Squirrel-Jay Wars

We are going through peanuts at a great rate. We're trying to feed our squirrel but the jays have been swooping in before poor Squirrel has had much of a chance to make off with the peanut prizes.

Yes, the jays are on to us now. They sit in our trees and watch for us to come out on the deck with our crinkly bag of nuts. We throw a handful of peanut shells toward the center of the lawn and let the scramble begin. Where once we had a one-on-one battle, we now have an uneven match: 6 or 8 jays to just the one squirrel.

But Squirrel has a firm Strategy: "Keep as many peanuts to myself as possible." Can't you just see him out there with fist raised up crying "Curse you, Red Baron!" (Or, Blue, as the case may be.)

And he has Tactics:

Squirrel runs forward as soon as he sees me at the door and greets me by the deck. He's already got Position. He has Access. When the peanuts hit the ground he scrambles for one (Timing) makes for the nearby rough bank of dirt (we just removed some rocks, preparatory to our excavation work) and buries it. (Advantage!) Then he goes for another. (Persistence.)

Clever Squirrel.

It doesn't seem to bother him that the jays are watching. Does he not realize that they know his hiding place as well as he does? Is there a flaw in his game plan?

Writing the Great American Novel

I've always wanted to write a novel. I like to write. And I've certainly read enough fiction myself to find the notion of writing something BIG to be appealing. Not, maybe, the Great American Novel - just a modest commercial success would do. I love the simple business of putting words together to make something sound right; to express my thoughts with all the feelings and extras and flourishes needed to convey a whole and complete idea. (Well, maybe not. I had some trouble with that sentence...)

I think I even have a grasp - just from reading critically and analyzing what I read - of the elements that would need to be included. I can recognize a 'formula' when I see one in the novels I read. Surely I could identify an appropriate formula, follow it well enough, and still vary sufficiently from it, for success. I understand about conflict and character development and consistency. My vocabulary is sufficient to the task and so is my sentence structure and 'readability.' True, my spelling leaves something to be desired...

Surely at MY age I have enough 'life experience.' I've been places. I know some stuff. I've met Characters. (I'm married to one, for goodness sake!)

I once read that P.G. Wodehouse - one of the truly great masters of English-language writing - had a process of putting sentences down on separate pieces of paper and sticking them on a wall, low or high, depending on how he thought they conveyed what he wanted. They only reached the ceiling - and the actual story - when he considered them perfect.

My mother sent me an Encouraging Article about a now-famous writer who ended up with her best-selling novel after a friend suggested she just keep writing her short story "until it is done." That seems like good advice. But it assumes that you have a story in the first place.

I don't.

I have the time to write. I have the means and the opportunity. After 500 blog postings it seems clear that I have the curiosity and interest and quirkiness and dedication and passion and just the sheer persistence to do it.

So why can't I come up with an idea?

Disappointing, it is.

Who is the villain?

I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of the next Harry Potter book. So eager, in fact, that I re-read the last one this week. Now I’m all set.

But I still don’t think Snape is the bad guy. I don’t think Dumbledore (in spite of his name) was that dumb. I think that he was ‘transfigured’ as Snape in the beginning of the book to have the conversation with Malfoy’s mother and that the ‘bond’ was what caused his hand to wither, which would mean that Snape himself was under no unbreakable bond to her. (Coming up for air… and here we go again:) I’m not sure how Marvolo’s ring played into that but I think that Dumbledore knew that he might return to the castle too ‘broken’ to be saved and that Snape was ‘pre-arranged’ to finish him off in that event, rather than blow his cover and that Harry has been wrong about him all along – as has been proven in every book so far.

There.

Basically, I think that in a discussion about Good vs. Evil, there is a need for the concept that good and evil aren’t always transparently evident.

And that Good can win.

Mark thinks I’m wrong.

So there is room for speculation that Harry is finally right about Snape – as a way of having him (Harry) supplant Dumbledore as the greatest wizard. Maybe the comments from Dumbledore about how he isn’t always right about things are true. Maybe this is just resolving some old questions once and for all as the series winds down. Maybe this book was the revelation of the true Snape after all.

This is deep stuff. Big questions. Pressing issues. Terrible mysteries. (Or, not.)

Well, I always hated literary analysis – but give me a good problem to solve and I’m right on it.

I bet you were wondering...

Did you think we forgot pictures of Todd's town? We didn't:

The bridge is what you see when you look at Huntington's website - quite nice. It is over the Ohio River, which has long had a tendency to flood, hence the walls and floodgates that separate the river from the riverside town. Not sure how they work...

This is downtown Huntington, where urban renewal has helped a lot. It is actually a quite pleasant town, in spite of Todd's uncertainty.

Just thought you'd be interested.

The New River

More West Virginia pictures - I could do this for months! I don't understand the rounded mountains with just solid trees on them; trees under which a bunch of those 1.8 million WV-ians must live. (In the west we have pointy and rocky mountains.) And I'm surprised at how shallow the rivers actually are.

This is, I think, the New River. I don't really know which way it flows (or what could possibly be 'new' about it) so I don't know whether this is up- or down-stream from the New River Gorge area where the big bridge is that they jump from, but I threw in a picture of that too, just for good measure.

(And no, we didn't go rafting - those are some other people. The one time we tried that was a little rough on Mark who doesn't like either 'wet' or 'cold' and he is still accusing us of trying to kill him - and it was years ago!)

More on rural WV

I was talking to my son on the phone today and he pointed out that I somehow missed relating the most funny (odd) part of our drive together through rural West Virginia in my previous blog posting - and he's right; I did! Which makes me wonder about how addled a person can get and still function. I started out telling one story and ended up on another point, having lost the original notion entirely. Good grief.

In my defense...

Well, there really isn't anything in my defense. I was an idiot. So back to the story:

As we were driving through the back roads of West Virginia, watching hillbillies watching us from their porches, we also noticed something we haven't seen anywhere else in years - those great big satellite dishes that used to be so prominent in people's yards maybe 20 years ago. (They are about 9 or 10 feet in diameter so they are pretty noticeable.) In the hills of West Virginia they are everywhere. Everyone who ever aspired to be ANYONE must have had one. And still do. Amazing. (The scene in the movie "Mars Attacks," with the middle aged couple in their trailer house reacting to the invasion of hostile aliens from Mars with a racked shotgun and a determined "Well they ain't gettin' the TV" resolve is oddly reminiscent here.)

Huge satellite dishes. In about 3 hours of driving we counted 47 of them. (Now I know Mark and Todd will correct either my count or my 'duration' but pay no mind to that. Suffice it to say there were a LOT!) They are dotting the hills of West Virginia like...

Those old mobile 'arrow' signs in the back country of Tennessee...

Or like 'adult bookstore' billboards along the Kansas interstate...

Or like Wall Drug signs in South Dakota.

I'm noticing a trend here. Everywhere we go together we seem to end up finding 'features' that strike us as odd and start us looking for patterns and repetition. And before we know it, in between lively conversation about other stuff, there we are, counting satellite dishes. (An engineer, a cognitive psychologist and a nut thrown together for a period of time in a small space will probably just naturally work up to that sort of thing.)

We need to start planning another trip.

More West Virginia sights

We visited this mill in the fall several years ago when we were living in Kentucky. We were there for the fall colors - but I think I like it better in the spring with all the green - and with fewer people around.

This is Babcock State Park - and it has cabins available for rent and looks like a wonderful place to spend a week. They provide firewood, and the cabins are strung along the stream so that you'd have falling water as your background noise as you fall asleep. The cabins looked big enough to have full bathrooms - or is that too much to hope for?

We hiked a short way to a 'lookout' post only to find the trees so overgrown that there was no view at all - just looked straight into the trees.

Those West Virginians. Tricksters.

Rural West Virginia

So, I don't know what other people do when they are on vacation, but we like to make fun of the locals. I'm not sure how this got started, or why we freely admit to such rude behavior, but since we keep it to ourselves (except, you know, for this blog posting to the world) I guess it does no harm.

We can't help ourselves. We are fascinated by hillbillies.

We drove along rural roads through much of the time we were in West Virginia. The state's population is not concentrated in any one place - it is everywhere. Spread out through little farms, unincorporated communities, back hills and valleys, there are 1.8 million people in West Virginia, and they nearly all live the rural life. We're talking cars up on blocks in the yards; perfect little flower beds surrounding perfect little whitewashed houses; trailer homes with fancy brick foundations; goats in the yard, tire swings in the trees, United Methodist churches on every corner.

And on every porch, some manner of porch furniture. It might be wicker or wrought iron, though more often it is plastic, or, even more likely, it is the old plaid couch from the family room. Whatever else it is, porch furniture is almost always Occupied. (You probably already know this, but they don't 'sit' on the porch in West Virginia, they 'set a spell.')

So there we are, driving around the country roads and there THEY are, settin' on the front porch watching the world go by. They don't seem to be reading, or even visiting with each other. They are just relaxing on the porch. Shirtless. Beer cans resting on ample bellies. Feet up on the railing. Settin'. Literally hundreds of them, as we drive by.

Trust me. You don't find this in the west.

(So the picture isn't really good, but the Confederate Flag is sure flying high.)

Wild West Virginia

We just got back from a trip to West Virginia. It was our son's birthday and we really wanted to be with him for the occasion, so we braved the dreaded Airline Nightmare and off we went. Short trip. But SO much fun!

(Unfortunately, as soon as we got back I threw out my back, so sitting at the computer blogging is not something easily done. I'll take this in stages.)

Todd had made reservations for us on the Cass Scenic Railroad. We are complete suckers for old steam engine-run railroads (we are suckers for SO many things...) and this one was a grand one. It went all the way up a big hill (what West Virginia fondly refers to as a "mountain") and left us off for a sweeping view of the valley from a wonderful lookout post. Along the way there was even a 'rest stop' where we got hot dogs and took more pictures... What could possibly make a more perfect day?

Yes, the engine is on backwards. Considering the amount of smoke it put out, we were very glad it was behind us, not in front, although it was a little disconcerting to look through the door of our railroad car and see the front of the engine so alarmingly close!

I had to photoshop a lady out of this picture... she was a granny wearing camouflage pants. Entirely too disturbing. She sat in our car too. We couldn't keep our eyes off of them.

500

This is my 500th blog post.

I've had 9317 hits on this blog. (Actually a few more than that since I didn't add the 'counter' right away.)

There have been 433 comments posted from readers.

There are 23 months worth of archives, and something like 250 pictures posted in them.

Seems like a whole lot of 'doings' for a whole lot of nothing!



(But I sure have had fun.)

Having a wonderful time...

My mother is visiting - we are trying to get out for scenic drives...