SWeetlove

Just another WordPress weblog

But it stole my blog.

I need to get out and take some photos.  Yesterday was the first day in over two weeks that I felt really good.  So  I will be going out and looking for targets of opportunity soon.

Here is a photo from an ice storm we had awhile ago.   It’s pretty bad when you have to resort to this, isn’t it?  But it’s a new photo anyway that I have never put up and it’s kind of nice.  It has a certain symmetry

Or not.

This past weekend was a real eye opener as far as the economy is concerned.  We went to a Christmas party that is packed every year and there were quite a few empty tables this year.  Then we went to see The Nutcracker and there were very many empty seats at the Saturday evening performance.

It’s not looking good sports fans.  Have you noticed anything like this in your neighborhood?

But it said on the news that people are still buying Christmas trees.  So that’s good.  Maybe they are just staying home and enjoying them more.

I hope so.

I enjoy taking walks at the University of Richmond and taking photos of the lovely campus. It’s practically in our backyard. So tonight we were happy to see the U of R football team has made it into the national championship game and will play Montana next week. This is Division AA football in case you were wondering about that. Montana? U of R? Who?
Congratulations to them. They really cut this one kind of close by winning by one point in the last eleven seconds.
I was watching the first half before we went out to see The Nutcracker and it didn’t look very promising for the Spiders.

Glad to see they hung in there.

Kellie Pickler

Play Santa Baby

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Kathryn must have read my blog about Santa being an alien because she seems a little upset here. Or maybe she’s just thinking about the Dow Jones average. I don’t know. But Charlie seems to be taking it all in stride.
Sarah sent me this photo today and it is such a wonderful reminder that Christmas activities are happening. Somewhere.
I am much better today and looking forward to taking some photos of Christmas lights downtown this weekend.  The dark storms have passed and there is bright light outside again as well as lots of fluffy clouds.

What a difference a day can make.

Mark Snow

Play Materia Primoris from The X-Files

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There’s a very thick cloud cover out here this morning.  It’s not raining much but the unrelenting clouds are so thick there is very little daylight.  And my broadband connection is not working either (so I am on the laptop).  Seldom do we have days this dark around here.  They have an eerie quality.

A familiar environment has a different cast.  And it’s quiet too except for the sound of rain hitting the pavement and cars running through small pools of water that have converged everywhere.   There are sodden leaves on the ground.  Trees have thrown up their limbs in despair.

And when the internet stops coming to my house I start assuming it’s not working anywhere.  Throw in a couple of Tivo’d Frontline broadcasts from last evening about the sorry state of the world and I start imagining there has been a major disaster somewhere that has destroyed it.

Maybe today is the day.  Maybe the aliens have landed.

Do you ever have apocaplyptic dreams?

They have huge ships.  One will come over the horizon and be overhead while the back end is still not in sight.   In my dreams we are always running around in little rebel bands trying to shoot them.  But I suppose it’s possible they are already here.  Maybe they have integrated into the population.  Or maybe they live at the bottom of the ocean.

Maybe Santa Clause started out as an alien.  His sleigh was actually a space ship.  He and his brothers and sisters lived underneath the North Pole at the bottom of the ocean.  But he got tired of waiting for the signal to invade.  Eventually his group leader said it would be alright if he went out once a year and visited with the inhabitants of the planet.

But he would have to leave presents in order to distract the humans while he made his getaway and he would be required to wear a red suit  in honor of his ancestors.

Who were from Mars of course.

Maybe.  Who knows?   I’m just adding another layer of  weirdness to a story that is already pretty weird.     There’s  a guy up there at the North Pole who makes toys all year long with his wife and a bunch of elves.   The he loads them on a sleigh that is pulled by flying reindeer.   And he’s a fat, jolly old guy but his preferred method of entering  the home is to jump down the chimney.

It’s all pretty strange.  But then life is strange.   Hopefully the rain will turn to snow at some point and things will start looking a lot nicer outside.  Right now it looks like we are caught in a time warp on Halloween night.

And that’s not the place we want to be.

It’s day twelve of the chest cold and the thing is still sitting there causing mayhem.  Part of the problem revolves around those little round red pills they sell at Rite Aid  for decongestion.   I was taking two of them every twelve hours for about a week until one day I read the package and realized they had cut the dosage of the most important ingredient by two thirds!

So I should have been taking six of these things each time instead of two.  No wonder they weren’t working!

And I have entered the Lord of the Rings fantasy world because day to day reality is making me crazy.  This PC world of hobbits and elves has amazing graphics.  Plus you can join a kinship and talk to other people online.  I have joined the ARCH PRESIDIUM which apparently is a bunch of older guys and girls who are way beyond my character.  They are level 50 or 60 and my character, Breezee, has made it to level 12.

It’s really nice to have one of them around when you get in a fight with an evil creature.  They can fry him in a second like a bug zapper.

It’s nice to have a big brother finally after all these years.

And the last thing that has kept me away from blogging involves my visit with the U of R people last Friday evening.   And it required a bit of introspection to figure out.  Since I started blogging over a year ago I have managed to keep “reality” and blogging separate.  And it was possible to write without many inhibitions.   Because every day life is full of those around here.

So suddenly my little protected area was full of people during and after the party.  And it’s the first time this has happened.  It’s almost as if  I’m still at the party talking to a professor or an administrator about blogging while I write and it’s very inhibiting.

I don’t want to say something foolish or appear to be an idiot.  Things that in the past have not been very important as many of you know.

So it’s the perfect storm of blog crushing elements.  Only time will tell how it turns out.

It would be nice to GET WELL SOON.   THAT would be a step in the right direction!

Every year Beth and I go to Maymont Park and take a ride in this carriage or one much like it.  We climb up in the back in the dark under the moon and meet a few couples who have come out with the same idea.  Knee to knee for a few minutes we trade a few remarks and then listen to the horses as they step down the path.

Later we go inside for some traditional hot drinks and cookies.  But only after standing around the Yule log and toasting marsh mellows.   There are men and women dressed in traditional Victorian dress.  And, of course, plenty of Christmas decorations.

It’s a Christmas from long ago and we wouldn’t miss it.

Josh Groban

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Play The Christmas Song

It’s thirty eight degrees outside.  And there is no sky.  Just clouds.  The oak leaves are barely hanging on the trees.   Most of them are on the ground waiting for my son to make time in his busy schedule to pick them up and put them in a barrel.  He was up on the roof yesterday cleaning the gutters so there is hope.

And my chest cold continues to hammer me at night.  I mention it because this is the time of year to be out and taking photos of Christmas decorations.   But I need to stay in and try to get well.

We did go out last night to an Open House held at the University of Richmond president’s home.  And we enjoyed some good food and relaxed conversation along with some of our neighbors.  I met Ed and Abby Ayers, the President of U of R and his wife.  Mrs. Ayers was kind enough to let me take a photo of them both in front of the fireplace.

I talked for awhile with an English professor whose last name I unfortunately have forgotten.  His first name is Allen and it was a thrill to talk to an English prof again after forty years.  It brought back memories of the many kind men and women who gently tried to drill some knowledge into my stubbornly thick chrome domium years ago.

Some of the guests at the festivities

Probably many of them have gone on to far less  rocky pastures by now.  It’s such a privilege to be around men and women who have devoted their lives to learning and want to share it with young people.  Did we appreciate it back then?  Mostly, no.  But I appreciated it last night sitting with Allen, my wife  and some of our neighbors drinking wine and trying to conjure up some holiday spirit.

I went to Boston University during the Vietnam War when the campus and the city were, literally, going up in flames at times.  The campus is on a narrow piece of land between the Charles River and Commonwealth Avenue.   It was and is all concrete with narrow patches of grass and a few trees struggling with the car fumes.  It was nice on a breezy day to put a blanket down and watch the sailboats swing back and forth across the river.  While we studied of course.

But U of R is much more like the campus I would choose now with its stately buildings and rolling hills.  And I have spent many hours there getting some exercise, taking some photos and not worrying for one second about a final exam.

So everything works out well in the end.  I promise some photos soon and we are also going downtown this year to take Christmas photos of the displays around the large buildings.  Maymont Park is on the agenda as well as The Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens.

I know it will be a difficult Christmas this year for many who have been laid off and don’t know when the next paycheck will arrive.   They are in our thoughts as well.

Dr Ayers is responsible for the creation of a wonderful website called The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War.

About Dr. Ayers

In July 2007, Edward Ayers assumed the presidency of the University of Richmond. Previously Dean of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia, where he began teaching in 1980, Ayers was named the National Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 2003.

A historian of the American South, Ayers has written and edited ten books. The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In the Presence of Mine Enemies: Civil War in the Heart of America won the Bancroft Prize for distinguished writing in American history and the Beveridge Prize for the best book in English on the history of the Americas since 1492. A pioneer in digital history, Ayers created The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War, a Web site that has attracted millions of users and won major prizes in the teaching of history.

Ayers has received a presidential appointment to the National Council on the Humanities, served as a Fulbright professor in the Netherlands, and been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

* * * * *

Last night I was reading the diary of a minister from this time period who was having some health problems.   He might as well have called in a witch doctor for all the help that the “modern” medicine of that time could offer him for a relatively simple ailment.

It was fascinating reading in any case unfiltered by any historian or other author’s perspective.  Here is the link in case you are interested in doing some reading.

http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/

Ed and Abby Ayers

Here is a lovely rendition of Canto Della Terra for the holiday season.  It is a warm gathering of thousands of appreciative fans who stand and applaud from the very beginning.  This is what is so positive about humanity.  It raises my estimate of our humble status every time I see something like this.

And they really raise the roof at around 3:08 in this performance.  Sarah Brightman shows that she can really belt it out when required.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H4Dyv_lw8I[/youtube]

Here it is on another night done in High Def.  A different mood too perhaps.  But still wonderful.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auaBzlahhzs[/youtube]

Kenny Chesney

Play Jingle Bells

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We are going to go over to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens and view their Christmas display again this year.  The photos I took last year seem to be very popular and they do something different every year.  So we tried to get in the first night it was open but the parking lot was full and they were diverting traffic out into the darkness.  I didn’t stick around to follow the trail.

Apparently I’m still not completely cured where crowds are concerned.  In any case here are some photos from last year’s exhibit.  I haven’t posted these before (or I don’t remember doing so…take your pick).  In fact I never really looked at them (or don’t remember etc…).  They needed some light and some cropping.

And here they are.

Click on photo to enlarge