SkyWatch Friday :: Her Majesty

TG and I were tooling through Sparta, Georgia, last Friday, on our way to Macon for the weekend, when he saw her.

To clarify any pronoun confusion: TG saw Her Majesty, on our left as we drove past.

And it was The Golden Hour, that being the time photographers covet a view and a camera, when the light is buttery at the near-conclusion a pretty-sky day.

So naturally TG, at my request, pulled a U-turn.

Her Majesty is the name locals have affectionately given to the once-imposing Second Empire style Hancock County Courthouse, built circa 1881.

She is currently under extreme renovations due to having burned nearly to the ground last August.

The building's once-gorgeous bell tower is a thing of the past, and so -- at least temporarily -- is its roof.

Her Majesty has air in her hair. And it's a stunning sight.

The courthouse was still in use when the blaze broke out. An extensive reno was in the nascent stages at the time of the fire, but did not cause it.

I plan to keep tabs on Her Majesty's progress and go back to take her picture again, when she's had time to pull herself together.

Meanwhile, long may she wave.

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God Bless America

Happy Friday ~ Happy Weekend ~ Happy Skywatching

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Have a Kitchen Sink

Hey you should click on the video at the end of this post and listen to the music as you read. Just a suggestion.

So last weekend TG and I were cruising through Augusta, Georgia, ultimate objective home, when we decided to make a stop.

I'd spotted a Fresh Market on the way to what had been our intended destination when we reached Augusta, which turned out to be someplace we couldn't go because the gates were LOCKED -- three guesses what kind of place it was -- and I said:

I want to go to that Fresh Market back there because remember the fresh-not-frozen pizzas we used to buy when we lived in Knoxville a long time ago?

Oh those were really something, said TG.

Yes, we have a Fresh Market in Columbia and yes, I've been there -- although its location is not convenient to where we live -- and I already knew they don't have the pizzas anymore.

But hope springs eternal in the human breast. Nostalgia is one of the most powerful forces on earth.

So it was agreed and we had pointed our auto toward The Fresh Market at National Hills Shopping Center on Washington Road in Augusta, and were in fact all but there, when it happened.

TG glanced to his left and exclaimed in a voice gone momentarily dizzy with awe:

That's Augusta National!

And it was. Turns out TG had only ever seen it on TV.

Augusta National Golf Club, dream and legacy of Robert Tyre "Bobby" Jones, Jr. (whose name is synonymous with the game of golf but who never took a dime for playing it), revered invitation-only institution where The Masters is held every April.

TG says that there, on the former-cow-pasture, now-pristine acres bequeathed by eternal-amateur Mr. Jones (I've been to his grave at Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, by the way. It's sprinkled with dozens of golf balls and even a putter or two.), not a single weed is allowed to grow.

Anyway, as TG soon discovered even while I cautioned him to keep it between the navigational beacons -- as in, remain in our lane and please kindly don't overshoot The Fresh Market -- you can't see inside.

Not even an inch of space is left open around Augusta National for the curiosity-minded.

One would think they are determined to keep the riff-raff out.

Not so at The Fresh Market, where we were allowed to walk in even not wearing a green jacket or paying a fee equal to a year's wages, and nab a small cute rolling double-green-basket apparatus, and begin scanning the viands on offer.

We zeroed in on the fresh-not-frozen pizzas and even though it was again confirmed that they aren't the same as in the olden days, we put one in our top green basket.

Then I started thinking about treats to take home to (and share with, since we were going directly to their house upon reaching Columbia, because Dagny) our girls, and so naturally that steered me to the bakery section.

First I selected some Ancient Grains Cranberry Bread, a petite loaf. It later proved to be tasty toasted, but then that's a no-brainer. Also I have a thing for cranberries.

Beyond the festive breads an array of delectable house-made cookies were on display, and I began looking in earnest at those.

A tall sign had been placed on one end of the table and underneath it was stacked many transparent plastic boxes containing what was clearly all the same variety of cookie.

The sign proclaimed them (thought I) to be Cranberry Macaroons on sale, one-fifty off.

The treats over which the sign towered did not look like macaroons to me -- I think of a macaroon as a smallish blond-colored coconut confection that, when savored, being chewy and extremely moist -- nearly sticky -- comes across like a fusion of candy and cookie -- but they did appear to be studded with dried cranberries.

I wasn't wearing my reading glasses, though. The lighting at TFM is dimly atmospheric, not at all Krogeresque. Also my judgment is clouded by emotion when in the cookie aisle.

A box was plucked off the top of the display and placed reverently into our top green basket beside the fresh-not-frozen pizza that I knew was close but no cigar, but which I was buying anyway. We continued shopping.

Later at the till, a nice lady began scanning our selections.

It's my habit, throughout the checking-out process, to eyeball the screen where the prices come up as each item is scanned. And even without my cheaters I could see that the Cranberry Macaroons had rung up full price, not one-fifty off.

So without taking the time to think Just let it go, and to actually take said mentally-administered advice, I spoke up.

Oh dear. Large mistake.

The cashier looked stricken. It was the crickets of Augusta tuning up early.

How much were they on sale? She said.

Three forty-nine, I think, I said. But I wasn't sure.

Before I could protest, she called for backup.

The first cashier -- just doing her job -- wanted to believe that the cookies I'd picked were on sale. But she wasn't allowed to take my word for it.

Only, people were waiting behind us in line. I was embarrassed.

A second cashier bustled over and she was also very nice through her air of hurried authority. She picked up my box of cookies. She listened to what I had to say relative to their price.

But these are Kitchen Sink, she said, lifting the box high and reading from a tag on the bottom. Her reading cheaters were in place, and we were near a window.

Oh then that's my mistake, I said. I just saw the sign --

By now TG had gone back to the cookie table to confirm the price of the cookies we'd chosen, and had returned. According to the sign they're three forty-nine, he said.

But these aren't Cranberry Macaroons. They're -- do you know what a macaroon is? She said. Not rudely; like she really wanted to know how macaroon-savvy I was.

I don't remember what I said. I might've mumbled that I thought so. All I remember is feeling stupid and I'm sure I looked dumb too because that's easier for me than falling off a log. My embarrassment intensified.

These are Kitchen Sink, she repeated. They have everything in them.

Everything? I thought. As in, everything?

The lady in line behind us, holding an apple in her hand -- one apple, a honeycrisp the size of a softball, three ninety-nine a pound -- and maybe a bottled beverage, was studying the floor.

I looked at the first cashier. I'll take them, I said. It's my fault. Don't worry about the price. I'm sorry. I wanted so desperately for it to be over. 

The second cashier did something with fluttering fingers on both her hands that told me, Pay attention 'cause I'm about to do you a solid.

Give them to her for that price, she instructed the first cashier. She provided an overrride code, then helped the first cashier to enter it in such a way that a dollar fifty dissolved off my bill.

But we'll have to do paperwork, she quickly added, allowing an amount of aggravation to enter her voice roughly equal to the view of Augusta National afforded the passer-by.

I thought: Paperwork. Paperwork? It's a buck fifty. We are standing one hundred yards from Augusta National where the weeds are bribed with green folding money not to dare show their faces, and we are haggling over a buck fifty?

Yeah, I connect dots tangentially like that. It's another one of my mental deficiencies.

Meanwhile the second cashier had produced a small official-looking piece of (white) paper -- right then and there -- and had begun writing on it as though the outcome of the 2015 Masters Tournament, yet to be played, hung in the balance.

I wanted to die. Seriously I was that shamed for mentioning a paltry dollar-fifty imagined overcharge at The Fresh Market in the shadow of Augusta National.

I was denied even the satisfaction of having been right, or of demonstrating the ability to correctly identify a cranberry macaroon.

Keep it classy eight days a week, Jenny the Pirate, I scolded inwardly.

Still guilt-ridden as we drove away and the longsuffering TG pointed our car toward the South Carolina state line not three miles away, just wanting to leave Georgia in the rearview, I remembered something.

I'd neglected to sign my score card.

I'll forfeit my winnings and furthermore, they'll never invite me back. 

Ah well. Green is not my best color.

And I learned a few things: Kitchen Sink cookies are a revelation. There is a hint of coconut, and almonds are involved. Those dark-colored bits are not cranberries but raisins, cheek-by-jowl with chunks of chocolate.

Also present is white chocolate, which I don't like (that's a really good story for another day), but which nevertheless works well here.

They're like music in your mouth. You don't have to be a millionaire to play.

Spring will come to Georgia. The dogwoods and azaleas will bloom in Augusta as planned, just in time for The Masters. My sweeter-than-a-Kitchen-Sink-cookie TG's eyes may once again briefly mist with a tear when he hears the first strains of the iconic and evocative piano-and-strings theme song.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Tuesday ~ Happy Week

SkyWatch Friday :: Lemmon to lemonade

Staff Sergeant Andrew Weber, TANG, USAF, has been on assignment in Arizona for the last few weeks. That's him atop the rocky tor above.

Specifically, Andrew is briefly in residence at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, flying in-flight refueling missions most days and many nights.

In between gassing up Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcons out of South Carolina (of all places) on gorgeous Southwestern days ...

... Andrew had an opportunity to hike Mount Lemmon, the summit of which is the highest point in the Santa Catalina Mountains.

Mount Lemmon is part of the Coronado National Forest. You can take my word for that; I looked it up.

Being very much an East-of-the-Mississippi girl and not being any stripe of a hiker (my outdoorsiness is limited to walking to the mailbox, lolling in my pool, and graving), I don't know where my son got his vivid sense of adventure.

But he's got it. If he's not zipping along the terrain on something that's round, rubber, and rolls, he wants to be in the sky or as near it as he can get.

I don't know which Air Force photographer to thank for the photos of my son refueling the F-16's, but I'm glad they were nearby to catch the breathtaking spectacle of the workhorse KC-135 Stratotanker in action amid a formation of formidably fortified Fighting Falcons.

Thank you Andrew, for the perfectly grand photos of iconic purple mountain majesty beneath magnificent skies, and for the happy skies in which you serve your country.

God Bless America. Don't forget to Spring Forward tomorrow night.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Friday ~ Happy Weekend

Branch out and soar

While in Charlotte for a family event in mid-December 2013, I took several pictures of Duke Energy Center reflecting a Carolina sunset in the waning days of autumn.

Metaphors abound in the big city.

In these images I see both challenge and triumph, the temporal and the eternal.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Wednesday

I'll fly away

I have another bird story for you. More recent and just as poignant as the last. Knock on wood.

It all started on Friday when Erica dropped by for a short visit. As she was leaving, we noticed a bird flapping around near the ceiling of the garage.

It looks like a woodpecker, I said. Not your classic Woody look, but although I'm no stripe of an ornithologist -- I can barely spell that -- something about him spoke woodpecker to me.

And recently, we have heard the rapid drilling sound of woodpeckers in our neighborhood which is replete with thousands of the longleaf pines favored by the species.

(I even mentioned it to Dagny as we strolled outside one day: A woodpecker's loud activity sounded in the distance and I asked her if she heard it. Pre-verbal as Dagny may be, I believe she did.)

This happens from time to time: A bird flies into our two-car garage and, despite the single massive door being open, wide open, the outdoors beckoning only feet away, the bird cannot figure out how to escape.

They fly frantically from high shelves to a windowsill to the door opener, refusing to go down a few inches and out to freedom.

You can't talk reason into them either. Believe me; I have tried. They do not listen. Catching them is also out of the question. You can't get close enough to salt the tail.

So it was that on Friday, after Erica left, I closed and opened the garage door a few times, hoping that Bird would pay attention, read the memo, and fly out.

He didn't.

Then I decided to open the back door to the garage, which pass-through leads to our pool area.

My thinking was, there will be a cross draft and he will sense that, and he will see that there is not one, but two routes of egress to his sky and his trees, his nest and his loved ones, food and water.

I got busy then, with supper and whatnot, and TG came home, and I don't know why -- because I routinely begin spinning yarns the moment I see TG at the end of the day -- but I did not mention Bird.

Later I noticed that both the garage door and the back entrance were closed. I opened the door from the kitchen into the garage and looked all around for Bird.

Not seeing him, I assumed he'd seen the light and resumed his normal avian lifestyle. Checked out with as little fuss as he'd checked in.

On Saturday morning I was home alone and in a different part of the house than the kitchen, when I heard a scratching noise coming from that direction.

I knew it wasn't Javier because he was spending the weekend with Erica.

The noise was loud enough that I went looking for what might have been the source. I found nothing to explain it.

In the early afternoon Audrey and Dagny dropped by. Having opened the garage door using the outdoor keypad and entered the house through the kitchen, Audrey said: There's something out here that you need to see.

I trotted up there and what do you think I saw? Bird.

He had wedged himself into the corner of the threshold at the kitchen door, and had fluffed his lovely shining white-speckled black feathers all out and hidden his beautiful little red-tufted head in their depths.

Audrey thought he was being cute but she didn't know the story. I knew he was in trouble. Listing near to the scuppers, as it were.

I ran for my kitchen gloves and put them on my hands. I lifted Bird from the cold drafty threshold. He was still alive but he did not resist.

Out in the sunshine, Bird perched on my gloved fingers and became very alert. He seemed to enjoy the cool breeze in his feathers. I sent Audrey back inside for my camera.

Dagny, secure in her mother's arms, was speechless the whole time. All eyes.

Speaking of eyes, Bird's were bright. He looked all around, like he truly cared.

A hope sprang up in me that Bird would be okay; that he would take a breather then recover, spread his wings and fly from the gloves, merge onto the sunshine road, find a fast food joint, have a meal, resume his Bird Life.

But he didn't. Eventually I set him down gently onto the driveway. Once there, he appeared disheveled, despondent, listless.

I picked him back up again. Don't judge. Do not judge me. I was doing the best I could. In college I studied not birds, but English and History. And that was a long time ago.

We toted Bird out by the pool where there is a pan of water that's kept fresh for Javier.

I put Bird on the edge of the pan so maybe he could drink, because surely he was dehydrated. He clung there, stiff and awkward, striving unsuccessfully to gain is bearings. Then he flopped off.

I picked him up again and my plan was to carry him out to the part of the yard beyond a low retaining wall, where there was foliage and maybe he would have the strength to eat an insect which I hoped would be available.

But by the time I reached the wall and was looking for an appropriate spot to set Bird down, he expired.

He up and died! His feet curled like spidery fists and his eyes went dim and he was so still, I just knew.

I laid him out carefully on the retaining wall and although the sun shone bright on his still wings, it was cold.

Audrey and I talked about how we were glad to have been with Bird when he passed.

At least he wasn't alone, she said. Then: I have to put this kid down; my arms are breaking.

We all went inside. I got online and in no time had pegged the departed Bird as a red-cockaded woodpecker.

Later I fixed Bird up in a coffin lined with cotton. The black and silver box, which once held jewelry less pretty than Bird, had a hinged lid just like a real coffin.

I propped it open with a stick from one of the longleaf pines favored by the likes of Bird.

I viewed him briefly, admiring all he'd once been, and paid my respects.

Then, using an old serving spoon from the kitchen drawer, I dug him a grave in the soft reddish earth just beyond the retaining wall.

The stick was removed, the coffin lid closed. I placed it just so in the grave, then spooned the dirt back over Bird.

Using two more pine sticks and some green duct tape, I fashioned him a clumsy cross and made a sign: Bird.

I marked his spot and if you are still reading I am going to confess to you, I mourned Bird's passing.

The late winter sunset flamed the sky by then, glowing with the urgency befitting something with so little time to exist before the final fade.

I took a picture of that as I turned to go inside.

Another February was dying.

Later, a cold dismal rain fell on Bird's grave and I thought about that a lot, wishing things could have been different for Bird.

He was a good bird, a perfect and wonderful bird. I'm sorry he got trapped in our garage.

But: Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. (Matthew 10:29)

God knew. He cared about Bird, His own creation, even more than I ever could.

His is a perfect plan, for all of creation.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Monday ~ Happy Week ~ Happy March