Chipping sparrows

House finches are being kicked out

We put new seed in the bird feeder and that has attracted a new kind of lbj. The chipping sparrow is a pretty little lbj and easy to identify by the markings on his head. Now the house sparrows have some serious competition at the feeder.

How one can benefit from careful packing

These two items were the kind that usually get left behind in a cross-contintental move. They are the kind of item that is sadly found in the dustbin, or on the most unwanted shelf in a second hand store. They don't match with anything, not even each other. They are doomed to be abandoned. The first is a wine glass that was K's xmas present and he loves it. The second is a glass cutting board decorated with brussel sprouts and I love it. We are not the type to abandon such beloved items and the great thing is, I know there are other people who will be glad to see that here they are in our kitchen!

What makes my working day worth it

In the middle of a stressful day this week, I went and hung out with these two to destress. I know they look like one and the same dog, but I swear they are two. They were adopted together on Friday, the woman who adopted them is a very lucky gal.

A cat called Shy, with a wonderful face

I have been thinking to myself this week of how perfectly she would fit in with our two. Her colouring is exactly like a combination of Oleo and Henry. Just a half of each! Of course we can't have another cat...

Violet

Violet, if you remember, is the cat who is supposed to live in my office but doesn't really like me. She has been warming up to me recently, coming to get snuggles in the middle of the day when there are no babies or dogs in the office to scare her off. She really is quite a sweetie.

A post from my desk

Hehe, Sammy just made a dog cry. It was a mastiff/pitbull/labrador mix. Poor baby.

A book recommended, but not for the faint of English.

You'll laugh, you'll cry and you'll cringe. You will wonder how you could ever have put an apostrophe in some of the places you did. If you are a psuedo-Englander living in the States, you will wonder how you are ever going to write again.

A good movie

K and watched a few movies this week; American Gangster, The Jane Austen Book Club and Catch and Release. Each was good for our particular mood of the eve but the best was Catch and Release.

The plotline is simple, it's a romantic comedy and it's sweet and a little cheesy. What makes it a wonderful movie is what is going on around the romantic. In fact, it is the comedy part that allows the movie to be more than just another romantic comedy. K and I chuckled our way through it, the humour is smart and quick and quirky. In actual fact, I think silent Bob is why the movie is so great.

So, highly recommended by K and I for a Friday night after a stressful week.

At dawn in the backyard

How I lost my husband to taxes

K has been at his laptop on the dining table all day trying to work through and out of our taxes. This is one of those times where I am eternally grateful that I married the man I did.

After two days he has just completed our federal taxes. Here are some questions that came up related to that. Must we pay taxes on scholarships? Were we domiciled in Namibia? WHERE is our "tax home" and is that the same as our residence? Did I pay into my 401K and do I have an IRA? (The answer to that last is - a militant wing of the Irish government? No, I don't have one of those)

So now that he has completed the federal taxes he only has DC, Virginia and Maryland left! HOW on earth did we manage to live and earn in this many places?

We have learned many things today, including the following from the IRS publication 54: (Hopefully I won't get arrested for reproducing it!)
The term "foreign country" includes the seabed and subsoil of those submarine areas adjacent to the territorial waters of a foreign country and over which the foreign country has exclusive rights under international law to explore and exploit the natural resources.

Just in case you lived on the seabed off the Namibian shore and were wondering where to pay taxes...

Monticello from our house

Henry enjoying spring

Some colour in our Neighbourhood

Reasons we cannot have a dog:

K and I have been telling ourselves these things since I started at my new job. In fact we were telling ourselves from before, now it is just worse because I fall in love with a new dog almost every day.
1. We don't know what continent we are going to settle on, and when. Moving a dog is expensive and traumatic.
2. Oleo would hide under the bed.
3. Neither of us wants to call the landlord and ask.
4. We are gone from home between the hours of 8am and 7pm most days.
5. Dog poop.
6. Getting up even earlier to walk the dog.
7. No fenced-in yard.

Bond

Bond has been my office mate a few days this week. He was a stray for many years and is terrified of humans. He is also quite old, and a big dog, he is a little bigger than a labrador but looks like a hound in terms of colour and shape. He is incredibly shy of humans but adores other dogs. He will lie quietly in my office and keep an eye on me, but shies away when anyone tries to touch him. He has advanced with me as he will now sniff my hand when I offer it to him. Also when I ignored him for long enough while working he actually came to stand next to me and see what the fascination with my screen and keyboard was. I feel that once he has figured out that people are not going to shout at him, chase him or hit him he will be a really sweet companion for someone who is incredibly patient and wants a dog who will adore without being needy. In other news, JJ in on the adoption floor and I expect that by Monday he will be gone because lots of people have been interested. Freddie is still around as we want to be careful about the home he goes to.

Soon after

Wife: "I have discovered one too."
Husband: "what?"
Wife: "Husbands can't pee in the dark."

While brushing teeth at night

Husband: "I have discovered a fundamental difference between husbands and wives"
Wife: "Which is?"
Husband: "Wives have a catalog of household bedding in their heads"
Wife: "And husbands?"
Husband: "Don't"

My office

One photo is the before and one the after - can you figure out which is which?

The men's bathroom has a new occupant

His name is JJ and he is tooooooooo cute. Tiny pitbull/boxer baby. I have been very well socially trained to think that pits are ugly dogs, but JJ would melt anyone's heart and mine is a puddle of chocolate when I look at his little crumpled face. He is in the bathroom mostly cos he is too young to be adopted but he likes human company and to pee on the carpet. (The second is why he isn't under anyone's desk)He even still has puppy breath.... everyone all together now.... aaahhhhhhh!

DC weekend

We went up to DC this weekend and were excited about the cherry blossoms. Of course we underestimated how long it takes to get anywhere in the area and so had about 17 minutes between social appointments to get around the tidal basin. which cannot be done so we had to settle for just looking around sort of, and then taking a cab to the next thing. K still managed to get some excellent photos though!

Sammy the dog tester

So Sammy is not afraid of anything. There has never been a dog that makes him scared. At most he will wonder off as if uninterested. As a result, the animal handlers use him to test whether dogs are cat-friendly or unfriendly. I love to watch the dogs being paraded under his nose while people try and convince him to move and provoke the dogs. Most dogs take one sniff and know this is not a cat to trifle with. Actually, most people do the same.

more puppy

Freddie has graduated! He is now adoptable. This is him under my desk last week, drooling on my knee. There has already been a family who is interested. Now that he has come out of his shell he loves to run around the room like a maniac and then play-bow at you. Tooooo cute!

Whoah!!

So this morning when I was shaking out our rugs on the back steps, I heard a Toktok. When I craned my neck around the back of the house there was the biggest woodpecker I have ever seen. I wasn't even sure if I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. His body was big and he had the hugest fire-engine red mohawk. My first thought was that it was the Ivory billed and I had made a wonderful scientific discovery, but immediately dismissed it. I called K out and he said it was the pilleated. Which did not reduce my wonder at all. SO big! He is the size of a crow. Oh, also, he is a she.

The other photo is of a little downy munching on our suet. It is funny to watch the downy's get to the suet. They land on the crook and then sort of slide down the pole till they hit the suet box, on which they sort of hop into position. We are going to take pity on them on hang a new suet in the tree.

Freddie

Freddie is the rescue dog I told you about, the one in the men's bathroom as you can so clearly see. I had the pleasure of his company today as he has been upgraded from the loo. He is socialised enough to be allowed to hide under someone's desk. Initially that was the ED but I asked for his company and was granted. He is so scared of humans and loud noises that he just needs to be somewhere where he will meet humans but still feel safe. poor baby.

Sammy

So this is Sammy, he is nasty looking. And going to be more nasty looking as all his hair falls out when he eats the other cats' food. He is diabetic and he doesn't know it but he loves to eat. He'll even eat your sandwhich if you leave it unattended. Even though he is mean and slightly gross, I feel affection for him. Maybe it's cos I naturally love all orange cats.

A few observations from my first day

There is a creature for every office. It is a very smart office space as they recently had the entire facility rebuilt and it is very Posh. But it is covered in Cat hair. Sammy lives in the Building directors office. He is a large 18 yr old, ginger bully. He lives to push my office mate around. Her name is Violet and she is a fat little siamese. Alley lives in the Executive Directors office and she is very shy and pretends not to mind when Sammy doodoos in her litterbox. I suspect that you will be hearing a great deal about these three characters. In the men's bathroom is a 10 month old beagle who is being socialised. Which means the bathroom door is open but barred so that he can get used to people going past and talking to him. Talking to him and even scratching ears is encouraged. This makes me glad. In the broom closet are two cats who are also being socialised. They are less cute. Even though they are cats. I know, very surprising, coming from me.

The worst thing about my day was the discovery that there is no kettle. None. People just heat their tea water in the microwave. Heathens. My first job as "development assistant" will be to raise funds for a kettle. freakin' coffee drinkers, the lot of them. There are THREE coffee machines.

The best thing about my day was beginning to navigate my way around the donor database. I always enjoy learning new programs and this one is delightfully complicated. Despite the complexity I am confident that I will get the hang of it quite quickly and will soon be able to pull reports detailing all kinds of details!

Ooh, I will share an office with the other person who will be at my level but has not come on board yet. It has a window that opens and I will actually get sunlight! Yay! An upgrade from my previous corporate office. It's a big office and I have a big swivel chair and all the filing cabinets in the room are mine, MINE!

Another triumph of the day was to walk past all those sweet little kitties in the adoption center and not take one home! Another Yay!

Ok, now I really must go and unwind or I will never sleep, and getting up for unemployment was a lot later than getting up for employment. I have now been awake for 14 hours IN A ROW! Impressive.

The view from my bed.

While talking to R on Sunday I saw three different woodies, a few Carolina Chickadees, two bright Cardinals chasing each other and lots of singing House Finches. I didn't even have to get out from under the covers for all that. What heaven.

Cat Flap resolved

Yay! I no longer have the urge to respond when I hear bells at the back door. K is my kero and the cat flap is once again functional. Even the cats are happier. Henry now gets to play his favourite game: sit-at-the-flap-and-stop-my-sister-from-getting-in. Meanie!

a fish on a bicycle.

K and I both loved the juxtaposition of the Guinness in an old POM glass. It's such a healthy seeming juice, and I know certain people will claim the same of guinness, but that just seems like a stretch. ; >

repeat tragedies

We keep finding ladybirds all over the house. I don't know where they come from but it is like they come inside to die. We find them crawling up the walls and across the ceiling. Each time we find one, we rescue it and put it on our only plant. A Bonsai, which was a housewarming from S&B. It is then only a matter of 12 or so hours before I have to scoop the little carcass up and dispose of it permanently. Our dustbin has become a ladybird graveyard. It just makes me so sad to see each tiny one that didn't make it. Putting them outside doesn't help either. I think they just freeze out there. I am looking forward to real spring when we can let them outside and know they will actually survive.

All Quiet on the Western Front

It has been really quiet here the last few days. I basically do the same thing each day which includes dishes, cooking and sweeping. Oh and reading. Which is really the only thing I have to talk about. I have started re-reading the whole Pern series by Anne McCaffrey. It is just excellent junk reading and I am working my way through it quite quickly.

I am also reading a book called 'The Pink Carnation'. It's loosely based on the timeless 'Scarlet Pimpernel' and has a taint of 'literature' only because the woman writing it is a Harvard student studying the time. Not sure any of it is actually based on the French Revolution but it is also excellent escapism.

What is not escapsim is Margaret Atwood's 'Bluebeard's egg'. Short stories from the heart. I really can't read more than one story a day as she leaves you with a disturbed mind for a while after each story. Really excellent writing though, as much because the content stays with you as because of her prose.

That's it from me. Will save the rest of my books for another day in case the next few days are as still as the last.

The Human Cat Flap

That's me. We haven't rigged up our usual window-box-cat-flap yet as the box is too big or too small or too something that needs to be fixed with wood and a saw. This means that the cats must exit and enter via the back door. It's too cold to just leave the door open a little and this is where I come in. We hung some bells on the outside so the cats can let me know when they want to come in. I let them out, I sit down. Five minutes later, one of them is too cold and rings the bell. I get up and let him/her in. I sit down. five minutes later the other one wants in, I get up... you see the pattern. I do this all morning till I get sick of them and make them come in permanently. WHY you ask, would I do this tedious task? How much have these animals got me wrapped around their little paws. Well... you clean the litterboxes twice a day and see if you don't rather let the little eating/pooing/peeing/crying things outside instead.

Lovely Sunday

We are having one of those excellent Sundays. Lazy and still productive. Perhaps slow is a better word. I called home and had a chat, by which time K had made croisants for breakfast and a big fat cup of tea. Then he fiddled with the blender to see if he could fix it and I played some online scrabble and cleaned up the house a little. Now we are both just sitting at the comps being geeks. All I plan to do for the rest of the day is watch some Roswell and maybe do the grocery shopping. What a wonderful life!

More birds

We think that the bluebird may actually live in our backyard, now that we see him or his mate almost every day. We also could not resist this image of the Turkey Buzzards (Vultures) sitting in a tree waiting for something yummy and dead to come along.

another lucky discovery

Discovered a really deliscious salad dressing last night. 1/3 olive oil, 1/3 balsamic vinegar and 1/3 POM original pomegranate juice and some fresh ground black pepper. It's excellent on a Waldorf salad. Just another reason to have POM in your fridge. Yay.

You won't believe it!

We had ANOTHER power outage! It went out around 9:30 last night and didn't come back on till 6am! It wasn't as cold last night as the last time, thank goodness, but it was still wretched. I just can't believe that in this first world place we could be without electricity twice in a few weeks. On the other hand, it does give us a great excuse for eating all the ice-cream in the freezer.

eina.

Last night we played squash and then fiddled around on the gym machines after. I was on a high from winning a game against K for the first time in... well pretty much since the first game I played with him ever. It was also his first game ever. In order to win last night's game it required K to be daydreaming and me running around the court like a fly in a window. My gym machine of choice is what has fondly been called the gynecological machine. It's the one where you put your knees against it and strengthen your inner thighs or outer. This morning I am paying for my enthusiasm. I can barely walk and if anything falls today it is staying on the floor cos I can't bend. I am going to try and get to the pool when it opens to try and work out the kinks but K may have to carry me there.

Yikes!

There is currently a tornado warning on for C'ville. Which translates to sheets and sheets of torrential rain. K and I did our groceries and when we came out of the store it was starting to pour. By the time we got home, and got out of the car it was like walking into a shower! We actually had to change our clothes when we made it into the house. cray-zy! mmm think I will now go online and research what one is supposed to do in a Tornado or to prepare for one? Hopefully it is make pasta for dinner and watch CSI.

gone

We have eaten all the cookies in the house. At least, all the ones I like. THANK GOODNESS. Now I just have to avoid the little pushers, so we don't get any more.

House Finches

The photo is a little blurred cos I have to stand on our rocking chair and lean left to get past the screen on the window. But aren't they adorable!

Bus musings

I rode the bus a LOT yesterday, had to take three buses to get to my interview and the reverse to get home. SO I had plenty of time to make comparisons to my previously adored bus route straight down Connecticut ave in DC. Firstly, buses here are practically empty and therefore a lot less frequent. I never minded waiting for buses in DC cos the next one would always be along presently. Not so here. If you miss one, you could wait 45 minutes for the next! One of yesterday's observations was that there is a coffee shop near every bus stop I waited at. Smart of the owners. Total niche market.

The biggest difference I found though is the social interaction on the buses. In DC people were mostly quiet, or at most talking gently to the person they were riding with. Of course there was always the occasional boffoon on the phone letting us all know about how much beer he and Brad drank last night. On the buses yesterday, everyone was chatting to everyone. As far as I could tell they were all complete strangers. One particularly long, tedious and loud conversation was between five guys sitting at the front with asides from the driver. It was all about how to get money from your workplace by falling down. Additionally, there was a segway about how one guy was arrested for harrassing his girldfirend and was looking at 6 to 15... also, a segway about how one guy beat up the chef of one of the downtown restaurants where he was a waiter. Charmers the lot of them. Quite the incentive to get my license.

cookies and calories

The squash courts at the gym are longer and narrower. Which puts the T far back on the court. You'd be surprised at how this affects your game. Taking control of the T means you can't reach the drop shots anymore. It took us a good half hour to work out the problem with our game. (and it wasn't that we hadn't played in months!)

Girl Scouts are EVERYWHERE! This is dangerous because it is cookie time. They are ruthless in their little uniforms with their little puppy-dog faces. And if that doesn't get you, their Mothers loom in the background promising flat tires and lipsticked windscrrens if you don't buy some cookies. IF you manage to get into the grocery store through the exit, thereby avoiding scouts and mothers at the entrance then there is always someone you know whose daughter is selling the things. An entire hour of squash down the tubes alongside a handful of Samoas. Let me explain why I can't just say no. Donut shaped goodness, shortbread biscuit topped with toasted coconut, toffee and drizzled with chocolate. erg.

Mostly quiet

Aside from getting an interview, life has been mostly quiet. I do have a few interesting things to note though. Or at least they are interesting to me.

We went and sat in a coffee shop on Sat evening, just to get out of the house. While we were sitting there the girl at the next counter got up and went to the loo. She left, on the counter, her books, papers, laptop, cell phone, blueberry and wallet, amongst her work. Keir and I stared at each other in amazement and fascination. After spending a year in WHK we couldn't believe that she expected it all to be there when she came back from the loo, and more amazing, it WAS still there when she came back. Huh, I guess we really don't have to worry so much about whether the back door is locked.

K wrote a test on Sunday. There is this Honour system at Uni's here. You collect your test paper from your lecturer, due a week from when you collect it. Then you study. At some point you write the test, and it is just trusted that you won't cheat, or take longer than you are supposed to. Wow.

In the grocery store there were 27 different kinds of milk to choose from. Including vitamen A and D added kind. I made K decide as my brain was boggling.

The bird bath was frozen over this morning

It made me glad I was snuggled up in bed all night.

even more ooh, aah than the moon!

JUST saw a HUGE sharp-shinned Hawk sitting at my back door. Literally! I opened the back door and there he was, we gave each other such a fright. It looks amazingly like southern Africa's Rock Kestrel. The book says they like to sit near bird feeders and nab little birds. Shame! Now the birds will never come to my feeder. You should have seen Henry and Oleo scurry inside after he flew off. Don't think he is big enough to actually catch them though, especially with Oleo's retrieved beer belly.

Eclipse last night

Last night was a full eclipse of the moon. We didn't stand outside in the freezing the entire three hours but instead dashed out, oohed, aahed and then dashed back inside. It was really something to watch, very eerie and ghoulish. These are some of K's photos over the eve.

Today at the bird feeder

Two Carolina chickadees, a female red finch and a tufted titmouse. Also something small and adorable and too fast to identify.

The weather

It's so cold outside today that when I opened the back door for the cats this morning, Henry decided to pee in the litter box and Oleo went back to bed. They didn't even stick their noses out and sniff. They both sat about a foot from the open door and gave me the classic "is she crazy?" cat look. Hence I have decided to do the same. I peed in the loo and went back to bed. I am sad to say that after some time under the covers, the weather is still freezing and now the reports are offering rain and possibly snow. erk. What an excellent day to write dozens of cover letters. double erk.

Learning to share.

YUM!

We made a fantastic discovery last night, an excellent combination...

Bird feeder

Nothing new at the bird feeder today. Am beginning to wonder if our wind chimes are keeping them away?

The best spot in the house

And he kicked his sister off to get it!

Outside

The weather is absolutely stunning right now, (as in, this half hour) so Oleo and I sat outside on the side steps for a little, while Henry gallivants. While I was sitting there I had to rush back inside for the bird book and binocs. A pair, male and female, of House Finches came along. Not exciting for anyone else as they are apparently quite common, but exciting for me, sweet little re-headed chap and his stripey lady. Speaking of red-heads, the woodpecker was back too, and he was in a fould mood. Dashing around the trees in the back garden making his angry little Chchch noises. He sounded like a squirrel so I ignored him for ages till I caught sight of his bright red streak.

Back to birding

Yesterday as we were about to leave the house, a bluebird just casually sat down on the fence in front of us. We were in raptures. We have only ever seen a bluebird once before and it was exciting then too. It was a female and it wasn't long before a male joined us. We then noticed all kinds of little birds hanging about. Including a few chicadees, a junco and a red-bellied woodpecker! We were so excited that we went out and got a very nifty bird feeder for the front garden. More on that later. Meanwhile, here is a pic of the female bluebird and also the woodpecker.

More on the Teapot

It is wonderful and fabulous. It is the teapot that keeps on giving. I believe the search has ended. Of course there are two new problems, we don't have anyone to share the tea with yet and the kettle in which we boil water is half the volume of the teapot. SIGH.

P.P.S

Also found Mrs Balls. Halleluja for no more dry sandwiches. AND found rusks, both K's and my favourite flavours! Both these items at VERY reasonable prices and affordable as daily consumables. On the other hand, we also found five roses tea at an extortionate price. Seriously, anyone wanting to import the stuff el cheapo could make a killing underselling the current distributor.

PS

The marmite bottle is to give an impression of size. Also - YAY - I found marmite for my breakfast toast!

In search of the biggest teapot

Some of you will know that I have long been searching for a teapot that can serve 6 mugs of tea, and then give everyone a second cuppa, whithout being refilled. We found this one today. It did not have a volume marked on it, so I can't be sure if it is THE ONE but we bought it in an optimistic fashion. Purchase based mostly on the fact that it has been provided with a second handle, at the spout. Which says to me: this pot has so much tea, you need two handles to pour it. Of course there are no longer six people in our house, or even in our neighbourhood who need a cup, but K and I will try it out, and see if we can a) have three cups of tea each, and then b) another three and c) does the pot need refilling. Think kindly of our bladders this evening.

Freezing Rain

It's disgusting when you are outside in it, but quite pretty when you can stay in your pj's indoors!

Overheard while walking down the road

Gent A: I had me a 'Gator once
Gent B: ya don't say?
Gent A: Yeah, Sowth American Red
Gent B: them big suckers?
Gent A: 4, maybe 5 feet
Gent B: Ya get it down in Florida?
Gent A: Yeah...

I wish I could have found some way to hang around and hear the rest of it!

To make up for power outages

Excellent things about Cville, VA.

Clumping cat litter actually clumps and truly nuetralises odors.
62 (we counted) different flavours of mustard in one grocery shop.
Really good microbreweries which make excellent beer and so many to choose from.
Hank would be considered a small car. (can't decide if that is good or bad)
Holly trees everywhere.

from Carter Mountain and bending pines

The wind in the pines and not the first world

We such a full day yesterday, woke up late and had scones for breakfast and then dressed up woolly and warm and headed out towards the mountains for a walk. It was just a short walk as the weather was brisk. We walked up to Carter Mountain lookout which looks towards Cville. The amazing thing about the walk was the wind. There was a weather advisory out for extreme windiness so of course we decide to go walk in the woods. At one point we both had to resist running back to the car because the pines which line the pathway are a few stories tall and were bending over under the wind. The rushing sound in the tops of the trees must be like what a flash flood sounds like, loud, elemental and feeding directly to your reptilian brain. When the pines bent over too far you could hear cracking and creaking low down in their trunks and sometimes they bent far over the pathway shedding needles and cones down in front of us. The experience was so heady and intense that we went grocery shopping after to calm down.

When we arrived home the power was out. Which is apparently common in high winds as all the electric cables are above ground. We fluffed around the house all afternoon feeling bereft of our computors and radio. As it started to get dark and the power was still off we assessed how far reaching the lights were out in the neighbourhood (far as the eye could see) and located our headlamps, gas stove and LED wind up lamp. At this point I would like to take a moment to thank C and P for that thoughtful and perhaps prescient gift. They live not far from us, and I begin to wonder if this isn't a common pattern in VA, the loss of electricty due to weather.

K poured us each a beer and we played a close and comptetive game of scrabble by headlamplight. Of course our scrabble dictionary is currently somewhere over the Atlantic ocean so we had to make frequent calls to the ever patient S to settle our challenges. As the scrabble scores mounted we became horribly and terrifyingly (for me anyway) aware that we hadn't heard the furnace come on for some time and that the temperature in the rest of the house had dropped considerably. K had started a roaring fire early in the day so the lounge was still toasty, but the cool from the kitchen was seeping it's way across the wooden floor towards the dining table. I valiantly fetched my gown from the bedroom and pretended it was ok if we froze in our beds. I couldn't contain myself for long though and started pacing the house, assessing the situation from the windows as the lights coming on in the neighbourhood crept closer and closer to Broad Ave, our current place of residence.

Imagine my horror and also indignance when the lights came on all along Cherry rd, our closest neighbour and yet nothing for Broad Ave. K eventually convinced me to desist my pacing by serving me hot pea soup. Thank goodness for our camping gear! We used the last of his laptop energy in watching three-quarters of a CSI and then went to bed.

The night was a true test of the quality of our duvet (very good) as when we awoke this morning, the rest of the house had a layer of frost on every surface. OK OK. not EVERY surface. OK. Not any surface. But it was VERY cold and neither the heat nor anything else was on yet. K kept the bed warm while I popped out and fed the cats. The loo seat was not for the faint of heart, and I was not faint of heart, but in fact full of bladder. Not an experience I wish to repeat. K got up to go to lectures and I poked one hand out of the blankets to call the electric company with a quavering voice. The lovely lady on the other end promised they hadn't forgotten us. I think they did, cos 15 minutes after my call the miraculous music to my ears of the furnace kicking in was heard. Hallelujah I cried and sprung from my bedcovers.

And they call this the first world. Where is eskom when you need them!

The new House

This is the house from the front, also a photo of the lounge, except of course I have changed it already. Will try and post a more up to date photo. Things I love about the house are the shower is intense and hot, the wooden floors are warm and easy to clean, the fireplace is cosy and the afternoon sun streams into most rooms and lights them up.

First Impressions, again.

I feel almost as though I have not lived here before. I am having to relearn everything. It will be some time before I walk around to the correct side for the passenger seat of the car and I hope I relearn the direction to look before I get hit by something. I think the worst was doing grocery shopping. I cannot seem to recall any of the products and brands that I used to buy. I spent about an hour and a half for a few bags of shopping because I was pricing, checking ingredients and mostly just feeling overwhelmed. I did spend the first few days just feeling overwhelmed, like I knew nothing and was completely out of place. Now though, my feeling of adventure is returning. I am looking forward to figuring out which bus to take, and am quite excited about finding the Library downtown, of course, Libraries have always been happy places for me. Things that are strange once again include how big everything is. The highways are huge, they go on forever and they fit so many cars at a time. The cars themselves are generally twice the size of cars in Namibia. It is so strange, I feel a little like Alice in Wonderland and I drank a small-making potion. The trees are huge too. Which is something that I love about this part of the world and I love that we have so many huge trees in our garden. The weather adjustment has actually been quite easy, probably because I have been able to just stay indoors on nasty days. What is strange though is the constant cloud cover. My eyes feel like it is just before sunset all the time. More later when I have explored Cville more.

The best thing about the US of A

Tissues with lotion and ... wait for it... vicks! Oh yeah... it's soooo good. you breathe in, it clears you up, you blow out and it clears you up and no sore, red and chapped nostrils. What a wonderful thing.

crazy for crockpot!

There is so much to say about being back in the states, and I will get there. But for now let me talk about the simple wonder in a crockpot. S gave me one that she wasn't using and I am inordinately excited about trying it out. I have gathered together the ingredients for Chilli, vegetarian of course. The beans are soaking overnight and they look gorgeous with their deep and fresh colours in my bright green bowl. tomorrow early I will set everything cooking and hopefully by sometime in the afternoon the whole house will smell edible like when Mom made various deliscious things for meat eaters in her slow cooker. Next I will try three potato soup and maybe even eggplant parmigiana! Will let you know how the chilli works out.

and another one