Marmot Pride Cohomology

Seems like days I have been unteathered to the computer but I am finally back in the saddle. We packed up the house, the movers came and took all the big stuff to storage and the little stuff got locked into the den, the only room that isn't being torn up. The furniture we no longer could use was put in the covered courtyard where *someone* will eventually give it out on a lottery system- I guess this will happen twice because I also have to give away all the kitchen appliances and washer and dryer too. We donated more bags pf small stuff than our cars could hold so we were going back and forth to Goodwill every day for weeks. But the house stands empty except for Molly's dust bunnies and a few dead cockroaches discovered as the big furniture was moved out.

We stayed in a friend's house around the corner from ours the first night, but left for home early the next morning in spite of dire weather pronouncements all over the tv that night of an impending tropical storm. We decided to leave anyway and promised to pull off the road iof it got too bad. Well, the weather wasn't an issue even thought they upgraded it to the first named storm of the year, only a few minor showers as we drove up through the ORlando area. The Big Problem were the love-bugs!

In case you don't know about thease and the problems they cause, here is a (sort of)bio of them. And here is another picture I grabbed from a blog about them- this is pretty much what our car looked like after a few miles, except our car is black and you wouldn't be able to see them...:


Anyway, the windshield wipers didn't touch their gooey essence, the consistency of rubber cement, so we were stopping frequently with our heads out the window trying to navigate to gas stations with the scruffy thngs to scrape off their wee carcasses. I was reminded of a swarm of locusts and it didn't make me too happy starting out on a 1500 mile drive- thought it may be a 'sign' that we should turn back.

But we didn't, we kept driving until we escaped the love-bug habitat up in South Carolina I think. There we found a cheap dog-friendly hotel where the clerk apologised to me that she had to chatge the pet fee of $8. That brought the motel bill up to $70 so the smell of curry was welcome to us. And thank-you to the Ganesh family of hoteliers for giving us sanctuary. I thought that perhaps some of the amenities could have been cut back- we never used the microwave, the refrigerator, the iron and ironing board, the coffee maker, the hairdryer, or the 300 channels on the tv. We did use the bathroom and a few towels and the bed, though we dragged in our own pillows since I am married to the Prince with the Pea. But that's another story for later.

From there we made good headway to Mclean VA where we stayed with old friends from the Prince's college days. Their yard was a riot of color as everything in the state was blooming all at once. They have a dog who is Molly's soul-mate, a cute Wheaten/Poodle mix (a Whoodle???) that was one of the best dogs ever. They got along great, nobody pooped inside. And we went out for some great sushi. We were out of there early and headed up the coast toward home when another friend called along the route and demanded we stop 'for a drink' in Fairfield CT, so that's where we aimed. It was at the Tappenzee bridge I noticed that I had forgotten my cameera and my knitting so promptly went through a full blown panic attack when I realized I was missing a great moment to grab yet another photo of a bridge, but this time it was pouring in great globs of drops so I was thinking how cool the images COULD have been. It took 2 friggin hours to reach our friend's house and we weere certainly glad for the stop. Molly and their Viszla got along very well too. They put out a wonderful spread of cheeses I had never heard of with artisnal breads and French ham. It couldn't have been more perfect. I knew though after the Prince had his third drink that I was now the designated driver so back into the car we went, and I brought us on in the last 200 miles- the Prince slept it off but managed to wake up enough to copmplain about my driving every so often.

So, I have no camera but Claudia has promised to mail it out soon. I have no knitting and that makes me nuts but I truly have too much to do right now anyway and should not be kniting.

The kids came over today, Mother's Day, and brought their dogs- thankfully one was missing and pouting at home so we only had three here tearing the place up- one needs to be in diapers still, but Amanda followed her around with a roll of paper towels. They were all very good and occasionally spontaneously all dropped to the floor at once to snooze it off. Amanda and Jamie gave me a wonderful set of napkins from a shop up in Ipswich where the owners are as nuts about Ravens as I am- plain linen napkins with a big screened image of a black feather- couldn't be more perfect.

Nate and Amy found two books for me, one fruits and the otehr vegetables and both have a CD in the back of them with all the images available for me to use, I am thrilled! So if anybody ever needs, say, an image of a Kaffir lime, or perhaps a carambola, I am the go-to-gal. These are great little books, produced in the Netherlands and there's a whole list of others in the series- including a whole book on male body parts! I didn't know they had that many. (Parts I mean, not books.)
Meet the berries: