Buy me Some Peanuts and Crackerjacks

Heritage Day dawned hot and humid with temps near 100 and no electricity- at least no electricity back in our small corner of Jackson Acres in Deltaville.  The lack of power, and therefore, the lack of AC, nearly sent me driving home earlier than planned.  But then I would have missed out on meeting up with Chesapeake Bay Woman- blogger extraordinaire.

We met up in the parking lot of the Deltaville Ballpark much like we did a couple of years ago when we met for the first time.  This time, I wasn't forced to drink wine out of a dirty Big Gulp cup.  I actually had a single serving bottle of wine. 

The game started and we admired the crab pot wire that was used to protect the fans from foul balls.  It's probably the only ball park that uses crab pot wire.  It's also an historical ball park in that it was built in the late 1940's (with help from my great-grandfather). You can check out these other posts about the Deltaville Ballpark here and here.

At one point we retired to the parking lot for some refreshments.

Please note this is not the single serving bottle of wine

It was at this time that Midge and I were admiring Waterman JP's very clean truck.  This discussion about his very clean truck lead to conversation about folding underwear.  In my world, that isn't such a leap.  It all speaks to anal retentiveness OCD tendencies being neat.  All this talk of clean trucks and underwear meant that Midge took it upon herself to poll other people in the parking lot about whether or not they folded their underwear (I really don't know where she gets it). 

This is the unsuspecting gentleman in the parking lot that Midge asked about folding his underwear. 

Some poor former Tides player was grilled asked about his undies.  Turns out he folds them.  Waterman JP happened to have a clean pair in his truck and demonstrated the proper underwear folding technique.   The Tides player agreed that was the way he folded them, and I had to agree that was also how my boyfriend folded them.  I'm certain underwear folding is more of a man thing.

 We went back into the game and spent the remaining 90 7 innings critiquing the game.  The Deltas unfortunately lost in extra innings.  I found it interesting that during the time we spent in the parking lot discussing underwear, the Deltas were winning 3-1 but once we returned they began to decline.

Maybe we were too distracting.

Heritage Day 2012

As usual, Deltaville's Heritage Day hosted several vendors.

I posted this just for you CBW

The Brat Child and Midge ready for the parade

The Brat Child sporting his pirate face paint

 There were the grand marshals and the 50 odd emergency vehicles

 And then there was the Delorean

 And yes, I did yell, "Where's the Flux Capacitor?!"

To which Midge responded, "Geez, Mom, geek much?"

 This year was different in that there weren't 2,000 Shriners.  There were only 7.

The horse was a new and welcome addition

There weren't the usual number of crowds most likely because if the record heat and/or the storm that went through the night before. 

The day was capped off with a Deltaville Deltas ball game and fireworks.

But that's a story for another post.

Derecho* is a Four Letter Word

This past weekend, I traveled with my family to our house in Deltaville for an idyllic and relaxing weekend.  The Saturday before the 4th of July is always the day Deltaville celebrates what they call "Heritage Day" with 5K's, crab races, vendors, a parade, a ball game and some fireworks.  I try not to miss it.

This year, the kids and I got down there Friday evening around 8:30pm.  It was still 101* outside.  The house was struggling to cool down with the AC cranked.  After soaking our feet in the creek and letting the dog swim, we went back inside to 88* temps and relaxed waiting for my parents.  I checked the weather and saw we had a line of storms coming and a Thunderstorm Watch.  About that same time, my friend over at the Snowtography blog sent me a message about the storms (It was much appreciated as we have no TV since the tornado took the antennae).

The kids went to bed, and I stayed up and waited for my parents who were making their way from Tappahannock at breakneck speed to try to beat the storm.  They had furniture on the back of the truck.  No less than a minute after unloading, the storm was upon us.  We watched from the deck as the wind blew at 80 MPH, bending trees and sending the water from the creek blowing in a sheet. The lightning was intense.  The fire siren began wailing and the whole scene grew surreal.  Just as I began to panic about potential tornadoes, the storm blew past.  But not before shutting off our power.

 (Turn the volume down unless you want to hear my dad belching and me saying "Oh My Gawd" like a moron- trust me, you don't)

The morning dawned hot and humid and still without power.  Without power means no AC during one of the hottest days of the year (temps and heat index in the 100's) as well as no water.  This is why there was no power:

Please note the wire hanging down.

Tree laying on the wires. Each day it seemed to dip lower and lower.

The power was not restored until around 7:00 pm on  Sunday- well after I returned home to Maryland. While living in the heat was not the most fun I've had, I did have a pretty entertaining weekend... more on that later.

Thanks to those Blisters who offered an electrified AC cooled haven in the heat: CBW and Noe Noe Girl

*a Derecho (Go here for pronunciation) is a widespread, long-lived, straight-line windstorm that is associated with a fast-moving band of severe thunderstorms. Or in other words a kick ass band of storms that knocks your power out for days

Already?!

I can't believe that it's that time of year again where I travel with my family to Deltaville for the annual Heritage Day Celebration.  

Wasn't it just St Patrick's Day?

Photo from St Patrick's Day taken by the Brat Child

Looking forward to a great weekend, taking some great pictures and meeting up with some great friends at a great Ballpark (and maybe some great wine in a dirty Big Gulp cup in the parking lot).  

 

It's gonna be GREAT!

The Things I Do For Photos

During Memorial Day Weekend, I had the opportunity to visit a local private beach (thank you CBW and Waterman JP!).  The beach was down near the New Point Comfort Lighthouse, and I was hoping to get a shot of the lighthouse from somewhere other than the observation deck.

So, I started off down the beach with my  significant other.

My goal was to head way down to the end where you can see the green reeds growing in the distance.

I knew that the lighthouse was just around the bend, on the other side of the reeds.

No problem.

Then I got to the reed forest.

It was well over my head and there was no way I could walk through the reeds so my option was to find a way around them. 

At the edge of the reeds near the water, it was nothing but mud and 

pointy broken off reeds sticking out of the ground.  

Pointy broken off reeds are very sharp and hurt really bad.

Being the brainiac that I am, I started out in bare feet. 

The only other option was trying to go out in the water to walk around the corner of the beach.

Being the awesome boyfriend he is, my significant other went to see if this was a better solution.

Unfortunately, he ended up with several cuts and scratches from all the the hidden tree stumps.

I did make it around the edge of the reeds to get my shot of the light house.

On the way back to our section of the beach, I apologized to my significant other for having him wade out in the water and get cut up. 

And he told me he would have carried me out there on his shoulders if he had to just so I could get the photo.

Seriously, how did I get so lucky?

Wordless Wednesday (Almost)

These are a couple of photos of the New Point Comfort Lighthouse 

that weren't taken from the observation Deck.

 There's an amusing story about how I managed to obtain these photos

but due to my stressful week, the story will have to wait until after the weekend.

Right now I just want to look at these photos and pretend to be back at that amazing beach with the amazing weather and nothing to stress over.  

Please stop back next week when I {hopefully} return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Monday Meditation- But Not Really

Where do I begin? 

It seems lately I've been running around like a chicken with its head cut off.  

I don't really know if they run around without their heads, but just last night while trying to catch chickens 

I realized those cluckers run fast! 

They also fly.  

And one likes to hide in poison ivy. 

Thankfully my lovely significant other was too busy laughing to think to take any incriminating photos or video- trust me, it's as crazy and hilarious as you are picturing in your head. 

One of my busy tasks this weekend was building a chicken coop.  

I didn't actually do much other than push or hold pieces of 2x4, comment on how cute I thought my significant other looked cutting wood and change the dimension of the coop last minute so Midge and her boyfriend had to drive to Lowe's for more lumber. 

Today I will again be helping to finish the project.

In other news.... the Brat Child is graduating from Kindergarten into 1st grade today.  

According to him, he could 

"Sewiouswy gwaduate into fird gwade accuz I have a super giant bwain." 

Also, he attended "kids' church" for the first time this Sunday.  

I wonder how many other parents had to give the 

"No burping, No farting, No talking about burping or farting, if you fart do not announce that you have farted, Do Not ask people if "they smell that"" talk to their child before church?

And that gorgeous creature in the yellow dress- My daughter Midge- is graduating from HIGH SCHOOL on Friday.  

This has sent me into a tailspin of stress, anxiety and panic.

Not only because I have the graduation of my first born and only daughter and how she's all grown up, yadda yadda, but I have a largish party to prepare for AND all the things required for her to go off to college at the end of August: 

 Financial Aid forms, student loan deadlines, correspondence with her field hockey and basketball coaches...

I CAN NOT wait for it all to be done and set.  

Then I can spend my time worrying about nothing at places like this...