rogue_mother -- say hello!

[anonsi]

Hi R_M.  How's your day going so far?

[rogue_mother]

Good morning!  It's a quiet day, a little rainy.  My husband and I have been watching a televised hearing before the county Board of Zoning Appeals.  He wanted to listen in on some discussion on regulations concerning sheds and garages.  Then we got sucked into an appeal of a decision where a restaurant had its dance floor permit revoked because the size of the dance floor had doubled from what was permissible -- its second offense in two years.  What a soap opera!  The restaurant owners are Hispanic, so it's a real brouhaha.  Now I'm catching up on the forum, since I was busy Sunday and yesterday.  Then I will be working on a client report most of the afternoon.  I have a client who wanted to determine where in Ireland his ancestors had come from and when they arrived, find out whether they fought in the American Civil War, how various people fit into his family tree, and generally add some color to the family history.  I have been able to do all that except locate the ancestral home in Ireland and when they came to America.

[anonsi]

It sounds like you've had a lot on your plate lately!  Congratulations on finding all of that information out about your client.  I imagine it is still a big accomplishement, even if you have not found their ancestral home yet.

[biggerbirdbrain]

Well, good morning to you, too, R-M. I've come and gone here this morning and seen a few peeking about. Hope I don't lose you right away. How was your charity event yesterday? Hope you had some fun as well.

[rogue_mother]

We couldn't have asked for a lovelier day -- clear skies, pleasant temperatures.  There is a wide variety of cuisines available in this area, as one might expect, but only a few were represented at the festival.  We bought food samples from an Irish pub, two Thai restaurants, a seafood place and a juice bar.  (Also organic pizza, just to use up a couple of tickets.)  The Italian restaurant that was there was out of everything but penne bolognese by the time we got there, and I couldn't get excited about that.  The best that we had were some curry chicken and potato puffs from one of the Thai restaurants.  Yummy!  There was a booth offering shade grown organic coffee beans from Honduras.  I bought a couple of varieties to try after I am finished with the Panamanian coffee beans that I bought at my high school reunion in July.  There were a lot of craft vendors there, too, but that was somewhat disappointing in that they were overwhelmingly selling bead jewelry.  I'm just not in the market for bead jewelry just now.  We had thought that after the festival we might go shoe shopping, but my daughter was somewhat tired.  We just came back to the house.  After dinner we watched Night in the Museum.  A good time was had by all.

[biggerbirdbrain]

Glad to hear you had a good time yesterday. I love Asian cuisine, too, and any kind of seafood. After that kind of sampling, I always feel a bit like the next day's meals will be pretty mundane. If I try to imitate the cooking, often it's not quite up to par, so I usually go for the simple stuff.

I hear the temps are cooling up in the north, but here, we'll probably get into the mid-80s. Have your leaves started turning yet? Any plans to go see the colors up in Mass. or Vermont this year?

[rogue_mother]

It's a bit early for the leaves to turn.  They are still quite green.  Once we start getting a frost, we'll get the colors people hope for.  That won't happen until mid- to late October.  We would never think of going to New England to look at the leaves.  My parents lived in southern Vermont for over ten years and always complained about the leaf peepers.  The roads got absolutely clogged, and all the merchants jacked up their prices.  We usually tried to visit them in the summer.  My husband's parents lived outside of Orlando, Florida, so we usually visited them in the winter.

Locally, if we want to get the leaf peeping experience we drive over to the Blue Ridge Mountains.  The color can be spectacular there, though the traffic makes the experience a little less enjoyable.  Usually we are content to stay home.  If it's a good year for color in the Blue Ridge, it will be good at home, too.

[biggerbirdbrain]

I've never heard the term "leaf peepers", R-M, but it's certainly apropos, and never realized I was one of them until now. Guilty as charged, I guess, but when there is something so spectacular to see, it's too tempting not to go. Especially when I lived in Manhattan and wanted to get away into the country, it was such a lovely drive and rejuvenating to leave the stinky mess of the city. Those who have it on their doorstep may not understand the craving since perhaps they just take it for granted, and they see the tourists as an annoyance. Without tourism, though, would their economy be as hearty? It's all in one's perspective, I guess.

The Blue Ridge Mountains are so beautiful, as are most mountain ranges back east. Here, we have the more stark places like the Davis Mountains, and they have a beauty of their own. There is one place to see leaves turn, Lost Maples State Natural Area, which is only about 70 miles away, but the drive takes longer because it's very hilly getting there, and who wants to hurry? The colors are good about every 5-6 years, though, since our cold snaps come so late in the year. It's still a wonderful place to see anyway.

[rogue_mother]

It's interesting to hear about your Lost Maples State Natural Area.  I don't picture Texas as having any kind of forest, but intellectually I know that its area is huge and encompasses an extremely wide range of terrains and climates.  When I was in grade school we went on an extended road trip while my dad was changing assignments.  It took us what seemed like three long days to travel between El Paso and Amarillo.  Unbelievable!

[technomc]

Hi there RM,
How has your day been?
What did you think of the movie?
Are you still having nice weather?

It is funny reading you and threebs posts. I have no real concept of just how big the US is, and to read that it took 3 days for a journey... 
It would take about 12 - 14 hours to drive from one end of the YUK to the other....that is barely a day out for you guys... A very hard concept to imagine. A bit like trying to imagine what a million pounds would look like.

[rogue_mother]

The weather is gorgeous.  It's pretty much most people's idea of Heaven today.  It won't last, of course, but we enjoy it while it's here.

The movie was cute.  A little predictable in parts, perhaps, but enjoyable all the same.  A couple of radio hosts that used to have a show here had a game that they played on the air called "Alive or Dead?"  When I saw Mickey Rooney in this movie, I thought he would be a good candidate for that little game.  He's very much alive, but he's been around so long that one has to stop and wonder.  The movie sets must have been a laugh riot with Ben Stiller playing opposite Robin Williams.

Geography has so much influence on a people's culture.  I think that Americans, on the whole, do not appreciate just how compact Europe is geographically, a whole lot of countries squeezed into a space smaller than our own nation.  You are much more exposed on a daily to people who speak different languages and have different customs, simply by proximity.  Perhaps, too, Europeans do not appreciate that the size of the United States reduces this sort of exposure and the need for most people here to learn a second, let alone third or fourth, language.  Even when we study a foreign language in school, unless we travel at great effort and/or expense to another country, we have little opportunity for reinforcement of what we have learned.

By traveling night and day it takes approximately 72 hours to travel coast to coast (Atlantic to Pacific, that is) in the United States.  I did it by train once, when there was an airline strike.  It would have taken the same amount of time if I had gone by bus.   

[technomc]

When i was 15 we went by train back the village in Italy from where my Mum came from, to visit her family. It took considerably less time than that, and we travelled across England, ferried over to France, then by train through France, clipping Switzerland, and down through Italy to Monte Cassino, and from there another train. I think it only took 36 hours max... and we thought that was too long.

Weymouth, where i live, is still relatively unracial, in that we don't have a huge ammount of foreign people.
There are small communities of Italians, Indians, Chinese and now lots of Poles....but generally it is still predominately local white folk.
When we have been to London the girls are amazed by the number of 'foreign' people that they see...even though most have been born and bred here.

I fully understand what you mean though....i don't think we appreciate the size of your country, or consider the implications of that.
My aunt, who lives in Detroit, Michigan, thinks it is very cute here, everything seems so little to her, and so quiet and peaceful, and very unindustrial...but then we do live on the coast amid stunning countryside.

I have always wanted to 'do' Route 66....The Grand Canyon and Yosemite, New York and San Fransisco. who knows..one day maybe [or a month or 2].

[biggerbirdbrain]

We're in the land of giant stretches where people are small and the earth is large. You live in the faerie-land where even Hobbits are big!

[rogue_mother]

Per Binkie's request, here is my photo.  I like my avatar too much to change it, but it is fair to let all y'all see what I look like.

[biggerbirdbrain]

You look wonderful, R-M! What a terrific smile! Thanks for that lovely image -- it was really worth the wait. Puts my little ball-cap head to shame.