Looking ahead, not back
Tonight we celebrate the year’s end with friends at Oddfellas Cantina in Floyd, enjoying good food and listening to the always-excellent music of Bernie Coveney, Chris Luster and other musicians who will join them on stage before Rob Neukirch’s restaurant closes for its annual sojourn for the month of January.
Year’s end
The end of the year approaches at breakneck speed. Anyway you look at it, 2005 moved quickly. The year that began in the aftermath of the Pacific tsunami and saw the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the divisive war in Iraq ends with more questions than answers, more anxiety than hope, and more trepidation than determination.
For Amy and I, the year brought changes in attitude along with changes in latitude (with apologies to Jimmy Buffett) – our first year completely away from the hustle and bustle of Washington.
Tempus Fugit
Talk about a senior moment (or week or month or year). It just occurred to me (doh!) that only three days (counting today) remain in 2005.
Where the heck did the year go? Did we buy this house a year ago? If we’ve been here a year why do we still have boxes left to unpack in the garage? Why are some walls still bare?
Buyer beware
After deciding to relocate permanently to Southwestern Virginia we toyed with building a new home on farmland we own in Carroll County but, instead, purchased an existing home near Floyd. After watching the trials and tribulations of David and Gretchen St. Lawrence with their homebuilding project we’re damn glad we did.
Animal farm
David St. Lawrence has been blogging about our cats and the corporate structure that felines employ when they take over a household (as all cats do) and how they have reacted with the introduction of David and Gretchen’s two animals during their stay with us while their new house is completed in Floyd County.
Feline fellowship
An inherent danger emerges from giving your wife a digital SLR for Christmas. Our resident cats already know this danger all too well as they are the first subjects of a digital shooter gone wild. As soon as the battery was charged on her new Canon Rebel XT she went on a shooting frenzy.
‘Twas the day before Christmas
‘Twas the day before Christmas and all through the house, everybody was stirring – including the mice.
Yuletide is, without a doubt, the most hectic of holidays. You scurry here and there, buying presents, gathering decorations, buying food for the traditional dinner and wondering why, once again, you didn’t get Christmas cards in the mail.
Christmas this year was complicated by the ice storm that wouldn’t die. Two straight days of temperatures above 40 degrees have finally started to dent the sheet of solid ice that coats our driveway but Greenbriar Lane remains slick and treacherous as do many county roads. We ventured over to Goose Creek last night for Fred and Ann First’s annual holiday bash and found his road still ice covered, providing a luge-like ride down the narrow dirt road that leads to Castle First.
The St. Lawrences, who moved from Charlottesville to Floyd County last week to find their home not ready for human habitation, reside in our guest bedroom along with two cats that disturb The Force in our four cats’ lives, giving David a chance to comment on feline corporate hierarchy in his popular blog.
Tomorrow, my mother joins us for Christmas dinner and the opening of presents. But I remember a time before Christmas 52 years ago when she, in an attempt to be modern and honest, told me the truth about Santa Claus, a piece of vital information that I could not wait to share with my classmates at Floyd Elementary School. Several broke into tears and Mrs. Houchins, my teacher, promptly dispatched me to the principal’s office where I got a lecture and three days detention, It was my first lesson that telling the truth can get you into trouble, a lesson repeated many times over during my journalism career.
Don’t fence us in
Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above,
Don’t fence me in.
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love,
Don’t fence me in.
Let me be by myself in the evenin’ breeze,
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees,
Send me off forever but I ask you please,
Full contact basketball
Anybody who thinks high school girls basketball is a game for sissies hasn’t been to any of Floyd County High School’s games recently. Both the junior varsity (right) and varsity teams play full contact basketball with a no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners style.