After we saw the total eclipse in 2017, both our minds turned toward this year's event. Since Evansville, Indiana, would be in the path of totality, and was just a short drive over the Ohio River from Owensboro, Kentucky, where we stayed in 2008 to see the Remember WENN play (and met Jen Payne!), we had toyed with the idea of staying in Owensboro—and hopefully being able to eat at that terrific barbecue buffet again if it was still in business!—then driving over the border early in the morning to see totality.

Unfortunately, the last seven years have been...well, a fat bitch. A TURP, four hospital stays in 2022, UTIs and falls...James was in poor shape physically and mentally I wasn't a barrel of laughs. So we made no plans. And watching ABC's "Eclipse Across America" segment later in the week was depressing as well as thrilling. But, can't be helped. Instead on Monday we watched what Atlanta had of a partial eclipse (about 85 percent) from our driveway. It never got dark, or dusky, but the light, to me, had this silvery cast, and the temperature did noticeably drop and the wind picked up.

My favorite part of the eclipse was past peak: about ten minutes after what we got of totality, the mail lady came by. She said "Can I see? Can I see?" and I said yes and she stopped the mail truck in the middle of the street, jumped out, and I let her use my glasses!

Kept busy this week: Tuesday I shelved books in the library, returned all the fannish things I dragged out of the closet looking for the eclipse glasses to the closet and concatenated all our vacation souvenirs in one drawer in the spare room (where I found the eclipse glasses).

Wednesday James had a stellar workout at PT, and then we went to Barnes & Noble, which I suppose was a bad idea because I bought two books (but...they were history books and one was half off...) and the SVU magazine.

A victory on Thursdays: no more followup trips to the dermatologist! James' nose is now well enough to take the daily Band-Aid off. We also had an appointment with the sleep doctor—he's gonna see if he can get James a new C-PAP unit, but James will probably still need the sleep study first—which I had to leave early because I had my checkup scheduled for late this afternoon. As usual Dr. Mobley was over an hour late; thank goodness I had someone to chat with (thanks, Vanessa!) since James was stuck out in the waiting room.

Friday we went out to the Costco David (therapist) recommended to us, out where Macland Road intersects with Charles Hardy Parkway (which turns out to be the other end of Dallas Highway; it changes name when you hit the Paulding County line). In fact, we went through Dallas Highway and stopped at their Walmart first—nicely kept, but their sugar-free candy assortment isn't much; we did find more mushroom-flavored rice sides (but, horrors, they're on clearance! mushroom rice goes with everything). The Costco was not quite so empty as David described, but we walked around and picked up a couple of things.

Even though I do not "redd up" the house in summer, I did get some lawn decorations this week. There's nothing like neighbors having cookie-cutter bland front yards to inspire you to put up more decorations. I got a butterfly, bird, and blue flower, a rainbow pinwheel, and a tiny bunny to go between two mushrooms (do those garden decorators actually know what those fly agaric mushrooms are? LOL). I put them up on Sunday and trimmed the nandina, which was starting to look like it stuck a root in an electrical socket.

Labels: books, chores, decorations, events, food, health, magazines, nature, science, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 6:58:00 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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Here's a definition of irony: after thirteen days of a wretched cold/infection/whateverthehell, in which sleep has been grabbed in dribs and drabs and never complete, sleepless, frustrated, and quite annoyed, I get my best sleep in a damn bed in a tatty hotel that might have bedbugs in it. I slept the sleep of the exhausted, four hours straight, a trip to the bathroom, and four more hours straight.

For the record, I woke up with no red marks, no itching, no sign that I'd been molested by insects of any kind, and neither did James. Hope to God that we have escaped this plague. Anyway, we packed up our baggage (none of which had touched either of the beds) and then went to eat the "continental breakfast" offered. It was heavy on carbs (Froot Loops and Cheerios, honey buns, Danish, mini bagels) but there were also mini-sausage biscuits and oatmeal packets, and one of those ubiquitous waffle makers, and coffee, orange juice, and milk.

Finally we were able to pack up and drive over to the Country Inn and Suites to join everyone else; we put our shareables (goldfish crackers, grape, and packages of cookies) out, and Alice let us stash the luggage in their room. We got our pink parking pass (the hotel was towing anyone not staying at the hotel who parked in the lot after noon) and settled to talk and anticipate the eclipse.

I wandered outside at one point and found a man already setting up his camera, of course with the special filter. Talked with him for a bit, then wandered back in, sat for a while...it was a long morning, yet a short morning, and about 11:30 everyone pulled out the goodies they had brought with them for lunch—we had Kroger buns and Underwood chicken spread—and we had a big indoor picnic.

Outside things started to be busy. Alice and Caran were setting up chairs under a little group of trees behind the hotel. I pulled out the little folding table we bought at Academy Sports, and that was a hit, but in the end the little tent shelter was a bust. I pulled it out of its container and Juanita and a guy named Daniel tried to help me put it up, but we hadn't gotten far when it was almost one o'clock and time to watch the sun get eaten by a dragon. Thank goodness for the trees!

In the meantime a crowd had gathered; our folks, hotel customers, folks who just walked up, people parking in the big grassy lot in front of the hotel. Bill's friend Eric showed up.

I didn't have any filter for my camera lens. I knew people would be taking much better pictures than me, so what I wanted to do was film the event as it got nearer to darkness, chronicle the birds heading for the trees, the crickets starting up, the lights coming on, the peculiar blurry dim light that happens as more of the moon slides past the sun. Unfortunately when I put my camera in movie mode it looked like everything was overexposed. (I found out later that something had jiggled the exposure settings, but too late for filming then.) Well, Caran had a spare filter which we jerryrigged to the lens of my camera with painter's tape, and then I was taking photos, too!

At first, as the moon is taking its first "nips" of the sun, you don't notice much except that the wind starts coming up a little. As more and more of the sun is consumed, you start noticing the light getting funny. It's hard to explain. It's not like it's getting dark, but the light getting dimmer, and although even before totality it isn't dark, you have to squint...it's kind of silvery is only how I can explain it.

As the sun waned, I was looking for something that had entranced me during the last partial eclipse we had here in 1991. We were still in the old yellow building in Buckhead and I remember going outside and standing under the big tree that grew out of the deck of the bar—Buckhead was full of bars in those days—on Buckhead Avenue. The partially-eclipsed sun was shining through the gaps in the leaves, and the gaps in the leaves acted like pinhole cameras: you could see the crescent of the sun projected on the concrete decking of the parking lot.

Sure enough, projected through the leaves of the trees we were sheltering under between bouts of staring at the sun in our approved eclipse glasses, there were the crescent shapes. People must have thought I was berserk: "Look at the crescents!" Even better, Clair had bought a cheap umbrella, pricking tiny holes in it hoping that the pinholes would act like a pinhole camera. I guess they were too small, but when she stood under the tree, the crescent shapes between the leaves projected on the dark umbrella. It was too cool.

As the sun dimmed, people were still milling around, including a guy with a young Sheltie he was trying to teach manners. He would have "Scooter" sit before allowing him to be petted. What a lovely dog!

And then the light got more silvery and dim, and the crescent sun through the glasses became thinner, and thinner...and we saw Baily's beads (the sun shining through the mountains of the moon) and the "diamond ring" (the final glare of light) and then it was dark—not midnight dark, but more like sunset dark—and the lights had come on, and Venus hung in the sky and the crickets were chirping like mad, and we could rip off our glasses and look full at the sun with the moon before it: a dark circle with the halo of the corona dancing around it. People burst out cheering and clapping and screaming and someone shot off fireworks "to scare off the dragon eating the sun." You can see photos but nothing compared with being there...nothing, nothing, nothing like seeing it happen in person!

IT WAS TOTALLY WICKED COOL AND FREAKING AWESOME!

The sun at totality. (Thanks again for the filter, Caran!)

And then the minute or so of totality we got was over, and back came Baily's beads and the diamond ring and back on went the eclipse glasses and the filter over the camera lens, time to dance about giddily at what you had just seen and hug people because it was just so freaking amazing, and watch the moon move on and the sun emerge. (And all those cars pick up and leave and cause a traffic jam down the main street of Helen...LOL.)

Finally it was time to pack up all the chairs and the little table and the useless tent and move back inside. Caran had said she was going to take a good shower when she got to her room, and the two of us, not being sun people, lured out into the heat, decided that sounded wonderful, too. My feet were so warm when we got inside that I put them over the vent of the A/C to cool them off. And the shower was almost as good as the eclipse!

Basking in eclipse afterglow, we all gathered back in the common room. Some of the group went to Bodensee, the German restaurant, for supper, but we walked (well, I walked and James wheeled) with the Boulers and the Gibsons to the barbecue place downtown (it really was not a long walk; the heat was just oppressive again) where the Spiveys and Terry, and Isabel and Miguel were waiting (they drove up for the day and ran into no traffic on the way up). This was the place James fell last year and they gave us ribs on the house. I remember them being good ribs, so I had those, and he had a pork dinner that was so big he ate half the plate and was able to take enough home that we had two sandwiches each of it for supper on Tuesday night. Country music played in the background and we all just smiled a lot.

After eating we walked up to the t-shirt shop with Juanita and David. Juanita saw some beautiful eclipse t-shirts yesterday and they bought some and everyone was interested when they saw how lovely they were. The gentleman at the store said he would order more if we could get thirty-six more, and from the crowd that came up to see the eclipse we made up the correct number. So we put our deposit down, and then had some ice cream from the place two doors down from the t-shirt place and then walked back to the hotel.

We found ourselves in the common room for a while with a few people, including Juanita, who had a bad tooth and was feeling terrible. I got her my shirt because she had the chills and later some Ambesol. Chatted for a while, but everyone was exhausted and we were back in our room before the ten o'clock news. We were hoping to see eclipse reports, but the Donald had chosen tonight to make an announcement about sending troops to Afghanistan and we had to wait until the interesting portions of the news came up (since we had to wait through another one of those interminable reality shows to get to it). We had spied a Fox5 Atlanta van in downtown Helen earlier and sure enough there was a news report on people watching the eclipse downtown.

When we went to bed we were still smiling.

Freaking awesome, I tell you!

Labels: events, food, friends, nature, science, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:23:00 PM

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"As we say when approaching a tall piece of cheddar, better start from the top." . . . . . Father Mouse, Twas the Night Before Christmas

Back in March when we were at Atomicon, some talk emerged about the upcoming eclipse, so when I made reservations for next year, on a whim I put in a reservation for the Monday night of the eclipse. Now I didn't think I had a chance in hell of getting two days off during end of fiscal year, but if I did I thought we could just toss a change of clothes in a suitcase, take the fids to the vet, and go up early Monday morning, watch the eclipse with everyone and have dinner, then leave the next morning. After all, we had gone to the eclipse panel at Anachrocon, received free glasses, and it sounded incredible. We'd had a partial eclipse here in 1991—I remember going out to the parking deck at work and seeing "the crescents"; the leaves of the tree growing out of the deck of the bar near our parking lot acted like a pinhole camera and reflected the crescent sun on the concrete parking lot—but neither James nor I had ever seen a total eclipse.

I put in a leave slip and, to my surprise, got the leave. James also was allowed to take two days' vacation.

Then the news stories started popping up. This wasn't going to just be a "teaching moment" for schools while people rushed outside at work with eclipse glasses enjoy the show. Expeditions were being planned. Rabun County, up in northeastern Georgia in the longest part of totality, was planning a big "do." James commented that he wished we'd made reservations for Sunday night, too, because the closer the event came, the more concerned he was that we might start out Monday morning and find ourselves in a traffic jam, since the vet didn't open until 7:30. So about mid-July I hunted online and found a room for us Sunday night. (I won't mention the name of the lodgings due to what happened later on.)

We were very excited about this coming up. And then came last week's Cold. If it had been a mild sore throat and a little runny nose, I wouldn't have cared. But the pain in my throat was tremendous. Swallowing was more painful than when I had the mumps. I don't go to the doctor twice within four days for nothing, and to be told your throat wasn't irritated on Monday and end up with "a fever blister" on my throat by Thursday was frustrating. I couldn't sleep, I felt so bad I couldn't even read, I had work I wanted to finish and at least one purchase order that's pretty much blown up in my face. And I had a trip to plan with a fuzzy head and a ringing ear and a runny nose and a sore throat that felt like strep.

Nevertheless, everything got packed from all the medicines to the charge cords for the cell phones.

Saturday night when we got home from Ron's birthday dinner we noticed there were messages on the answering machine that we hadn't listened to. Most were from Kaiser, but one was from the vet—they were having employee appreciation day on Sunday and would be closed! Well, they would be closed after 9 a.m., anyway. We would have to be there early, but we were planning to do that anyway.

Needless to say, neither of us got a lot of sleep, but I think I clocked in at two or so hours. We tossed suitcases, C-PAP, food to share, the charger for the power chair, and the power chair in the truck, then I woke Snowy up, and before he could protest, plucked him from his nighttime perch and put him into the carry box (where, of course, he promptly began courting the cute bird in the mirror). The cage went into a big trash bag to load in the truck, and once Tucker and Snowy were aboard as well, we were on our way.

The vet's office was deserted when we got there, and I was quite upset. But there was a car parked next to us, and it turned out it was one of the vet techs waiting for someone to show up with the keys. Soon Dr. Mike and more staff arrived, and I used one of the exam rooms to transfer Snowy back into his cage—Snowy is a seasoned traveler and sang through the entire journey—and fill his water dishes and food dish. Tucker wildly sniffed around the small room until Dr. Mike entered and squatted down to meet him and then he went wagging into his arms. Not at all like Miss Willow who was Daddy's little girl only and had to be bodily removed, crying the whole time.

And then they were gone and we were on our way after breakfast at Panera. By that time we needed it!

We had an uneventful ride. Stopped to top off the tank of the car in Dawsonville just in case there was traffic in Helen. Discovered that the new Appalachian Parkway was open; you don't even need to go through the town of Cleveland anymore; you come out on Helen Highway at the Catholic church.

We reached our hotel well before the check-in time of four o'clock, but did stop by to see if early check-in was a possibility. The place was very, very busy and the clerk distracted, but he said to check back with him about two. In the meantime, it was almost lunchtime. We knew the Spiveys were about 20 minutes behind us because Terry had messaged us, but was anyone else actually in Helen and did they want the shareable stuff we had brought and what was everyone doing for lunch?

We finally got ahold of Juanita. She and David and Keith Tarpley were eating at the Huddle House; she said everywhere else was packed. We were exhausted and joined them for lunch, and it was such a relief to have someone to talk to. We were both hot and frazzled and worried about the stuff in the back of the truck.

(Originally the plan was to take the car and the Rollator. We were just going to drive to the hotel, watch the eclipse, probably drive somewhere to dinner, and then hang around till next morning. We weren't expecting the crowd of 100,000 people it said on the news! So we wouldn't have had to worry about the stuff in back in the truck bed; it would have been in the hatchback. Changes have consequences.)

After eating, though, we had nothing to do, so basically we went back to our hotel and sat in the lobby with our stuff where it was air conditioned and comfortable and read and waited. People came in and asked about early check-in and kept being told the 4 p.m. story, but a couple of times they were told it was because the lower level was cleaned first and they were on the upper level. Eventually, about 2:30 we got into our room.

This was not one of the best hotels in Helen, and I knew that going in. It was an older property, and it was rather like the inexpensive motels we always stayed at when I was a kid: basic two beds, a dresser with a TV, a desk and a chair, and the sink in an alcove with the toilet and tub in another room. It was a bit down-at-the-heels but looked clean (much better than the place we stayed at in Kentucky in 2012, coming home from Michigan), and I stacked everything on the desk or dresser so we could flop down on the beds and relax until it was time to find out what folks were doing for dinner. I put the air conditioner on "afterburner" and once the stuffy air started to disperse I lost the claustrophobic feeling I got when we walked in the door. We both lay down to nap, but James was restless and we weren't lying down long. So we were talking and he made a joke about fleabag hotels and I looked down next to the pillows I'd been napping on and...

There was something moving.

Yes, there was some type of insect in my bed, very tiny, like a sesame seed. You can imagine what I thought! Bedbugs are always in the news these days. I got the tiny insect on a tissue and looked it up on line and it looked like a couple of pictures on the internet (but didn't look like most of the pictures on the internet). I was suddenly ill. There were no more rooms in town; I called around. If we didn't stay we would have to go home. So I marched down to the office with the little insect still crawling around in the Kleenex and showed it to the manager in private. He said he'd never seen one like it before—but then of course that's what you'd expect him to say—but that it probably came in on one of the cleaning carts. He said that he would send someone down to spray the room while we were out to supper. And I went back to the room not wanting to sit on anything and thanking God I had not put any of our luggage on the bed.

So we heard from Juanita and they were getting up a party to go to Bigg Daddy's. We said we'd drive down there and reserve tables. It was very crowded and very hot and very loud (they had live music), but we were seated fairly quickly and did have a good dinner. (Unfortunately I didn't finish my wings because by that point I was so tired and so unhappy and so freaked out, and we brought them back to the hotel and then forgot them the next morning.) Then we went back to the other hotel (the one everyone else was at and where we would be on Monday night) to hang with everyone for a while. They'd also had to wait until four to check in, and we weren't the only ones feeling exhausted.

By now I was very unsettled and slightly panicky. All the tensions of work and the annoyances of the cold and the fear from it being hard to swallow and breathe, and the heat, and the tumult of planning and packing were just sitting on my shoulders. I needed to talk to someone and quite badly, and when Juanita got back from calling Jessie (Jessie is on a five-month internship at Disney) I asked her if we could talk, and we went into the breakfast room, which was quite dim and cool and pleasant...and I talked and cried a lot and she counseled and reassured. I felt so bad about burdening on someone, but she was so sweet and said it was okay; that she could sense that I was very tense lately and that I wasn't looking like my old self. And here I thought I was doing the best Court Jester act I could. We talked a long time and then James wandered in looking for me and the conversation became more general.

We headed back to our hotel about 9:30, still puzzling over what to do about the insect occurrence. I searched the beds again looking for signs of bedbugs and found none of them (trust me, I checked on line to see what all of them were). I don't know where the original insect came from; we found no more, but I was still crawly. Instead of us sleeping on the bed (we each took one of the double beds), I pulled two blankets from the drawer and I slept in one like a sleeping bag in just my underwear. (They evidently don't use Downy or Snuggle in their laundry; these felt like Army blankets!) James didn't feel comfortable just doing underwear and also wore a shirt. But nothing else touched the beds except our bodies and those particular clothes.

(Neither of us found any bites the next morning, nor were we itchy. So I hope that's a good sign, but I'm still scared to death.)

...to be continued...

Labels: depression, events, food, friends, science

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:52:00 PM

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That sun is always too bright, especially at ten o'clock. But then we were up really late, because Mike had turned up on chat and we hadn't spoken to him in awhile. We did not visit our beloved pillows until around 2:30 a.m.

It was business as usual: taking Tucker for a walk, breakfast, and the weekly trip to Kroger. We found some meat bargains, and James picked up ground pork to make "pork glop" with peanut butter. I chose to buy a couple boxes of the Jimmy Dean chicken barbecue sliders and we had one each after we put the groceries away. Two of them make a nice meal; these were just a snack.

There was something, unfortunately, we'd forgotten at Kroger. I wanted wild bird seed anyway, as I had cleaned off the deck last night and noticed how lonesome the empty feeders looked, so we went to Walmart. Of course none of the power carts worked (the ones at Walmart always look like gorillas have used them in games of catch, and some kind person had left chicken bones on the footboards of the dead one I found in the parking lot), so James limped through the store as we picked up the pharmacy item he needed, then I left him at the bench at the pharmacy and went to fetch the birdseed.

On the way home, we stopped at Lowe's to get the parts to fix the shelf in the closet, although it's not going to get done this weekend. It's already after three and it will take us an hour just to get the coats and the pants out of the closet and get ready to work. We had an extra key made as well so that the next time one of us gets locked out there's a chance a friend will have the correct one!

Once at home, we refilled the can and I topped off the bird feeders and put out the finch sock I bought at Kroger. I always whistle as I refill the feeders, in the hope that the birds will come to associate the whistling with full feeders. (I know, how Pavlovian.) It must work because there have been two cardinals, two chickadees, and a titmouse there already. :-) I'm hoping the finch sock will bring the goldfinches back—at least before the damn squirrel chews through it.

Sat down to watch some things off the DVR. Saw an episode of The New Lassie that Angel2 had previously not rerun. I don't remember this episode at all; it's the "infamous" one that features a young Leonardo DiCaprio. Despite that, it was a pretty good episode, with a rattlesnake threatening an antique shop owner whom Will is doing business with for a baseball card. Stopped the DVR-ing long enough to watch the last fifteen minutes of the Pioneers of Television special on Robin Williams. Still makes me cry.

Next a new Brian Unger show, Time Travels. Once again Unger investigates historical events, but this one is much better than the second season of How the States Got Their Shapes. In each episode, Unger goes to two locations, and takes five people along with him to discover hidden history. The first episode featured the Golden Gate Bridge (they went down into the piers where the suspension wires are buried) and the first famous skyscraper in New York City, the Woolworth Building—apparently tourists aren't allowed inside! What a shame; the lobby is so beautiful, with fretwork and mosaic work, and Frank Woolworth's office in the penthouse is mostly marble. The second show featured the gunfight at the O.K. Corral (secret: that wasn't where the gunfight was held) and "divorce ranches" from the 1930s-1960s. I have the rest of the series scheduled to record!

We watched the last Big Picture I had recorded, about trash and the recycling of same, as we ate dinner, the shrimp from Trader Joe's with spaghetti in garlic butter sauce on the side. Now we are watching Star Talk with Christopher Nolan as the guest star.

Next up: Call the Midwife!

Labels: birds, food, history, science, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 7:11:00 PM

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The weekend festivities actually began on Thursday, with our work picnic. This was held once again at Jones Bridge Park in Norcross. (The iron bridge once crossed the Chattahoochee River, which runs parallel to the park grounds, but was closed before World War II; indeed, half of it is gone, having been dismantled for scrap in the war.) It was chilly in the morning; I even had to wear my jacket. Sadly, it was also sunny, so it got very warm by afternoon.

It was a swell party. I had the usual complaint about loud music, but it wasn't on too long. Lunch was "burgers and dogs" with fixings, chips, some fruit, ate with Tiffney and Vivian, listening to some others do kareoke.

One of my favorite things happens after lunch: I take a walk along the river, then through the woods in back of the picnic area. Parts of the undergrowth are fenced off because of past erosion, so there are several flights of steps down to the river that end at small streatches of rock before dropping off into the water. People like to sit at the foot of the largest flight of steps and feed the ducks and the geese. There were at least five or six dozen of mallards and Canada geese on the river today, ducking underwater for their dinner or preening, or just drifting like little flotillas upon the sun-drenched water.

As I descended one of the smaller sets of steps, I spied a squirrel at the edge of the path. As I wondered if I could slip my phone out to get a photo of him, there was a wild scratching from the trash can less than two feet from me. In the opening appeared another squirrel face, looking panicked, then the squirrel scrambled out of the trash can and beat it into the underbrush! How I laughed!

The woods path was strewn with dead leaves and had the delightful scent of fall, although the trees are not turned as much as they've been in previous years. There were birdcalls overhead and at one point I saw a wren flirting his tail on the rail of a little bridge that goes over a creek from the river.

By midafternoon I was starting to feel uncomfortable with the sun and wary about Thursday traffic—it was already backing up near Roswell Road—so I got on my way. I stopped for a few minutes at "The Forum," a shopping center just down from Jones Bridge Road to check out the Barnes & Noble. I finally did find The Tale of Castle Cottage, which I searched for all last weekend. I also stopped at Publix to buy some bread and some twofers.

My first stop Friday was the Cobb County Library book sale. I also went to Wally World for Breathe Right strips and other necessary items. I had perishables, so came directly home. Had things to clean up and got lured into reading the first of the Trixie Belden books I had bought. We had supper at Hibachi Grill and then decided to hit Publix again, then finished up the shopping at Kroger since James had to work on Sunday.

We were in bed early because we were up at seven on Saturday to head up to Ellijay to the Apple Festival. This was our first time going on Saturday, so we wanted to get there when they opened. We went by Wendy's for breakfast; their oatmeal isn't as good as Chik-Fil-A, but it was on the way and you can get it plain, unlike the glop at Burger King. Traffic was fine and we saw a few nice-looking autumn trees among otherwise uninspiring pines.

They were parking us near the Lions' Club grounds again this year, although we had a good hike to the gate. Most of the usual vendors were there and we had a grand time for over two hours wandering in and out of the booths. We bought a couple of gifts, our last Ginny's Fudge for the year, a few little autumnal decorations—oh, and a new cabinet for the dining room.

I've been wanting to get something new to replace the old microwave cart for a while. The gentleman who made our table and chair set and the medicine cabinet that we bought at the Yellow Daisy Festival also sold a lovely little china cabinet, half the size of the one we have, that would have been perfect. But he hasn't shown up at the show since 2002. I've looked online since then, trying to find something comparable. The closest idea I had was to buy a Leksvik buffet from Ikea and then mount shelves on the wall—in fact, James and I were talking about this last week at the Container Store—but I didn't want to mar the walls.

This isn't my ideal cabinet. It's plain boards dry brushed with white so it looks "distressed." I'm not fond of the look. But it is nice and sturdy, and has three shelves on top and an enclosed cupboard on the bottom. With some autumnal trim it ought to look fine. Our decorating is nothing but eclectic anyway. :-)

By the time we found the pickup spot and got the cabinet loaded, the sun was doing a number on both of us. (We both take medications that say we shouldn't be in the sun too long, and we've lucked out the last two times in that it was cloudy.) At least it was still cool, with a nice breeze. We were happy to thread our way out through a huge car show they were having in the baseball fields next to the Lions' Club grounds. There were some great cars, too: at least a half-dozen blue-and-white 1950s Chevy Bel-Airs, 1930s cars made into roadsters, 1960s muscle cars, old pickup trucks with shiny engine parts, and even a PT Cruiser painted in a flame job.

We stopped at Panorama Orchards on the way out, to get our apples and also a fresh apple pie, some sugar-free taffy for James, some goat-milk hand moisturizer for me, and some apricot teriyaki marinade. We stopped at Krystal for a quick lunch and then drove back listening to last week's episode of "The Splendid Table," and arrived at the hobby shop just in time for James' club meeting. I had bought The Doomsday Vault with me and spent the meeting reading.

We had soup for supper and spent the evening recovering from the sun. I wasn't sunburnt, but my skin felt hot long into the night. Jen was able to get on chat and, later, Mike and Emma, but I spent most of the evening in a stupor. Went to bed an hour earlier than usual, and ended up stuck in the bathroom at 2:30 in the morning. I guess my popcorn sensitivity is back. Gah.

James was off to work before I was even conscious. I got up at nine, conscious that I had a distasteful task to start today. No, not housework: clothes shopping. I need a new outfit for Juanita's wedding in November. The prospect filled me with dread. I've never liked clothes shopping, even when I was at my ideal weight. But this had to be done.

First I went to Publix for a newspaper and some bread, then came home and tried to tidy up a bit. I ended up cutting coupons and watching the "Space Jump," Felix Baumgartner trying to set a new record for a free-fall jump from space. Coaching him through the attempt is the previous record-holder, from the 1960s. Sadly, I had to leave before he jumped, but I did record it.

To take the onus off the errand, I went back to the book sale for about an hour, details here. And finally I girded my loins and went to Catherine's.

The salespeople were incredibly nice. The first thing I needed was a properly fitting brassiere. My current one hurt, made worse by the surgery scars and arthritis. By rummaging around and deciding no underwires, I did find one. Yay. I also found a nice dressy black top, but I wanted a skirt and there were almost all pants there. Look, if I'm going to get dressed, I'm going to get dressed. I did find a skirt I liked, but it was, ironically, too large.

I discovered caftans are apparently in again, and when I dropped by Ross Dress for Less, I found out to my horror that so are miniskirts. That's all that was there in a skirt, minis. Ugh. I couldn't even find skirts in Kohl's. Acres and acres of casual tops, dressy tops, casual dressy tops—but no skirts! Fuggedaboutit. I came home and watched the rest of Baumgartner coverage (I peeked on Facebook; he landed okay) until it was just time for him to make the jump itself. It was just time for James to come in, so I paused it. Too cool: he guided the parachute right down to a two-point landing right on his feet from twenty-three miles up! Plus he broke the sound barrier on the way down! Today, incidentally, is the anniversary of Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier in 1947 in the Bell X-1.

We had supper; we watched America's Funniest Home Videos, another heartbreaking episode of Call the Midwife, and finally Mythbusters before it was bedtime.

Labels: animals, autumn, books, clothing, crafts, food, nature, science, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:01:00 PM

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...I never did quite get over Jurassic Park (it's all Sam Neill's fault...LOL):

MSU Finds Triceratops/Torosaurus Were Different Stages of One Dinosaur

Labels: news, science

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 5:30:00 PM

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Broadcasting now: real-time coverage of the launch, mission, moonwalk, and return:

We Choose the Moon

It's one hour until launch...

Labels: history, science

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 8:27:00 AM

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