Microfiction Monday: Return of the Native

Tires crunched gravel.

"Someone's here," he said, kissing her bare shoulder.

A door opened.

"I'm back. I changed my mind about the divorce."

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Want to play? Go to www.stonyriver.ie to learn how. The rules are simple: Susan provides the picture, you write a story in 140 characters (includes spaces and punctuation). Sound easy? Wait til you try!

If it could always be like this...

Since we no longer use a dishwasher and seldom use the dryer, our electricity use has dropped significantly. The power company continues to "estimate" our usage at the old level so every other month we get a high bill, followed the next month by a bill from the actual meter reading.

This month was the best yet:

Not only do we owe nothing, we have a credit! Now that is cool. I will be calling them to suggest they lower their expectations of our usage.

I looked for a past bill to see the trend in our use. You'd think this would be available online, but if it is I could not find it. Here is July's usage chart:

We took out the dishwasher last November, and started hanging most of the laundry on the clothesline in April. Almost all light bulbs in the house are the new energy-efficient ones. We also started using a smaller coffeepot; we waste less coffee, have more fresh coffee and it doesn't run as long. The impact of these changes in our lifestyle is apparent in the estimates and actual use.

The other not-so-measurable impact of these changes is that we get outside a little more, get a little more exercise (bend and stretch!) and our sheets and towels smell heavenly. In the kitchen, we enjoy the companionship of washing and drying dishes with someone when company comes--which leads to some good conversations. Even when doing the dishes alone, there is something relaxing and reflective about standing at a sink full of suds and hot water and looking out the window into the woods. And now I don't worry about Larry putting my wooden spoons, cast iron and delicate glassware into the dishwasher to be ruined forever.

This has me wondering what other changes we could make that might lower our bill even more. We still have an electric range and electric hot water heater; both of those will leave when the gas line gets put in. What other changes can we make to drive this bill down further? That's my new challenge. Any suggestions? I'm not into buying more things to make a change--that seems counterproductive. But perhaps there are more things we can do?

The Mistletoe Hunt

Once upon a time there was a tree that grew in a multiflora rose briarpatch on the side of a ridge road that shall remain nameless to protect the green-gold wealth it harbors.



The hunter packed gun, shells, gloves and mate into his chariot and sallied forth in search of treasure of the golden green variety.

The trusty hunter looked far, far up into the blue sky and saw the prize he was seeking--mistletoe. But how to get to it? The tree stood over 40 feet tall, and the hunter was not even five and a half feet tall. The trunk rose as straight as Cupid's arrow from the forest floor, surrounded by the steel-thorned roses.

With shotgun in hand, the hunter made his way gingerly over the road bank, too aim, and fired.

The shot echoed between the hills, but no one noticed. Not because no one was listening but because these days the forest is full of deer hunters and the sound of gunfire is frequent.

Success! The pellets of shot loosen sprigs of mistletoe which the hunter picks up as his mate takes photos with a camera that has a grandchild's finger smudge on the lens (sorry, friends!).

Hunter and mate are aware that they made a folkloric faux pas but not bringing a sheet to keep the mistletoe from touching the ground. Both are hopeful that the druid guards of superstition were not paying attention to the goings-on on a remote ridge in West Virginia at the moment.

The hunter's mate uttered encouraging words from the safety of the road ("There's some." "You missed a piece under that stickerbush.").

The hunter returned with a satisfying gamebag. The holidays are guaranteed to be filled with teenagers doing body contortions to avoid being caught by Granny (or worse, Poppa Larry) under the kissing ball. Granny Sue will nonchalantly stand in the doorway, supposedly unaware of the green magic hanging over her head. Poppa Larry, the great hunter, will lurk in corners waiting for the unsuspecting teens to stop under the mistletoe bough to answer a text message.

The holiday season has officially begun.

Thanksgiving at Granny's

The table was set and ready (my parents big table that now lives with me had all its leaves added to make it 12 feet long)...

the baklava was crisply golden and waiting...

The kitchen was a madhouse of people working and people playing can-you-catch-the-grape-tomato-in-your-mouth (guys!)...

cousins, dogs and cars gathered...

silly photos were taken...

the new great-grandbaby and her sweet mother came to see us...

and then it was time!

Getting 22 people seated around a table was quite a feat, and we didn't quite make it--a small table had to be set up for the three younger children, to their disgust, but they will soon be the big people and more small children will take their place. It was not easy to get a photo of the table, so this one will have to do...

and after dinner, music was played...

youngest son, his girlfriend and her pet rat had to leave (and yes, a pet rat is really very fun. Who knew?)...

Granny took some chill time...

the kids played hide-and-seek (and the big table was back to its five square feet again)...

and singing rounded out a beautiful day.

No rain, much laughter and talking, happy children, an amazed baby, and good, good food. It was a wonderful Thanksgiving. But you already knew that.

Grammar Rant

I'm a writer, a storyteller and a reader.

I attended a tiny Catholic school, and grammar was an important part of every school day. I could diagram one sentence and use a whole page doing it.

We corrected commas, conjunctions, prepositional phrases, and spelling. We had daily spelling tests and weekly spelling bees.

All of these things made me what I am today: a grammar freak.

My writing is not perfect, and since moving to West Virginia where the spoken language is more, ummm, relaxed, my grammar is not what it used to be. It's a lot more colorful and I'm satisfied with that trade-off. I still use the grammar check in Word religiously, and I do my best to avoid glaring errors. I know that there are times that I use a sentence fragment for effect, but as a good writing friend says, you need to know you're breaking a rule before you break it!

I am amazed every day at the grammar errors I see in print. Some are in reputable (supposedly) places like newspapers and books; others are on online writers' blogs and websites, for heaven's sake. Facebook is a world unto itself when it comes to language use, I've learned, and some of it is frankly mysterious. IDK? What's that mean? (I figured it out after a while, just as I figured out that WTF does not mean Wednesday-Thursday-Friday.)

Here are some of the errors I see almost daily that grate against my senses like fingernails on a blackboard:

1. To and too: This is rampant on Facebook, but I see it regularly in newspapers and online sites.

2. "Had went" to indicate that someone went somewhere: When did this ever seem like good grammar? Am I out in left field on this? Is "had went" is suddenly correct usage now?

3. Run-on sentences: I see these so often in books that again, I wonder if the rules changed when I wasn't looking.

4. Apostrophes: "It's" means "it is; "its" indicates ownership. The two are constantly used incorrectly, in every print media in existence. Even signs will use the apostrophe incorrectly; I believe some people stick them in at random just in case it might be needed!

5. "I've did": Hunh? See number 2 above.

6. "Your" and "you're": This is another Facebook favorite, but this mix-up occurs regularly everywhere words are put on a page. Like "It's" and "Its," one indicates ownership and the other means "it is." It seems to me that a simple read-through of the sentence would make this error glare at the writer, but that does not seem to be the case. Spell-check won't catch it either.

My list could be a lot longer. I wonder how many of you have your own Grammar Rant? Is there something that drives you nuts when you see it on the printed page or online?

Happy Thanksgiving!

The photo is of last year's Thanksgiving, just prior to putting all the food out. This year the table wll be longer and probably even more laden, not just with food but laughter and conversation.

This Thanksgiving, my Mom and Dad's big dining table will see its former glory--all 4 leaves put in and stretched to its full 12-foot length as about 20 of us gather around it for Thanksgiving dinner.

The table holds many of my best memories from childhood, as we ate meals, talked, laughed, got in trouble, sorted laundry, did homework, polished silver, wrapped gifts, and even danced on or around it.

Now that the big table lives here, it's in regular use as a reading/writing/book-piling place, and occasionally as a dining table too. Usually it's compressed into its smallest size, 5 feet by five feet. But today it will show what it can really do, and it will bring back some good memories for me to see it as it once always was when my twelve siblings, parents and I gathered around it daily for meals.

To you and yours, a memory-filled day of joy and peace.

Wordless Wednesday: From Burnt House to Elizabeth

Around the House

I was looking at the dishes in the sink on Sunday and thought how pretty they were--and how lucky I am to be able to use them every day, and not just "for good" as my mother used to do. Dirty dishes aren't typically something we enjoy looking at, but I admit I like doing dishes now. With only two people in the house most of the time, and pretty dishes to use, what's not to like? Almost all of my dishes came from secondhand stores or yard sales and flea markets. The fun is in the finding, isn't it? And again later in the using.

The sink of dishes made me think of how much in my house is "recycled." Pretty much everything, when I think about it. I've shown some parts of the house on this blog in the past. Here's a quick tour of parts of two rooms, the kitchen and the living room:


Here is one of the two new furniture items in the house--the dining table and chairs. The other is a couch in the log room. Both are sturdy and destined for years of use. But everything on the table was bought used or gifted to me, except the little poinsettia--that was gift to myself!

In my kitchen, the jelly cupboard in the corner was obtained through a trade of an Aladdin lamp. It's chestnut wood and I used it as a pantry. The drying rack was on the trash heap when an old house was being torn down in Ripley about 30 years ago. The buffet was bought at an auction in Virginia in 1970 for $50. It's leaving soon to go to my son Derek's house--I bought another big cupboard that I sorely need for storage in my kitchen and Derek was supposed to get the buffet in my will. Why not give it to him now so he has more years to enjoy it?

Also in the kitchen, the cast iron wood cookstove we bought in 1975 for $75. It is not hooked up right now, but when we get the big storage cabinet in place, the stove will move and we'll be able to build a new chimney and put it back in use. I used it for quite a few years, but when the bank made us get fire insurance, we had to disconnect it because they didn't like the way we had the stovepipe.

By the front door, the wardrobe in the corner serves as our coat and boot closet. The oak chair is honestly just a catchall, but it's handy for putting on boots.

This cabinet came from an antique mall in Weston, WV that was going out of business. It's not in the best shape, but I love its wavy glass, and it holds a LOT of books. And other odds and ends too. The little green couch is a single-sized hide-a-bed and Hannah's favorite place to sleep when she visits. The quilt pattern pictures are made from different types of wood inlaid to make the pictures, and the red cushion covers were a surprise find in the bottom of a box of junk from an auction.

The big bookshelf was one of the first things we built in this house. I own many books on storytelling, folklore, history, poetry, gardening and so on. I am constantly buying and having to weed out books that aren't being used. They have to earn their keep--even though we've added other bookshelves, I still run out of space regularly.

The sunken section of the living room was inspired by homes built around us when we lived in Virginia. We like the way it allows the heat from the woodstove to be at floor level so the floors stay warmer than they wood if the stove was at the same level as the floors. Larry built the brick surround when Tommy was a baby to keep him from getting burned. The afghans were 25 cents at a yard sale.

The built-in couch is not my favorite--it's hard and a little too narrow. It's been in place since we built the house and I've recovered it, for my sins, many times in those 35 years. I'd like to remove all covers and padding and line it with pine shelving boards, sanded and stained and then add loose cushions so that it's more like a bench--which is what it feels like anyway. That might be a project for this winter. In the lower left corner you can see one of the three baseboard heaters we had to put in to get fire insurance--wood could not be our primary heat source. We only use them if we're going to be away overnight in winter.

That's the quick tour. Ignore the dust and dirt--I've been on the road a lot and behind on cleaning, but it will get done before Christmas, I hope. Too late to do it for Thanksgiving!

Microfiction Monday

He strode to the door. "You'll be sorry one day."

She looked out the kitchen window. A rainbow arced into her garden.

“I doubt it,” she said.

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Microfiction is short-short fiction. In this case, it is fiction of exactly 140 characters, which is the limit on "tweets" (which means comments made using Twitter or similar software). You must count ALL characters, including punctuation and spaces. Whew! It's not so easy and I get cross-eyed counting! But it's an exercise in being able to tell a whole story in so few words. Each word carries significant importance.

If you'd like to participate, go to Susan's blog at www.stonyriver.ie and read more about how to do this. It's fun, I promise!

The Road to New Milton and Back Again

I said, "Stop! That's a cool house. I want to take a picture!"

He said, "There's a sign that says winery. Want to go?"

So we turned onto this one-lane road, seeking a winery that had no name. Here's what we found (besides Dale, the man I wrote about yesterday):

The home of the national marble champion, Ralphie Dillon. This young man lives off the beaten path, but found his way to Pittsburgh to become this year's champion shooter.

Beautiful still waters and crumbling old buildings provided food for thought. Who lived there? Why did they leave?

The road wound around curves, rocks and hills,

by an abandoned one-room schoolhouse,

and picturesque barns,

and more old ruins so hidden in the trees they looked like ghosts of the past.

But some older dwellings, like this one, were still being maintained and loved.

The detailed, tight dovetailing is one reason the cabin has lasted so well and so long,

but unless someone comes along soon to love it, this little place will soon be a memory.

At last, after abut eight ambling miles, we found the winery:

Notice the sign. Saturday and Sunday. We were there on Friday. How sad is that. Cascarelli's, you need to put a sign with your hours at the end of the road. Not nice to potential customers to have them drive 20 minutes or more out of their way to discover your hours.

But on the other hand, we would not have met Dale or had an interesting drive down yet another one-lane road in West Virginia that, like so many others, offered much for reflection. Will we go back? Maybe, although this is definitely off the usual route and not a place we are likely to go for any other reason. But if you'd like to know more about the winery, here's their contact information (note that it says call ahead!):

Cascarelli’s Old Country Wine
John R. Cascarelli
Rt. 3, Box 55A
Salem, WV 26426
304-782-2768
Hours:
Please call ahead.

A Life Well Lived

As I mentioned in yesterday's short post, we took the shorter but longer way home. That's not a contradiction: although shorter in miles, it was longer in time. And made longer by the fact that we stopped to take photos.

At an intersection along Route 18 Larry noticed a sign that said "winery." Really? I knew of no winery in Doddridge County, so of course I wanted to find it. We turned and drove a short distance, and, unsure of where we were going, stopped to ask a gentleman working by the road if there was indeed a winery in the area.

That led to one of the most enjoyable conversations I've had in some time. Dale, at 83 years old, was busy cleaning out a building for a friend so that he could tear it down and use the poles it contained to build a garage for his granddaughter. His house had already attracted my attention and my camera; he told us that the home had belonged to his wife's parents and when it came up for sale, he returned to West Virginia to buy it.

Dale and his wife ran off to Virginia to get married when they were very young, and over the years he'd worked at several different jobs including a steel mill and a maintenance worker, eventually moving to Warren, Ohio where they stayed for 22 years. When they returned to West Virginia he started a new career as a bus driver and drove until he was in his mid-sixties, finally taking an early retirement.

But retirement for Dale didn't mean that he stopped working. He is constantly busy with projects, as attested to when we saw him. He and his wife will be married for 61 years on Monday.

We spent 30 minutes in conversation. Dale told us "You people made my day." He certainly made ours. People like Dale are what make West Virginia what it is: they're not afraid to talk to strangers, always interested in learning something new, and don't flinch at hard work. What a man. It was an honor to meet him.

The winery? After another 20 minutes drove, we found it: closed.It's only open on the weekends. But if not for their sign by the road, we would not have ventured up that road, and we wouldn't have met Dale. So the winery did us a service, altough they missed us as customers.

Home Again

We're home, happy and tired. We took the long way home, stopped to talk to two interesting men and took lots of photos. Our travels took us through back roads and over ridges, along rivers and through tiny communities so far back in the hills I had to wonder where the people who lived there worked. Any town of size would have been quite a drive.

But it was beautiful. I'll have lots of pics to share in the coming days. I'll leave you with two for tonight:

On the Road Again

I'm on the road storytelling in central West Virginia. I'll be back Friday night with, I hope some good photos to share of our trip.

No photos tonight, since I'm at my son's house and having a blast with his two children while Aaron and Jaime are out celebrating her birthday.

Here are a few things from today's storytelling to share:

*Preschoolers and first graders laughing incredibly at Lazy Jack, one of the first stories I learned to tell. I love going back to these tales and finding new discoveries in them. If you don't know the story: Jack's mother puts the lazy boy to work at a farm. He does well and gets paid every day, but each time through some foolishness manages to lose his pay. And yet in the end, Jack's the winner! You can read an English version of the story here; my telling is an Appalachian version. For a similar tale, click here to hear a podcast of Epaminondas.

*The look on children's faces after I told my story of "The Headless Woman of Briar Creek"--and then pointed out my husband in the corner who was the star of the story. They rushed to ask him, "Did you really see her?" Of course he said yes! (You can hear most of the story on Podcast 1 with me in the right sidebar on my blog.)

*Listening to the teachers at lunch. So many stories they can tell! Dedication was apparent in their stories.

*Seeing a 3rd grader put on the small cloth miner's cap in my coal-mining collection. It fit--obviously the cap had been worn by a very young boy , perhaps one who picked coal fr the slate piles or led mine horses.

*Laughing with the 5th grade when, to his evident surprise, a boy let loose with some very loud gas! What could I do? I said, "I heard that!" Laughed, then told him to say excuse me, instructed those around him to hold their noses for a bit, and on we went with the story. It was so funny; bathroom humor is always on the surface with this age group and ignoring the loud noise was not possible with this crowd. It was a good laugh.

*Seeing a little boy on the street with his dad after school, relating one of my stories and so animated, and seeing his dad's happy face as he listened to his son. That was the best part of the whole day.

Until right now, being here with James and Michaela and listening to their happy chatter about their day at school. Being a granny has many rewards!

Wordless Wednesday on Thursday

I missed posting this yesterday, so here's my post for Wordless Wednesday, a day late:

This was sunrise, Wednesday morning.