So Long, 2010!

Let me apologize in advance. I had dreams of crafting a poignant and deeply meaningful post about personal growth and the transition of the years with such simple eloquence that you would be left dabbing your eyes and whispering "Bravo. Well done."

But, here it is New Year's Eve already and I'm dressed for a party, and my French cuffs make typing an annoyance. You're stuck with another dashed off bit of fluff and a few recent photos. Who was I trying to fool, anyway? Deep & meaningful? You can't get blood from a turnip.

The picture at the top was taken at Homemades by Suzanne, a fine cafe & bakery in a small town just north of Richmond. Morris & I were eating lunch in the front dining area when I noticed the warmth of the old wood of the tables & chairs. It was a cold, windy day and the cafe was cozy.

We rode up the Old Washington Highway to Ashland. The narrow road was still icy from our Christmas weekend snowstorm. Along the way, we passed through the former whistle stop known as Elmont which is surrounded by large stretches of farmland. The wind raised snow wraiths from the fields, and we were happy for the warmth of the car.

Ashland is a charming town with the railway running right down the middle of the main street, Railroad Avenue. Many beautiful old homes and buildings line the split street, and an Amtrak train rumbled by as we drove along.



The picture below was taken at an old church on England Street.

Next we have the train station, built in the 1920's when some Ashland residents would take the local train into Richmond each day for work. Behind the station is the Henry Clay Inn, still in operation.



Ah! Lunchtime! The fare at Homemades by Suzanne is mouthwatering comfort food, especially on a cold, wintery day. I had a deviled egg, succotash salad, and macaroni salad. Perfect.


Later that day, back in Richmond, we had dinner at Garnett's. After Morris & I parted, I walked for a bit along Park Avenue and took a picture of one of my favorite churches at the corner of Park Avenue and Meadow Street.



During my workday, one of my duties is answering the local Alcoholics Anonymous hotline. By now I know that the call volume ramps up during and after the holidays. At the end of the day, I transfer the calls to a volunteer for the night. While I was at home one evening, I got a few text messages from that night's volunteer.

Lyssa: (9:12pm) Lord...was I this pathetic and wallowing?

Lyssa: (9:18pm) Clearly, I was. Don't want to sound callous.

Lyssa: (9:20pm) I must have been a real bite in the ass to be around...

Me: (9:23pm) Are you on the phone with the still-suffering or just randomly musing?

Lyssa: (9:25pm) Just hung up but was held captive by former (still, occasionally?) self for twenty minutes.

Me: (9:27pm) I know the feeling. I talked to me this afternoon for about the same amount of time.

And that's how it can be when we answer the phone. Sometimes the caller is ready for help. Sometimes they just want a sympathetic ear. Some callers get hooked on the sympathy, and still keep on drinking until they lose everything.

I always keep in mind something a man with 30-plus years of sobriety shared in a meeting:
"Sympathy will kill an alcoholic."

I remember that, and dole out sympathy sparingly, but I can go long with empathy & encouragement. I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity to answer those calls. Those of us who do agree that it goes a long way in helping us stay sober. It's a marvelous mirror of our former selves. When I hear the misery, self-delusion & self-absorption, the bewilderment & madness, it reminds me that that's how I was, too. I do not want to ever return to the life I led before I found recovery.

Happy New Year, everyone! I'm off to a big ol' party. See you next year.

Cadillac Walk

There are only a few days until Christmas, and I know you're pressed for time. So, for those of you who took a moment to stop by Planet Bill, I've arranged a special Yuletide treat for you. You are invited to take a stroll along Monument Avenue to see the Christmas decorations on the mansions. I've done all the legwork for you, so you can just sit back, relax, and enjoy the sights.

Sunday night Robespierre, Ember, Morris & I met at Robin Inn for dinner before we took a walking tour of Richmond's famous street of early 20th century mansions. It was really cold, so we fortified ourselves with Italian food. Our walk was long, considering the temperature; we went down the north side of the avenue from the 2400 block to Stuart Circle where the street begins, which is at the 1600 block. We returned up the south side of the avenue, and my ears were numb long before we got back to our cars. We had to watch our step, too, because patches of ice & snow still lingered.

Monument Avenue is a noted example of the City Beautiful movement, and it truly did look beautiful on Sunday night. A couple of tour buses glided by, but there weren't many others out on foot. There are two good reasons for taking a pedestrian tour. First & most important is that you miss most of the splendid architectural details unless you are walking. Secondly, an evening stroll allows you to peer inside these homes from the sidewalks to catch glimpses of the graciously proportioned rooms with their high ceilings and rich furnishings. These blocks suffered a decline with the mid-century flight to the suburbs. Many of the houses became multi-use buildings, with professional offices on the lower floors while the upper storeys were chopped into apartments. The nadir was probably in the 1960's, before the banner of historic preservation was raised. Now, most of these houses are once again single-family homes.

Sit back and enjoy your tour from the warmth of your home.



Ah, you've found the Christmas Cadillac!

Robespierre, Ember & Morris pose in front of Santa's big white Sedan de Ville.

Every year this car is stuffed full of toys & presents, and Santa sits behind the wheel.










RAWR!









I wish each of you an exceptionally nice Christmas this year!

Cake Walk

Last Saturday morning was an opportunity to sleep late. The soul was willing, but the body woke up at four in the morning. I could tell it would be useless to fight it, so I went ahead & got up, fixed coffee, got scoured & dressed, and went to Walmart before everyone else decided to go. There were few shoppers (nice!), but I also missed out on photo-ops for POW. I wasn't there to roam the aisles, though; I was on a mission to buy my neighbor some holiday containers for the party mix she makes each Christmas.

I went to my group's Saturday morning meeting (8:45 instead of the weekday 6:45), picked up a box of pastries that Romeo made for a party I was attending in the evening, and went to Jean-Jacques Bakery for a cake I had ordered for the same party. By the way, the first photo shows a sidewalk dispenser for a local weekly periodical, in case you were wondering, and no, I have no idea who that lady is supposed to be.

This all leads to the photos I'm posting today. I had called Jean-Jacques Friday to order an Almond-Amaretto cake, but they told me they couldn't make one for the following day so I went with a Chocolate-Rum cake.

Jean-Jacques is a bakery of local renown in Carytown, an upscale street of retail establishments in Richmond. I popped in at ten on Saturday morning and was told the cake wasn't quite ready. I said it wasn't a problem at all and that I'd just wander around Carytown for awhile. I grabbed my camera from the car and took a few pictures.

The bakery is in Cary Court, a very small shopping center in the heart of Carytown that opened in 1938. It was Richmond's first strip shopping center, and was an instant hit. Soon, other properties along Cary Street were converted to retail shop space, and the area drew tourists as well as locals.

Below are some views of modern-day shop windows. Sorry about the glare on the windows; it wasn't the best time of day for taking pictures.





Today's Carytown is billed as "A Mile of Style" and is clearly a commercial street, but this merchant district got its start during the Great Depression (the economic depression of the 1930's; not the current one) when residents began converting the lower floors of their homes into small shops. With the fabulous Byrd Theater and Cary Court drawing visitors from surrounding counties, residents gladly took advantage of ways to make the most of the traffic. These blocks of Cary Street gradually transitioned from residential to retail, and by the 70's became known as Carytown.

Below is a new photo of a placque in Cary Court that shows an old photo of Cary Court. Trippy, huh? Other than the cars, it looks very much the same today.

More window shopping below, this time at For The Love Of Chocolate, a very dangerous store in Cary Court. Very, very dangerous. This photo shows a mere snippet of the alluring perils that await visitors. For a candy store, it covers a lot of square footage, and every nook & cubbyhole is packed with sugary hazards and menacing chocolate pitfalls.

I stumbled out of the chocolate shop with my virginity intact, and went back to Jean-Jacques to see if my cake was ready. The young woman behind the counter greeted me with a rather sick expression on her face.

"Um, we found your order and I don't know what happened I'm sorry we've looked everywhere and here's your order form but they must have forgot to make the cake we're so sorry would you pick out another one from the case and we would like you to take it please for free okay?"
"Gee, sure. No problem at all. Could I have that Almond-Amaretto cake?"

So, somehow - planetary alignment, Fortuna's Wheel, my Higher Power peeking at my bank balance, take your pick - I walked out of the bakery with my original choice free of charge.

I actually felt a twinge of guilt, as if this shouldn't have happened to me. Then I considered that I've learned to accept the bad things in my past and the troubles of today with as much grace as I can muster, and I need to learn to do the same when good things come my way.

Farewell, Fall! ...or Guerillas in the Mist

Winter doesn't care about our calendars. She has already flounced in and sat down, disdainfully waving off December 21 and declaring "I just happened to be in the neighborhood, so I thought I'd drop by." It's been quite brisk in the mornings when I leave the house, and the Farmers' Almanac is predicting "colder-than-normal temperatures" for my little God's half-acre.

It was 16º when I drove away from home this morning. The air felt cold & harsh; Sarah Palin weather.

I am grateful for a home with heat, a car with heated seats, and an indoor job. It's also a beautiful, clear-skyed sunny day, even if it is cold.

Before autumn gave way to winter, I was out early one morning when a lingering layer of fog gave an ethereal look to Richmond. I took a few pictures on Monument Avenue before heading to the office, and I'll share a couple of them here. The first is of the Matthew Fontaine Maury Monument, erected in 1929. This monument is unusual in that Maury is depicted seated, and is not the dominant feature. F. William Sievers, a Richmond sculptor, felt that a man's ideas are bigger than he is; a large globe behind Maury is surrounded by farmers & sailors in a storm. The globe itself is detailed with wind currents that were mapped by Maury, the Pathfinder of the Seas. These images are appropriate to Maury's analysis of weather systems to improve the lives of sailors & farmers. The base of the monument is surrounded by reverse intaglio images of fresh & saltwater fish. It is a lovely and atypical memorial sculpture along Richmond's famous avenue.

Of course, I also had to see how General Lee & Traveller were handling the fog. They were in the thick of it on their forty-foot granite pedestal. Traveller was the most famous of Lee's horses, and Lee remarked in Lexington, following the Civil War, that his horse was "presenting the appearance of a plucked chicken" because souvenir seekers yanked his tail nearly bald. Traveller walked in Lee's funeral procession with his saddle & bridle draped in black crepe, and died the following year from tetanus. The Lee Monument was unveiled in 1890, and stood alone in the middle of nowhere for eleven years until development of Monument Avenue caught up.

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Four years ago I would have been home drinking & feeling sorry for myself. Each year in sobriety has been better & better. I had a full day, and was tired by the time my head hit the pillow.

I was out of the house before the sun woke up, and went to my usual 6:45 meeting at Holy Comforter Episcopal. Then Robespierre & I met at Lakeside Presbyterian because we thought they'd be eating breakfast. When we walked in they were having a meeting, so we turned tail and met friends for breakfast at Aunt Sarah's (a pancake house, not a relative). After that, Sherry & I went back to Lakeside for a 10am meeting. From there, I dashed over to Ginter Park Baptist for a Thanksgiving dinner/midday meeting. Then I bought a plant for my friend Brenda, and went by her place for a visit. From there, to Robert's so I could meet his mother who was in town for Thanksgiving. I ended the day at my neighbor Karen's for our own Thanksgiving dinner, and she made enough food for an army. Just when I thought I would pop after dinner, she announced that she had made a sweet potato pie (her first), so what could I do?

I woke up in the night with a food hangover. I felt a bit miserable until I considered that it was a hangover borne of food & fellowship, not loneliness & alcohol. I met some new friends, and spent time with some dear old ones. All in all, a wonderful Thanksgiving that left me feeling very thankful, indeed.

Autumn Night at Ashland Presbyterian Church

Pass the Fancy Feast Casserole, Please!

I hope everyone has a wonderful, relaxing, fun, bountiful, serene, memorable, star-studded, exhilarating, calorie-laden, fulfilling, nap-inducing, splendidly Happy Thanksgiving featuring all of the food that you like.


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American Suburban

Cast an eyeball at that crazy kitchen countertop. Doesn't it send you into orbit? Isn't it the most? Well, it probably was in 1960. This chrome-banded countertop was paired with the de rigueur pine cabinets in a house I saw Sunday afternoon. Morris & I enjoyed another afternoon of free entertainment exploring some of the open houses in town, and I wanted to share a few Sunday photos.

I also want to say Happy Anniversary to my pal Scott in Texas! He will quietly celebrate 7 years of sobriety today, and start working on his eighth year of living in gratitude & wonder. He's an artist with considerable talent, and you can see some of his work by clicking here. Thanks for being there, Scott!

Sunday was a beautiful autumn day, and I took the picture below outside the library that's around the corner from my home. A cold front came through with high winds Tuesday night, so a lot of the colorful leaves have been stripped off the trees, so I'm glad that Morris & I took advantage of the lovely day Sunday. We looked through ten homes in four hours!

Before we get to the few pictures I took while fake-househunting, let me tell you about Weird Pizza Night. On Mondays, I usually go to a meeting that I helped Jiffy start in Carytown, which is a stretch about a mile long of shops & restaurants in town. After the meeting, the two of us went to Mary Angela's, a casual little place that serves some of the best pizza in Richmond.

We were seated in a booth toward the back of the restaurant, and we noticed that we kept getting occasional but pervasive whiffs of something quite unpleasant - not a good thing in a dining establishment. It was the unmistakeable smell of good old-fashioned B.O.

And it was really, really strong. My first reaction was that of most people: OMG, is it ME? But Jiffy assured me that it wasn't, because she had just sat in a small meeting room with me for an hour. Through careful analysis, we came to the uneasy realization that it was one of the two servers. Ew! More evidence proved that it was both of the servers on duty that night. Ewwwww!

We were so happy when our pungent pizza arrived to fragrance our table. The pie had been baked on the surface of the sun, whisked to our table, and I (unaware) immediately scorched the roof of my mouth on the first bite. I hate burning my mouth, but in this case it did distract me somewhat from the wafting body odor of passing waitresses. Jiffy found another distraction...

I had noticed that whomever was seated in the booth behind us seemed restless. There was a rhythmic jostling I could feel at my back, because all the booths were attached, tabletops & seats, in a long line down the wall. I could also detect a heated discussion from the next booth, although I could only hear one side of the conversation. Soon, Jiffy was looking over my shoulder with a curious expression.

There seemed to be a pesky bit of crust stuck in my mouth, and as I worried it with my tongue, Jiffy whispered that the lone diner behind us was having an argument with her magazine. The page featured a full-face shot of some blond celebrity, and our neighbor was jabbing at the photo vehemently - that was the movement I sensed. It was a two-way conversation in our neighbor's head, however, because there would be pauses in her discourse as she listened to her glossy adversary.

By now I came to the sad conclusion that this was no wayward pizza crust in my mouth. The roof of my mouth was sloughing off and tickling my tongue. This made me as nauseated as the circulating body odor. We asked for a box for the remaining pizza, and made our way to the cash register. I fought Jiffy for the check & won, and she asked how much she should leave for the tip. "Three dollars and a bar of soap," I said, sotto voce.

But not softly enough. The woman at the register looked at our ticket to see who had served us. I felt bad initially, but decided that a manager would want to know about a situation like that before they start losing business. I'd rather put up with a burned mouth or a nutty patron at the adjacent table than a server with horrible body odor. And you know how it is if you've ever found a tick crawling on you? You itch all over. I kept having a sense-memory of body odor even when I got out into the fresh air.

Okay, the picture up there is of the Murder House that Morris & I toured Sunday. I don't think anything bad really happened in this particular house, but when a house is devoid of furniture, you seem to notice every stain in the carpet. This home is in an established, upscale neighborhood, and was surely a showplace of modern living...in 1960, the last time the house saw improvements. There were four bedrooms, two with horribly stained & burnt carpeting, all for less than $400k. Plus, the mod kitchen with original fixtures & appliances. The little Air-Wick in the sunroom was no match for the strong mold scent that fogged the windows.

This has been my week for strange smells.

Also, you cannot imagine from the picture how steep that driveway is. I thought I was going to have to crawl up it on my hands and knees. It must have been a barrel of laughs last winter when sheets of ice & snow lingered for weeks on end. The entire lot was on a hillside, and I expected to see Heidi & Peter herding goats through the yard.

Here's a view of the split-foyer staircase from the living room of the Murder House. The killer must have really gone to town in here, because the carpet had to be replaced.

Next up are two bathrooms in a fabulous 1960 oversized brick tri-level. This place was top-notch all the way, with big rooms and custom details. Each bathroom had deluxe built-in features.

I love the tissue dispenser in the next one. The sink appears to be an original American-Standard Dresslyn Lavatory. All of the American-Standard bathroom sinks from the era have a "-lyn" suffix; Dresslyn, Gracelyn, Circlyn, Ovalyn, Spacelyn, Lauralyn, Ledgelyn. Toilets were named Carlyle, Luxor, Cadet, Glenwall and Norwall. Have you named your sink & toilet?

The next picture from the same tri-level shows the master bath, which was small but efficient. I nearly fainted with excitement when I opened a hatch near the floor and discovered a bathroom scale. The whirl-out toothbrush holder in the wall took me near the edge, too. I don't know whether the corner sink has a Lyn name, but I'm sure it didn't come with the undersink cabinet.

Morris & I had a grand day out. We saw some very interesting homes, ranging from 1939 to brand new. I love seeing the way households have changed through the years. For example, in the early to mid-part of the last century, homes were usually compartmentalized, with specific functions for each room. Later homes had more of an open flow, sometimes to the extreme when we got into the Great Room era where everything happened in one big, happy room and you wouldn't have been surprised to see a urinal hanging off the wall beside the fireplace.

We'll close the shop today with a picture from my mom's kitchen. Here's my dad's glowing birthday cake, so bright it took two of us to blow out the candles. In the background is Mom's stove, one of the appliances she mentions waxing as part of her housecleaning regimen. American Suburban, circa 1965.

Scenes from Hither & Yon

It's November already! The month of giving thanks and incinerating turkeys. The 11th month, when at some point we say "Oh, Crap! It's almost Christmas!" I'm trying to coordinate an office move, so I haven't been writing much on here lately. I've had a few photo-snapping adventures, though, and I wanted to post some pictures today.

The top picture was taken at an open house one Sunday. I'd noticed that an old house on Riverside Drive was up for sale, so I called Jean and we took a tour. This picture was taken in a sunroom off the master bedroom, and I liked the view of the trees. Three walls of windows looked out toward similar views, and it would be the perfect room for curling up with a good book. I got a bunch of other cool shots at the house that I may post later.

This past Saturday I was invited to a pig roast on the Northern Neck, about two hours from Richmond on a peninsula between the Potomac & Rappahannock Rivers on Chesapeake Bay. Morris & I traveled together. Outside Irvington we spotted this giant corkscrew at the entrance to White Fences Vineyard. When I was drinking, gin was my preferred poison, but I would make do with wine on Sundays if my bottle was empty. It would have taken a bottle this big to handle my alcohol addiction!

Morris & I stopped by the Tides Inn to walk around the grounds & poke through the gift shop. The picture below shows a sailboat on Carter's Creek taken from the lawn at the inn. It was a brisk & sunny fall day, and we were looking forward to the pig roast.

As we drove up Route 200, through the pleasant town of Kilmarnock and toward the bridge over the Rappahannock, we saw an old church on a small hill in the country. Morattico Baptist Church was founded in 1778, and the current church was erected in 1856. There were many interesting markers in the surrounding graveyard.

In short time we were at Cheryl & Jan's campground. The pig was on the roaster, being tended by their neighbor, Phil, who knows all about smoking a pig. We spent the day there, enjoying the company of friends and campground neighbors. I was impressed with the casual atmosphere and genuine friendliness of the folks who stopped by. The campground is a seasonal resort where people set up permanent campsites, so all the residents zip around on golf carts and wave, or stop to chat. Everyone had a splendid time, and the food was wonderful. Not a good event for vegetarians, however.

A couple weeks prior, when Jean & I went to the open house on Riverside Drive, we drove along the James River...
...and then continued on through old Bon Air, which was a Victorian-era resort outside Richmond. Now, Bon Air is a Richmond suburb, but many old homes still reflect a time when this area offered a respite from the sooty summer air of the 19th Century industrial city. One item you may find interesting: Polk Street in Bon Air was named after a local pharmacist who founded a pet care product company as the result of creating treatments for his favorite hunting dog. His dog's name was Sergeant.

The remaining pictures are just random shots taken around town and beyond. It's fun to get out of the house with my camera to see what I can find. The weather has been comfortable, after a summer of wilting heat, and I enjoy exploring.

Some of you may remember the pictures I posted from Goochland's Field Day of the Past back in September. One of the event organizers saw the photos on this blog, and asked whether I would be interested in photographing their event next year. He said they liked my pictures better then the ones they got from the company they hired. Isn't that a hoot? All I've got is a cheap point-n-shoot digital camera and an untrained eye.

The 3rd Generation Barber & Beauty Salon on East Grace Street.

A window display right next door to the 3rd Generation Barber & Beauty Salon.

A Richmond landmark, still working faithfully since the 1960's.

The Scott House bathed in the early morning sunlight one Sunday on my way to Perly's for breakfast.

A lakeside stroll in Forest Hill Park.

Oregon Hill, with downtown beyond. Oregon Hill sits on a bluff overlooking the James River, off-camera to the right.

The last picture was taken in Amsterdam last December. It reminds me that days are getting shorter. I rather like the feeling of cozy warmth when I'm indoors with hot coffee and a book, in the glow of lamplight as the autumn night presses against the windows.