This Is My Town

This morning I had to get up early.  Seven o'clock is early for me, y'all.  I had a ten o'clock deposition in downtown Columbia, which meant I had to leave the house shortly after nine.  No, it does not take me two hours to get ready!  It takes one hour, but I like to leave time to wake up, drink coffee, and read for awhile before preparing the remains for viewing.  So I got up at seven.  Or seven thirty.  I honestly cannot remember.  It is all a blur.

My depo was concluded by eleven o'clock and all I had planned for afterward was a smidge of shopping in preparation for going out of town on Friday.  My camera was with me so I decided to do something that's needed doing for some time.  On May 17th, 2008, one of my sister bloggers (and fellow Depphead), Jay at The Depp Effect, challenged me and a few others to share pictures of interesting or quirky sights in our town.  She went first by taking a picture of a bell embedded in the sidewalk in front of a pub.  I knew immediately what I wanted to take pictures of (they're not all quirky but I think all are interesting), but it has taken me this long to get around to actually doing it.  Today was the day ... beautiful weather, job done early, all my photo-worthy places and/or things within a two-mile radius, and my camera ... locked, loaded, and ready.  Jay, I'll bet you thought I forgot!  You're not the first to underestimate me and I doubt you'll be the last.

That's South Carolina for you ... just make do, y'all.

Anyway, first let me say this: if you're in need of hot, we have lots to spare right here in Columbia, South Carolina.  It was sweltering today.  And while I know it's a pathetic cliche, it really was true that it wasn't the heat; it was the humidity.  The actual temperature only reached around 90 but the humidity was 867,000 percent.  Brutal.  There were times today I was suffering, y'all.  Suffering for my art.  Mind you I was made up, coiffed, heeled, and dressed in business casual.  Even sleeveless and bare-legged, I suffered.  I do sound like the pitiful whiner I am in reality, don't I?  I will stop.

First I went to Finlay Park with its long row of black iron bench swings overlooking the frothing tiered fountain, terraced stairways, lushly treed acreage, and best-ever view of the Columbia skyline.  From there I walked across Laurel Street to the Governor's Mansion (Did you know the First Lady of South Carolina is named Jenny?  No, it's not me.) and took some pictures of the house and grounds, with detail of the intricate antebellum wrought-iron fencing that surrounds it.  I visited the gift shop where I bought some gifts and something for myself: a fly swatter of miniature conjoined flip-flops (a uniflop, as it were) on a handle.  I have been swatting the occasional fly at my house with either a folded magazine or my own flip-flop, but that's so uncouth.  Things are going to change around here.

When Jay issued her challenge back in May, the first thing I thought of was the 50-foot fire hydrant on Taylor Street, and the clever and convincing "Tunnelvision" mural at the other end of the same parking lot.  Then I thought of the giant chain links suspended between Sylvan Bros. Jewelers and Rising High Bakery on Main Street.  So after photographing the fire hydrant I got a precious metered parking spot on Main Street and shot the chain.  You can't see it in the picture but in the middle link is embossed the words "Never Bust."  Just so you know. 

While there I had to add a picture of the freestanding four-sided clock on the sidewalk in front of Sylvan Bros., and also the antique leaded glass squares in the window of the venerable shop itself.

If you look at the time on the Sylvan Bros. clock you'll see it was a quarter to one when I took the pic.  I still had had neither breakfast nor lunch -- only coffee at home and one peppermint at the depo -- and I was fading fast.  Since Rising High (one of my favorite haunts for weekday lunch) is inconveniently closed for renovations, I headed down the street to Drake's Duck-In where you can get a quackin' good meal.  I ordered a fried chicken filet sandwhich that was so fat, so crusty, so protruding from the bun it rested upon, it made a Chick-fil-A sandwich look like the mere feather of a chicken in comparison.  When asked if I wanted fries, I thought, "Insult, meet injury."  No, I said, let's just have some diet cola to go with that.  Coke or Pepsi.  I was handed my sandwich in a plain white bag together with a half-cup of ice.  The sodapop spigots are not within reach of customers.  No explanation was forthcoming; I was simply instructed to have myself a real nice evening.  I filled the cup with sweet tea, which was available without asking.  That's South Carolina for you ... just make do, y'all.  So that was my lunch, which I consumed lustily while driving five blocks to my next site.

I swung by Memorial Park at the corner of Hampton and Gadsden, which has a nice free parking lot.  On the way, while at a stoplight, I took a picture out my window of the Oliver Gospel Mission.  Swigging the remnants of my sweet tea, I walked into the park.  It's such a pretty place and there was a lovely breeze.  There are memorials to South Carolinians who have served in all the wars from World War I to Vietnam.  There is also a beautiful memorial to the six million victims of the Holocaust.  I took pictures of everything.

You can click on the pic above to see the rest.  If you choose "slideshow" it takes about four minutes to watch it.

Pictures of our beautiful South Carolina State House were not taken today becuase I took Melanie there in April and posted some pics then.  You can see them here if you want.

This evening when Erica and I were paddling around in the pool talking about this and that, she noticed a tiny frog in the water.  It happens a lot; I guess they fall out of the trees.  I placed him on the side and, so that you could get an idea of how tiny he was, put my sunglasses in front of him.  He stared at them for at least ten minutes, transfixed, as though they were a double movie screen. 

He's one of the quirkiest things to be found in my town.

Ravinia Festival ... A Fond Reminiscence

For the first twelve years of our marriage TG and I lived in Northwest Indiana, a/k/a "da region" (essentially the greater Chicagoland area), where we met and where our courtship took place.  All four of our children were born at the same hospital there, all delivered by the same doctor.  (Every three years from 1980 until 1989, the labor and delivery nurses knew to expect me, expecting.)  We bought our first house there.  For six years TG attended night school to obtain his master's degree at DePaul University in Chicago.  We moved away in 1991 and although we have never missed the Midwestern climate, we often speak longingly of how much fun it was to live a scant 30 miles from one of the greatest cities in America. 

Despite the potential for eyebrow-high snowdrifts, temperatures that can freeze a notion even as it forms in your brain, the wind whipping off Lake Michigan that will blow a person into the middle of the next week, and relentless, uber-draconian traffic on some of the worst roads in the country, Chicago is pretty much my favorite place.  If you know and love Chicago, you'll understand where I'm coming from.

Candles are lit against the gathering dusk and although thousands of people are present, the ambience is calm and marvelously peaceful.

Each year when the ice and snow of winter had reluctantly receded and fickle spring finally gave way to a generally hot and sticky summer, one of our favorite places to go was Ravinia Festival in tony and pastoral Highland Park, Illinois, about 20 miles north of downtown Chicago.  In addition to being the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, each season Ravinia plays host to dozens of world-class performers, from classical to pop to jazz and everything in between.  As if that isn't enough, Ravinia Park is a stunningly beautiful place to spend a summer evening. 

The first time TG and I visited Ravinia was in July of 1984 when our dear friend Lorna offered us two tickets for seats in the concert pavilion.  She couldn't use the tickets and didn't want them to go to waste.  We were overjoyed at the opportunity to leave our two girls with a babysitter and enjoy an evening of lovely music, and although I was familiar with Ravinia, nothing could have prepared me for how magical it really was.  My first sight of the iconic arched gate with its rustic lettering was thrilling.  From that moment I have always felt at home at Ravinia, whether strolling or sitting on the expansive lawn, listening raptly to the exquisite music drifting up into thousands of lighted trees.

At Ravinia you have so many choices.  If you don't want to pay for a seat in the open-air pavilion, you can purchase a much cheaper ticket and sit on the lawn.  There are restaurants where everything from simple snacks to box lunches to elaborate dinners are available.  If you prefer, you can bring lawn chairs and a portable table and a picnic meal you have prepared at home.  The park opens three hours before concert time and folks start getting comfortable right away.  Candles are lit against the gathering dusk and although thousands of people are present, the ambience is calm and marvelously peaceful.

As eight o'clock draws near the already-quiet crowd on the lawn and in the pavilion goes even quieter.  Those walking on the many paths among the al fresco diners somehow make their footfalls completely silent.  Conversation all but ceases.  Twilight obscures the middle distance.  Candles wink more brightly as the first ambrosial notes emanate from the acoustically sublime stage and, carried along by soft breezes and a discreet state-of-the-art parkwide sound system, settle on the grateful ears of eagerly waiting listeners.  You can almost sense the tension easing from tired shoulders and worrisome thoughts leaving overworked minds.  If you close your eyes, or lie back and stare up into the trees at trembling illuminated leaves, the experience is pretty close to perfect.

*sigh*

This Wednesday, July 9th, one of my favorite musicians, violinist Joshua Bell, is scheduled to perform with the CSO at Ravinia.  I think that at twilight I will put his CD Romance of the Violin on the stereo, broadcast it to the pool area out back via our speakers that look like rocks (rock music as it were), light the tiki torches and a candle, fix a snack, and sit on my swing as he plays Puccini's O Mio Babbino Caro, Debussy's The Girl With The Flaxen Hair, and Dvorak's Songs My Mother Taught Me.  For a few blissful moments as Mr. Bell interprets the music as only he can, I'll close my eyes and imagine I am among the quiet, the reverent, the very fortunate throng ... once again, at Ravinia.

From July Forth

 

We had a great time today with family and one special friend ... that being Robyn, our lovely little compadre who occasionally gets "plugged in" and becomes one of us (a dubious privilege) for a day or two!  Our three younger children were home and my parents drove down for the day. 

Javier (pictured above) suffered the relative indignity of being made to wear his party scarf and his collar (neither of which he particularly cares for), at least for photo ops!  He's nine years old (that's 63 in dog years), so take that into account and you come up with an all-around fairly cooperative doggie.

If you click on the pic, you'll be treated to more pics of Javier and a few of his humans!

For our lunch we had hot dogs, calico beans, green salad (not like what you might be thinking ... no lettuce whatsoever ... I used 3-color shredded deli cabbage, cucumber, green pepper, red pepper, broccoli, sunflower seeds, and strawberries), fresh homemade potato salad, fresh homemade banana pudding ... and to drink, soda pop and coffee!  It was good, y'all.

We had patriotic music playing loud out by the pool, where we sat to eat until a sudden thunderstorm blew us inside.  It lasted about 20 minutes, then the sun played peek-a-boo again!  As the afternoon waned, some of our number departed for home and/or various other, later celebrations.  Everyone who stayed enjoyed a refreshing swim in the pool where the water temperature has held steady for several weeks at 82 degrees.  TG and Andrew work so hard to keep the pool sparkling and I appreciate it.  We don't take a yearly vacation and I never miss it, because I have all I need for rest and recreation in my back yard (and no grass to mow there)!

There were so many fireworks in our neighborhood tonight!  At the height of the celebration I think I could have doused the lamps, swayed on the deck swing, and read a book or written a poem by the light they produced.  But then there was the noise!  And the beautiful spark-flowers billowing in the inky sky, leaving spidery starbursts in your squinty-vision long after the bright blooms were only smoke and memories.  Enchanting.

It seems to me that once the sun sets on July fourth, the balance of summer slides off the calendar like the last bite of a swiftly-melting popsicle.  Summer garb populates the clearance racks; the oranges and browns of autumnal decorations begin to edge out brighter colors; the Christmas tree displays go up at Hobby Lobby.  Soon, back-to-school sales will dominate the retail outlets where fall styles fill the windows.  In other words, it will be over before you know it.

Meantime, how wonderful to live in the greatest country on the face of the Earth.  Rather than whining about prices and taking heed of doomsayers, I want to rejoice in the blessings and opportunities that are mine because I have the distinct joy of living in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

A few weeks ago, my son sang this classic John W. Peterson song at church:

Proudly it waves, Old Glory

Over the land of the free

Promise of hope and freedom

Symbol of liberty.

Red, white and blue are its colors

Colors both brilliant and clear

Colors with far deeper meaning

Than that at first may appear.

Red is for blood

Of patriots who have died

To free us;

White is for justice

And government of law;

Blue is for honor

And faith in all we do.

This is my flag

This is Old Glory

The red, white and blue.

Long may it wave!

Amen.

Unforgivably Random Post

The squirrels around my house are up to something.  Never before have we witnessed such behavior in our furry little friends. 

You might as well know at this juncture that I'm one of those people who don't mind squirrels being around.  I think they're cute.  I don't get mad at them or anything.  Maybe that's because I don't have birdfeeders in my yard.  I am too lazy busy to fill birdfeeders.  Actually I had a birdfeeder at our last house over three years ago, which TG bought for me (the birdfeeder that is ... well, okay, the house too).  It was affixed to a six-foot-high pole and I used to love sitting in my sunroom watching the little birdies perch on top of the birdfeeder (it was in the shape of a bird-sized dwelling) and twitter and tweet and eat and flick husks to the ground with their wee beaks and tail feathers. 

TG inspected the twigs and described them as "chewed" at the place where they used to be part of the tree.

One day in late summer I noticed no birds were going near the birdfeeder even though it was packed full of birdseed.  Also I saw that stray seeds from the birdfeeder had materialized on my deck, intact.  The deck was at least ten yards from the feeder and our birds were not in the habit of ordering takeout.  They always dined right on the feeder.  So I ventured out to investigate and what do you think I saw?  Millions -- yes, millions -- of ants tripping all over themselves to climb up that pole and inundate the store of birdseed.  The ants were carrying the morsels of seed intended for the birds back to my deck to ... well, I don't know what they intended to do but I know what I did: I stopped filling the birdfeeder and when we moved it didn't move with us.

Anyway, back to strange squirrel behavior at our current residence.  There is a massive oak tree that towers over our house.  The leaf canopy is enormous, shading much of our roof.  I mean, this tree is old, y'all.  I love the tree.  It sings with cicadas in summer and the squirrels love to clatter around in there stealing acorns, and even when it dumps approximately 844,663,357 leaves onto my lawn and into my pool in the fall, I don't care because I don't do yard or pool work.  I'm too lazy busy; remember?

This morning when TG left for work he heard an unusually loud chirping and chattering sound way, way up in our oak tree.  Also there were snapping noises and small branches (just twigs really, but heavy with full-grown leaves on the ends) were practically raining down from the tree to the sidewalk in front of our steps.  He looked up and saw what appeared to be a bunch of squirrels gnawing on the bases of these twigs where they jutted out of larger branches.  The twigs would snap and fall to the ground and the squirrels would start in on another one.  TG inspected the fallen twigs and described them as "chewed" at the place where they used to be part of the tree.

Just what I would expect when squirrels have gnawed them through at the base and sent them crashing to the ground.

I'd go out there and take a picture of the leafed-out twigs literally covering our bottom two steps and the sidewalk in front of them -- the squirrels' handiwork, as it were -- but I'm too lazy busy.  Use your imagination.

I don't know why our squirrels are doing this.  Do you?  Is it something sinister?  Are we bad people?  Will the squirrels chew the entire tree down?  Should we report our squirrels to the authorities?  Are there squirrel authorities?  Is it just a phase the squirrels are going through?  Will Steven Spielberg make a movie about it?  Should I get a makeover just in case?

So many questions.

# # # # #

My son has a cell phone attached to his hand.  Occasionally it migrates to his ear and becomes attached there.  Very infrequently it rests in its clip on his belt or waistband.  It is never there for a significant length of time because invariably after 2.4 seconds it will begin vibrating like a giant insect and he will grab it and begin furiously texting OR sometimes actually say "Hello?"

Once in a while he switches its alert mode from buzzing to a "ringtone" that is actually a strangely chipmunky voice that says: "Let me out!  I'm stuck in your pocket!"  It's really funny.  I have been known to get caught off guard and snort Diet Caffeine Free Pepsi when I hear it.  So very feminine.

# # # # #

I cannot get my mind off the young man from my state who was decapitated at Six Flags Over Georgia last Saturday.  I spent so many happy summer days and nights at Six Flags Over Georgia, back when I was a teenager.  I have tried to imagine being on a ride or in line for a ride at an amusement park and seeing a human being lose his life in such a grisly way as a result of coming in contact with a ride.  But how tragic that a pair of older teenagers would wilfully disregard two high fences and several warning signs in order to enter the park in a restricted area.  So many problems in life can be avoided by practicing simple obedience.  Yes ... the rules apply to each of us even when we don't agree with them or when it is inconvenient to obey them.  I am so sorry that this young man did not learn or believe that simple truth, or if he did he momentarily ignored it, and now he is gone forever.  I have been praying for his family.