Eight Lives Left

These are the 129-year old vases that my mother brought to me, along with an antique gold mirror that I was forced to inherit. At first I didn’t like the vases, but they seem to go ok with the mirror, so I’m content.

And here are some pictures of my Noke kitty. She’s taken a turned over black basket and a left-behind moving blanket and turned them into a kitty nest. Eventually I’ll need to put all that stuff away, but for now I’m not messing with her spot.

Today was better, attitude-wise. I got a lot of trash taken out, and managed to mail some things out, and spent a couple of hours in the lab helping out a coworker. This afternoon I managed to get the antique bookcase put together and unpacked a couple of boxes of fragile stuff. There’s still a long way to go but it’s starting to come together.

I’m hopeful that the balcony is just about ready to have the railings put up and then they’ll be done. They’ve worked on it steadily for the past two days, which is heartening.

Here’s a list of things that I need to eventually fix/replace/something:

That’s really it so far, so really that’s not too bad all things considered.

And now for a picture of kitties in the sun. This is the spare room where my office is. It gets a lot of sunlight and is very warm, which I don’t like so much but the kitties adore it.

I hope these resize properly. I’ve got too many pictures here to mess with it overly much at this point. I’m feeling a bit scattered. Please excuse any messiness.

Ok, so here we go!

The doors of the coat closet:

The inside of the coat closet:

The dining area:

The fireplace:

Hallway from the living room looking at the front door:

Hallway from the front door looking at the living room:

The kitchen:

The living room:

The master bath:

The master bath tub:

The master bedroom:

The master bedroom closet:

The master bedroom door and the kitchen:

The master bath linen closet:

The weird showerhead in the master bath along with some kind of shower cleaning contraption (I have no idea):

The spare bathroom:

The spare room closet:

The spare bedroom:

The spare bedroom wall with shelving:

The spare bedroom linen closet:

The washer/dryer unit:

The door to the washer/dryer unit:

I think that’s it for now!

There was some discussion this morning about the evil ex-husband and when exactly he was supposed to get out of prison. I went looking for his profile on the Florida Department of Corrections website and couldn’t find it for a few minutes. I about had a heart attack. I found it eventually, though. I was so relieved.

Here’s his current inmate picture:

Skeery, huh? He’s not scheduled to get out until 02/20/2037, but I have no idea when he’s up for parole. *shiver*

I had a really good trip to West Virginia with my superfantastic sister. (Thanks to VUBOQ for the word superfantastic!) We drove up to Moundsville, WV on Saturday, where we did the prison tour of the former West Virginia Penitentiary. My scan of the postcard showing the front of the building didn’t come out well, so you will just have to imagine its gothic goodness. The tour lasted about an hour and a half. I’m going to post some pictures here; please forgive the terrible photography. Click to embiggen far more than any picture should endure.

Our tour guide:

He served in Vietnam, worked at the prison as a guard while it was still open, left shortly before the prison closed to go back to coal mining for a while, and then returned to the prison to work as a tour guide. I wanted to like him, but he was a racist asshole who indicated that cross burnings were acceptable if you wanted to keep your neighborhood free from vermin. He would fit in very well in southern Louisiana.

He was, however, a kickass tour guide.

And three pictures of the insides of cells:

These cells were only 5×7, and in most parts of the prison they held two men at a time. The prison was eventually closed because the Supreme Court declared the cell sizes to be cruel and unusual punishment. My sister and I each went into a cell and the tour guide activated the locking system and locked us in. It was really interesting! I pondered living in such a small space and decided I probably couldn’t do it.

Here is my superfantastic sister in another cell:

There was an old run-down chapel in the middle of the exercise yard for the general inmate population:

We didn’t get to go very close to it, though. We did see the area where they used to do the (public) hangings before those stopped. Eventually they moved to using the electric chair, but that all stopped when West Virginia abolished the death penalty in 1965. I have to admit I was really really surprised to find out that WV doesn’t have the death penalty. I guess I thought it’d be like Virginia, which is giving Texas a run for its money as far as executions go.

After the tour was over, we drove to the small cemetery a few blocks away that holds those inmates who didn’t have family to bury them somewhere. It was really sad. It’s called Whitegate Cemetery and the place wasn’t very well maintained and many of the little signs had fallen down or had names and dates that had worn away. I don’t think the Park Service gets out there very much. These pictures are blurry for some reason.

I have no intention of ever putting a picture of myself on this blog, but here’s my foot in case you really feel the need to see part of me:

On the way to the Whitegate Cemetery we passed by this school, which I thought was funny so I took a picture:

Yes, I’m easily amused. Thank you for noticing.

After all of that we drove into St. Clairsville, OH, had dinner, and collapsed at our hotel. We had to stay in Ohio because everything around Moundsville was filled up due to the Pittsburgh Steelers having a home game on Sunday. Note to self: I need to find out why West Virginia has that funny little sticky-up panhandle thing going on. It’s just this little sliver between Ohio and Pennsylvania and it’s funny-looking.

On Sunday we got up horribly early, mainly due to the fact that I accidentally set the alarm on my BlackBerry for 6am instead of 7am. The superfantastic sister was not overly pleased, but, being superfantastic, she didn’t give me too hard of a time. The early start ended up being providential, because we decided to avoid Interstates and take Hwy 250 down through the WV panhandle through the mountains until we could pick up another highway to take us across and into Maryland.

We saw so much and I didn’t get any pictures, which is sad-making. The terrain was so amazingly beautiful, but the little houses and towns were so run-down and poor and sad. There were tons of abandoned manufacturing plants, too, that looked like they’d been used to process coal, and maybe some sheet metal. The plan had been to stop around Fairmont and get some information about the mining disasters that had happened there, but since it was Sunday the Historical Society was closed. No love for us there.

But, being flexible sorts, the superfantastic sister and I just decided to take a detour once we were in Maryland and go to the Antietam battlefield to see what we could before it got dark.

I only got two pictures there because the monuments were all amazingly tall and I couldn’t get good shots of them.

Here’s the Sunken Road, which was renamed the Bloody Lane after part of the Battle of Antietam was fought there. (I suppose, being a good Southerner, that I should call it the Battle of Sharpsburg, but the victors write the histories and so Antietam it is.)

Here’s the Park Service sign:

And here’s a picture of a hole in the bottom of a tree on the Bloody Lane, because sometimes I can’t help but take random pictures of things:

What made that hole? What sort of animal lives there? I want to know!

My other pictures of Antietam didn’t come out, unfortunately. I really need a better digital camera. One thing we found out that we thought was interesting was that the CSA included soldiers from Louisiana. I hadn’t realized that troops from Louisiana (the home state of ELL, thank you very much) had gotten that far north. We also found a monument to the Maryland troops that clearly showed some troops fought for the Union and some for the Confederacy. I hadn’t known that either, so all-in-all it was very educational. I want to go back sometime, though, when I have more time and a better camera.

As always with my road trips, I came home with a selection of post cards and refrigerator magnets. Once I figure out what’s wrong with my scanner I’ll try to get the postcards put up for your viewing pleasure. Right now, though, they come out looking decidedly anemic when I try, so it’ll have to wait.

The drive home the rest of the way to Northern Virginia was long but eased by frequent jokes and criticism of various radio stations. Next year we’re going to do the Black Hills of the Dakotas!