catching up via lots of photos

Okeedokee. Since I’ve been encouraged to keep blogging, I’ll see what I can do. It’s not that I haven’t been doing things over the past month or so, it’s just that I haven’t blogged about them. This post will be low on writing and heavy on the photos. Enjoy!

Early in May I went down to Lake City, FL to hang out with some good friends of mine who were in town to celebrate both a birthday and a baby shower.

Me, with friends M and C
Me with the ladies at the baby shower. The mama to be is directly behind me.

At one point we went to a brand new “Japanese” restaurant in Lake City called Yamato. I put that in quotes because anyone who knows anything about either Korean or Japanese will recognize that as Korean script. The “sake” on the menu was soju and bekseju. There was also galbi on the menu. Hmmmm. The food didn’t taste either Korean or Japanese to me (I had the scallops and they were incredibly rich and wonderful) – it tasted more like a Korean/Japanese fusion with an American twist. I hope they stay open as the food was scrumptious… And it’s Lake City. I doubt the owners expected anyone from Lake City to walk in and be able to read hangul.

The cover of the menu at Yamato: 100% Korean text
The day I got back to the Small Southern Town from Lake City was a sad day. Blix, our 14 year old German Shepherd had finally reached the point where he was simply unable to stand. He’d been having trouble walking for some time, and we’d had him on various joint medications, but his old age finally defeated them. He spent most of the day on the front sidewalk with his good friend Reddy Cat, and was euthanized that afternoon.

Blix and Reddy

Several days later, Mom and I took a trip to Statesboro, GA to visit the Georgia Southern Botanical Gardens, a small but beautifully landscaped garden near the Georgia Southern campus. Unfortunately, the day was overcast and dreary (although luckily for us it didn’t rain), but I was still able to get some good photos.

Pomegranate


Very pollenated bee atop a passionflower

Glory Vine

Me

And because you know that animals play a huge part in my life:

Viktor, at home in mom’s back yard.

Reddy Cat, snuggling with a mop.

Mom and I decided to take another day trip – this one to Jekyll Island, GA. Unfortunately, I had my camera – my lovely and expensive DSLR – in my purse with my Brita water bottle. Which I had, in my hurry to get out the door, not closed properly. The entire contents of the bottle had emptied themselves onto my camera on the drive to Jekyll Island, and by the time we arrived, it was dead.

When I got home, I submerged it in rice, in hopes that it would dry out and begin working once more. Alas, the rice was not helpful. (Earlier in the month, my cell phone had fallen out of my pocket and had spent the night outside in the pouring rain. Three days in a bowl of rice and it was fine. My camera was not so lucky.)

I’d brought my point-and-shoot with me to Jekyll Island, so I was able to take photographs. The point-and-shoot is a top-of-the-line point-and-shoot, and it is useful in a lot of scenarios, but being forced to make the switch was rough. The remainder of the pictures in this post were taken with the point-and-shoot.

Driftwood Beach
The road to Driftwood Beach
South Beach
My mom on South Beach
Me at South Beach

Then of course there’s The Old House (mom’s 1906 bungalow). She’s in the process of having some contractors do some work on the kitchen, bathroom, and master bedroom. In theory, she can move in once those three rooms are taken care of.

Progress, I swear! Left: paneling removed; Right: sheetrocked

Unfortunately, with the contractors tramping in and out of the house, we had to move Mama Cat and her kittens out of the master bedroom and into the A-frame. It’s a much smaller area, but it has three levels, giving the kittens a lot of new things to play on.

We’ve had a spot or two of car trouble. Not with *my* car (the one which shall soon be moving to Orlando with me), but with my mother’s two vehicles, a 1997 Ford Escort and a 1984 Chevyvan.

The Escort turned out to need a new alternator and a new starter.

The van needed a new water pump and thermostat.

I’m working on convincing my mother that she needs to buy a two or three year old light truck, since A) I will be taking the only reliable vehicle (2003 Toyota Echo) to Orlando in August, and B) a truck could get in and out of flooded areas much better than a car.

Flooded areas? Well, our “road” floods if we get a lot of rain, and this was the result of Tropical Storm Beryl:

Left: The "road" Right: Mom, wading down the road

However, the blackberries have loved all the excess rain, and are plump and juicy:

This past weekend I drove to Live Oak, FL to attend the wedding of a good friend from high school. I hadn’t seen her in ages, and I wished that we’d had more time to catch up, but weddings tend to keep the bride busy. Still, she looked great, and was positively glowing.

A and her husband C
A and me :-)

Yesterday, mom and I drove to Jacksonville, FL to take my DSLR in for an estimate. I had to leave it, and am still waiting to hear how much it’s going to cost to fix it – or if it can even be fixed. After dropping off my camera, we decided to go and check out two parks located right next to each other: Pumpkin Hill Creek State Park and Betz-Tiger Preserve. While sadly devoid of tigers, the area was a lovely marsh park. As soon as my mom buys herself a truck (hint, hint), we can come down here and go kayaking.

Hunters hunt in the pineforests out by our land. We often come across the remains of their handiwork – but usually what we’re left is nothing more than a skeleton and some entrails. Most people around here do seem to eat what they kill. But not all. Take a look at what was waiting for us the other day:

Some asshole shot it, took the head (“Lookit what I done kilt - I’m a man!”), and left the body to rot. It was already noticeably rotting by the time we got out there, or we would’ve been tempted to try and salvage some meat. As it was, what a complete waste, and so disrespectful to the hog. If you’re going to kill it, eat it. Also, please don’t leave carcasses in the area where we normally let our dog run free. We can’t now, because he would love nothing more than to roll in some rotting pig juice.

And lastly, my little garden is coming along quite nicely. I’m planning to add some Mexican Petunias either this evening or tomorrow. They’ll go in that little bare patch on the left. And of course, I still need to dig out and mulch the rest of the bed.

It's not that I'm not writing....

...I'm just not blogging. 

I've been doing a lot of writing recently, just none of it for the blog. And I haven't really felt much like blogging the things I've been up to. This is mainly because most of what I get up to is feeding cats, feeding dog, cleaning litter boxes, and changing pee pads - not the most exciting of blog-fodder, and hardly consistent with the theme of the International Cat Lady. At least not the "international" part.

I haven't decided what I'm going to do with this blog. Should I close it? Put it on hiatus? Not sure yet. 

I'll let you know.

Landscaping Project

Well, the realtor supposedly in charge of selling off my dream house never bothered to get back to me, and while I could easily waste years of my life dreaming of this place, as I have no money and have heard nothing, I suppose I should do as the song says and 'if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with.' (Abysmal lyrics, actually, but fitting.) As the 'one I'm with' is a cute little house with the world's most boring lawn, I figured I should do something about it. I've started landscaping, and have put together two flowerbeds, one of which is quite large. I'm not finished with the large bed yet, but it's filling out quite nicely.

Here's the before shot. We started by trimming those trees you see on the right way back.

A closeup of the location of the large flowerbed.

Some purchases: verbena (purple and red), periwinkle (pink), rosemary (rear center), and miscellaneous mint (upper right - it was sold to me at a yardsale by a man who claimed it was citronella plant, although after googling citronella plant, I have discovered that it definitely not what is).

Flower bed outlined, crepe myrtle planted.

Flower bed outlined with bricks, crepe myrtal, verbena, purslane, and lantana planted

Mint, rosemary, and mulch added.

This is what it currently looks like. You can also see the smaller bed (home to azaleas and periwinkles) between the front of the car and the left half of the porch.

I have found my dream house.

I didn’t expect to discover my dream house here in this Small Southern Town – especially considering that as of two years ago I was heading for the hills planning never to return. I certainly didn’t expect to stumble upon my dream house less than a mile from my mom’s house while we were out walking our dogs the other evening. It was fantastic to discover that my dream house has a note on its front door stating that it will soon be for sale; however, it’s rather unfortunate that at this point I have no job and a dwindling savings account that will soon be entirely depleted by the deposit I will pay to M and A to rent their house in Orlando. While I will be working as a graduate assistant starting in August, it will hardly be enough to qualify me for a mortgage – hell, it wasn’t enough to qualify me to be a renter most places I looked! And yet. I have found my dream house. And I can’t stop thinking about it.

First we saw it from the road. It didn’t look too impressive from a distance. However, it looked un-lived-in, so given our proclivities for exploring empty buildings, we decided to go check it out.

As soon as I saw it up close I fell in love. The ambiance was incredible. This house would be the center of a Barbara Michaels book; it must be overflowing with ghosts. Ownership of this house would cause me to immediately drop any future plans to live overseas. International Cat Lady of Mystery? Small Southern Town Lady of Mystery more like.

My mom and I snuck around it in the dusky evening light, and discovered the note on the door saying that it would soon be up for sale. I kept thinking about it all night, and returned the next day to take better photographs.

The view of the house from the driveway


It has a very queer addition off the side that I don't quite comprehend.


The view from the back

Looking in through the front door

Looking in through the front door - front left room

Looking in through the front door - front right room

Looking in to the front right room

I’ve contacted the realtor whose contact information was on the door, but have yet to hear back. In the interim I’ve been considering such practical get-rich-quick schemes as the black market for kidneys and the prospects of marriage to a wealthy man. It seems distressingly unlikely that I will acquire this house. Unless of course the owners just want it moved off their land, in which case it can join my mother’s 1906 bungalow and our 1951 Spartan in our ranch for bizarre, misplaced buildings.

Pain, Suffering, and... fruit cake?

Remember the schizophrenic fellow who hit my mom's pit bull with his bicycle, and then decided to sue us for pain and suffering? Well, the lawyers he hired have decided to drop the case. And the message left for my mother on her answering machine was hilarious. The first part is very professional. Then the lady hung up the telephone... although apparently not completely. Oooops. Take a listen. I love it.

A Tuesday in the life

* Get up. Feed Charlie and Mochi. Clean litter box, put out new pee pads, walk Mochi, eat breakfast.

* Go to mom's house. Check email/facebook. Collect Lady (elderly hound) and Grey Kitty (self explanatory), take them to the vet for injections of Depo-Medrol, a corticosteroid to treat their chronic mouth ulcers.

* Return Lady and Grey Kitty to mom's, collect Brin (pit bull), and drive out to the land.
* Stop on the way to rescue suicidal turtle from the middle of the road.

* Arrive at the land. Feed horses, cats, and kittens. Pump water. Clean kittens' litter boxes and sweep kitten room. Play with kittens. Discover that we are almost out of kitten chow.

* Move large trunk from the Spartan (trailer) to my car. Move roofing tar and paper from my car into the Spartan. Decide it's too hot to start roofing. Leave.

* Drop Brin off at mom's. Check email/facebook. Go to Kroger and bought kitten chow.

* Return to my house. Unload large trunk. Walk Mochi. Eat lunch.

* Drive to Alma to photograph the super awesome retro ATM and the few other photogenic things in Alma.

Alma Exchange Bank 24 Hour ATM

Local theater. (Alma is in Bacon county.)

Old Hotel Alma. People live here.
* Return home. Edit photos.

* Siesta.

* (Were this a normal Tuesday, late afternoon would have been spent at the local therapeutic riding center. Their schedule was odd this week, so I went on Monday instead.) 

* Eat dinner. Walk Mochi.

* Go to mom's. Check email/facebook. Post blog.