Snow Remains

The weather's been so gloomy lately and I'm extra relieved that the snow storm missed us today. There's still a ridiculous amount of snow left over from last time. I saw huge mountains of snow piled up in Olney yesterday.






Thankfully the snow is only about a third of what it was in most places. And the birds are starting to come back. On Sunday I saw a flock of 16 robins, but I didn't have my camera with me until yesterday. I hope that they'll be sticking around now that they are here.

And the local hawk is back up on his wire, staring down the mice and other critters. My least favorite season is almost over!

It's always something...

I haven't had the time or the energy to post in a while - we've been too busy shoveling out of one place and into another. When we finally made it into our house we were in such a huge hurry to get most of the rest of the basement drywall mudded, sanded, and painted, that we decided to just ignore this situation just outside our back porch for the time being.

Yuck, more work for us, just what we need. Yesterday we finally shoveled around far enough in the back to see the extent of the damage. It looks like the roof survived just fine, but the bottom section of our cedar tree has been rather severely and crudely pruned by the heavy snow.


So in addition to the work on the house ALWAYS taking longer than either of us could possibly expect, we are going to have to clear these branches out of the way in order to move in. It's pretty obvious that we won't be able to move in by the end of this month. So that's another month of rent we'll have to pay. The snow has really held us back.


Those are some big branches that came down!


Elsewhere in our back yard, a woodpecker sits at the end of yet another broken off tree branch.


Speaking of trees, I'll be playing in the pit for Scott Joplin's rarely performed opera, Treemonisha, next weekend. The music is lovely - operatic ragtime, if you will. And the singer who plays Treemonisha has an absolutely gorgeous voice.

Freedom!

By about 4:oo we were tired of being cooped up and the snow seemed to be tapering off so we went outside and did four hours of shoveling. Well I did, anyway, because I was determined to make it out to the street. Doug pooped out and went in to cook some delicious black beans and rice.


I finally made it all the way out to the street so tomorrow we can go for a walk, or shovel some more and go work on our house.

With the life I've been living for the past three years, there's not been much point in caring how I look when I go out in public (which usually means Home Depot). That attitude served me well today when I devised these knee length waterproof shoe covers. The rubber bands even provide a little traction, and color. I used to have boots for the snow but that is one of the things I never got around to replacing. Anyway my feet stayed totally dry and warm - it was pretty amazing


It was great to be out in the fresh air and snow, getting some exercise after having worked in the basement for the past couple of weeks. It almost felt the same as skiing, except it was cheaper and not as much fun. But there was no risk of injury and the exercise felt good.


I think my car is more than halfway dug out. It'll nice to have options tomorrow instead of being totally trapped.

Here's the Cinderblock Chalet looking more attractive than usual in the snow. Look at all that snow on top of the trash can.

Sentimental Snowfall

Here's a perfect song for a day like today, Claude Thornhill's beautiful arrangement of "Snowfall" which became his theme song.

This arrangement was going to be the closing tune at the gig at Glen Echo last Saturday which was cancelled due to guess what? Snowfall.

Here's a possibly even more gorgeous arrangement of this beautiful tune which I first became aware of thanks to Washington Cube. Enjoy!

Groundhogs and Ghosts

Is it ever going to stop snowing? It's been so icy cold lately even when the sun finally decides to come out. I guess the weather feels like it needs to make up for the pleasantly mild winter we had last year.

Today was the birthday of my very favorite groundhog. We had a very low key celebration at the start of the day, which began shortly after midnight.


Last night I finally got a shot of the deer who lounge around in my back yard most nights. The one in the middle decided to get up when he saw my car. The one on the right seems to be completely unphased by the headlights aimed at him while he's relaxing on the ground. The one on the left is munching on my neighbor's azalea bush.


In my other backyard, my soon-to-be ex-backyard, I was attempting to take a picture of the Wolf Moon when a ghost suddenly appeared


And that somehow inspired me to go for an impressionistic effect instead.


I think I've been snorting too much drywall dust lately, or breathing too many paint fumes. I'm definitely starting to hallucinate again.

Dolmades Man

He's floating through space in his flying saucer. Actually he's sitting on the table at the Greek Islands Grill which also happens to be the home of my favorite aquarium:

When we left they were playing Greek rap music which is pretty hilarious.

And the moon once again has a huge halo around it. Go out and have a look!

Unbelievable

Although we are nowhere near being finished with our house, we have somehow managed to pass our final inspection exactly one day before the building permit expires. This is very good news which I am too sleep deprived to fully comprehend, but the end of this long drawn out ordeal is clearly in sight at last.

Blue Skies

.....when you look up into that blue sky, you think, "it's gonna be all right."
Words of Wisdom from Anna Wise.


That's the kind of attitude that will keep you going for 99 years.
I was looking at the sky a lot today.

A Post about Nothing

We've been working really hard on the house. I have no life. But the sky is still beautiful. I was at the drywall place today and happened to look up. I'm really grateful for the little things I happen to see from time to time.

Squirrels Frolicking in the Snow

This is what I do for excitement these days. There's absolutely nothing better than a little backyard squirrel action to enliven my dull existence. They were having a blast today playing in the snow. I love the way they all did a little rolling maneuver at exactly the same time. Check it out - it's pretty damn cute:

For me, with only three hours of sleep last night, this was even more exciting than a cup of coffee! And here they are running back to the deer-mangled shrubbery:

The unchewed part of that bush must be a fun place to hide!

This is all I've got. It's been pretty dull in Dullsville lately, especially during the Early January Blahs. But at least the days are getting longer now. It's much lighter outside at 5:00 than it was three weeks ago. That's not nearly as good as 9pm in June, but at least it's heading in the right direction. And there are signs of progress over at the Foam Core Fantasy. Or there will be soon.

The icy finger of winter....

so sharp, jagged, and penetrating. Brrrr......

But at least it makes for some nice sunsets.

the house that used to be pink

For many years our old former farmhouse was a sort of dusty rose shade of pink. I had finished painting it gray to match the siding on the new addition in the back just in time for the fire. Maybe it was meant to be pink, I don't know. A couple of random strangers actually told me they wished we had left it pink because they used it as a landmark when they gave directions. It definitely was a rather unique color.

Anyway, I'm very sad to say that part of our house is gone now. It was around 130 years old and I still miss it. We keep our old house in mind constantly as we work on the new version of it - sort of in an attempt to have the spirit of the old house move over into the addition which has become our new house. That sounds weird, but that's how it is.

Last week a person who lives in my area saw an earlier post I'd made and he then saw a picture of my house and realized that he had a painting of the old pink version of it hanging in his house! His brother, an artist who works in New York and Charlottesville, had painted a picture of our house, unbeknownst to me, way back in 1992 when he was still a student. He had just returned from studying in Arles and the painting reflects that influence a bit. And he has really captured the feeling of an earlier time. I am so happy that this painting exists and I'm very excited about the prospect of being able to see it in person sometime soon.

The Pink House, by Peter Krebs

I guess this is an example of one of those amazing random connections that occasionally happen in the world of blogging. And now Peter Krebs, the other painter of my house, has written a wonderful piece on his blog about his experiences growing up in this area and why he decided to do this painting. It's a beautiful story and beautifully written as well, so please go read it. It will warm your heart.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow....

Bring it on! I'm ready. The worst snowstorms are the little ones that make the roads slippery and tie up traffic. The best snowstorms are the big ones that pretty much eliminate traffic. I am really looking forward to the quiet that snow always brings. The world always feels so peaceful when there is snow on the ground.

And in honor of tomorrow's weather I hope you'll enjoy this extremely lovely version of "Snowfall" as sung by the Manhattan Transfer.

Thank you, Washington Cube, for suggesting that I go listen to this beautiful arrangement! You have perfect timing.

Happy Faces

Today was an excellent work day over at the house. We've been working outside on our back porch all week and it's been mostly miserable working in the freezing cold. But today it was warm and we got a lot done. Our back porch is finally finished, except for the fans. As soon as all of the construction materials are cleared out of there I will post some pictures over at FoamCoreFantasy.

When Doug takes a break from working to answer the phone, I'm often left with nothing to do since it is my "job" to be at his beck and call. So I go off and take pictures to keep myself from going crazy with boredom.

Fortunately I am easily amused as I wander around my house and yard, wondering if we will actually ever get to live there again.

This fall I installed a whole bunch of knobs. The cabinets seem quite pleased to have received their eyes and mouths.

The outlets on the other hand, are somewhat worried because the electrician has not been here for at least a month even though there is plenty of work that still needs to be done.






I discovered a fox living in the floor of our spare bedroom!

And a man on my right shoe. These shoes have been through a LOT. I've washed them about six times, although obviously not recently. Lots of grass stains and paint there. I hope they hold out until we finish our house.

Moving out to the backyard, Kermit the Komposter was looking a little pensive today. I was going to give him a little more to eat but he hasn't digested last week's food yet. Hey, speaking of food, what's on that dead tree over there?

Schrooms! With ice caps on the mushroom caps. The snow still hasn't melted in the shady spots. Well fortunately my hallucinogenic powers are fully functional without any additional help, so I'll just leave those for the deer.

I am also wearing a happy face because I have three gigs tomorrow, which means I have a day off from sawdust, dirt, and exhaustion.

not my favorite season

But if it looks like it looked today every now and then, I'll take it. It was a winter wonderland out there this morning as I drove to Damascus to play the Bach cantata "Wachet Auf." I spent most of the day in church today. But I had an hour at home this afternoon where I took these pictures of the magnolia tree near our parking lot.



I love this tree - it is beautiful at all times of the year. Today it looked like it was decorated with cotton.

This afternoon and evening I played two performances at a church in Glen Burnie. The show was sort of a 1940s Radio Hour meets church Christmas musical kind of thing - a very nice production with a large cast, big band, and string section.

And when I got home tonight this little rabbit was waiting for me under the magnolia tree.

Bonifant Road

When I stopped to take a picture of this ridiculous looking fake tree/cell phone tower that is obnoxiously visible from way off in the distance, my intent was to post the picture on my blog and complain about how stupid and unattractive it is. But it's actually kind of photogenic in a way. It looks pretty dumb in real life though.

Once I was out of my car with the camera in my hand, the compulsive picture taking disorder started once again. A couple of years ago they came in with bulldozers and completely destroyed what had once been a recreation area with baseball diamonds and things. They sprayed it with hay but it was just a big mud pile for quite a while. Gradually the vegetation filled in and it became a marshy area with a pond that seems to be very popular with migrating ducks. There were about twenty of them - they didn't all make it into the picture.

I am guessing that they constructed this artificial "wetland" area to compensate for some of what the Inter County Connector will be taking away. They are building a gigantic overpass a little bit east of this area. It's really going to change the character of the area, but it was nice of them to at least make an effort to keep some areas friendly for wildlife. I hope it all works okay, because at this point we don't really have any choice in the matter.

This is probably one of the most scenic bus stops in Montgomery County. I would imagine that waiting for a bus might be a little more pleasant if you had this lovely creek to look at while you waited.

It's pretty amazing that some of the trees haven't even started to change color yet while others are completely bare.

This is the "Road to Nowhere." That's what I used to call it when I was younger. I always wanted to see where it went. I think it was one of the old original parts of Bonifant Road. They've changed it a couple times and I guess sometimes it's easier to re-route the road than it is to widen an old bridge. You can't really tell to well from this photo, but it just heads off into increasingly heavy underbrush.

After my husband saw this photo he told me he used to fish from this bridge when he was a kid. The creek there is Northwest Branch.

So now I'm looking back across Bonifant at that cell phone "tree" again. I started thinking about my first official piano teacher (my mother taught me until I was about 12). His name was Harold Pries and he was really old. I remember driving up a very long curved driveway with lots of trees on either side to his big beautiful but slightly gloomy old house on what eventually became the former site of the Trolley Museum.

I had never had formal piano lessons before when I started with Mr. Pries and my year of lessons with him was very interesting. Although he seemed to be extremely old fashioned, he had me work through several volumes of Bartok's Mikrokosmos along with the usual repertoire which included a whole lot of Bach. No more John Thompson for me!

One of the most interesting things he had his students do each week was to memorize a poem of his choice. He must have had hundreds of poems memorized himself. There were poems by Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, and many others, including Shakespeare. And he wanted you to recite them with the proper expression too. One time he assigned me a passage from MacBeth:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death.

Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more.

It is a tale told by an idiot,

full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing.

I memorized it, but I just couldn't get into the sentiment of it in my recitation. I was just a silly little seventh grader and I couldn't feel or relate to whatever this poem was about. I hadn't experienced doom and gloom yet. Well he gave me a demonstration of it that was so grim that I thought he might kill himself afterwards. It was pretty scary and very intense, but I was sort of impressed and amazed anyway. I think it was too intense for my mother though because she started looking for a new piano teacher for me pretty soon after that.

All in all though I'd have to say that the weekly poem memorization experience was very beneficial to me in ways that I couldn't possibly appreciate then, but certainly do now. And I didn't know enough to have an opinion about his teaching, but I do know that he inspired me to work harder than I ever had before.



So first it was the piano studio of Harold Pries, then it became the trolley museum, and now it's the ICC. The trolley museum has moved to a new location just on the other side of the ICC. I had heard it was due to open this weekend, so I drove on in to check it out.



It's not open yet. They're still working on attaching the cables and they won't open until at least one of the trolleys is up and running.



I asked one of the guys who was working there when it would be opening and he said that they were trying for next Saturday but he thought that was optimistic. I peeked inside the building. It's a lot fancier than the old one was and it looks like the exhibits are more attractive. From what I could see just peeking in the door.

There was a road around the back that did not say "Do Not Enter" so I drove it up to the top of the hill. The light was really fading by then so this herd of deer looks rather ghostly.



I took one more picture of the "tree" from behind the trolley museum. It's actually planted rather close to the new building, which you can't tell at all just driving down Bonifant.



I guess I have a little more appreciation of this thing now that it has caused me to take a little trip down Memory Lane. Thank you, cell phone tree!

Huge Moon Halo Tonight

Has anyone else seen the giant ring around the moon tonight? It has such a huge diameter that I can't fit it all into my camera screen. Anyway, if you can, go on out and have a look. It's pretty cool.