ten.

James went to the RetroTV panel just to ask when the heck they were going to be back in Atlanta. They're in Gainesville now, which definitely cannot be said to be in the Atlanta area (nor can it be viewed here). It's like saying Westerly, RI, is in Providence. I went to the Disney/Pixar panel where we talked about the animated features: which were good, which were bad enough to go straight to DVD (Mulan II got a lot of hate, and for heaven's sake why was the sequel to Hunchback geared at small children), as well as if they have to do sequels, what would you like to see (other characters in an already established world, like Moana's). Also the merits of 2D animation versus CGI. Of course I had to mention Piper before it was over, because Piper is brilliant. 😊

Next went to "Chicks Write Time Lords," about women writers on Doctor Who. This included writers for Big Finish and for the books that kept the show alive during "the wilderness years," like Kate Orman. We even had time for a little fanfiction.

After that, a sit-down at "American Young Adult Literature," where we discussed...well, you know. Talked about age-appropriateness being determined by how an individual child reads, not just by the ratings put upon them by the booksellers (except for 13 Reasons Why, which should not be given to teens struggling with depression, per someone who's read it). Parents should read questionable books first (me: not protest them). Dystopian fiction seems to be waning, but sadly also the short spate of science fiction. Since all the panel was older adults except for Aubrey Spivey, they talked about how to get themselves back in a teen mindset (they ask people that age to vet their writing.)

Remained in the same room for "Research: You Gotta Do It." I'm a research junkie; I could research forever. But the time comes where you have to end the research and write the story. So the authors on the panel talked about doing research while you're writing (pretty much a no-no because research is the world's worse timesink) or do you just put a note in your text to look something up and research later? Scrivener was recommended again. Hmmn. A fun question was "what was the worst mistake you ever made in a story because you didn't research enough?" For example, Jana Oliver said that in one of her time travel stories, taking place in 1888, she looked up everything, even tide tables for the Thames, then wrote that there was a crossword puzzle in a newspaper. (Crosswords are from the 1920s; there were word puzzles in newspapers then, but not crosswords.) Ooops. Lee Martindale was very funny talking about having to ask a question about male anatomy of a guy.

Then, of course, had to make a trip to main programming to see Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant do their panel. They are good friends and have been since they played the Doctor ("Sixie" as Colin calls him) and Peri so long ago, and it showed. They laughed and bantered together as they talked about their earliest Doctor Who memories (the original premiere for Colin and a Patrick Troughton episode for Nicola), and then Nicola talking about how she got the role of Peri and realized she was going to be in a regeneration episode (jackpot!), and how Peter Davison pranked her by telling he Colin Baker was difficult to work with. Also some memories from "The Two Doctors" as poor Nicola and Patrick Troughton were outdone by Fraser Hines and Colin corpsing around all the time. It was a great but very short hour!

I thought of staying for the "Things We Learned from Doctor Who" panel next, but opted to check out the dealer's room. There are a lot of cute little things, but not anything I really want, if you know what I mean. However, there's an artist outside the dealer's room with some smashing prints of Doctor Who subjects. I also did a pit stop and briefly went up to the con suite for a cracker with cheese spread, a handful of M&Ms, and five or six tortilla chips. I ate my perfectly healthy lunch during the research panel (chicken cacciatore in a cibatta roll, mandarin oranges, and a juice box) and still feel ravenous.

Back in Panel Mode, I attended the panel about science fiction/fantasy films at thirty: Princess Bride, Spaceballs, Predator, Robocop, and more. Bumped into James there; he'd talked with Lee Martindale for a while, went to a Next Gen and a Star Wars panel. On tap: memories, favorite lines, how in the hell did Mel Brooks get away with that, things these films predicted that came true (ravaged Detroit, anyone?), what else was hot that year (Three Men and a Baby, directed by Leonard Nimoy, and Dirty Dancing), etc.

And finally, the Victoria panel, because I've quite enjoyed the series and that's my period anyway. We chatted about how some historical accuracy was sacrificed for drama, other British royalty and their bearing on Queen Victoria, how she married her children to all the other (mostly Germanic) nations in Europe, how Prince Albert was underrated, and commiseration for Rufus Sewell, loser at love in British historical drama. And, of course, what we might expect in the next season.

Would have liked to have stayed for The Crown panel, but it was suppertime! We had the dinner buffet, which turned out to be roast chicken (made as a cacciatore, of all things) and meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls, and baby greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, and baby corn for salad. It was much cheaper than breakfast, which totaled at $41! Maggi and Clay turned up and we all had dinner together. Clay tried some whiskey that turned out to be $15 for about two or three ounces! It had a nice potent scent all the way where I was sitting. Interesting: Clay told us the hotel doesn't want to hold science fiction conventions anymore: they hate the people in costume, the registration in the lobby, and the con suite. So even WHOlanta will have to find a new home next year. (Please,  please, please pick a pet friendly hotel!)

Sadly, this companionable hour ended too quickly and we had to get seats for the cabaret, but it started late anyway. I noticed it was rather sparsely attended this year. Not sure if people were gearing up for the mass viewing of tonight's new Doctor Who or were getting dressed for the 30's themed dance tonight. (See why we want a pet-friendly hotel...) But it began just after James showed up after his "pit stop." Lieutenant Moxie Magnus was again the host(ess?) and did a ukelele duet with Angela Pritchett, who has done a Who cookbook, then Melinda Botterbusch sang a filksong about Martha Jones, Courtland Lewis dueted with Moxie on "I'm a Little Bit Country, You're a Little Bit Rock'n'Roll" and another piece, Florida musician Ken Spivey and his new wife Audrey (sorry Ken Spivey fanclub, he's taken now) did a short number, Louis Robinson sang a sweet love song about an older couple and then the theme song to Sharpe, and finally Moxie finished off on ukelele with 21 songs done in seven minutes. Half the time we were singing along: "Supercalifragilistic" and other Disney tunes blending into old rock and emerging as old folk tunes.

In the middle of the cabaret they took a break for a masquerade. Only four entries this year: a woman in Gallifreyan battle armor, a little boy as a white Dalek, a ninth Doctor wearing his TARDIS, and a woman in a gorgeous hand-made TARDIS kimono. They all won and we all applauded, especially for the little boy and the kimono lady (it was really lovely).

And then, alas, it was over, and since this is not a pet-friendly hotel, we had to forego the pleasures of watching "Knock Knock" and then the dance (or going to Sacha's memorial service) in favor of going home and "relieving" Tucker (literally). He was so glad to see us and kept jumping up on me and staring.

I found my BBC-copy of this week's Doctor Who episode waiting in e-mail, downloaded it while perambulating the pooch, and we just finished watching it a little while ago.  Really creepy "haunted house" story with David Suchet (who plays Hercule Poirot so well) as the guest star. I do wish they hadn't removed the reference to the young guy Harry being Harry Sullivan's grandson. Apparently they were told "no one" would understand a 40-year old reference. Seriously. Do you suits really not understand fans at all? (Don't answer that!) And what's going on in that vault? Whomever's in it, the Doctor brought them Mexican food...

Labels: conventions, fandom, friends, history, music, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:46:00 PM

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We had Hair Day Saturday morning, stopping at Publix beforehand to both get our contribution and grab some twofers. We had a lively crowd today, and because it was Colin's 26th birthday, we had a cake and presents. The lunch centerpiece was salads (chicken, crab Louis, fruit, and potato), so we had sandwiches and there was also a cheese and cracker plate and a relish tray.

We were going to drive home, drop off the groceries and the remainder of the bread we brought for lunch, and then go to the Akers Mills' Barnes & Noble. Well, James's been having trouble with gout in his left elbow, and now the arch of his foot was hurting in the same way. He wasn't in any condition to go out, but didn't say anything about it until we were on our way home, when the pain started to worsen.

So we were home for the rest of the afternoon and evening. He had to take some medicine that the doctor gave him for flare-ups and pretty much had to lie out the remainder of the night. He slept a lot of it, and didn't even notice when I took the dog out the last time. I just chilled and read some magazines and watched Father Brown, Rosemary & Thyme, Keeping Up Appearances, and As Time Goes By. Father Brown was a Christmas episode which I wish I hadn't missed the beginning of.

We slept a full nine hours last night and both woke up refreshed, James with no pain in the foot. Glad the medicine helped! We had a quick breakfast and then ran two errands and the trip to Barnes & Noble. The first errand was stopping at Nam Dae Mun, the mostly Asian market on Spring Road. We needed more low-sodium teriyaki sauce and also black sauce, sweet sauce, sesame oil, and ginger tea. The second errand was to Costco to get gasoline and then restock eggs, milk, mushrooms, and liquid soap (also picked up more popcorn and a copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them—geez, when's Rogue One coming out; everyone's talked about it so much I want to see it).

Lunch at Uncle Maddio's pizza and the trip to Barnes & Noble were much more fun, even if I didn't buy anything at the latter. James got the new 1632 book. Alas, they still don't have the new "Breathe" magazine. Looked at the spring "This England," but I can get a year's subscription to the digital version for less than the price of one print edition. I can do this with "Breathe," too, but I don't get the extras that are in the print edition.

Did see a book I ordered when I got home, because it was simply more affordable that way. A World Remade, the story of the United States in World War I. I have been waiting for a book like this. Thursday, the 6th, is the 100th anniversary of the U.S. entry into "the Great War." What I was really hoping for is that someone would do a book just about homefront WWI. There are a bunch about World War II (I have at least a half dozen of them, like Daddy's Gone to War), but our total immersion in the first war fascinates me. People could see WWII coming, but how did we get involved in WWI? This has interested me since I read all those old kids' series books that used to be on Blackmask.com/Munseys.com, the ones that predated Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, like Grace Harlowe and the High-School Boys and the Campfire Girls and Ruth Fielding: once WWI came along every single one of those kids' books had wartime plots, with the girls acting as nurses or hospitality house hostesses (the precursor to the USO) and the boys as soldiers. This book, I note by the reviews, does have some explanation for that.

Anyway, the summer temperatures have done the usual number on my GI system, so after we were delayed at Costco we came straight home, where my bathroom sojourns were interrupted by enjoyable moments watching The Queen's Castle on PBS. LOL. If I think I have trouble with sixteen clocks and timers during "spring forward" and "fall back," I had to feel for the Windsor Castle clockmaker, who has to adjust 432 clocks twice a year! Loved the segment with Prince Philip showing the filmmaker around the "Home Park," where the estate has two different herds of cows, a deer park, and other neat things. He'd shake his head at the photographer who wanted to film him entering the Land Rover and comment about it every single time.

Soup for supper and a new season of Call the Midwife starting: I wanted to beat the living daylights out of Lester. I'm not sure about Sister Ursula; she reminds me of the nuns of my childhood, stern and inflexible. Her sternness seems very prideful and that is unbecoming of a sister of the Church.

Labels: books, food, friends, history, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:39:00 PM

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It's been rather an uneven birthday.

We slept late, which was a swell birthday gift all in itself. We both had breakfast after walking the dog. The sky was slate grey and silver grey rippled, and it was chilly and slightly damp, with a bit of a breeze that snuck into the weaknesses of your jacket. About 11:30 we left to go to Books-a-Million. Last year they were the only place that had gingerbread boys. But first we stopped at Publix so I could drop off the recycling and our contributions for Toys for Tots, and also get a newspaper. Well, I got a shock—the store is closing on Wednesday (I thought the aisles looked rather empty), with the new store a mile or so away in Smyrna opening on Thursday (we heard it was opening next year!), so they didn't get a Toys for Tots bin. I was so surprised I walked out without the paper, too.

Luckily (or unluckily), James had a call of nature and we stopped at the next Publix on the route and I bought a paper and left the toys behind. From there we proceeded to Books-a-Million after stopping at Kroger for gas. And, yes indeed, they did have gingerbread boys. We had them with peppermint cocoa and bought a half dozen more for the rest of the season. Alas, the days when I could have sweets for lunch and do okay afterward are gone. By the time we left, I was feeling distinctly queasy.

James wasn't doing so well, either. He thinks the food at Red Lobster last night made him sick. So I paid for my purchase, a remainder book, and we came home where he could have some ginger tea and take more Pepto Bismol. I got things ready for work tomorrow, then watched the Lassie episode "The Little Christmas Tree," and then The Lost Tapes: Pearl Harbor. This was fascinating as it was comprised of news bulletins, interviews, recordings, and other vocals over photographs, film from newsreels and the scene, handwritten notes, and documents. I didn't get all of it and need to try to record it again when it's on December 22.

I always listen to Roosevelt's speech and try to put myself in my mother's place, or my father's. What did they think when they heard the bulletins, and then the speeches? Was Dad scared of the idea of going to battle, or just too angry to care? Did Mom realize how many of her family would go off to war, even the nephews she still thought of as boys? I look at the old photographs and wish I could jump in...not to change, I know I can't do that, but just to see. I want to know how it was so much!

Ended up watching the end of Anne of Green Gables, the Sullivan version. The new version with Martin Sheen is on tonight. I'm not sure if I want to watch it, as I hear they've made it "more relevant," which gives me the shudders. I remember "relevant" TV from the 70s, and it usually means "boring." So we went on to the episode of Alaska: the Last Frontier that we skipped last week to watch something else, and then this week's episode.

Labels: books, history, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:10:00 PM

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I have these stupid nagging dreams; I guess they are intended to remind me I am behind on something or need to be prodded to proceed on something. Last night's was a beaut: we were traveling with friends and I was always behind. At one point I had missed breakfast because I had been doing something else and now everyone was leaving and I was starving. (I woke up at this point and was actually hungry.) In another section of the dream, we were staying in a house that was an old Victorian house that our friends (no one I knew) were remodeling. The house was a mess; a warren of small rooms and peeling wallpaper and water damage, but in places some spots of real beauty, like original wallpaper that was in good shape that they were going to save, and a bedroom that had been a woman's bedroom and had a headboard made of cerise satin, like a 1930s film star might have. Another bedroom was also a woman's bedroom, and it was so big she had had a big, curved partition made at one end where she had a big washstand and bowl on one side and a reclining sofa on the other, with swinging doors to get inside. The final scene in this dream was James and I with the dog, and him warning me to keep Tucker out of the dog poop that we were standing next to. Bizarre.

Not to mention that I was interrupted at least twice waking up because my nose was clogged and I'd come awake because I couldn't breathe because the inside of my mouth had dried out.

At eight o'clock I heard James stirring. He'd already changed out of his night clothes, tested his sugar (he was at 59!), put the towels in the hamper...I looked at him out of glazed eyes (we'd gone to bed about 12:30) and asked him why on earth he wasn't asleep. I can't sleep, he said. I told him he wasn't trying hard enough. I felt him lay back down and then went right back off to sleep, and there we stayed until almost eleven.

No way we were going to "beat the Baptists" to Kroger, so we took our time and ate breakfast before heading out.

We ended up just going to Kroger. It was bad enough taking Tucker out earlier, but now it was the ninth ring of Hell, The sun feels like it could strip paint off your car—or like the heat lamps they use at the grocery store for the rotisserie chickens. You can only put your hand in for so long before you feel your skin scorching. We bought Those Damn Bananas, burritos, some soup for lunch, and a few other things and just came home. We ended up lolling in the living room watching Holmes on Homes. I had a 60% off JoAnn coupon and a 40% entire purchase coupon for Michaels (which I usually love because I buy little inexpensive thing for craft projects all at once) and I didn't even want to go out for those.

About four o'clock we roused ourselves from our torpor and went downstairs and finally killed the frog.

You know there's that saying that if you eat a frog first thing in the morning then nothing worse can happen all day? On the decluttering Usenet group I used to be on, we used to call any chore we didn't want to do "a frog." Well, we've had all the Christmas decoration containers and the winter decoration containers and the Easter box and the spring decoration stacked up in maze fashion in the library since after Christmas so we could reinforce the mounting of the shelves they were stored on. I haven't been able to shelve the completed books I took down there because all the holiday containers were in the way.

A couple of years back I related that one of the wire shelving units in our master closet pulled away from the wall and collapsed. It was pretty overloaded with winter coats, all my jeans, and James' dress pants, plus the suitcases on the shelf on top. When we did the repair we realized the installers had just missed fastening the shelves into the studs. I checked in the downstairs storage closet and none of the shelving supports were set into studs either, and some of the boxes have ceramics in them and are heavy. For the past ten years the shelves have held the containers okay, but I've been worried since the closet incident. So we installed four supports in the studs, two for each shelving unit. We couldn't put any supports into the two studs on the longer shelf, the ones closest to the closet door because the drill kept hitting something hard. We thought it might be metal put in to guide the electrical conduits for the switch and electrical plug on the other side of the wall in the garage. So we put in those two extra supports using wall anchors. Not as good as studs, but better than nothing. Then James helped me replace the sections of the Christmas tree and the containers. The three heaviest containers are still on the floor because it hurts James' back to get them down anymore.

We finished at six and had supper about seven: shrimp scampi over spaghetti. Should have thawed another package of shrimp; we only had nine each, and these were only medium sized. We scarfed all the spaghetti, and I had some of the rest of the scampi sauce on bread. Later we had some ice cream for dessert.

We watched part three of Sons of Liberty, which I recorded last year not realizing I started with chapter three of five. Not sure what I think of it. It was a "dramatic presentation" based on the events leading to the American Revolution, not a documentary, and some people were not happy with the casting or the "sexing up" of the story. For instance they had Sam Adams as a young handsome athletic man (I can't think about Samuel Adams without remembering Johnny Tremain's description of him—or maybe it was Rab Silsbee's description—as "a dog fox with a fat pullet in his mouth") rather than a greying chronic debtor. I did like the way they showed Boston as a small town, a working town, not the bright set-like place Disney gave us in the film version of Tremain. It looks like a working port, and the workingmen looked particularly grimy as they should. Some people took umbrage with the portrayal of Franklin in the bathtub lusting over the pretty ladies, but I gather from my own reading on Benjamin Franklin that he indeed did love to spend long hours in the bathtub, attended by young ladies, and he was quite the roué.

Tried taking Tucker out before the sunset was even gone from the sky, but even encouragement from the little boy down the street didn't help; he wouldn't pee at all. It's been popping and cracking and booming out there since way before the sun went down.

Labels: chores, dogs, dreams, food, history, holidays, pets, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:27:00 PM

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The weather report was auspicious; it was going to be chilly to cool today! Last year was a bit of a bust anyway, but I had not attended the Marietta Pilgrimage Christmas Home Tour the year before because it was just too warm to go walking out in the sun. Yesterday I stopped downtown to get my ticket and this morning I was off before James ever left for work to park downtown behind Johnnie McCracken's pub, stroll through Glover Park, check on what was going on at the Farmer's Market, and head to Mill Street to catch the bus to the first house. I left the house with my jacket on, but realized it would be a liability when it got into the 60s later on. So I just left the flannel shirt over my sweatshirt, grabbed my light hat, and stuffed little snacks into my pouch, and I'd stopped at Walgreen's to get a pack of sugarless gum to keep me from getting dry. I hadn't had breakfast, so I munched a BelVita bar on my walk. I also had a 90-calorie brownie, a packet of peanuts, and a packet of crackers with me, which I ate over the morning and held me until I had lunch after two.

The first stop was the Harrison-Heck-Savic House circa 1900, a lovely Victorian with modest gingerbread trimmings. The current owners started restoring it in 2009 and, especially compared to the pictures, where the big verandah is all closed in, it is simply gorgeous. Hardwood floors throughout, a formal parlor in the front and a dining room on the side with the original stained glass window with diamond-shaped panes of colored glass in it. (There is a matching window upstairs which they had made to duplicate the original. From the outside you can't tell the difference.) Upstairs there is a turret porch and a darling bathroom with old-fashioned tiles. The two rooms on the back of the house, a big eat-in kitchen and a den, mold seamlessly with the old house and even have the same beautiful brown crown molding throughout.

This ended being the only house without a line to get in, although there was one by the time we left, and most of the tour was spent in lines.

The next home, Setter's Run, is from 1934, and although it looks like a tiny cottage from the front, it is huge inside, 6,000 square feet. There was quite a wait for this one, and I was entertained by the three ladies behind me who evidently do this every year and who were trying to keep warm. I was a little chilly myself, but knew I'd be happier later on. Anyway, the house is called "Setter's Run" because the owners have always had English setters, and there is a setter plaque on the door and setter heads incised on the window shutters. Inside there all the doorways were arched on the the first floor; you walked through a living room (with a piano that had survived in Europe during World War II!), and a dining room which was once a brick porch. There is a new kitchen; the old one was a galley kitchen and so narrow the table and chairs were foldout benches (the owners had this feature re-installed downstairs in the family room because it was so clever). The hallway to the upper story is filled with family portraits going back to the 1830s, and there is an old butler's pantry that now shows off the owner's mother's china collection.

The next four houses were all in a row on Church Street and there were long lines at each but the last, which had a short line. I was glad I brought my seat cane and my snacks! The Clay-Willingham-Cook house was built in 1914 and originally had a little porch tacked on the side; the porch is now a sun room. The house has all sorts of beautiful items from that era, although it is decorated in a modern/vintage style that somehow went together, much less traditionally than the other homes. It was built by the son of Alexander Stephens Clay, whose statue stands in Glover park, and the next owner was the brother of the woman who founded the Atlanta League of Women Voters.

Number four was a house James and I had seen previously in 2006 (and most of this is my commentary from the last time), the Northcutt-Whitaker-Gillis House from 1915, a big square house with a big front and side porch and a pool house in the back, painted grey with burgundy and hunter green trim.

It is just as lovely inside. The owners have enlarged and restored it. It has front and back stairs, beautiful hardwood floors, enclosed porches, and wonderful decorations. A big glass curio cabinet contains little doll-like figures from Germany. On the wall upstairs after you climb the stairs, 25 years' worth of the children's pictures with Santa are displayed.

The funniest thing was in the remodeled kitchen, which is beautiful without being pretentious. There was a photo on the counter of the kitchen before it was remodeled; the owners had entered the room in a Good Housekeeping "ugliest kitchen in the United States" contest in which the prize was a remodeling and had thought they had won, but they only got a cash prize, which they used to start a remodel. Boy, was it ugly (plus it had an electric stove—ick!); as the docent in 2006 commented, "I'd hate to see the kitchen that won!"

(They did not have the feather tree with the cross-stitched ornaments this time. I was a little sad. The Irish tree they had instead was very pretty, although I was amused to see Merida on the tree. She's Scots, not Irish!)

The penultimate house was the Reece-Wade-Sanstead House, circa 1940, with the obligatory telephone nook, tiny black-and-white tiles in the bathroom, Art Deco furnishings, a little sign on the basement door that warned you not to let the cat out, a compact but actually roomy kitchen. In keeping with the home's Art Deco themes, the tree was white and silver, but one red ornament at the top represented the lady of the house's mother. (Everyone kept saying "awwww" because the woman who owned the house was always leaving little romantic/sentimental touches around the house.) And in addition to all that goodness, there was a spiral staircase leading down from the deck. I loved it!

Finally the last house, the 1924 Hagood-McNabb House. The McNabbs, the current owners, used to own a distillery that is now part of Dewars. The house has a long central corridor with a formal parlor on one side decorated chiefly with Chinoserie, Mrs. McNabb's favorite, and a study on the other side belongs to Mr. McNabb, very masculine, dark furniture and shelves all the way up the tall ceilings, completely crammed with books, with a Christmas tree of his interests, and a big painting of a Scotsman in a kilt over the desk. There were front stairs and back stairs, the latter which led to a completely remodeled kitchen. The upstairs used to be a half story, and was now a full story, with as many vintage parts used as possible; the back stairs are also from the 1920s, but from another house that was torn down, again, all dark beautiful woodwork, with a modern family room at the back decorated with specialty toys.

Very tired and very hungry now, caught the bus back to downtown and had lunch—well, I had an appetizer, really, a plate of potato skins that were absolutely delicious and make me miss those trivia nights at Rockford's all the more.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in the Museum of History, formerly the Kennesaw House, a hotel. The book sale woman was indeed wrong; there was not a World War I exhibit at all. The changing exhibit this year was of baby boomer toys, and I was happy to see some favorites there: a stuffed Lassie, Whitman books, old board games, a Beany (from Beany and Cecil) figurine, "Highlights" and "Boy's Life," models, paper dolls, etc. (Following is more description from the last visit.) The museum is small and rather a hotchpotch of things, but it was great browsing. Also in this gallery was a collection of music-making instruments, from an old-fashioned hurdy gurdy to a 1950s "hi-fi." The docent played some of these items for us, including the hurdy gurdy, a music box, and the Edison cylinder machine. Off in a corner were some memorabilia taken from the old courthouse, and a model of a 1940s kitchen with all sorts of old brand name items scattered about.

There were two military galleries: one was from the Revolutionary War to modern times, with a collection of pistols and rifles from Mr. Dupre, who used to run a store on the Square (it is now an antiques market). This had small cases devoted to different subjects: the Holocaust, women in the military, etc. The other was a Civil War gallery with relics having been dug up in the area, and of course an exhibit about the Great Locomotive Chase, which was planned right there in the Kennesaw House. Another room is a reproduction of one of the rooms at the Kennesaw House, complete with big heavy bed and furniture and a fireplace.

Finally there was a rather mixed gallery of local interests: memorabilia from businesses around the square, like a beauty shop—this had an original permanent machine, which looked like something to electrocute prisoners—and a fluoroscope like the ones that used to be in shoe stores to look at the bones in your feet), more war memorabilia, printing presses and typecases, an old wringer washer, saws, doctor's equipment, and many other objects. A corner was devoted to the lynching of Leo Frank and another area discussed segregation and Jim Crow. At the very back is a big fold-out Victorian dollhouse, all completely furnished down to the small figures.

The museum closed at four, so I bought a Christmas CD (sequel to the one I bought the last time I was here in 2008), and then, because I'm a total idiot and did not want to go shopping tomorrow morning, stopped at Kroger and got the shopping done. There was no one in line when I got there, but everyone in line when I was ready to check out, and it took people over twenty minutes just to get to a register. I wasn't the only one who was disgusted.

Took Tucker right out when I got home so I could finally rest my feet; had leftovers for supper and mostly listened to Christmas music. James didn't get home until 9:30, just about time for me to take Tucker out again!

Labels: Christmas, dogs, events, history, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:59:00 PM

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We had a great time at Old Sturbridge Village today!

I never came here as a child and this morning I was wondering if I was going to be disappointed; sometimes when you want to go someplace so badly as a kid it isn't the same as an adult.

But this was good. A very good day!

We got up early, but left late for certain health reasons (let's say that lobster roll caught up with me, although I don't regret eating it!). On the Mass Pike we were slowed down by a really nasty looking accident involving two cars and a dump truck (it didn't look like anyone got hurt), but it wasn't that long a delay. So we got there about an hour after they opened, but this was actually fine. We got through everything without rushing, stopping to talk to all the costumed people, and were done by four.

Old Sturbridge Village began as a collection of primitive tools and other pieces by a man named Albert Wells, who did not want the old items to be forgotten. First he started a regular museum, then came up with the idea to have a historical village devoted to New England life after the Revolutionary War, but in the calm ante-bellum 1830s before the Civil War. Most of the land belonged to the abandoned Wight Farm. The Village started in 1946 with six buildings and now has sixty, mostly authentic structures moved there, but some constructed for the site using traditional methods. Like Williamsburg and Plimouth Plantation, costumed artisans and historians show you how people lived.

We began, of course, at the visitor center and worked our way widdershins around the village, starting with "the small house," which is not an authentic aged building, but was built by the Sturbridge people to represent the average small home of the time (400 square feet). It had one bedroom as well as a fold-up bed that was the precursor of the Murphy bed. From there we went on to the Quaker meetinghouse and the Center Meetinghouse (Baptist, perhaps? Or Congregational?), past the reproduction graveyard, and the town "pound," here made of stone, which wasn't for dogs in those days, but strayed cattle, sheep, and other livestock.

At the shoe shop we spoke to the cobbler, who was constructing the sole, specifically the heel, of a traditionally-made shoe, made as a "straight" (there were no right and left shoes back then; they were made straight and molded themselves to your right or left foot as you wore them), pegging the heel with an awl, wax, and tiny pegs. He told us women would sew the leather uppers and then those would come to the shoemaker for attachment to the sole. Only men did this portion of cobbling. Then we peeked into the school, which was so dark we didn't see the "school keeper" swathed in his dark cloak and dour expression until we were inside looking at the battered desks (authentic) and lectern (ditto). We were lectured by the "school keeper"--not a school "teacher," because he did not teach the children anything: he just saw that they memorized what was in their books! He made $23/month, a female "school keeper" only $12. (The docents don't pretend to be of that time, like at Plimouth Plantation, but try to keep you in mind that it's 1830 with the way they talk.)

We next chatted with the potter, who also works in an authentic pottery shop that was moved from Connecticut. They make and fire and glaze their own redware pottery in an old beehive kiln on the opposite side of the road, then sell it in the gift shop. While we were there the potter's "drunken brother-in-law" and the schoolmaster visited him, and they did sort of pretend to be of that time.

Next we walked on to the Freeman Farm and Barn. This was a prosperous family of the time, who were able to expand their house through hard work and good investment in labor. We talked to two of the farm workers about the cattle--the cows lowing in the pasture in the rear and two oxen grazing in another field--which were Red Devon/milking shorthorn crosses. I was intrigued by their tall brimmed rye-stem braided hats, under which one fellow kept a bandanna to wipe his face! Chickens wandered the yard scratching and catching bugs as in the old days. In the house, they were cooking up breakfast foods (stewed apples, pancake batter, leftover meat) and the flies were everywhere. But of course in those days they didn't know flies were bad.

On then to the Bixby home; this family was always working, even at night, but when all their neighbors lost everything in a recession, they thrived. They were not wealthy, but had a nice big house and even "indoor plumbing"--a pump inside the house!

At the blacksmith shop, I watched with delight as the blacksmith, who is still in training, practiced making simple utilitarian hooks for homes with a decorative twist to them. He made a full hook as James and I watched, and presented me with an earlier one that had come out perfectly. It was amazing what small detail work he could do simply by tapping skilfully with that big hammer. Anyway, he said that the blacksmith, like the miller, would have done most of his business in trade. He'd make some tools for the Freeman family, for instance, and get milk and cheese back.

Next was the carding mill for use with wool (it could do in 40 minutes what one woman could do in one day), the gristmill (very familiar to us with yearly visits to Nora Mill), and the big sawmill which looked like every sawmill you've seen in a cartoon, except Bugs Bunny wasn't tied to the log heading for the saw blade. :-) The land in front of the sawmill is actually a 300-year-old earthen dam, which makes a pond and supplies the water for the millraces.

I am so glad I got to see this for my first time in the fall. I'm sure it's more lush in the summer, but it was lovely now, with beautiful patches of color around every corner. I must have several dozen photos of autumn trees and trees around vintage buildings.

We started on the "backstretch" by going over the Dummerston [Covered] Bridge, which came from Vermont after it was about to be torn down. It was once washed off its piers by Hurricane Diane (there is a flood line on the gristmill of where Diane flooded Sturbridge in 1955) and moved a hundred feet to its present site. Next was the Bullard Tavern, which has a cafeteria, so we stopped for lunch (and a potty break). James had a ham dinner and I had a chicken pot pie (which didn't have enough chicken, but the crust was great).

Then, onward: we walked down the green to see the tin shop. James and I learned something new: the gentleman running the tin shop is not a "tinsmith." He is a "tinner." A smith, he says, by definition, is someone who changes the thickness of metal. The tinner just takes different gauges of tin and makes them into containers, tools, etc. His most expensive item in the shop: a tin kitchen with a rotating spit for use before the fire to roast food. It cost $3 back then, which was three weeks' wages for the average man!

The parsonage, I learned, was only a parsonage while a Protestant minister lived there. It ceased being one once the minister left and was only a regular house. This was a big home with the parlor doubling as a room for church meetings. Upstairs was a guest room for maiden ladies traveling without escort who had no proper place to stay; the minister would take her in if she had a letter of recommendation from her own minister! Next was a small law office--and law offices seemingly never change: a desk, a diploma, and a big bookcase of law books!

We stayed and chatted with the lady attendant at the Knight General Store; Knight was another merchant who prospered and was able to expand the business by building ells upon the original structure. In the back were "supplies" in casks and barrels, while out front were shelves and containers of anything you could think of, from china and books and fabric to foods and spices and dyestuffs, dancing slippers, supplies of rum, brooms, bellows and glass bottles. James asked what copperas was and me "logwood" (the store came from Dummerston, Vermont, like the bridge, with the drawers of spices and dyes already labeled) and these were both used in dying wool.

We checked out a barn, had to skip a house undergoing a roof job, and stopped at another home, the Fitch, which illustrates average family life in 1839 and had authentic outbuildings behind it, including a corn crib (barn) from Rhode Island, and finally the "pink" (well, a faded red that looks pink) Thompson Bank. Inside Scrooge and Cratchit would have found it familiar, with a clerk's desk and the safe. In the back was an office where the bank manager arranged loans, and out front was the cashier's desk where the run-of-the-mill got their money. An exhibit of American, British, Spanish and French coins were included.

Next was the Towne House, a wealthy farmer's residence. This was huge compared with the other homes, a summer kitchen in the basement also used for "messy" jobs like butchering an animal, a dairy, and multiple bedrooms, including one big long room with a bed in the corner which was also used by Mr. Towne as a place for the Masons to meet. The walls were painted with trees, and the Mason "all seeing eye" and stars were painted on a blue ceiling. Two big piebald oxen were pastured next to the house.

Next was the cider mill, and it smelled from a distance of wonderful apple scent (although I wondered why there was an undercurrent of manure to the smell until I discovered the two sheep penned out back; there are sheep in various pastures next to different homes all over the village). Then we had a delightful visit to the printing office, where the printer was working on a letterpress to print out some marriage banns and marriage licenses. I was surprised to learn that his printouts will need to dry two days before they can be cut. There was a bigger press in another room, and then a place to read the galley proofs and correct them before making a final product.

Next we checked out exhibits of New England glassware (blown, pressed, optics, decorative, etc.), firearms (some looking familiar after our visit to Springfield) and textiles (chiefly clothing, which included "busks," decorative sticks stuck up a girl's back to keep her from slouching!), and early lighting. The latter had an actual "Betty lamp"--I've seen drawings and photos, but not actual Betty lamps. There were candles, Argand (whale oil) lamps which were actually bright enough to read by, gas, and early electrics. We passed on seeing the beehives (James is allergic) and walked past the herb gardens, and then, sadly, we were done!

(We apparently missed the powder house, the cooper, and a demonstration of cannon. Oh, well. We saw all the interesting bits.)

Then we perused the gift shop that you had to walk through to leave ("it's a state law"). James bought a cookbook and I got the souvenir book and a fridge magnet. On the way out we bought two fudge cookies and split one on the way home. It had an peculiar, interesting taste; I think it has molasses in it. (We ate the other later, while watching television in the hotel room.)

Happily, we ran into no bad traffic homeward bound except for a small slowdown. On the return trip down Route 1, next to Gillette Stadium where the New England Patriots football team plays, we stopped at A.C. Moore crafts. I was dismayed to find that their cross-stitch supplies are down to one side of one aisle!!! They had nice Christmas/winter banners though, including one with a chickadee on a pine branch; maybe I can go back. I bought a gift for someone there.

We ate at Old Country Buffet up near the Barnes & Noble. We used to have one on Buford Highway, and we had many "Myriad lunches" there. I would go there just for the roast chicken, which was golden brown with crispy skin. Then they sold the place to someone else and the food became dreadful. Well, this place still has the chicken. Unfortunately it was very dry. Also, the price was ridiculous. They charged us $5 each for unlimited drinks!!! Just for that I had a second glass of milk, because $5 was too much to pay for just one. Drinks used to be part of the dinner price. Plus when we came in, we were supposed to pay, but no one was at the cash register. The janitor saw us, called the waitress--there was only one waitress for the whole place, and she had to call the manager, who was supposed to be watching the cash register. She was in the back showing someone a picture of her new car on her cell phone! Sheesh.

So now we are back relaxing having had a great day. Glad I finally got to see Sturbridge Village!

Labels: crafts, food, history, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:39:00 PM

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We have several days already planned, but today was one of the unplanned ones. So I thought "Why not go to Gillette Castle?"

Gillette Castle has nothing to do with the guy who made the razors or the stadium where the New England Patriots play. William Gillette was a stage actor from the turn of the last century, a very celebrated actor, and a matinee idol. As one website commented, "He was the Benedict Cumberbatch of his day." He was also a playwright and an author, but his main claim to fame is that he brought Sherlock Holmes to the stage. This was after Arthur Conan Doyle, wanting to concentrate on more "serious" books, killed Holmes off in the last of his second set of short stories for the "Strand" magazine. Gillette got the rights to do a Holmes play, and, famously, he asked Doyle if he could have Holmes get married in the story. Doyle said offhandedly, "You may marry him or murder him!" He didn't care. So Holmes does marry in the play and there is no Watson. More importantly, it was Gillette, and not Doyle, who introduced the three things most associated with Sherlock Holmes: the calabash pipe, the deerstalker hat, and the Inverness cape. (Holmes does wear a deerstalker in at least one illustration, but he did not favor one. It's a hunting cap, for one!)

Gillette owned a good deal of beautiful land in southeastern Connecticut and had a good deal of money to go with it, so he built a three-story stone home, his "Castle," on the property. The house and grounds are now a state park.

So after breakfast we headed south, listening to "A Way With Words" and "Travel With Rick Steves." We were sent south on I-95, then I-295 to US6 through western Rhode Island. Good ol' "Suicide 6" doesn't seem to have been repaired since I left home, full of ruts and patches and uneven spots; thankfully we were soon on I-395 and headed in to Connecticut. We had some very nice fall color at the sides of the road, as brilliant as yesterday, but especially when we came off the freeway onto Connecticut route 82 through Norwich and westbound toward East Haddam. This was a lovely country road, with overhanging tree branches, dotted with homes, and swirls of golden leaves at every turn. This led to an even narrower country road into the park.

Except the Castle was closed for the season. Sigh... I remember when things were open until Hallowe'en. Now everything closes on bloody Columbus Day.

We were able to go into the visitor's center, and there is memorabilia there, including two deerstalker hats that Gillette used on stage. Like Walt Disney, later in his life Gillette got interested in small gauge railroad trains. The engine for one is in the center of the visitor center. So I took photos there, and of the beautiful view outside (like Biltmore House, the Castle was placed in that spot for a reason!), and the Castle through the trees.

 I was disappointed, but the ride on the country road was totally worth it. People say they want to find a place where there are no fast-food restaurants? Come to this part of Connecticut (near East Haddam). We didn't even see a local restaurant, just barns and homes and groves of lovely trees.

Anyway, once on a book blog I had read about a place in Connecticut called The Book Barn that is just that, a barn. It looked like, online, one of those funky places with lots of wind chimes, funny signs, and little nooks. So I set the GPS for it. Just before we got there, we stopped at a Dunkin Donuts for lunch. James had a ham-and-cheese on multigrain bagel, and I had a chicken salad on a "French roll." The chicken salad wasn't much, but the bread was worth the price of the sandwich.

So we arrive at the Book Barn, which is on the road with the house in the rear, and it's exactly as it looks online, one of those funky places with lots of wind chimes, funny signs, and little nooks! There are little sheds of different shapes between the barn and the house with books in them. Out front is where they buy books, a yard that is full of little carts with books in them, and then you walk on paths behind with garden benches, toys for kids to play with, a pen with two goats (one who tried to get me to feed her goat feed, but I didn't have the quarter), a small waterfall surrounded by garden decorations, a pathway decorated for Hallowe'en, a little kids' playhouse, a bigger shed in the back with mystery books called "The Haunted Bookshop," another airy shed with poetry and classics, and just cunning little signs, gnomes, metal flowers, etc. Up in the barn were histories, childrens and teens, self-help, and some others.

I found a travel book written by a man who travels from each of the World War I battle sites, part history, part travelogue, and part memoir, and James got a full-color book on aircraft. I told the cashier that I was looking for Christmas books and old children's books, and she directed us to the midtown store just down the street, but I didn't see either in the store! Maybe she misunderstood. Whatever. I found some L. Neil Smith books to replace James' missing ones, and a Third Doctor "missing adventure" with Jo and the Brigadier and the Master...jolly! There are four stores total, the actual barn (the original store, which the family has run for 28 years), the midtown store, the downtown store, and store number 4, which was closer to the Dunkin Donuts.

For the rest of the afternoon we went to the USS Nautilus museum in Groton. We've been there before, but James wanted to see if there was anything new, and there was: a new exhibit on the submarine NR1, which was retired in 2008. I took a few new pictures of the place, and tried out the panorama feature on the camera on the submarine itself. We did not go on it again as James would be unable to go below.

They closed at four, despite the notation on the website to the contrary, so we headed back to the hotel. However, I was keeping an eye on the time and as we approached Warwick noticed that it was bumper-to-bumper on the I-95 Cranston and Providence/Pawtucket traffic corridor. So I suggested to James that we stop somewhere to eat. And since we were pretty close to Iggy's, we went there (I told James we could go to The Inn, but he remembered how large the portions were; we have no place for leftovers).

We sat on the porch, which is enclosed for the winter although the sparrows can get under the covers; one did while were there and cheeped and flew around until he found his way out. Outside the seagulls cawed and quarreled among themselves, taking to the air and sailing around and then landing again. The ocean was like rippled midnight blue glass under a cloudless blue sky.

James ordered a shrimp platter and I a lobster roll; these came with exquisitely crunchy-outside fluffy-inside french fries, some not-overly-sweetened cole slaw, and tasty clam chowder. The lobster roll was seriously delicious, but now that I have eaten both kinds (this one with celery and a hot one with butter at Durgin Park on our last trip), I like the buttered kind better. :-)

And while we were there the sun lowered and shimmered orange on the edge of the horizon and then was gone, leaving only a emberglow in its wake and soon even that was gone. Sunsets always remind me of my parents. Mom would be in the kitchen washing dishes while Dad was in the parlor watching television. The parlor faced north and west and he could always see the sunset. If it was starting to look spectacular he would call for my mother and they would watch the sunset together.

Some traditions should go on.

Well, traffic was still stalled downtown, so I directed James to go down West Shore Road and follow 117 so we could get on I-295 again. Unfortunately, Apponaug apparently is undergoing another "streetlift." I swear every time we are instate they are fixing the road somewhere in Apponaug. There are orange barrels everywhere and we couldn't turn where we needed and had to wind our way around it. So by the time we got to 295 the traffic downtown was gone, but we used 295 anyway. We were heading directly to the hotel, but the GPS dropped us off right near the Barnes & Noble we couldn't get into last night, so...

I now have two of my four calendars for next year: a big New England calendar for work and a smaller one for my craft room. I was trying to find a 7 1/2 inch one for the spare room, where I usually put a travel-oriented calendar, but they didn't have anything local. I can get the generic calendars anywhere. I'll get a Susan Branch for our bedroom as usual.

So we're back at the hotel. Saw the end of an episode of The Waltons, Jay Leno's Garage, and are now on Castle, which is even more ridiculous than last week's show. The producers say they are trying to get back the "first-season feeling" again. Dammit, we've already done first season. What is with Ryan and Esposito being comic relief and Castle acting stupid? And Beckett is definitely not acting as she did in first season; she's eye-rolling and indulgent. It's horrendous.

Of course anything is better than what they're replacing it with for two weeks, some dreadful-sounding series about a pair of serial killers who are sexually involved with each other and find murdering people exciting. Where do series producers get these creepy ideas?

Labels: books, history, shopping, television, theater, travel

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:15:00 PM

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