Beach House in the Burbs

But try telling that to the Canada geese who took up residence on our pool this spring. We had some trouble with the pump that keeps water off the pool cover during the winter—the trouble was it quit working and we never replaced it. So disgusting brown, pond-like water filled the pool. When we took the cover off, I couldn’t blame the geese, it looked like a pond to me too. A pair of geese has rested on our neighbor’s pond (a real one, not a pool) for years. But this year with the drought in Georgia, I guess their pond didn’t look as inviting. The couple didn’t bypass it completely, but they seemed to look on our pool as their vacation pond. They’d mostly hang out next door, then when they needed a break from the old home place, they’d head to our pool. Or it could have been the vicious Pomeranian, Princess Prissy Pants, who lives at our house that kept the geese at bay. She enjoyed barking at them, but actually never got too close. Though they should have been used to attacks by small...

So the guy came out Saturday to look at the furnace, declared that the blower motor had burned out, and we'd have to wait until Monday to get a new one--it being Easter weekend and all. And that will be one finger and three toes for the good news. Fortunately, this being the South, it wasn't miserably cold on Easter. Though we woke up to 55 degree temps in the house Sunday morning. By keeping a fire going in the traditional wood burning fireplace in the great room all day and having 17 people huddled in front of it drinking hot chocolate, we managed to get it to about 70 degrees. Warmer than we keep the thermostat. We hid eggs, ate too much, including the cutest cake shaped like a lamb. It was red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting, so looked just like lamb brains and innards when we cut into it. It inspired many gross comments, but tasted great! So, while all the chaos was going on at our house, our cat, Dusty Cat, disappeared. He tends to do that when we have kids over (w...

Well, I'm a day late, but the sentiment is sincere. We had a really nice Easter, which was a surprise given that we had no heat and 17 people at our house for Easter dinner! My parents arrived Friday to spend the weekend. Friday night after dinner, we were playing cards and started smelling something like electrical burning. It was in what we call the red room (formerly a garage, now an office/den). We wandered all around the room, sniffing and feeling outlets to see if they were hot. The electrical box is out there, it wasn't hot either. We couldn't find anything. We went back to playing cards and the smell got worse. We all got up and tried the sniff and search again. Still nothing. By the time it got to be bedtime, the smell was not as strong, so we didn't worry too much about it. Saturday morning I woke up cold. That doesn't often happen. We have a programmable thermostat set for the temp to go up in the mornings. I pulled on my big fuzzy robe and went to look a...

Our Selma, Alabama, tour picks up at the library. I swear, this will be my last post on this. It was just such a great weekend I couldn’t resist reliving it! We didn’t get to see the Kathryn Tucker Windham Conference Room at the Selma Public Library, a meeting was in progress. But we didn’t need to see inside the room named for Miz Windham to recognize her influence. First, every person we saw in the beautiful, well-appointed, book-filled library knew who she was the second we walked through the door. Second, paintings and photographs of her fill the space. Third, she knew every inch of building, from the offices to the children’s room. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated money for computers for the library, she told us. And even visited Selma to present the money. They stayed at the St. James Hotel, an old hotel recently renovated, according to Miz Windham. Overlooking the river, the hotel has balconies and ironwork, which make it look like something from New Orleans. After...

Obviously after just a couple of days—though I’ve heard Miz Windham tell stories for years and read “13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey” as a kid (it was practically required reading in Alabama, where I grew up, filled with great, creepy stories)—I don’t know all about who she is. But she manages to give quite a bit of herself away in a short amount of time. She’s a woman who’s lived through a lot—in her town and in her personal life—and yet she appears to have come through it thinking the best of people and demanding the best of herself. We stopped at the Live Oak Cemetery after lunch. According to Miz Windham, Selma is the northernmost point where Live Oaks will grow. They are scattered throughout this beautiful cemetery that looks like it ought to be in Savannah or Charleston rather than an inland Alabama town. They’ve been burying folks in Live Oak since the early 1800s—back when they knew how to bury their dead. I’ve included a photo of one of the more spectacular monuments, for Drury ...

At storytelling festivals that's the only way Miz Windham wants to be introduced: her name and where she's from. But I want to tell a little more about her, in case you don't know who she is. Because I got to spend much of last weekend with her and enjoyed every minute of it. Sometimes when you meet someone you’ve admired, you find you don’t admire her as much anymore. Their humanity shows, with all of its warts and blemishes, leaving you feeling a little disappointed. Kathryn Tucker Windham, a storyteller, writer and photographer from Selma, Alabama, who (whom?, I never know) I have admired for years, wasn't like that. I came away from the weekend not only not disappointed, but inspired to write more, tell stories more and find ways to be a better person. Pretty powerful stuff to pick up from a woman who will be 90 in June. She was one of the featured storytellers at a storytelling festival in Huntsville, Ala. My parents and I were assigned the enviable task of driving...

No, the addition to our family isn't of the two-legged variety, but he does cry an awful lot, is very needy, has the other "kids" jealous, and, I'm afraid, is going to require that we do some home remodeling that we never intended. Dusty is a tom cat who appeared in our yard back in the fall. He was scrawny and mean. So, as Chris says, we treated him like a wild bird, putting food out for him but not even trying to pet him. Gradually he became friendlier, it's amazing what a little food will do for your attitude, and when it began to get cold (even in Georgia it can get cold) we decided he had become our cat and we needed to figure out how to incorporate him in the family. We already have a very scaredy, indoor cat named Miss Kitty and a pomeranian who is small, but in charge. We (the royal "we," it was actually Chris) wrangled Dusty into a crate and took him to the vet to be checked out before bringing him in the house with the other animals. They prono...