Weblog 269

April 10, 2011~ 12:00 am
First grass-cutting of the year this week. (Oh, not me behind the mower... my faithful lawn guy Gary.) So at least I know that spring is definitely on the horizon, though it's been rainy and gloomy for the most part this past week.

I still have a sense of foreboding.



It's like that picture.... the WONDER of children staring at Japanese lanterns, but there's a face, barely seen, lurking in the background. That's my 'shadow'. Or my ghost... or something like that. She's been hanging around quite a bit, nails dug in. I haven't had such a gray cloud just continue to linger over my head unremittingly for quite some time..... I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I keep expecting to wake up without that weight but it doesn't seem to be working.

That doesn't mean some nice things haven't happened. Saturday evening Wayne and I had a lovely dinner out with his niece, Alisa...it was a belated birthday celebration. We talked and laughed and looked at her pictures from her trip to California and Las Vegas. (Alisa's due to move out there soon, so the dinner was bittersweet.) It's great to be young and pick up and take off, and start over somewhere, and I'm very happy for her.

(Maybe just thinking about the flexibility of others makes me more aware of how very 'fixed' my circumstances are: how what I have and who I am are pretty much the way things will be-- even though the future is in shadow.)



I really do feel that I've reached the peak and am starting down the other side of the mountain. I'm beginning to feel that in a real and permanent way. Other people seem to have the knack for transforming and always believing there's a revelatory corner yet to be turned, but I honestly don't. At times I can pretend that's so... but it's really not. Not for me. I'm simply not an adventurer. I'm like the sleeper in the picture here.



There's two fellas playing their hearts out, and then there's me...... I'm the third one, head resting against the wall, sleeping....my guitar hung up on the wall. LOL!!!

It really didn't help my mood that the comedy from Netflix- 'Good Hair' by Chris Rock, would not play on my DVD player. After dinner and shopping, Wayne and I settled in for a night of laughs.... and then the damn DVD player just said, 'Loading' in the corner of the blue screen ..... and never did. It clicked and spun, but would not play. Back it went into its envelope, and I fired an angry email off to Netflix to tell them to please check their discs more carefully before they send them out. (Truly, the play side of that one looked awfully smudged and scratched.)

So it was a night without the laughs I'd anticipated: cut short, with me here typing away and ready to throw this entry up WAAAAAAAAY before midnight because I'm going up to bed shortly to read the rest of my Stephen King novel.

You know...... you work all week to get to the weekend, you perform all sorts of secret, protective charms



(no one would understand the silly mental 'step on a crack' stuff I do to assure a lonnnnnng and enjoyable weekend) and then.......'fizzt!' It's gone. (Or gone bust or something). In my own way I feel like the character of Eleanor played by Julie Harris in the movie version of 'The Haunting'. She says she sleeps on her left side because she'd read it makes the heart wear out faster. I very much resonate with that (even though I don't believe it's true)..... yet I will try it. LOL!!!




April 10, 2011~ 6:00 am
Up early after a bout of intestinal upset, but it seems to have calmed down now. (Oh, joy! First extreme ennui, then sickness. I am blessed indeed.) Drinking coffee here and cruising about, I came upon the most UNBELIEVABLY unique and gorgeous display of intricate Elizabethan fashion......



made entirely of PAPER! Found this over at Tom and Lorenzo. Amazed the shit right outta me......(pun intended.) Get a gander at that and I'll bet your mouth hangs open. Enjoy.




April 14, 2011~ 6:45 pm
I've been keeping my nose to the grindstone and getting LOTS of sleep and really cleaning up the workload on the job. This time NEXT WEEK I'm be deep in the Laurel Highlands, breathing in mountain air, side-stepping the major holiday of Easter, and relaxing for five days.

I can't wait. Here's a photo of a lovely old tree I snapped when we took a day's outing there in the early fall last year....



right on the grounds of Ft. Necessity, where I'm sure we'll pop in again. They always have new exhibits, and the feeling of the place is just so haunting.

Speaking of 'haunting', Wayne keeps firing off emails to me about all the haunted places in the area where we'll be....lol... and oh yes, that's put me in the mood for some sight-seeing (or 'spook-seeing') as the case may be. I remember one Halloween day we spent in that area, visiting General Braddock's grave and walking in the desolate hollows of Jumonville Glen. We heard the voices of two men talking, and the snap and crunch of their approach. (The place is really isolated, so we were becoming uneasy. Felt like a flashback to the movie 'Deliverence') -then........nuthin'. No retreating footsteps or fading voices, just gone. It really creeped us out, especially since we were in the very spot below some huge rock outcroppings where an ambush and massacre of the French took place by Native American Indians who had joined up with George Washington, present at the time. It's an event that followed the Father of our Country all through his life, though he could hardly have controlled their extemporaneous fury in those bloody moments.

So yes. We'll be tromping through Jumonville again. And the Mount Washington Tavern at Fort Necessity. It seems every time we visit the place is closed, so I'm hoping we'll have better luck this time. There'll be a side trip to Fallingwater and Ohiopyle and other sites of natural interest, but I have to say- (and maybe it's because I become more 'Blavatsky-esque' when life fills with ho-hum-ness. I begin to become more fanciful and more interested in the paranormal than usual) but have a look through THESE LISTINGS, from Grave Addiction -you'll find Mount Washington Tavern, Friendship Hill (another place I'd like to visit again) which was the home of Albert Gallatin: built in 1784 at Point Marion, close to Uniontown. (Yes, it's supposed to be haunted... it's certainly full of 'atmosphere'.)

At night, we'll be holed up in out little lodge....



and SCARING ONE ANOTHER. LOL!!! To all of you, it may be spring and the remembrance of the Resurrection.....



but we'll be 'halloweening', as we are wont to do, at any old time. Off the beaten path, listening, listening, listening..... and taking pictures, comparing notes. (We'd better pack some warm clothes. Wayne called me laughing today to say there are snow flurries predicted for our trip and nights in the low 30's. So much for 'spring' break.)

If your 'estoteric interests' have now been whetted, you might consider also visiting this page and scrolling down. Three Rivers Haunts & History. You'll find plenty to keep you interested. Happy reading.





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