Durant Street Drama

I'd been home from Savannah for about an hour when things got crazy here.  We're all safe and fine and whatnot, but there was trouble across the street.  Here's the link to the Police Blog story on it. I'm not ready yet to write.

http://blogs.lowellsun.com/policeline/2013/02/24/fire-christian-hill/

Here's another story from the Lowell Sun:

http://www.lowellsun.com/local/ci_22663008/fire-damages-lowell-home

We left for a while because we had dinner plans with friends, and it was important to get Lucy out of the house.   They've been doing a lot of stuff at her school about how to dial 911, and they've had visits from firefighters, police, and EMTs to talk about those important jobs.  Her comment: "I'm going to have a lot to tell my teacher this week!"

It smells bad here.  But at least no one was hurt.

Notes from Savannah

I was in Savannah for a conference, which went really well.  Unfortunately, I didn't have as much time for touristy things as I would have liked, but that's all the more reason to go there again.  Here are the highlights from the trip.

Here's that fountain from my previous post, right-side up:

It's in one of the many squares of downtown.  There were so many fountains, and all of them totally over-the-top!

Seriously, Savannah: What's with all the fountains? 


Aside from the spewing of the fountains, my favorite part of Savannah was getting to visit the Flannery O'Connor House.  The guide had tons of hilarious details about O'Connor's childhood, including the fact that although she was afraid of cats and dogs, she had pet chickens.  She taught said chickens how to walk backwards. And was filmed showing them off. This sounded too crazy to be true, so of course it is actually true.  Here's a clip of the video featuring Mary O'Connor (aka Flannery) and her pet chicken that she trained to walk backwards:  http://www.britishpathe.com/video/do-you-reverse-1

Also, at age 4 she stopped playing with dolls.  These are the dolls in question:

I think I would stop playing with them too.  That one, alone on the chair up top....that's just too creepy.

In other Fun Flannery Facts (TM), she started calling her parents by their first names at age 6, and insisted that she had nothing in common with children.  In fact, she refused to go to the children's mass, despite the ruler smacks she got from the nuns for her failure to attend (she went to the adult mass with her parents).

Here's a shot of her actual pram, and a nice one at that. 

I think it suits beside my earlier photo of Cotton Mather's high chair.  Maybe I should start a new blog of creepy children's items from famous people of the past. Babies from the Past R Us (TM)!

And while Babies R Us is combing my blog for historical baby-care items they might want to bring back, I think this is the obvious front-runner:

Yup, that's a baby cage.  It's on wheels.  Seriously.  They put babies in it.  And toddlers.  They put Flannery O'Connor in it.  And if it's good enough for Flannery O'Connor, it's good enough for your child (TM).

There were some lovely photos of her, too:

Oh, and maybe my favorite was seeing some of her handwriting in her books, such as her unfavorable review of this one:

It was really lovely to get to see her house and her things and imagine a young Flannery running about.  If you're in Savannah, definitely check out her place.

I also got to take a ghost tour of Savannah, which was exactly the sort of thing that you should do if you're in Savannah, which bills itself as the most haunted city in America.  I'll hazard to say that I know a fair bit about haunted cities in America, and I'd say Savannah's pretty high on the list.  They do up their hauntings right.

They have the Mercer-Williams House, which is the fodder that became Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (which no, I haven't ready yet), the Sorrel-Weed House, and 432 Abercorn Street and many, many, absurdly many more.  Our ghost tour guide kept telling us to take photos and that we would surely see "haints" in them.  Here's one of Kehoe House:

Yeah, I don't see any haints there, either.  But it's a gorgeous house!  Here's a totally haunted house that you can apparently rent on Air BnB and other vacation rental sites:

Doesn't it look haunted?  And crooked?  (It was getting late.)  It's called Laura's cottage and we got some story about an angry witch-doctor woman who once lived there and now messes with the guests.  Sounds like our next stay in Savannah is all set!

Mid-way through our ghost tour, the tour guide indicated that on other tours, the tourists were drinking, because that's legal on the streets of Savannah.  So one can walk around the streets of Savannah with, for instance, a nice gin and tonic in a giant plastic cup, without any fear of being in violation of a law.  This is genius. Why in the heck didn't he tell us that sooner?  Normally the only reason academics are walking around conference cities without open containers of alcohol is the nagging fear that we're going to have to explain it all to our Dean when our expense report includes bail money.  I soon had an appropriate adult beverage in my hand, and the tour just got better from there.  All those massive, mysteriously empty mansions behind wrought-iron fences really take on a sinister appearance:

Are those bars on the lower windows to keep someone/something out or to keep someone/something in?

And then there's the Spanish Moss.  Dear Spanish Moss: You are creepy.

The streets of the city are full of gorgeousness, particularly gorgeousness in the form of the tiny details; you have to take your time and slow down and just walk around a lot.

Those are pelicans.  Just, you know, decorating the railing.

And yeah, that's a downspout.  Savannah: even our downspouts are gorgeous.  I believe that's in the running for their tourism motto next year.

So that's my Savannah trip.  I hope to get back there soon!

Savannah

I am in Savannah right now, and it is lovely.

This photo is sideways because my internet connection here in the hotel stinks.  Also, I may be a bit sideways.  But still, you can see the beauty.  And the moss.


Lucy & Jake are home in Lowell while I enjoy the awesomeness of a conference on the Gothic in a very haunted city.  I had a tour of Flannery O'Connor's childhood home (AWESOME!!!! Photos forthcoming) and a ghost tour of historic Savannah this evening.  I look forward to writing more when my internet connection is less historically slow.

Growing Media Presence

So we've posted before about our efforts to grow our media empire, with movie stardom, NPR-blog appearances, newspaper photos with famous people and whatnot. Recently, Lucy has been in the spotlight in the local news. I sadly missed the online version of the story (not sure if they put it up) but here's a scan of the front page of the Local News section of the Lowell Sun for Saturday, February 9th:
  
That's Lucy's class, on a field trip the post office.  They are all in superhero capes that they made in school.  They are awesome.  Those two hooded, blue-coated figures in the lower left are Ruth & Lucy.

Good thing we have supplies...

...'cause we won't be getting out for a while.  Here's the situation at 8:30 am Saturday:

Important note about that photo, taken this morning: I shoveled last night before we went to bed.  Not that it helped at all.  Here is my "progress" so far:

Wow.  Wall o' snow.

Dog is NOT happy.  He doesn't know what to do (or where to do it).

Another important note:  It's still coming down.  Or, rather, it's still falling and also blowing in every direction.

So far, we still have power (as evidenced by my posting!).

Thankfully, we have laid in supplies:

• audio books (Lucy is listening to Chronicles of Narnia right now)

• activity books (Lucy has been mad for the Pigeon one, which is really, totally awesome:

• baking supplies (Lucy & Jake made cookies last night)

So those are pretty much the essentials.

We'll keep you posted.

Got Snow?

Yup.

When life gives you snow, the obvious answer:

MAKE SNOWCONES!

Yup, that's Lucy eating SNOW with a drizzle of maple syrup from a vintage glass.  Charming, n'est pas?

Were you aware that there's something called "Sugar on Snow" that exists and is a thing?  And that it's basically maple syrup poured on snow?  I'm not kidding.

We're nestled in tight here.  There's not a ton of snow yet, but it's going to be a long night, I'm sure.

Stay safe out there folks!

So it took us a few years

But we have finally, finally finally fixed this situation:

http://thischarmingoldhouse.blogspot.com/2006/12/whhhhhaaaaat-part-2.html

Yes, way back in 2006, we documented one of the many oddities of the house, specifically the hole in the floor of the upstairs bathroom.  It was one of those things that bothered us, but that we didn't know how to fix, and that wasn't a hugely pressing issue.  But now, lo these many years later, it is fixed.  And there was great rejoicing in the land.

Our awesome next-door-neighbor and all around handywoman, Liza came over and fixed that thing right up.  Here's what it looks like now:

We also had her install a new faucet.

Next up: ELECTRICITY!

First, we had this box underneath the cabinet in the kitchen. Jake had installed it when the previous under-cabinet lighting fixture (which included an outlet) died.  It's where we plug in our kettle, so it's a pretty important one. 

 Lisa fixed it up with a more appropriate exterior-mount box and put it on the wall, in addition to tacking up the on/off switch for the undercabinet light so it's not so hard to find.  Genius!

She also moved the light switch that turns on the overhead light/fan in the kitchen so that now you can turn it on when you walk through the door.  I know, I know, seems pretty basic, but previously, you had to walk into the kitchen, around the stove, and over to the microwave nook to turn on the light.  So now, when you come to our house, you'll be able to turn on the kitchen light without a map!  We're still fumbling over it, though, and will be for the foreseeable future, I'm sure.

And then, our favorite piece: a new cabinet!Hooray!

Superhero of Logical Retorts

We're having lunch at the table.  The following ensues:

Lucy: Can I have some raisin bread?
Jake: You have a whole lot of food on your plate already.
Lucy: I didn't ask how much food I have on my plate.  The question I asked was can I have some raisin bread.

Whoa.

Awesome.

So Lucy's really into superheroes right now.  Apparently her whole class is, too.  For this whole month, their theme is Superheroes of Kindness.  They all have capes and crazy glasses.  They're going on a field trip to the post office to deliver a package to some sick teachers.  They are *really* into this.  This is evidenced, in part, by a sharp uptick in superheroes being depicted in the pictures that come home from school: