Roanoke in the news again!



Pic from Garden & Gun magazine article ~ Jennifer Causey = photographer

 Roanoke is in the news again!  Check out this article by a Roanoke transplant in Garden & Gun magazine, which has the best name for a magazine ever, btw...

When Loneliness Comes A Callin'

Even after living in Roanoke for over two years and meeting new people and starting a new life, it amazes me how I can be still feel lonely.  What amazes me more is when the loneliness can strike.  Randomly when I'm surrounded by other people, when I'm out and about, or just lying in bed.  I can't get over how I'll feel fine one second and then the next, I'm lonely.  You'd think that at my age (later 30's) that with experience and along with the fact that I'm an independent gal that I would be able to banish it but that just doesn't seem to happen.  Does that ever happen to you too?

My mom had a college psychology professor that told her class that depression visits everyone from time to time and you'll never see it coming.  I think the same is true of loneliness.  It hit me like a brick this weekend and a few weekends ago and I'm still not sure why.  I'm waiting for Loneliness to leave now.  Go set up shop someplace else!

Staten Island Circus Ride

The only time I go to Staten Island is when I'm driving through it to get to Long Island or out of Long Island.  I usually have to hold my nose while I drive due to either lovely low tide STANK or methane nastiness emanating from the giant landfill there.  I wonder if Staten Island still has the world's largest landfill or if someplace else took over that title...

Anyway, in a few years Staten Island is getting the world's largest ferris wheel according to this Newsday article.  Honestly, I'm a little shocked.  Why the hell would you put something like that there?  I get that you want a nice view of the Statue of Liberty and all, but why there?!  That's not such a good area.  No one goes to Staten Island unless they live there and it's not easy to get there in the first place.  Plus, it smells bad a lot of the time.  I just don't understand people and their decisions.

Courtesy of the AP as seen on the Newsday website

The last ferris wheel I went on was during the Salem Fair this summer.  It was awesome but I apparently now have a semi-fear of heights that I didn't have before.  I got to see the Mill Mountain Star from afar during dusk and there was no smell.  :-)

The Unforgettable Fire of New York

Who doesn't love U2?  Really, who doesn't?!!  I've seen them in concert three different times - first for their PopMart tour in 1997, then at Madison Square Garden with my sister during a Thanksgiving week some years ago (best show EVER), and finally during their last tour at Giants Stadium.  [Note: U2 rocks but Giants Stadium does not...]

But my brain thinks I've seen them more than that since I've experienced two different U2 tribute band performances several times back when I lived in New York.  If you close your eyes, being there is like being at an intimate U2 show.  I know you probably think I'm exaggerating but these guys are truly fantastic.  They bring the energy, the passion, and they sound like the real deal.  If you are a U2 fan, it's a real salve when U2 isn't touring.



There's a new documentary screening at Tribeca that examines my fav U2 tribute band, Unforgettable Fire.  Check out their trailer above and their website too...  I love when "Bono" starts speaking with a heavy New Yawk accent.  It's just so funny!  Then you hear him sing towards the end of the video clip and you listen to the band play and you're like "What!!  OMG, they are soooooo good!" [I sound like a Valley Girl there.  Gag me with a spoon.  I should have inserted 'like' a few times for emphasis.]

Anyway, if for some reason you are in NYC on Friday, October 12th you should go see them at The Canal Room.  I did a few years ago w/ one of my best friends, Miriam, and we had A BLAST!!  Canal Room has very nice bathrooms, as an aside...

I wonder if Coldplayers, the Coldplay tribute band from Canada, will open up for them again on the 12th?  They were awesome too.  :-)

Freckles: happy vs. sad

I was looking for an article in The Roanoke Times about the closing of a local coffee shop named Freckles.  Instead, I came across an article and slideshow about Freckles the Ferret who survived being caught up in a washing machine for over half an hour.  So, one Freckles survives and the other doesn't.  I guess this recession/economy is worse than being drowned and spun around ~ scary thought.



This is not Freckles



Bagel Boss

Hey!  Guess who is the guest post gal at Virginia is for Bloggers today?  Me!  Read about my bagel smuggling here: http://virginiabloggers.com/

Real Life & the Movies: Part II

Just seeing this movie poster traumatizes me

The best boyfriend ever treated me to dinner and a movie last night downtown.  It had been a longggggggggggggg week and we were both exhausted but happy to be getting out and about.  Yay Friday night!  Dinner at The Village Grill was delicious.  We got to sit outside on their deck and enjoy some chicken panini yumminess and chat.  The Yankees game was being broadcast on a giant HDTV, not that either of us really cared about the Yankees game but hey...  We topped it off by sharing some apple pie and vanilla ice cream.  "Autumn!" he said.  Yep, it was a good start to the evening.

Then we wandered over to The Grandin to wait for the previous showing of The Master to let out so we could get seated for the 9:35 showing.  The critics have been raving about this movie and it was opening night.  High expectations!

First of all, it's never a good sign when it's opening night and no one is there to see the movie.  Secondly, when people stagger out proclaiming "Worst movie ever!" you should be concerned.  An acquaintance made his way out of the theatre and into the lobby.  "So, how was it?!" I asked in a happy, expectant voice.  You could tell that he was trying to think of a way not to depress me.  He summed it up by saying, "It's different and disturbing and has no plot."  Keep in mind, this man directs theatre for a living.  Two and a half hours later I would sum up the movie as:

• In my top three worst movies ever along with Ponette and North Fork
• Disturbing and stupid ass
• A total waste of money ~ sorry best boyfriend ever :-(
• A joke on the public ~ the producers should be forced to refund everyone's money especially since no one should have to pay for garbage like this during a recession
• I told my boyfriend: "I feel like I just spent some time in pergatory now so I'll have less time to spend in it after I die"

Various professional film critics raved about this movie.  Why?  It's awful.  There was not one person in that theatre for either show that liked it to my knowledge.  In our time slot, people were falling asleep because they just couldn't take the awful, boring, weird-ass-ness of this movie.

So, my opinion is: save yourself and don't watch this movie and don't believe a word the critics are writing about it.  Real life and this movie have nothing in common.  Unless you want to compare it to torture.

Real Life & the Movies Part I: Roller Derby

A few years back, I saw this really cute movie with Ellen Page, Jimmy Fallon, Marcia Gay Harden, Juliette Lewis, and Drew Barrymore - Whip It.  Did you see it?  If not, it's a good rental...

I wish I had the guts to wear my eyeliner like this...

In case you've never heard of the movie: Ellen Page's character is a teenager with typical problems and stresses who joins a local roller derby group and boosts her self-confidence along the way all while trying to avoid being a beauty pageant contestant (her mom's idea).  That description sounds cheesy but the writing was actually really good and the characters weren't flat or predictable.  Her scenes with her parents are some of the best...

The roller derby chicks each had their own alias like "Iron Maven" and "Maggie Mayhem" and really pounded the hell out of each other on the roller track.  It was a funny movie that made me want to catch a live roller derby match one day.  See them race along a large track on their roller skates and slam each other around ~ the action and violence!  LOL

Unfortunately, this is one of those situations in life where the movie is much more high tech and fancy than the real thing.  I went to see a local roller derby team at a nearby roller rink and they had the cool outfits and the clever names but their venue just wasn't good enough for them to play on.  They only rolled around on the center part of the roller rink and it took them about 15 seconds to circle around the track once.  Why weren't they using the entire track?  Where was the shoving and fancy choreographed moves I saw in the movie? 

It was really hard to follow what was going on and nearly impossible to see since there were so many women packed into such a small space.  I felt like they "ended the jam" every 15 seconds and the point system was more complicated than college-level calculus.  Someone tripped a ref once and that was fun...

There were only two breaks for injuries.  Both times, everyone on the track got on a bended knee and total quiet came over the crowd.  It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop and that was respectful, I thought.  In both cases, everyone was okay.  Also, in both cases, the skee ball machine behind me started up VERY LOUDLY with crazy carnival music to attract customers.  Probably not the best time, skee ball...  Have a little class, okay?

What was pretty cool was that the majority of the athletes seemed to be in their late 30's and early 40's and had their spouses, kids, and parents there to cheer them on.  The women seemed really excited and happy to be playing and were polite to each other and displayed good sportsmanship.  It was obvious that they really loved what they were doing which was great to see.  But, even then, I wanted what I saw in the movie.  I had been spoiled.  I felt like screaming aloud: "Use the entire track!  Shove your Jammer to the front!  Crash into those voyeurs sitting on the track instead of behind the wall!  Turn on the disco ball and black lights!"  Instead, I kept my mouth shut since a roller girl's 11-year old daughter was sitting next to me playing on her computer...



Roller girls racing around the track (that purple blob is a cement wall)

 

Starry Night

http://www.space.com/12973-skywatching-find-tatooine-alien-solar-system-kepler-16.html

Well, after months of trying, my boyfriend and I were finally able to go stargazing through the Roanoke County Parks & Rec's free nighttime astromony program.  Once a month around the new mooon, Frank from the Roanoke Valley Astronomical Society will unload his giant telescope on the Blue Ridge Parkway by an overlook area and point out whatever the night sky has to offer.

The last few months that I've registered, the program has been cancelled each time due to cloud cover and haze.  Yesterday, it was a bit cloudy but clear enough that the program could go on.  Yay!

There were about ten of us and Frank showed us a globular cluster in the Hercules constellation's keystone area using his telescope.  It looked like a cotton ball.  We also checked out a binary star that only looks like one star when you are looking at it without a telescope because the two stars are so close together.  It's Cygnus the Swan's beak - Albireo (see pic above from Space.com).  What's neat is that when you look at the two stars in the telescope one is clearly white and the other is blue.  It's really pretty awesome!

Frank also pointed out lots of different summer constellations using a green laser pointer: The Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, part of Ursa, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Hercules, Cygnus...  He also showed us the Northern Cross and some other neat things.  I liked how Frank would say: "That star is 25,000 light years away and that light started traveling here before agriculture even existed."  Mind blowing...

On the way there and back, we encountered fog, raccoons, and deer ~ plus nice mountain views.  I can only imagine how pretty the parkway is in the autumn!

Today, will be Roller Derby.  Hopefully!  Have a great weekend ~

Get Me to the Greek (food)!

This weekend is Roanoke's annual Greek festival which is held right off of Williamson Road (Rte 11) at a Greek Orthodox Church.  Last year, the festival drew over 20,000 visitors and they expect even more this year with the awesome weather we are having.  Let me tell you: they do a great job.  The hours are long (open until 10PM) and they don't close up at 8PM like every place else in Roanoke seems to do.

The best boyfriend ever and I went tonight and waited in a very long line, which is unusual for Roanoke, to select some Greek yummies from a buffet line.  Sooooo worth the wait!  He had chicken souvlaki, rice, green beans, and a Greek salad.  I had moussaka, spanikopita, and some sort of flan-like, custard dessert.  I think it was spelled something like "Galaktoburrito" but that's totally not it and I'm butchering the name.  Anyway, the food was amazing and we got to sit outside under a gigantic tent listening to live traditional Greek music.  It was in the mid 70's and just perfect outside...  So nice to be enjoying an outdoor food festival with several thousand happy people after a long work week.

There were about a dozen kids of various dressed up in traditional costumes dancing and that was pretty adorable to watch.  Especially the boy who liked his tassled hat and kept playing with it.  No smashing plates, though.

Desserts for the parents to nibble on

 

Why Do All the Great Alt Rock Stations Die?

Four years ago, something very exciting happened in New York.  My favorite alternative rock radio station of all time was born.  I cannot begin to tell you how wonderful it was.  [Notice I'm writing in past tense here?]  Not only were the on-air personalities fabulous and so connected to their fans but the music selection was amazing.  101.9 WRXP played great music and also introduced me to so many new artists and songs ~ it was always a candy store for the ears:

Soundgarden, Linkin Park, M83, Death Cab for Cutie, Alice In Chains, 30 Seconds to Mars, The Cult, Muse, Shinedown, Spacehog, AWOLNATION, Foo Fighters, Arcade Fire, Ryan Adams & the Cardinals, Mumford & Sons, Audioslave, Jane's Addiction, Radiohead, Broken Bells, Beastie Boys, U2, Oasis, The Church, Foster the People, Kaiser Chiefs, Kings of Leon, Matt & Kim, Florence + the Machine, The Naked and Famous, Neon Trees, Phoenix, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Psychedelic Furs, Regina Spektor, Trevor Hall, Two Door Cinema Club, Young the Giant...

Matt Pinfield, a former beloved MTV VJ, became their morning radio host and I loved listening to his stories and deep voice and laugh.  Leslie Fram, the program director through most of the RXP run, was his cohost and she apparently knows everyone in the business and she impressed me as being the most positive and upbeat music host.  The two of them were fantastic together and it made my hour-long ride into work in the mornings enjoyable ~ which was significant considering the traffic hell I was dealing with.  As soon as I got to work, I'd listen to them on the internet.

Steve Craig came on at lunchtime and would play some Ramones and punk from his "punk trunk".  I'm not a big fan of punk but it was an education and one I appreciated.  I used to e-mail him all the time to play Oasis songs during the lunchtime request hour.  I'm sure he got sick of me but he was always so generous with his replys and took his listeners seriously and always put us first.  :-)  Brian Phillips handled the ride home and had me laughing all the way out East.  Paul Cavalconte hosted when I was driving around on the weekends and he had the smoothest and gentlest voice of them all.  He always sounded like such a gentleman with a deep love for music.

When I moved to Virginia I was happy to be able to listen to RXP on the internet when I was at work.  I missed it in the car and on the weekends but it was something, anyway.

Previously, 101.9 WRXP had been CD 101.9, a smooth jazz station.  It was really good too and I'm sure the listeners who loved it were totally outraged when it died and was replaced by an alt rock format.  As outraged as I was when WRXP died last year.  Actually, it was murdered.  Due to 'low ratings' which I think is total b.s.  All these fantastic d.j.'s lost their jobs and scattered across the country at the whim of a corporation.  A year later, 101.9 is back with alternative rock but without the original team so it's not the same.  Very sad.

Last year, after I lost RXP and was so sad about it, I started looking around for a different alt rock radion station that also broadcast on the internet so I could listen to it at work.  I found 99X in Atlanta.  They seemed to mostly just play music and there didn't seem to be a lot of DJ interaction like there was on RXP but the music was really good!  Guess what happened last week?  Dead.  Same cause of death: alt rock isn't appreciated by the corporate giants that decide on formats for their radion stations.  I'm depressed.

I honestly have no idea where to turn now.  Part of the enjoyment of listening to radio is having a connection with the DJs.  That's why I avoid Pandora.  Well, where to next?

Roanoke on PBS

We made the news scene. Nice views of local businesses and downtown farmer's market area.

Apparently, my video feed has disappeared...

50 Shades of...

This December, if you hear thousands of women screaming and hollering from this direction it's because the Las Vegas Chippendale's dancers will be in town.  Of course, I use the term 'dancers' loosely - no pun intended.  Loose.  Get it?  (hee hee)

Twyla Tharp Meets the Crooked Road

I like to try new things.  Living far away from a large city means that I need to try new things on a regular basis to keep from getting bored.  When I moved here from New York, I read a lot about SW Virginia to get an idea about what made this region special.  I thought, "I'll figure out what this area has that NY doesn't and I'll give it a try!"  People wrote a lot about all the great hiking and kayaking and river-y things to do which made me nervous.  I knew I was not going to become some hiker because I'm too wimpy for that.  Plus, I don't swim.  So, now what?

One of the natural resources that Southwest Virginia has in abundance is good bluegrass music, apparently.  'The Crooked Road' is an area in SW VA that people call our state's "heritage music trail".  Basically, it's the part of the state where you focus your attention if you want to hear good, live bluegrass.  There's even a PBS series that's filmed in SW VA that showcases professional bluegrass musicians so you can get a concert on your couch.  I saw some episodes and I thought I'd like to give a live music experience a try!

I've read about The Crooked Trail in various magazines and newspaper articles, especially in the last few years.  Hipsters love rediscovering old timey pursuits like farming and beekeeping (Did you read about the guy in Queens who had 30+ beehives housing millions of bees and it was shut down? Thanks to his real estate agent who knew she couldn't sell his house with swarms of bees.  Crazyyyyy) and playing banjos and things like that.  I think that's why there is a resurgence in interest in bluegrass by young people.  Most of these young people are hipsters.  This is just a theory but I think it's true.  In case you are wondering, I'm not a hipster.  "Not that there's anything wrong with that".

Anyway, two weekends ago my boyfriend took me to see a bluegrass jam at the Salem Farmer's Market on a Friday night.  There were three pods of people in different corners of the quiet farmer's market next to Roanoke College.  Most of the musicians were AARP members and they obviously don't have arthritis issues because they were able to strum their guitars and banjos FAST FAST FAST.  I saw a bass, a harmonica or two, and some other instruments that I didn't know exactly what they were.  In any case, the music was good!  We didn't stay long - maybe 15 minutes total before we went on to our next adventure.

So, last weekend we went to see the Roanoke Fiddle & Banjo Club do their thing at a local high school.  They were pretty good.  It was hard to get a full appreciation of the music because someone's little girl ~ about 8 years old ~ was an attention whore and was doing interpretive dance a la Twyla Tharp on the side of the stage for no good reason.  WTF?!  There were a lot of off-key leg lifts, hops, and convulsive actions going on.  I wanted to smack that kid off the stage and tell her to find her rhythm.  It was obviously missing.

What made the whole scene more annoying was that you could tell the kid was loving it.  Not the dancing part, the fact that people's eyes kept drifting towards her.  She couldn't see the horror in their eyes, I don't think.  Maybe she is jealous of Honey Boo Boo Kitty Child and wants to be her.  Ugh.

Wandering Around NYC

I'll be visiting NY for a few days in the next few weeks and I'm looking forward to wandering around in the cooler, crisper weather.  I'll try to find time to check out the newest section of The Highline while I'm there.  The Highline was such a big deal in the local news when it opened up a few years ago.  An old, abandoned section of elevated train track was repurposed into a walking garden/park instead of being torn down and it's really pretty.  You get good views of the Empire State Building and the surrounding neighborhoods while you walk around ~ here's a pic I took the last time I was up there:

Looking towards 10th Avenue

 

Fishing (I couldn't come up with a witty title)

Wonder what he caught?!

I went fishing once as a kid on the North Shore of Long Island but I was annoyed the entire time.  I got to use a lame-o bamboo fishing pole without a reel on it.  Honestly, it was useless.  Even as a elementary school age child with no prior fishing experience, I knew that I was being gyped and my older brother had the nice rod/reel combo and I was very bitter about it.

I have the worst memory but I can totally remember so many details about that day partly because I was so frustrated.  I wanted to be offered the same fishing experience as my brother even though I was so tiny and weak. Didn't matter - I wanted equal treatment.

My boyfriend has taken me fishing several times and I get to use the big girl/big boy rod and reel (yay!).  Perhaps this adult fishing experience will lead me to finally get over my childhood fishing anger issues.  It's possible!

What I like about fishing is how relaxing it is.  Even if you don't catch anything you can just enjoy the water and the landscape... Plus, you never know what is going to happen and that keeps it interesting.  I never thought that a fish could successfully take a worm or minnow off of a hook and hoodwink me.  It happens all the time.  I like that the fish aren't all that helpless or dumb.  Otherwise, I'd feel guilty.  But, I don't because we throw them back.  Actually, my boyfriend does that part because I am still a bit of a little girl I guess. The wiggly fish makes me nervous.  Go figure... ;-)

The Library Comes With Coffee & Concierge Service

I needed to check out some books from a local university's library and I went on-line to see if they were even available late last night.  What was weird is that they had a little shopping cart next to each book I found and each time I added a book to the shopping cart I really had no idea what the purpose of the cart was.  It's a library ~ I need to go check out the books when I get there, right?

Apparently not.  This university library takes your e-request and pulls the books off of the shelves for you and will have them ready for you to pick up at the circulation desk.  If you are a professor or staff member of the university, they will deliver your books to your office!!  I can't get over the fantastic customer service this university library provides.  Besides the library being gorgeous and relaxing, it essentially has concierge service.  That's amazing.

One of my county public libraries is brand new and comes with its own coffee shop attached.  You can either drive thru or stop in to the Mill Mountain Coffee and buy some homemade sandwiches, coffee, or a scone (cinnamon scones ROCK!) and you are allowed to eat and drink throughout the library.  Yes, that is quite something.  No one will give you a dirty look if you are drinking coffee and munching on a kick-ass cinnamon scone in the large print book section.  That's amazing too.

Cherry Coke!!

I wasn't feeling too good tonight so my boyfriend brought a small bottle of my favorite beverage, Cherry Coke, with him to cheer me up when he stopped by for a visit.  He's the best!!  I know people love to drink beer and wine but how can they compare to the deliciousness of a Cherry Coke??!  I'm sipping away while I read Gone Girl.  Good stuff...

Seen In the Supermarket Parking Lot...

It's looking at me...

No Popcorn Necessary

I much prefer to watch a movie in a theatre than at home.  A lot of people complain about the crowds and people with big hair sitting in front of them which I totally understand but I like the experience of watching a story unfold on a big screen with a reacting audience.  The best theatres are the renovated historic ones that have a ton of character, don't you think??  Blacksburg has The Lyric and Roanoke has The Grandin, where I was last night.  My favorite historic theatre, though, is in Milwaukee ~ The Oriental.

I went years ago when I was visiting my college roommate in her new hometown and we walked downtown to see Murderball.  The Oriental has a grand entrance with ceilings about two stories tall.  It is decked out and full of glamour.  The best part was sitting inside waiting for the previews to start because a very loud and impressive pipe organ started to play.  I was thinking to myself, "Where the hell is this organ?  I feel like I'm at church" and then it slowly rose up from the floor.  This giant organ with a nerdy white guy playing it rose up from nowhere and took centerstage.  It was a total surprise and pretty awesome, I must say.

My first-ever job was working concessions at a now defunct movie theatre called the UA Cinema 150.  Now, it's an Equinox gym.  I was never a fan of popcorn but after working concessions I learned to hate it for several reasons:

1. I came home smelling like wet, stale popcorn every night I worked and that stank was gross to me
2. The popcorn machine isn't cleaned very often or very well
3. There were ants swarming in the popcorn bin one night and my manager expected us to keep serving it until I had a shit fit right there and then in front of him and the customers.  I got the job of cleaning it out as punishment.  He later got fired for stealing money from the place.  Shocker.

So, to summarize: historic theatres = yay! and popcorn = no thank you

Who Doesn't Like Vinyl?

I'm not talking about vinyl pantsuits which aren't so great.  I'm talking about good ole 45s and LPs.

I treated myself to an orange, vintage-looking record player recently and I love the damn thing.  Every time I use, it my mood elevates.  I bought it on-line and have some new and used LPs to play.  Tonight while my boyfriend and I were eating dinner we listened to Bono and the gang serenade us on my little orange machine.  Soooo nice....

Back when I was a kid my family had a beige record player in the basement and my dad would play his Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass albums while my brother listened to Phil Collins and Weird Al Yankovic.  I vaguely remember my sister having a Saturday Night Fever record.  I'm sure there were other albums but those are the ones that stuck in my mind.

Yes, the West Virginia State Fair is awesome!!

Today was the nicest summer day we've had in a while.  Sunny but low humidity and in the low 80's.  I love the heat but it's so nice to be able to enjoy being outside without sweating through your clothes and feeling like you are going to pass out.  So nice!

My man treated me to the West Virginia State Fair today and drove us up to Lewisburg, WV (voted the coolest small town in the USA last year).  I'm so glad we went!  The fair was on some very large fairgrounds and was organized really well.  There was a large section for carnival rides and games that we bypassed and several long rows of food vendors that we checked out first.  Any kind of carnival food that you could possibly want was there: funnel cakes, elephant ears, cotton candy, fried candy bars & Oreos, burgers, hotdogs, pizza, chicken on a stick, Philly steak sandwiches, ribbon fries coated with cheese and ranch dressing, and even salads.  Yep, salads.  That made us laugh a bit... 

My view while I ate a slice of pizza.  From a NY subway, perhaps?

After walking through the maze of food and beverage vendor area, you got to a large horse racing track and a smaller horse track where show horses were strutting their stuff for blue ribbons.  We watched them for a while and then headed off to see all the livestock shows.  Ribbons were awarded to the best llamas, sheep, goats, hogs, cows, horses, and rabbits.  Honestly, I think my fav were the rabbits - so CUTE!!  It was also really fun to watch small children wrangle their goats in the show ring.  Not an easy task, let me tell you... 

Pig Love

The draft horses were gigantically tall and mostly napping.  I would have loved to have seen them out in the ring but they did their thing before we arrived.  We saw some cloggers dancing on a stage and, if we had stayed late tonight, we would have seen a singing act and fireworks.  Somewhere there was a pie judging contest that we weren't able to locate but we ate so much junk food that this might have put us over the edge anyway.

By 3:30, we were totally wiped out from all the sunshine and sugar and headed home.  It was awesome...  Definitely one of the best times I've had since moving down to VA!

This is a WV bunny but a bunch of NJ bunnies were there too...

When Wrapping A Gift...

Zombies I've known and loved...

...make sure to add zombies.  It makes it better.

Hopefully, I Won't Kill Anyone



www.freshpreserving.com


Last night, I took a class through the Virginia Cooperative Extension on how to preserve fruits and veges by canning.  You know ~ putting yummy things in glass jars and doing it right so no one dies of botulism.  The 2-hour class was only $5.  You really can't beat that, right?!  I'm going to try my hand at this at some point.  I think I'm going to stick to the hot-water bath method because the other method calls for using a pressure canner.  If you've never seen one, a pressure canner is a giant pot that has a lid that clamps down and fills with so much steam pressure that there are emergency valves so the thing doesn't blow up and burn you to death with steam.  It's awesome but scary as hell.

Why would anyone use a pressure canner, you ask?  Yes, I asked that same question.  Apparently, any low-acid foods that aren't canned at a high enough temperature can kill you with botulism.  So, if you want to jar some green beans or corn or meat, for example, you might kill yourself or someone else if you don't use the steam pressure method.  It's safe to "water-bath can" high-acid foods like pickled anything, tomatoes, fruits, jams...  Stuff like that. 

Apparently, yellow squash doesn't like to be jarred and you should just freeze it.  It's low maintenance.  I learned that last night too.  Another reason to like yellow squash ~ it says "Hey, don't go to any trouble... Just freeze me, baby."  Okay!

On the other hand, I could just go to one of the dozens of farmers markets in the area and just buy jarred yummy food items from them but I'm trying to be all independent and creative and stuff.  We'll see if it leaves me dead or not.  Between the roaming bears and rabid coyotes and botulism I'm shocked that I've lasted down here so long.  ;-)

Rabid Foxes & Hungry Bears & Humping Skunks - Oh My!

I got an e-mail notification last Friday at work that a bear has been roaming in the area looking for food.  "Please don't feed the bear" was the general message.  Um, I won't be.  I just can't picture myself approaching a wild animal that weighs hundreds of pounds and is HUNGRY.  That just won't happen.  The squirrels at my job are frisky and freakish enough that I avoid them...

Today, the Roanoke Times had an article about a woman in Blacksburg that got attacked walking from her car to her house by a presumably rabid fox.  It bit her, wouldn't let go, and it took her husband kicking it off of her to get the attack to end.  Their cat ended up being put down due to injuries from the same fox.  "The fox is still at large."  They make him sound like Al Capone or something.  Get out your gun and shoot the damn thing already!

Underneath the building I work in, skunks live.  They love to stink up the place in the early morning right before I go to work.  The INTENSE ODOR will permeate the entire first floor and make you want to vomit.  My boyfriend says they are frisky and mate in the spring AND the fall.  WTH?  Stop humping and spraying your STANK all over my workplace!

So, that's my Roanoke nature roundup for today.  If I don't ever post again, it's because a horny skunk stunned me with its stank, I got bit by a rabid fox while I stumbled around after the skunk attack, and then a roaming hungry bear ate my ass.

Ahhh, Memories...

If everything goes as planned, I'll be going to my first state fair and I'm totally excited about this possibility.  West Virginia's annual state fair is coming up and is only a little over an hour and a half away so it's an easy drive.  Livestock!  Contests!  Fair-y type events!!  I'm totally psyched.  The good thing about growing up in NY is that I'm used to crowds and traffic so I'm not worried about having to deal with slow-moving lines and tons of people.

Last month, I went to the Salem Fair which was mostly about rides and people watching.  It was my first time on a ferris wheel in ages and I got to watch some trained pigs race and eat a fried Oreo.  I think the highlight of the evening was watching a 'Dunk the Clown' clown rip people a new one as they tried to toss balls at a target to drown him.  A plump 20-something blonde was having a go and he started his taunts: "I hope that's a DIET drink in your hand!" "You could be a runway model....at LaGuardia airport!".  And so on.

Every summer, I grew up seeing ads for the Westchester County Fair on tv and wanted to go but never bothered asking my parents to take me since Westchester seemed a million miles away.  Actually, anytime you have to drive through Queens to get anywhere it seems a million miles away even to this day - LOL!!  Anyway, I went to YouTube and watched the old 80's commercial for the fair and then saw this gem: an 80's PSA from my local county ~ this video is what gave kids the idea to start abusing meds.

My hope is that the WV State Fair is everything I imagine a fair to be.  Pie contests, lots of giant produce, and livestock on display.  Maybe I need to go to Iowa for that but I'm hoping not...  If I still lived up in Winchester I could go to the Clarke County Fair in two weeks and enter into a cupcake making contest sponsored by King Arthur Flour.  But, alas, that's not going to happen due to the fact that I have to work and Berryville is too far away.

Today = Roanoke's annual Peach Festival in Elmwood Park.  Peach shakes, peach cobbler, peach shortcake!  Yes, all I do is eat.

FIRE IN THE HOLE!

I drove over to my boyfriend's house last night to hang out for a little while and watch some tv.  A nice quiet Wednesday night activity after a busy workday.  After about 10 minutes of chatting we decided to go get some sweet tea at Bojangles and noticed that the street that branches off from his, directly across the street, was blocked off by a cop car.  The officer standing outside his patrol car didn't appear too concerned and so off we went.  By the time we came back with the tea, the local CBS news station folks were set up in his neighbor's yard filming and getting ready to tape some news.  Bizarre...

A little while later, the cameraman knocked on my boyfriend's front door and asked him if they could set up on his front lawn to get a better view of what was going on.  "Sure!", he said.  "What's going on, anyway?"  The cameraman responded "Bomb".  Uh....okay?

There wasn't much news of what was going on on the internet at that point.  There had been a pipe bomb explosion in Blacksburg earlier that day so we joked that maybe it was a false alarm or someone mistaking an errant coffee can for a bomb.

We heard a loud thud and the best boyfriend ever remarked "Well, I guess they blew up whatever it was."  I totally didn't believe him. Well, he was right.  Apparently, ATF agents or state police arrested one of his neighbors, a young man in his 20's, and charged him with having bomb manufacturing materials and have connected him with the Blacksburg bomb incident from earlier in the day.  On the news, the cameraman on the front lawn caught voices yelling 'Fire in the Hole!' and then a flash of light and a thud.  Not sure what the cops blew up but apparently it was something in the basement.

So, instead of watching the Olympics we watched Chris Hurst from WDBJ 7 broadcast live from the front lawn.

Walkin', Walkin', Walkin'...

River's Edge Park in Roanoke

I absolutely love Roanoke's Parks & Rec department.  I could gush about how awesome they are for days ~ and no, I don't work there.  When I first moved to Roanoke and didn't know anyone, I really appreciated how many cool classes they offered, what a good job they did in marketing them, and how affordable their classes and events were.  For instance, I signed up for pottery classes, guitar lessons, tennis lessons, and Zumba classes.  Those classes helped me make friends and meet really fun people.  Plus, it kept me from being lonely and bored in that first transition year.  In the other places I've lived, I can honestly say that few community Parks & Rec folks did even half as good a job as Roanoke does in promoting their classes and offering such a great and affordable variety of things to do after work and on the weekends.

The one offering I really didn't try was exploring all of Roanoke's greenways that the Parks & Rec folks write about all the time.  Apparently, there are miles and miles of walking/biking trails that connect all throughout the city and county.  I love to walk and wanted to explore them but didn't know if it was safe to go alone.  So I just didn't go at all.

Yesterday, my buddy and tennis partner, Peg, who I met through the tennis lessons I took through the Parks Department, went on an hour-long walk on one of the greenways.  Peg goes a lot with her family but this was my first time checking it out.  It was great!  We walked alongside the Roanoke River and passed a lot of cyclists and runners.  It was a nice scenic walk!  On my left was the river and on my right were a lot of backyards since the greenway seems to back up to residential neighborhoods.

I took two cell phone pictures of the Roanoke River at the start of our walk when we were crossing over a bridge and I'm sharing them with you.  I was impresssed by how clean the water looked ~ crystal clear and really beautiful.  According to my boyfriend, the river has some mercury and other chemical pollutants in it so it's not as clean as it looks.  That's a shame.  At least it's nice to look at!

View from the bridge - look at how clear that water is!  You can see the rocks on the bottom!

Being Noticed

I think that most New Yorkers haven't heard of Roanoke if I had to guess.  Most of my friends and family are familiar with NoVA and the I-95 corridor and not interior, mountainous SW VA.  So, it was a happy surprise to find that The New York Times wrote about our town in today's issue.  Here's the link if you are curious: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/us/in-virginia-developer-is-on-a-mission-to-revive-his-town.html?ref=us

Why Do I Have To Work?

I had last week off from work and it's soooooooooooooooooo hard to get back into the grind after having that many days off in a row, don't you think?!  I'd much rather be doing something like:

• reading a book or magazine on a comfy recliner - preferably on a deck or by a pool
• being outside on a nice day instead of in front of a computer
• shopping and having a nice lunch with buddies

Well, I guess that's why I work.  So, I can enjoy the vacations when they come.  I need another one...

It's Better Than Riding A Camel

As far back as I can remember, I wanted to ride a horse.  My grade school friend, Loren, and I used to pretend to ride horses, unicorns, and pegasus (pegasi for plural?) during recess.  Our Catholic school playground was really just a concrete church parking lot but that didn't stop us from galloping all around the place at breakneck speed.  We used to read every book we could find in our library about horses and memorize all their different body parts, from the hoof up.

I never got a chance to ride a horse or a pony as a kid but I did "ride" a camel and an elephant at the Bronx Zoo during an elementary school class trip.  Basically, that involved the zoo employees jamming 4 tiny kids on top of a very smelly and miserable camel/elephant for a couple of turns around a poop-filled sandy lot.  Since I was so short, I remember getting to sit in front but it was hard to breathe since my abdomen was pressed up against a metal bar.  It was a neat and memorable experience but not very romantic or comfy.  Plus, I really just wanted to ride a horse.

Thanks to the Best Boyfriend Ever (a.k.a. BBFE), I got to ride a horse FOR REAL yesterday.  Talk about a big day for me!  BBFE, his step-dad, and I went to Carvin's Cove and rode for 6 miles on a gorgeous, woody trail.  The weather was perfect and I had the best time.  I was worried before the ride that I'd be intimidated by the horse's height or anxious about falling off or doing something wrong.  But no worry or anxiety surfaced after I got up on the saddle.  It was just pure happiness at finally getting to enjoy something I had wanted to do for so long.

Yes, my butt and thighs are sore from riding for two hours but that's not a big deal because I had so much fun.  I think the awesome horse I was traveling with had a good time too.  Whenever we'd stop he'd snack and fart.  Plus, he got some apples out of the deal.  Lucky for me he's the most calm, relaxed horse alive so he made the experience easy for me.  They call him a Wonder Horse.  He is ~ and he's a lot more fun to hang out with than a camel or an elephant.  :-)

You can tell I'm super happy.

The Search for Boots

Apparently, it is next to impossible to find comfortable hiking boots.  I've been to four different shoe stores and they have had 8 million styles for men and either one or two for women.  That's it.  Ummm, crazy...  Does that mean women don't do outdoorsy things?!  This is super frustrating.  Ugh!

Disclaimer: I'm not much of an outdoorsy person but I'm attempting to try new things since SW VA is known for its numerous places to go hiking, pretty views of the mountains, and walking trails.  Wish me luck!

Rainbow Connection

Rainbow on my way into work

I used to see rainbows a lot as a kid on Long Island but I hardly saw them as an adult when I was living there.  I wonder if that is due to air pollution or just bad timing on my part.  Since moving back to VA I see them on a regular basis.  Just makes you think you're going to have a good day when you glimpse one in the car on your way somewhere, don't you think?!

The other thing I used to see a lot as a child on Long Island that seemed to disappear were tiny frogs after a rainstorm.  That definitely has to be due to pollution.  Luckily, they thrive down here along with turtles.  I happened to run over a turtle in the road today by accident.  Whoops!  :-/

My Parents Miss the Beach

My parents moved away from NY about a year after I did and I really didn't realize how much they missed the ocean until today.  They told me how they saw a segment on beaches this AM on 'CBS Sunday Morning' and how they wished they were younger so that they could take a trip back to the beaches they were familiar with growing up.  They both really miss the ocean.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that 'longing to see the ocean feeling' since it's hard to spend the summer away from the beach when I had the opportunity to go for years and now a decent beach is seven hours away.

My favorite Long Island beach of all was Robert Moses State Park's field # 5 beach.  The South Shore beaches have much finer sand and hardly any shells/rocks to contend with.  Plus, you gotta love the roar of the Atlantic Ocean.  Here's a view from a hot and hazy morning a couple of years ago.

North Shore beaches are rocky and difficult to walk on.  There aren't any impressive waves since the beaches face either the placid Long Island Sound or an inlet of some sort.  On super hot days when there isn't a breeze around you feel like you are in an oven.  But - they do have something the South Shore beaches don't: extra character.  The cliffs and boulders and wildlife on the North Shore are pretty impressive and the pictures you get are a heck of a lot more interesting.  If you can stand the heat and the pebbles in order to get them.  ;-)

So pretty!  North Shore of Suffolk Cty

Waiting and waiting and ...

Hey!  So, once a month the local Parks & Rec folks host a night out on the Blue Ridge Parkway where you can view outer space through a powerful telescope and learn about what you are looking at from an expert.  I've been so pysched to try this that I've registered for the past two months!  Unfortunately, my outer space adventures have been foiled by cloud cover both times.  So, I'll just have to try again next month.  Until then, I'll just have to stare at this picture from the National Geographic website:

What I ended up doing last night instead of the star gazing was going to see Smith Mountain Lake (finally).  I've lived here two years and never traveled to check it out.  Pretty neat!  The area I saw, near Hales Ford Road/Bridge, was a lot more built up than I expected.  I bet it would be nice to sit out on a back deck of a home right on the water and gaze out over it.  Although, I think it might be a bit too crowded for my taste in the summertime...  At least that's what I hear.  :-)

From http://www.visitsmithmountainlake.com/index.php?option=com_igallery&view=igcategory&id=1&Itemid=117



On My Way Back from Lunch, I Saw...

Ready For Bed

Today has been one of those super productive and exhausting days that is making it difficult to stay awake right now. Work was especially hectic and I had errands to run too. The best part of the day was tonight ~ had a great home cooked meal with the best company ~ and I'm looking forward to a longggg, fun-filled weekend too!

I threw together a yummy pasta dish for dinner (sautéed fresh veggies - zucchini, green beans, yellow squash, spinach, basil, onion, garlic - with tomato sauce and white wine and tossed it with whole wheat pasta & shrimp) and had some awesome, sweet corn on the cob & garlic/cheese bread. Soooooooooooooo good! The bonus of summer is enjoying all the fresh fruits and veggies. Fruit smoothies for breakfast this time of year are pretty great too...

I'm hoping to see "Moonrise Kingdom" in the local indie movie theatre this weekend. Ed Norton & Bruce Willis & Bill Murray? Should be funny. :-) Also going to try to be outside as much as possible these next few days. Feels like summer's halfway gone already!

I've had the same Netfix DVD sitting in my living room for almost 3 months now. That red envelope is staring at me. I gotta watch this thing already! It's "Take Shelter" which looks like it could be either really good or extremely depressing. Not sure if the critics who gave it rave reviews know what they are talking about or not...

Well, that's enough of my incoherent rambling - good night!

The Death Train



LIRR train from Google Images

 It's pretty amazing to work in Manhattan.  You get to see the latest fashions on the street and spot the trends, occasionally see a celebrity but always see tons of power players, get together with your friends after work for dinner or a concert or a show...  Plus, it feels like every street you walk on has been featured in some movie or tv show.  It's neat.

The commute into Manhattan is a totally different story.  It's a sort of repetitive sentence in hell.  Every.  Single.  Day.  This is where the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) comes in.  I refer to it as 'The Death Train' and also my nemesis.

First of all, my monthly LIRR ticket was over $300.  For that, I got to park in a totally sketch parking lot frequented by drug dealers and prostitutes.  I'd wait on the platform for my train and hopefully get a narrow, middle seat next to a very overweight man or sit next to a pissy, bitchy woman who didn't like removing her purse from a seat for me to sit on.  Then, I'd listen to music and read a book for the next hour and fifteen minutes.  That was the good part.  Got in lots of reading!

The commute home was always interesting.  Masses of people would gather around the large wall track sign to see which track our train would be arriving on.  One millisecond after the track number would appear on the screen, an entire mass of people would RUN (yes, grown men in suits running) for the track.  Now keep in mind that in most cases the train wasn't even in the station yet.  The commuters would stand in the basement of Penn Station, which is one of the filthiest places you'll ever see, in the approximate location of where they think the train doors would open.  Then, when the train arrived and the doors opened, the pushing and jostling for a prime seat would begin.  That's how it was every day.

The screen the people run from (Google Images)

Why the 'death train' title?  Well, that's because about once every other week somewhere out on Long Island a person would commit suicide by walking in front of a moving LIRR train.  Not only is this totally depressing and macabre, but you actually felt yourself growing angry at the victim.  "How dare that selfish person delay my already long ride home by several hours?"  It made everyone on the train feel like a jerk.  But, you felt that way anyway. 

In those cases, occasionally you would show up to Penn Station and see that all the trains on your line were cancelled due to "an unauthorized person on the tracks" and you'd just have to wait it out for a couple of hours.  Other times you'd be on a train home already and your train would have to sit and wait at a station for a couple of hours until the all clear signal was given.  Once, I was actually on a train that hit someone.  It was a Friday summer evening and our train came to a screeching halt and had to empty out the front car doors since we were close enough to a station to detrain.  I could see crowds of teenagers running towards the scene like it was the circus come to town.  It was disgusting.  And depressing.  And frustrating.  That day was the only time I called for help.  I asked my big sis to come rescue me and she did, thank goodness.  I always wonder how awful it must be for the train engineers who sit in front to witness all of this and not be able to prevent it from happening.

The LIRR suffers from some of the worst communication between management and staff I've ever seen.  It's very common for the train and station staff to not have info from the main office during an emergency.  I was once stuck out in the rain at an abandoned train station in the middle of the night with a hundred other passengers because of a power outage/storm.  It took me four hours to get home.  Even though the LIRR has diesel trains that don't need electricity to operate and the station e-signs listed arriving trains, the diesel locomotives would zip by and not stop.  No one would answer the phones at the LIRR helpline and when a train finally did stop at our station, no train employee would come out of hiding to talk to the people on the platform for fear of being emotionally abused by all the scared, wet, tired commuters.  It was a disaster area.  I was so angry by the time I got home that I emailed a Newsday reporter and was quoted in the paper that following Monday.  Not that the LIRR cares much for customer service.

My dad commuted into Manhattan for decades and he said that one year the customer service was so bad that passengers at Jamaica station started pushing on a parked train and began rocking it back and forth and shouting.  It was a near riot, he said and the few cops that were in the area saw what was going on and didn't intervene.  My dad was there that day and he couldn't believe what he was seeing.  LIRR riders revolting against poor treatment.  He said that incident led to changes within the LIRR system where conductors were given training on how to be more respectful to passengers.  I guess it was different in the 1960's.  People fought back more for their rights.

My commute to work now is by car and it takes me 20 minutes.  What a relief!

Unhappy LIRR passengers (Google Images)

Betsy Ross Came To Town

You know how some friends are very generous and never ask for anything?  Then they ask you for a favor and you think to yourself, "I should do this!  She's a good friend!"   Well, that led to this:

That's me dressed up as Betsy Ross for a July 4th museum event.  I honestly don't think the material for that dress was regular fabric.  I think it was upholstery...  In any case, an hour into my stint an older gentleman dressed up in FULL PURPLE PIRATE GEAR (head to toe, sans parrot) comes up to me and says "It's so great to meet fellow Revolutionary War re-enactors!"  Uhhhhh.....that's not me, man.  Turns out he was not affiliated with the museum event in any way.  He just wanted to dress up like a pirate.  I hid in the bathroom for a while.

What A Difference Two Years Can Make

Two years ago, I was here...

...working in Manhattan and living out on Long Island all while worrying that I'd never be able to afford to buy my own place or meet a nice guy.  Dating in NY is a disaster area and everything is so ex-pen-sive!  I would look at my NYS taxes each year and feel my blood pressure rising.  Paying over $400/month to commute into work wasn't a pleasure either.  That's what led me to move here:

Much, much better.  :-) 

I loved living in the South back when I went to college years ago and planned on moving back permanently ever since.  Best decision I ever made for so many reasons.   Even though I desperately miss my buddies and some of the conveniences of living in the NY metro area, there is no comparison to living in Virginia. 

Here Goes...

I'm assuming that this first post will be sort of like the first pancake you make from scratch. A throwaway... I have no idea what I'm doing yet so bear with me while I figure this all out.

I'm excited to learn what's involved with creating and designing a blog. There are so many creative bloggers out there. It's almost like wandering around in outer space with the sheer number of blogs to choose from. I had no idea how many existed until I seriously thought about drafting my own. One of my New Year's resolutions was to try something creative and I had no interest in going back to drawing, painting, and crafting. So, i'm hoping this experience will be a good mental challenge for me and I'm really looking forward to it!