Ghost Sign: Uneeda Biscuit

I adore these old signs on the sides of buildings. City planners refer to them as "ghost signs."

This Uneeda Biscuit sign is in Richmond, across the street from St. John's Church in which Patrick Henry famously said, "Give me liberty or give me death!"  In some really enlightened areas, preservationists restore these old advertising remnants found in inner cities.

Uneeda Biscuit was a Nabisco product first produced in 1898,  Uneeda seems to be associated with health or considered soothing to eat during an illness. Graham crackers were thought of in the same way years ago. i don't need to be sick to have an excuse to eat graham crackers dipped in milk.  Nabisco stopped making Uneeda Biscuits in 2008. At least Twinkies are coming back...

These are vanishing bits of Americana.  Sometimes I wonder if we will be just like the ancient Egyptians. Long into the future, some archaeologist will attempt to decipher our old hieroglyphs.  There are so many of these kinds of ads for treats that they'll surmise we worshiped food.

 

Dairy Delivery

I am pleased by little things.  Whether it is the first time Pumpkin Lattes are available at Starbucks each year or looking Richmond's row houses while on a walk or the sound of the mourning dove, certain little things that others may disregard or not even notice, make me happy.

Anything that reminds me of growing up makes me happy.  Honeysuckle bushes at the beach that put me back at Black Point, maple sugar candy, red Keds...and home milk delivery.  We used to get home milk delivery on Knollwood Road in a box just like the one pictured above.

So imagine my total nostalgic happiness when I found that Oberweis Dairy now makes home delivery in my area.  And can I just say, that's some of the best yogurt and cottage cheese in the cooler EVER.

I do wish this wasn't a gray Coleman's cooler and a cool metal milk box, but I think I can fix this by visiting Ebay.

Mountain Dairy in Storrs, CT stopped delivering milk in 2012...they started in 1851.  According the milk industry analysts, as of 2005, less than half of one percent of all Americans purchased milk via home delivery.  When I was a kid it was about 30%.  

So while one can't get home milk delivery back where I started out, I can here. The milk box and the milk man (with the dread locks) don't look exactly the same, but I can revive an old tradition.  And that makes me really happy.  The glass milk bottles are amazingly nostalgic and I LOVE pouring the milk into my coffee.

Learn more here:

http://articles.courant.com/2012-10-26/business/hc-mountain-dairy-home-delivery-20121025_1_milk-truck-marcus-dairy-dairy-moves

The Scoop - Ten Random Thoughts in Ten Minutes

One of the highlights of my morning is when Bruce brings me a large coffee with milk and Splenda.  The other is that Lulu is the snuggling queen of the morning.  My life would be much less spectacular without her.

Sometimes I get the blues on Sunday night.  I think it is a leftover from when I didn’t want to go back to school.

My niece is a remarkable young woman…just saying.

My mother has done an amazing job since my Papa’s death.  I am really proud of her.

In the past few weeks I have been in the ER twice with a pinched nerve in my neck and a foreign object in my eye.  I’ve also had a cold.  And I’m done now.

My cottage garden is at its best just now.  I have to get a pic.

The other day we went to the Naval Hospital so I could go to a follow up appointment with the eye doctor.  We could not find our car in the very large parking garage afterwards.  Instead of freaking out and frantically searching for the car in the heat and humidity, this time I did something different.  We went back in and had scrumptious breakfast croissant sandwiches with bacon and eggs inside which nearly made me swoon at the Dancing Goat Café.  The goat is the Naval Academy Football Team mascot.  An “old goat” is also a term for a Chief Petty Officer, quite apropos in this case.  We read magazines from the NEX convenience store.  Bruce read about the surface of Mars.  I learned how to make Vietnamese steamed spring rolls.  Then we  called a cab.  Best eight bucks spent EVER.  We waited until the evening , drove back, and picked up the car when the garage was nearly empty.

I am no longer a rookie officer.  I finished my first year with very good evals.  I am proud of myself.

The other day was such a lovely day on the Eastern Shore with my family.  I am blessed, blessed, blessed to have them.  We went to Scoops, an adorable ice cream shop pictured.

Trip to Virginia's Eastern Shore

Virginia's Eastern Shore isn't too far, just a ride over the Chesapeake Bay-Bridge Tunnel, one of the wonders of the modern world

We started out at Starbucks for breakfast...Bruce, Mom, Piper (niece), and me.  Mom is a Dunkin' girl, so now I have proof positive that she has gone over the the dark side.  

Then we headed for the Bay Bridge Tunnel.  The traffic was a little dicey for a few minutes.  However, one can hardly complain about traffic when you have this view out the car window:

We drove through all sorts of quaint little country towns, past cornfields as high as an elephant's eye, and combines harvesting wheat.  

We stopped for lunch at 

This restaurant is in Nassawadox, VA, a very special family-run eatery with excellent service and Italian food.

http://francolittleitaly.com/

Mom, Piper, and me out front.

Then on we went, further up the Eastern Shore

This is the Inn and Garden Cafe in Onancock, VA.  Isn't it lovely?

http://www.theinnandgardencafe.com/

An Early Summer's Night Dinner

Looking at this idyllic shot, you might think that we were in some National Park or out in the western part of Virginia where people, cars, and buildings are more scarce than my Tidewater region.

Instead, we were at one of our very favorite spots, Kelly's at Great Bridge.  I should tell you that I don't get any freebies or rewards from mentioning businesses like Kelly's or Fresh Market.  I love to record my days and the special things that make my life grand, not provide product or restaurant reviews.

We were really right here, in what has to be one of the most beautifully-located restaurants in my area.  Something about it reminds me of the Podunk Mill Club, a restaurant on the Connecticut River which no longer exists.  Once when I was perhaps 7, I asked for ketchup and the chef came out and had a cow.

I had a pasta dish with crab and shrimp.  Bruce had a burger piled high with roasted red peppers and an aioli sauce. Fab.

You can almost see how humid it was.  This is the view from the porch along the Intercoastal Waterway, the 3,000 mile waterway which flows down the Atlantic Coast to the Gulf of Mexico.  We chose an inside table along the Chesapeake and Albermarle Canal here below:

The Canal was completed just before the Civil War and linked VA waterways with North Carolina and the Currituck Sound.

A boat on the Canal...

Condos on the Intercoastal...

Fresh Market

The Fresh Market is a wonderful chain of smaller grocery stores that sell baked goods, prime meat and seafood, prepared foods to take home for dinner, and organic produce.

I don't shop Fresh Market as a routine practice, but stop in at the one nearby Mom's when she is in town. We meander around commenting on the giant artichokes, or the lovely little organic cucumbers, or whatever catches our fancy at the time.  

Yesterday, I was in with Mom to pick up some Revolution Earl Grey Lavender tea which is perhaps the best tea EVER.  So many gourmet and unusual foods abound that it is hard to take everything in at one time.

Yesterday Mom and I saw cucumber soda, blood orange soda, and lavender soda!  We picked up the lavender soda to give it a try. Both of us delight int that sort of thing, so I guess I came by it naturally.

One of Fresh Market's unique features are little "rooms" that they have up high near the ceiling.  Conventional markets often display lawn chairs and coolers or other seasonal items in such spaces.

Here is Fresh Market's take on it:

The produce is amazing...

Happy Independence Day

Pics taken during a recent drive to Richmond.

Our National Anthem - Second Verse

And thus be it ever

Where free men may stand

Between their loved homes

And the war's desolation

Blessed with victory and peace

May the heaven's-rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made  

And preserved us a nation 

Then triumph we must

For our cause it is just

And this be our motto

In God is our trust

And the star spangled banner

In triumph will wave

O'er the land of the free

And the home of the brave

LET FREEDOM RING

Leave Things Better Than When You Came In

Okay...full disclosure.  This pic I took has nothing to do with the post whatsoever.  However, it is a very gray day as I type this, so I added this as a little pick-me-up. I took this shot on a weekend drive.  I'm not positive, but I think these flowers were in Smithfield, VA.

My grandmother used to say that you should leave a room better than you found it.  What she meant was that you should do a quick visual sweep of the room to see if you could throw out the Hartford Courant that everyone had already read or pick up your sneakers and leave them on the landing to go upstairs.  My father would sarcastically remark about this idea, "And some people make the room better just by leaving it."

Anyway, I always remember that and her admonition to keep the sink clear of dishes because this was a key  to keeping the whole house clean.  To this day, I cannot leave the house or go to sleep with dishes in the sink.  As New Yorkers say, "It skeeves me out."

The other day, I was making a visual sweep of the dining room on my way upstairs. I had left my Bible on the dining room table. I felt the Lord speak to my spirit quietly saying, "Take your Bible upstairs with you and it will leave you better than if you left it here."  Which reminds me of the old saying that if your Bible looks spiffy on the outside, you don't look so good on the inside.  Conversely, those with the underlined, booked marked, highlighted pages and the spine taped with duct tape (a la my Papa) looked pretty good on the inside.

I will delight in the law of the Lord, I will meditate day and night.  Then like a tree, firmly planted I'll be - grounded it Your word.

Daddy Can We Hop, Daddy Can We Skip?

I was thinking this morning about the difference between the bloggers with sixty eleven gazillion followers and folks like Debra of As I See It Now and Judy of Anybody Home.  I'm not sure what kind of blogger you'd call either of these two wonderful ladies, but I guess they could be categorized as "Christian Lifestyle Bloggers" or something like that. 

Then there is Alex of Living the Small Life.  She's not a Christian Blogger, but she blogs about thrifty living and keeping fit.  So what's the difference between these three wonderful women and the glitzy bloggers with the perfect, ethereal-looking pictures of the charmingly-worn pitcher with the artfully arranged wildflowers and the curtain blowing ever-so-slightly in the breeze?  They're real.

And when I really think about it, these are the three that I read day after day.  All three have been plugging along for years, sharing their lives, and giving wisdom to a world of strangers they may never know.  They chronicle their lives, reflect, share their mistakes and idiosyncrasies and sometimes less-than-perfect pics that would make BlogHer peeps hair stand on end.

The other difference is that many of these bloggers, the glitzy ones that we sometimes envy...well, they burn out.  When every entry has to be a work of complete perfection, they run out of ideas, because life isn't perfect. 

One of my favorite, gorgeous ethereal blogs hasn't been updated in months.  The sweet girl who writes it let all of us know at Christmas that the perfect-looking life that I envied once upon a time was an illusion that she couldn't keep up any longer since real life crept in.

Another wonderful blogger is perpetually tied up in knots both because of life's truly difficult circumstances and a constant need to tweak, refine, and play with the blog that results in hard crashes of the site that already looked amazing.

Still others blog for a short time, with gorgeous pics and wonderful content, only to burn out later because everything cannot stay perfect all the time.

Hence, the imperfect pic above, which I would have discarded a few months back.  I'm done with not expressing myself because I can't live up to standards which I imposed upon myself, yet cannot meet.

I was waiting for some prescriptions at the Portsmouth Naval Hospital last night, a healing place I am truly grateful for.  A young Naval officer and his daughter were walking through the corridor hand in hand.  I suspect that Mommy may have had a new baby.  You can see her in the less-than-perfect pic in the little pink t-shirt.

"Daddy, can we skip?," she said, looking up at him with a smear of chocolate something across her upper lip.

He hesitated for a moment and looked around.  Then with an "oh what the heck" look to all of us,  Daddy skipped down the corridor with her.

"Daddy, can we hop now?"

And hop along to the parking garage they did. 

Somehow I think that kids would have better lives if more Daddies hopped and skipped with them, regardless of looking ridiculous.  To me, he looked like a hero, not ridiculous.

My firm belief is that kids already know the Lord at birth,  As Helen Keller famously said when Annie Sullivan spelled the name of God into her hand, "I always knew He was there, I just didn't know what to call Him,."  That's why kids skip for joy before the world tries to take it away from them.

Luke 1:14  The Message 

You're going to leap like a gazelle for joy, and not only you, but many...

Almost Time for Sugar Hill Blackberries...

Sugar Hill is a neighborhood behind mine, down Booker Street,  Sugar Hill is Portsmouth's last vestige of the "40 ares and a mule" promised to Southern blacks following Emancipation and the end of the Civil War.

Once there was a thriving black community  there, two little groceries, some churches, a "buttery," and a candy store as residents have told me.  Urban renewal in the 1960's decimated this community as a road was cut right through the middle which serves as an approach to the Mid-Town Tunnel under the Elizabeth River to Norfolk,

Did you ever notice that any street called "Martin Luther King" anything always seems to be around an area where African American's are exploited?  One never sees MLK Blvd near an elegant area.  I don't think this practice represents what Dr. King lived and died for.

In this case, the MLK Freeway was built right over Sugar Hill's graveyard.  Yet, the quiet community still lives on in a few houses and the old folks' memories former days.  One of them is my buddy, Mr. Curtis, a gardener and disabled Vietnam vet whose wife was born in the house they reside in.  He tells me that many of Sugar Hill's residents were porters for the Norfolk Southern railroad, black elite in their white gloves and uniforms helping customers in the sleeping and dining cars during days of posh railroad travel.

I still hear the trains chug past Sugar Hill, but the porters are gone and CSX halls freight instead of people.  Scotts Creek, part of the Elizabeth River, flows around Sugar Hill as it always has, endangered green herons nest in its trees as egrets stand feeding on one foot and Cooper's Hawks circle above.

As I ride through Sugar Hill, I always check this time of year to see if the blackberries are ripe yet.  As you can see from the pic above, they are not quite ready.  The blackberry blossom's intoxicating has me stop my bike on the way past to check.  Honeysuckle blooms there, some kind of purple flower, and Queen Anne's Lace which I gather and take home.

I'll check out Sugar Hill next weekend when I know I can gather some ripe berries in a white enameled pail with a red wooden handle, sharing my bounty with the little red foxes that live on the banks of Scotts Creek and the birds that swoop down to feed there.

Teeny Tiny Town Hall Near Eastville VA

Is this not the cutest municipal building EVER?

Apparently this is the "civic center" for a tiny town on Virginia's Eastern Shore.  I thought I'd remembered it as "Eastville."  However, when I Googled Eastville VA Town Hall, it was another (also adorable) brick building which looked like the Chrysler Building in comparison.  

I should have written the name down, because those civic-minded folks deserve recognition for the loving way this little spot is maintained.

This pic and hundreds of others I've taken over the years is why I have such a passion for exploring and driving on Virginia back roads.

Just because I don't want this post to be too short and because I think it is so pretty, here is another pic from later that day:

Gatsby Eyes

Mom and I saw The Great Gatsby after some awesome guacamole and chips at La Parilla not long ago. The two of us are discriminating guacamole girls; in fact, she makes some of the best guac this side of Mexico.  La Parilla prepares guacamole fresh at the table to order and we judged it sublime.

This version of Gatsby was breathtaking in terms of the costuming, the cinematography, the direction...it blessed my Art Deco heart.  Mom thought it was even better than F. Scott Fitzgerald's book.  Since I believe that movies often ruin adaptations of books, this was high praise.

As she and I discussed the movie on the way home, we both felt it was a morality tale with many applications to the excesses from which America is trying to recover.

The fleeting nature of fame and adulation depicted in Jay Gatsby's fall from grace has a number of parallels to the Paula Dean Witch Hunt.  I'll digress just a moment on that to say that Paula apparently said something offensive and ill-advised 20 years ago.  Now she is losing the business she worked years to build while rappers repeatedly use the same word to the delight of all their fans.

One of the themes in Gatsby is a faded billboard advertising the services of an eye doctor. The "eyes" keep watch over an area on the wrong side of the tracks between posh "East Egg" on Long Island and New York City.

Many literary critics believe that these eyes represent the eyes of the Almighty, observing all the transgressions which occur below. Ultimately, the eyes bear witness to a vehicular homicide committed by an idle rich woman, distraught and drunk after an afternoon of excess in a swanky Manhattan hotel.  I've been thinking about those watchful eyes ever since I saw Gatsby.

Dr. R.E. Titcomb, who practices in Cape Charles on Virginia's Eastern Shore, must be a Gatsby fan.

We saw this optometrist's office during a drive last weekend.

The eyes of the LORD are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.
Proverbs 15:3

I have a friend, Snow Jade, who chronicles everything in her life.  If she takes a package to the post office, it is entirely possible that the postal worker will be featured in her Facebook the next day - or the waiter at the Chinese restaurant or the hula dancers downtown (she lives in Hawaii)...you get the idea.

So without further fanfare, following is my evening last night because pictures are worth 1,000 words.

I left those lovely people about 1 a.m. and returned home to rest on the couch and look at this

My Little Sweetheart is Gone

My sweet little kindergartner next door has been evicted, along with her family. To say that my heart feels like it has been ripped out of my chest is putting it mildly.  Somehow I feel the need to say that I did everything I knew how to do to prevent this without enabling harmful behavior.  Not only did I do everything I could, but an entire neighborhood tried to help, including the landlord.

What could I do when she knocked on the door with 45 minutes available, but take her for cake pops at a favorite place, watch her wiggle her loose front tooth, and listen to what Miss Kinchlow told them all at school today?

I hope that during the year we had this sweet little girl with us, along with her three other siblings, we were able to pour in all the love we possibly could.  I cannot explain the desolation which swept through me to hear her say matter-of-factly, "I guess we are going to a shelter tonight."  No child should ever have to say that, never mind experience it.  What do you do but hold her close and remind her that you will pray for her every day?  You remind her how amazing she is and that God has a special plan for her.

How do I walk in the love that Christ wants us to having for a hurting world when I want to strangle the adults in her life for putting her in this position? What would Jesus do?  The shortest verse in the Bible says, "Jesus wept" when he learned that his friend Lazarus had died.  So I guess Jesus will understand that I sit here crying and second-guessing myself, but most of all praying that He will suffer these little children to come unto Him and find a place for them and healing for their mother.

When I came inside just now they were running barefoot in the grass between our two houses,catching lightning bugs, and waiting for a ride to God-knows-where. I pray that they will stay carefree and untouched by this adult chaos. My heart is broken.

Walks

I've taken some amazing walks lately.  While traveling through North Carolina, I stopped to walk the dog in a little park in Zebulon, NC. The woods were cool and green - all you could smell was springtime.

 The little play house below was along my walk in the Ghent section of Norfolk, in the backyard of a stately house.  Some treasured little girl must play there.

Despicable Me

To say that my husband has an unusual job is putting it mildly.  Sometimes he sends me pics or quips during his work day.  I sometimes wonder if he's kidding around or being serious.  I got a pic via a smart phone which was entitled, "Despicable Me" yesterday.

When I first saw the title of the message, I wasn't sure whether he was trying to tell me that he forgot to take the garbage out to the street, he was having one of those days (as we all do) when he was REALLY doubting his self image, or he was thinking of the movie of the same name.

As it happens, it was none of the above.  Who knew that there was a Despicable Me blimp promoting the next Despicable Me movie (Despicable Me 2) and that it needed a little TLC?  That's what the company he works for does and so, here it is in the hanger.  You can get a good idea of the scale by checking out the white pick up underneath.  It is one of those big pick ups with a "back seat" before the truck bed.

I should add that the company he works for does a lot of things other than fixing "ole Despicable" including military and communication applications.  Bruce works on that side of the house.

Sometimes it is embarrassing to admit that your husband plays with balloons for a living. - and he he isn't even a clown!

A Heart Drawn on the Window

There are a million reasons why children have less-than-perfect childhoods.  Some of those reasons stretch back generations and others are due to selfish choices made by grown ups today. I’m not called to judge those issues or reasons, but I frequently find it painful and sad to view the effect on the kids.

Sometimes those situations tear my heart out.  I was engaged in a discussion on the front porch of a house that shelters four children aged 2 to 11.  The adults in their lives are broken, as I am, fragmented both by choices they have made and situations beyond their control.  The discussion was stressful.  The three smaller ones were sent in to watch Tom and Jerry.  Mom was seated facing the big living room window, as I was, while another child had her back to it.

A little face with huge green eyes appeared as the six year old wiggled her body under the curtain at the living room window.  The weather was warm and the window had fogged from the air conditioning inside.  Very carefully and very seriously she drew a huge heart in the condensation, looked solemnly out at her mother and pointed an index finger toward her.

If only we could do that.  If only we could try to pour love over the stress and the chaos, as she tried to do.  Right now, all I think that my little sweetheart should have to worry about is going down the slide.

“And a little child shall lead them.”  Isaiah 11:6

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."     Mathew 19:14