Dec 02

It All Starts Somewhere

Last Saturday, we celebrated a late Thanksgiving since our son couldn’t get home any earlier.  Sunday afternoon, we did our usual “hike” (aka meander) which was taking our dog on a local trail.  Sometimes, my mom goes, sometimes not.  When she’s with us, we plan for an easier trail.

Using an app that we have, our son chose the improbably named Horsepen Run Stream Valley Trail.

We walked for a very short distance, rounded a curve and there it was – the very first LFL we had ever seen.  Apparently, last time we had come in a different entrance.   On this screenshot, last time we’d come towards the LFL from the right instead of the bottom.

You can see from our tracking app where we stopped and looked around 🙂

first-lfl

Here’s what the first looks like now.

lfl-herndon

The guestbook was cleverly hidden but we signed it and told the owners that they had inspired us to make our own.

Nov 30

St. Andrew is Back!

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In Scotland, and many countries with Scottish connections, St Andrew’s Day is marked with a celebration of Scottish culture with traditional Scottish food, music and dance. Schools across Scotland hold special St Andrew’s Day events and activities including art shows, Scottish country dancing, lunchtime Ceilidhs, dance festivals, storytelling, reciting and writing poems, writing tall tales, cooking traditional Scottish meals, and bagpipe-playing.

 

The day is also seen as the start of a season of Scottish winter festivals encompassing St Andrew’s Day, Hogmanay and Burns Night.

In Edinburgh, there is a week of celebrations, concentrating on musical entertainment and traditional ceilidh dancing. A ceilidh is a social event with couples dancing in circles or sets (groups of eight people).

In Glasgow city centre, a large shindig, or party, with traditional music and a ceilidh are held. In Dumfries, songs are performed in the Burn’s night tradition.

 

In Barbados Saint Andrew’s Day is celebrated as the national day of Independence in Barbados. As the patron saint of Barbados, Saint Andrew is celebrated in a number of Barbadian symbols including the cross formation of the Barbadian Coat of Arms, and the country’s national honours system which styles persons as Knights or Dames of St. Andrew.

 

st-andrews-day-google

Nov 11

Remembering our Veterans

veterans-day

I’m not sure how Veterans Day turned into a day to sell stuff, but then, most every holiday has turned into a day for stores to run “sales”.  Possibly, the original intent was to give our veterans a break but it has sure morphed away from that.

Veterans Day is supposed to be a day to thank those who have served.

From the Constitution:

Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and

Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations;…

 

But I digress.  Sunday, November 13 will also be Remembrance Day in the UK – including Scotland where my grandfather was a soldier in the Black Watch.

remembrance

 

Thanks so much Tom and Frank for your service to the US and to Europe.

Nov 05

Don’t Forget!

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Oct 31

How Scotland invented Halloween – The Scotsman

IT SOUNDS like a bold claim to make, but evidence suggests that, if not for Scotland, Halloween would not exist – at least not as the world knows it.In medieval times, the 31st of October was the last day of the old Celtic calendar.

Scots druids referred to it as Samhuinn, a term which loosely translates as ‘summer’s end’. For comparison, the Scottish Gaelic for November is An t-Samhain.It is believed that ‘Halloween’, a Scottish contraction of All Hallows’ Eve (All Saints Day) first entered common parlance in Scotland in 1745.

Source: How Scotland invented Halloween – The Scotsman

Oct 09

Chantilly Library Fall Book Sale

stack-of-books

 

Details

  • 4000 Stringfellow Road, Chantilly, VA
  • Mark your calendars for the Chantilly Library fall book sale:
    Friday, October 28, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.;
    Saturday, October 29, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.;
    Sunday, October 30, Clearance Sale ($10/box), 1-4 p.m.

    We have a great selection of gently used books, DVDs, CDs and audio books for children and adults available at bargain prices. Sponsored by the Friends of the Chantilly Regional Library to fund special programs and activities for children and adults, renovation projects, landscaping in front of the library, and equipment purchases not covered by the library’s normal operating budget from the county. Hope to see you there!

 

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Sep 29

National Coffee Day

www.public-domain-image.com (public domain image)

 

If you know me, you know that I nearly always have a cup of coffee nearby, at all times.  I’m glad that coffee has its own day now 🙂

 

The date might not be marked on your calendar, but if you are like more than 50 percent of adults who drink coffee every day, maybe it should be. Thursday is National Coffee Day, which means you can find free or reduced priced coffee in many places.

 

 

Enjoy!

coffee-machine

Sep 11

We Remember September 11 ~ Always

9-11

 

 

I originally wrote this on 9/11/01…

I, too, was stunned to hear the news this morning and continuing throughout the day.

It was just something unbelievable.  My husband and I were on a Land Rover 4X4 tour of the off-road areas of Barbados when we first got the news.

At first, when we got the very first news, around 9:30 am, I thought that it was some tale that the driver was weaving…and that there would be a punchline.  As the day wore on, more interest was on the radio than on the tour.  Some of the people in our Land Rover were from New York City and they were terrified for friends and family.

What an awful day in history this is, one of those that we’ll always remember where we were when we got the news.

Like the rest of you, I am stunned, absolutely shocked that this could happen, using our own planes, no less.  I cannot imagine the terror of the people on those planes, or in the World Trade Center…or the Pentagon.

 

The rest of the story:

The year of 911 my mom and my son had been with us for the first week. My son had to be back at college so on Sunday he shepherded my mom through the airport, customs and all and got her back home before he headed back to UMass/Amherst on Monday. Thank goodness they got back before the mayhem started!

On Tuesday we were out on a 4X4 from Island Safari with our favorite guide, Zario. Zario is a fun guy and and very knowledgeable about Barbados and world events. We were very happy to have him again because it was the “luck of the draw” which driver/guide we got.

I remember that morning being kind of stressed already – I was having trouble with one of my contacts and I was just grumpy.

Zario picked us up first, one of the benefits of staying at The Crane – everyone picks us first for everything and drops us off last. Then he picked up another couple from New York City who were staying at Bougainvillea.

The tour started off through the fields, down cliffs as usual. Zario had the radio on in the background. When we got to the first stop he told us that there was a “problem” in New York. That it seemed that a plane had hit a building. We thought that there was going to be a punch line somewhere. There wasn’t.

As the tour went on, the news got worse. The couple from NYC was very worried about relatives.

By the time we got to lunch and met up with the other 4x4s everyone had heard. We were in a little chattal house restaurant, the TV was on CNN and everyone was just watching in silence and horror. Usually this lunch is very festive and fun. Not a care in the world. Not today.

We left the New York people off at their hotel and went “home”. The TV was full of New York news, then Pentagon news. We know people who work at the Pentagon. The news just got worse as we went along.

We were basically stuck in Barbados.  Phones to the US didn’t work well, email was slow to non-existent, all we knew was what we got on CNN, incessantly.  My mother and son had been with us the week before and had just flown back the Saturday before.  I was so glad that they had gotten back home ok, then my son off to college.

We were supposed to fly home on the next Saturday, but if was iffy if that would happen since the airports were closed for the longest time.  We were flying into the DC area. The phone lines to the Barbados airport and to American Airlines were always busy.

Finally, we decided to give it a shot, packed up and went to the airport to see if we could fly out or not.  They could only guarantee the flight as far as Puerto Rico.

The San Juan airport was crowded with Americans trying to get home, flights being canceled due to closed airports, people sleeping all around the airport, using backpacks for pillows.  It was a very difficult time.

We did finally leave for home later that night.  This is what I wrote the next day…

 

I flew on American Airlines last night (9/14/2001).  We left Barbados on time but the connecting flight, originating out of Aruba was very late, and we waited for a long time in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

After that flight had arrived though, we were all sitting around, hoping they’d board the plane soon.  All of a sudden, there was cheering in the hallway.  We turned to look – our pilot and crew were marching up the hallway with a huge American flag.  He stopped and talked to us.  He explained that the copilot would hang that flag outside his window as we taxied out of Puerto Rico and into Dulles.  The flag was making the rounds of American flights all over the country and that the yellow streamers hanging down were being signed by all the American crew members.  He posed for lots of pictures (I have some I’ll post later, when my eyes are less bleary!), then, as they were going to get the plane ready, he asked us in a loud voice if we were ready to fly to Washington and everyone cheered.

Along the way, he thanked us so much for having faith and flying (like we had any choice!).  The headphones for the movie and the drinks were all free on this flight!  He also told us that there were a lot of fighter planes in the Washington to NY corridor and not to be surprised if we were intercepted by one, who would just be making sure that we were “who we said we were”.  I thought that would be kind of neat to see, but I didn’t see them.  We arrived in Dulles (Washington, DC) with a jet fighter escort.  At the time, that sounded so comforting, but it turned out that they had been there to shoot us down, if we’d made any funny moves.

Then, when we arrived at the terminal, the captain said that we were back in “the land of the free, and the home of the brave” and got some more cheers.

It was a memorable flight for someone like me, who is terrified of flying under the best of circumstances.

Us, on 9/10/01. Who knew?

9/14, San Juan Puerto Rico:
After the crew marched down the hallway.

The captain, letting others have a chance to fly the flag.

This young woman lead us onto the plane.

MaryOUSAheart

 

Aug 19

Today Is World Photo Day!

World Photo Day

 

Today is another of those “Who Knew” holidays.

I was recently talking to someone about our upcoming trip to Scotland and she reminded me to take lots of pictures.  Then, she said to be sure to print them out so she could see them.

cornerUm, no way!  I haven’t printed out pictures since probably the 1980s – or earlier.

All the work that went into that.  Taking the film somewhere, getting back to the store to pick up the prints, buying scrapbooks, and those little corner holders, sorting, writing the people’s names on the back, the place.  Then, finding the right scrapbook to show people…

No, NO NO!

These days. I keep most of my photos online.  There are 50,387 photos right now in my Flickr account and it’s so much easier to share online.

It’s interesting about photos.  A couple of my first real jobs were working in photo processing.

When I was first out of college, I worked for Technicolor, processing negatives into photos.

US3418913-5Back then, the film had to be processed entirely in the dark.

When the door of the machine was open, the light-proof curtain of the cubicle was shut tight.

I learned how to thread huge, heavy rolls of photo paper into a machine – in total darkness. Over, under, around, over…

Neither the undeveloped paper nor the negatives could be exposed to any light – ever.

Someone else had cut the end of the roll of negatives square and stuck it to a “leader” using special tape which wouldn’t peel off during the developing process.

leaderThe leader featured small rectangle holes like old movie filmstrips. The holes catch onto sprockets which guide the leader card and film through the processing machine.

After being sure we had enough paper in the machine, we would feed the leader end of the negatives into the side and that automatically moved the leader card forward.

We’d be sure that the machine was set for the type (size) of film it was (mine were usually 110 or 35milimeter) and feed the roll of negatives through the machine, making minor corrections using a special keyboard. Different amounts of cyan, magenta and yellow were added or subtracted to each photo to ensure the color was correct.

Adjustments are also made for exposure to each individual photo, and sometimes we’d recenter the subject (or what we guessed was the subject).  Sometimes, we had to choose between 2 or more photos to find the one that was “best”.

Then we’d (finally!) get the prints, package them up and start again.

The whole thing was on piecework so the faster, the better.  The faster we worked, the more money we made.

pocketfilm-110The young women who had worked here longer than I had got really good/fast at this and they were able to work with newer machines that let them work in a large room out in the light and have others to talk with.  As I recall, those machines only processed the 110 film, which was becoming more popular with amateur photographers.

It was a boring job, but it was a job.  I worked there from late afternoon until midnight, so it gave me lots of time to hang out by Lake Metacomet where I was living with a roommate.

Somehow, my roommate had managed to get us an apartment right on the shore of the lake and it was much easier to hang out there in the sunshine than to drive to work and be in the dark all evening.

Sometimes, I’d call in “sick”  LOL

Tom and I moved to Milwaukee so he could go to grad school.  While I was there, I did substitute teaching for public school music classes around the Milwaukee area.

And, after school, in the evenings, I did photo processing for a small photo processing company.

They hired me on the spot because I knew how to thread that machine.  I didn’t have to do that for long, though.  Somehow, I got promoted to wedding photos, those that took a lot of care, color corrections, perfect centering…and I was mostly in the light.  No more piecework because I had to spend so much time on each photo, striving for perfection.

Fond memories, all of them.  To this day, I am very good at telling if things are centered properly, level, and if the color matches.

In the greater scheme of things, World Photo Day is an international photography event on August 19th that celebrates the passion for photography in our communities.

Go out and get some pictures.  Print them, if you want – or not 🙂

Jul 19

Take a Book, Leave a Book ~ From our Local Paper, Again

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Take a Book, Leave a Book
by Angela D. Glascock, Editorial Writer
There has been a delightful bloom of Little Free Libraries in Greenbriar.

What is a Little Free Library, you ask? A Little Free Library is just what it sounds like: a small structure that houses books to borrow or trade. Books are provided by citizens, creating a continuous, all-hours book exchange.

The aim of Little Free Libraries, according to LittleFreeLibrary.org, is “To promote literacy and the love of reading by building free book exchanges worldwide and to build a sense of community as we share skills, creativity and wisdom across generations.”

Sounds like a wonderful idea to me.

Todd Bol, who wished to honor his mother, a teacher who loved to read, created the first Little Free Library in Wisconsin in 2009. This original library looks like a little red schoolhouse. Bol built it, painted it, attached it to a post in his front yard, filled it with books, and put up a sign that read “Free Books.”

It was an immediate success.

The idea of Little Free Libraries in communities has caught on and spread quickly throughout the world. By June 2016, there were an estimated 40,000 registered Little Free Libraries — but that figure does not include thousands of unregistered little libraries, like three of those in Greenbriar. It is a brilliant way to share and find an eclectic variety of books while promoting literacy and community.

An internet search for “Little Free Library” brings up hundreds of photos of libraries in an amazing array of designs. The most common design is of a house, but these little house shaped libraries are far from common: there are wee cottages, Victorians, lighthouses, even a motorhome. People have recycled phone booths, newspaper dispensers and wooden barrels to make libraries. Some designs are simple, some are complex, but they are all remarkable.

In Greenbriar, the Little Free Libraries look like small houses with glass doors, but again, they are far from plain.

So where are these delightful structures located? You’ve probably seen the one by the pool, at the intersection of Point Pleasant and Middle Ridge. That was the first one I noticed. It’s called the “Tiny Free Library,” and a sign invites you to “Take a book * leave a book.”

At Point Pleasant and Maylock is the “Scrapwood Library,” so named because it was built from recycled wood: “scraps from our new kitchen …,” according to the sign, which also invites you to “take a book, leave a book.”

Toward Stringfellow at the intersection of Point Pleasant and Peekskill is a cheerful, bright yellow and blue library; this is the Greenbriar Little Free Library #33664.

Finally, at the Cale Community Center, there is a white library accented with green trefoils, compliments of Girl Scout Troop
6396.

When I visited each library, I found that they were full of an assortment of books.

The Tiny Free Library contained a lot of popular fiction, such as Charlaine Harris, James Patterson, Janet Evanovich and David Baldacci. This one is likely the most visited because of its central location.

The Scrapwood Library housed a mix of popular fiction, classics (such as Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn), non-fiction, anthologies, textbooks, well-loved books, old books, new books and cookbooks. There were also audiobooks on CD.

The Greenbriar Little Free Library #33664, owned by Mary and Tom O’Connor, contained mostly children’s books, which, Tom said cheerfully when I interrupted his mowing to inquire, was their aim.

The Girl Scout library at the Cale Community Center was chock full of picture books, chapter books and young adult selections. Perfect for kids.

So, Greenbriar, whether you take a book, leave a book, or borrow a book and return it later, the four little libraries in Greenbriar offer bountiful choices for reading this summer.

To everyone who installed little libraries, and to everyone who supports them, thank you for supporting literacy in our community!

Little Free Library information and the locations of registered libraries can be found at www.LittleFreeLibrary.org.

Download this newspaper here: Greenbriar_flyer_2016_07

 

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