My trip to North Carolina

Cedar Creek Cabins, Black Mountain, North Carolina: Discount during November, all cabins $100. All you needed was provided. Friends has a more charming cabin, called the Bear's den. Ours was bigger, the Highlander. Electric heaters in each room, nice fake fireplace. Rocking chairs and glider on the porch. We had two bedrooms and a single bed in the living room. I liked the twig furniture outside, the labyrinth, the bubbling brook. The Bear's Den had a sliding glass window/door in one bedroom overlooking the stream.

Louise's restaurant, Black Mountain, North Carolina: Restaurant in an old house, with tables on the porch outside as well. You place your order and then they deliver it to your table. Interesting, natural foods and cool looking people.

Shoney's restaurant, Hillsboro, Virginia: We enjoyed the buffet at this place. Yummy mashed potatoes, fried fish, tarter sauce, banana pudding.

Is this my website?

Should I claim this blog as my "website"? Would more people read it if I mentioned it somewhere?

Sylvia Beach and the lost generation (book) : a history of literary Paris in the twenties and thirties, by Noel Riley Fitch.
Really loved this book since I love Paris and history and since Sylvia Beach lived briefly in my neighborhood in Bridgeton, New Jersey. Of course, she left and became an agnostic and a lesbian. I find most of the semi-famous people from my town are no longer here. Oh well. Sylvia ended up in Paris and had a bookstore/lending library. She concentrated on books in English, while her long-time companion, Adrienne, had a French bookstore on the same street. They fraternized with many famous writers, artists, etc. Her main claim to fame was as the first publisher of James Joyce's Ulysses, which was considered obscene in America. Joyce was, alternately, a blessing and a curse.

Going on a trip tomorrow. Can't decide whether to car-pool with a friend or drive to North Carolina by myself. By myself I can visit Hollins University (my alma mater) to see the new library or take any other side trips that occur to me and stay away an extra few days. With my friend, I will go along with what HE wants to do and have other adventures and save money. What to do, what to do?

The high cost of maintaining your 5 senses

Have just come from the dentist after having learned the hard cruel repercussions from having bitten down on an unpopped popcorn kernel last week - The "best" option involves 4 steps, two doctors, 10 months and $4500. (They tell you the other options but make them sound really unappealing). It made me think about the high cost of our senses. I will rank them in order of cost (just guessing here)
1. Taste - if it involves the TEETH it gets really expensive...cavities, root canals and now IMPLANTS
2. Sight - glasses and cataract surgery and laser surgery can get pricy
3. Hearing - an expensive, tiny, problematic object is a bitch to sic on the elderly person
4. Smell - those that lose their sense of smell just get by without it
5. Touch - pretty much the last thing to go

Am headphone-less and all the other people in this library are really getting on my nerves. All of my cheap headphones I acquired on airplanes have now bitten the dust. I have to listen to:
- talking
- phones ringing
- people quietly cursing to themselves
- the clicking as a woman photographs pages on the Internet
- one guy who is constantly turning the dial on the mouse to go down the page
- sighs and groans from people not doing well in their online games

Having a hot flash. It will pass. The weather is great outside and I am sort of warmly dressed.

Reading, reading, reading......

Rodin, sculptor (book), by Helene Pinet and Marie Sellier. I think I bought this little book at the Rodin museum in Philadelphia. Wish it was the original French edition. A kid's book with lots of illustrations. "Beauty is everywhere" said he.

The redeemer (audiobook), by Jo Nesbo. Now I see why they call it a THRILLER. Never have a seen more imaginative methods of killing people. But all is not as it seems. So many twists and turns in this mystery of a hitman hired to kill a ranking officer of the Salvation army in Oslo, Norway. And the weather is always hideously cold.

Whiskey, sun & fish : the early year of Fortescue, a fishing village on the Delaware Bay (book) by George Carlisle, illustrations by William Thomas Ternay. He wrote this thin book in 1959 and had to go back and edit it. Most of the people he interviewed for the book are gone, now. Illustrations are black line drawings which are given a two page spread whenever they occur.

The benefits of small towns

The town I am in today (Greenwich, NJ) is SO small that you can:
- drive really slowly and no one honks at you
- stand in the middle of the street having a conversation
- when you meet a few people you are bound to know some of them
- buy flowers from someone's garden

The downsides are:
- only one restaurant/store and it closes at 2 PM
- cell phone reception is very poor

The apple orchard (book), by Susan Wiggs. I probably put this on my list because it is about sisters? A young woman who discovers provenance of objects finds out that she has relatives she never was aware of. She leaves San Francisco to go to an apple orchard farm in Sonoma County where her grandfather has had an accident and may be dying in the hospital. She learns about family history and the delights of country living, which include a handsome neighbor who makes wine. She also gets to know the half sister she never knew.

The satisfaction of sorting STUFF

Buckled down this morning and went through a box of stuff my sisters gave me shortly after my father passed away. OK, he passed away in 2002. I knew there was some cash in there, but found $900, $200 more than I expected. Also some sweaters, shirts and many wet ones, kleenexes and travel and purse items. Oh, and OOODLES of socks, which I plan to wear. Never enough socks! Next, I will have to get the BOX out of the house, probably containing some things to give away.

Paris from $95 a day, by Haas Mroue. Borrowed through the Overdrive system at the library and read on my Nook. It doesn't matter that I am not planning to go to Paris. I did make a few notes but much will be outdated by the time I ever get back to Paris. It is a good idea to maintain a list of things to do, in any case.

Went to McDonald's today to organize my Monopoly pieces and enjoy at two-for-one Egg McMuffin. Guy at register somewhat baffled by my coupon. Perhaps I am the only one filling out the surveys online? I am gonna get SOMETHING out of this...either a job or a free something. A guy left his car running while he went in. I thought of confronting him about the damage to the environment but not sure how to do that nicely. I was dismayed to see a new sign: NO LOITERING PLEASE - TIME LIMIT - 30 MINUTES WHILE CONSUMING FOOD. Oh dear, there goes my two hour computer session! I was the only white person hanging around in there.

My very long day

Yesterday started off predictably enough, as I went through the motions of Arthritis exercise, massage, library and other errands. A friend called and invited me to go up to New York to see a play. I begged off on this one day trip, as I felt I had been away from home too much lately, especially in the evenings. A short while later, someone ELSE called and invited me to go up to New York City to see an art exhibit that I wanted to see. It was the last day! So, I surmised, SOMEONE wants me to be in New York today.
I cancelled another appointment and called the second person and said I would go up with them to see the art exhibit. It is a three hour drive and we got a late start. Also, the church where the exhibit was being held was closing early, so time was getting away from us. We arrived at the church at 4:45 PM. The art was still up but not lit so we had to work to peer at the art all around the church which was in semi-darkness. We got into the elevator to go downstairs to the bathroom and almost got stuck in there. Saw a sign that bathrooms only open during church services. Then the door wouldn't open back up so we had to go to street level, exit and come back in through the church main entrance. At closing time I wandered up Broadway. The church was at 60th and Columbus and the play I was going to was at Broadway and 72nd St. Stopped into a loew's AMC movie theater and though about going to a movie. Several lines of people and escalators going us several floors. It was too much for me. I would rather go to our quiet little Regal in Vineland to see a crappy movie. Came upon an Apple store. This has been on my list of things to do so I went in. Tried to get on my email on one of the many different sizes of devices. Yahoo insisted on calling me with an access code. I decided I will never be able to figure out Apple devices so I asked a man working there to help me log off of my email. He reprimanded me for logging into my personal account on a public computer. Continued on my way and found the Triad theater, upstairs at 158 W. 70th St. Went into the Turkish restaurant below (Seven's Turkish grill). Just got settled with my water and candle and realized MY PHONE was missing. Had to hightail it 6 blocks back to the Apple store, where, miraculously, they had picked up my phone. WHEW! (My life was flashing before my eyes). Saw Ruthless : the musical, where Brittany Spears got her start as a young girl. Delightful theater, intimate and charming. OK, the seats were impossibly hard and we were forced to buy two bad, expensive drinks. But the room was full of young enthusiastic people so you felt like you were at a cool event.
Stage was very small but OK for 6 people, some of whom played more than one part. I loved the music, especially a song called I hate musicals. After the show, we wandered down the street, stopping into a cool, huge, cosmetics and Halloween costume store. It was a lot of fun, but we didn't buy anything. We thought about buying a blond wig and a button that said ART JUNKIE. Three of us ladies me our friend, the producer and he drove us home. Got dropped off at my house shortly after midnight. A pretty interesting day considering that I didn't know I was going to NYC until lunchtime!