...Architectural Eye Catchers...

...Don't Fence Me In Edition...

Gate to nowhere - southbound 611


Fences make good neighbors, or so the saying goes – although Robert Frost advised further thought in his poem “Mending Wall”:

"…before I build a wall, I’d ask to know what I was walling in or walling out…"


It seems these Easton fences and gates are studies in contradictions. Their primary purpose may be to keep strangers at bay, but their intricacies and details (and in one instance, their hollyhocks!) compel closer examination.

amazing grape fence - 4th & Ferry


detail of grape fence

community garden's black hollyhocks - 5th & Ferry near Spruce


As for the stairs that lead to nowhere…they add yet another layer to the mystery of the House on Bushkill Hill.

stairs to nowhere - Steckel estate

...I hate meeces...

...to pieces!

I keep a very clean house. No, really. I come from a long line of women who clean the house BEFORE the cleaning lady comes. My food is stored properly, dishes are cleaned promptly, and I don't eat all over the house.

I live in a small house that is perfect for me & Cody, The World's Least Scary German Shepherd. It's in a semi-rural area on 3 acres, and I love it. In the 15 years I've been in the NE, I've always lived on acreage in the woods, so I am used to "critters".

I understand odd pre-winter mouse sighting. I do not leap up on chairs and lift my skirts and scream. I don't mind frogs. I do mind snakes, but I deal.

I believe some major construction work to a house about 1/4 mile down the lane from me has resulted in a troubling invasion of mice.

Nothing, so far, has stopped them. I have tried:

HavAHart traps loaded with peanut butter. They're apparently making cold sesame noodle dishes somewhere, because the peanut butter is eaten, but the traps don't work.

Sticky traps. I think they're doing conga lines around the sticky traps. I accidentally got one stuck to my fingers and it was like a Laurel and Hardy routine to get it un-stuck, so I am certain that if a meece actually crossed the thing, it would stick.

I've located where they might be coming in (a crack in the cabinet floor under the sink) and have filled the crevice with the intarwebs-recommended steel wool.

I've also invested in Bounce fabric softener sheets. Do you have any idea how much those farkers cost? Allegedly, mice hate the smell, but I think the research on this is archaic, because now, there are about eleventy thousand Bounce scents. Which one is it that they don't like? Spring Breeze? Perhaps it's Renewing Rain or Paradise Thrill (what, exactly, is a Paradise Thrill, and how the fark do they know what it would smell like?) I searched for Mouse Death Vaporizer scent, but came up Bounce-less. I decided on Outdoor Fresh, hoping this will give the varmints a clue.

My next course of action will be mint leaves and essential oil of lemon. If all else fails, I'll add bourbon and drink it from a silver cup and I won't give a rat's (er...mouse's) ass about any of this.





After that, well...see below. It won't be pretty.

My dog...

...is a huge pest.


Cody – aka The World’s Least Scary German Shepherd – bugs me in a big way.

He molts fur at every change of season; brushing only seems to encourage the shedding. If I could, I’d wear tweed clothes 12 months a year. I could be a millionaire 2 times over with the money I’ve spent on lint rollers and dog hair removers.

He will eat ANYTHING (except grapes for some reason) and that includes alien organic matter that has been moldering in the woods for God knows how long, as well as the usual gross things that dogs will eat should they be given the chance.

I guess it’s moot to mention the dragon breath that can accompany these feasts?

He follows me *everywhere*. The laundry room – check. The kitchen – double check (there’s the potential of a treat hanging in the balance, so he likes to cover his bases). The bathroom, the bedroom, the dining room – check, check, and checkity-check. Did I mention that if he strategically places himself in my house, he can see me in just about every one of these venues without even moving his paws?

He is an inveterate “arm flipper”. You know what I mean. You’re sitting at the dinner table, enjoying a lovely glass of wine, or perhaps you’re in that early-morning haze that is half-sleep, half-awareness, when suddenly, out of nowhere, a big furry tank head jacks your arm up and either (A) sends your wine spraying across the table setting, or (B) rudely wakes you up at 6AM on a Sunday morning. There is rarely an emergency involved; it usually means he’d like a head scratchy please – and right now.

He eats like the Green Bay Packers during summer training camp.

Even though there is never, ever a remote chance in hell that he’ll catch one (and really, as I ask him repeatedly – what would he do if he ever actually *did* catch one?), he barks at deer like they are Tatars and he’s Ghengis Khan.

I have to employ a dog sitter, as I have a job that entails a 100-mile daily round-trip commute. Staying overnight anywhere, or God forbid – planning an entire week’s vacation – become nightmares of logistics and budgets.

He engages in what I fondly term “recreational barking”. This usually occurs during the spring/summer/early fall months, when the house windows are opened. Informal statistics indicate that the average time of occurrence would be 3:17 AM on a weekday morning. He has an uncanny ability to know exactly when you’ve just reached the REM stage of sleep, and will issue one sharp, loud bark. This will jolt you bolt upright and awake, at which time he will fall asleep and start snoring, while you try to fall back asleep for the remaining 2 hours until your alarm will go off.

If the weather is bad – raining, snowing, sleeting, humid, plague of locusts – it will take him 48 minutes to “take care of business”. If it’s a crisp, sunny fall day, or a temperate summer afternoon, it will only take him 3.5 minutes.

In short, he’s an expensive, time-consuming, shedding, logistical annoyance – and I love him so much.

But even on his absolute worst days… or on *my* absolute worst days, there is not a chance in Hell that I’d do to Cody what this waste of human flesh did do his German shepherd:

http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-poconos-dog-shot-cruelty-20110621,0,2130631.story

Cody has done this exactly *once* in the entire 9 years I have had him, and that was because he was violently sick while I was out grocery shopping. Every dog I have ever had – ever – has always made their need to go out very plainly and very vocally known. Even if they had relieved themselves in my house…I just can’t even begin to understand the psychopathic personality required to do this to an animal.

I called the arresting agency – the Pocono Mountain Regional Police Department – and asked when they planned on getting around to charging Mister Wonderful here with some sort of crime, and I was told “well…the officer hasn’t gotten around to completing the report”. Fabulous! You know, I’m no tree-hugging bleeding heart Liberal, but aren’t they concerned that the next time Senor Charming here picks up a gun, it might be aimed at a human? God forbid he should be around children being potty-trained.

If you’d like to voice your opinion to the PMRPD – here’s the phone number – 570.895.2400. Please be polite to the nice lady who answers the phone; I imagine she’s going to have a rough few days.

Oh – and Cody, the World’s Least Scary German Shepherd would love to have the opportunity to demonstrate to Mr Daniel Stevens of Coolbaugh Township, PA, exactly how much of an act that Least Scary thing really is. Let us know when you’re free, and when you aren’t hiding behind a firearm.

...a house (and a blogger) turns 50...

I turned 50 yesterday (eek!)

My childhood home is actually two years older. My parents moved from Wilmington NC to Jacksonville FL in 1959 when the Seaboard Coastline Railroad transferred its headquarters “down south”.

They bought this 3 bedroom, 2 bath ranch home for about $10,000 if I remember correctly. As you can see in these photos, it boasted a pretty standard, pretty barren suburban front (and back) yard. That wouldn’t last very long. My father had the gift of a green thumb. Not just a pale minty green, but the deep rich green of collards and fig leaves and honeysuckle vines – all of which came to grow on that tract yard with a controlled abandon.



Our front yard boasted a ligustrum hedge, the shape of which was maintained to within an inch of its life with a plumb level and a pair of hedge trimmers you could probably have used to cut diamonds. On the side of the house grew enormous poinsettia hedges at least 14 feet high. For people in Northern climates who only see poinsettias at Giant around Christmas time, this would have been a revelation. They were a vivid red that matched the PF Flyer sneakers I wore to tear around the yards.



The front yard also had crape myrtles with their dark pink flowers, an azalea hedge (also dark pink) along the front porch, forsythia bushes en mass along the far side of the house (they matched the color of paint chosen for the home), a huge magnolia tree (I remember the lemony-scented blossoms drooping in the hot summer sun), and a paw paw palm tree. It was the perfect yard for hide-and-seek.



The back yard was not neglected either; more crape myrtles, a back hedge of ligustrum (perfect for hiding away from a pesky younger brother), alocasia (elephant ears), a banana tree (that actually bore bananas!) and a fig tree. The most astounding area, though, was under my parents’ bedroom window. Here were planted honeysuckle, night-blooming jasmine, mock orange, gardenias and camellias. It was truly an allergy-sufferer’s idea of Hell on earth, but my mother adored it. When the windows were open on a summer night, the smell was lush and voluptuous.



We also had a vegetable garden where my dad grew collards and tomatoes and cucumbers and runner beans and the hot peppers he loved. There was a box turtle in residence as well; we saved her from certain death trying to cross Old Kings Road.

I have only a few photos of the landscaping during the time I lived in the house, but the vivid colors and scents of the trees and flowering plants are alive and still flourish in my memory.

My father and I were never close. He had a volatile temper and never really wanted children. My mother, who wasn’t able to have children, wanted them desperately. So in 1961 and 1963, respectively, my parents adopted me and my brother. When my mother died in 1976, my father was left “holding the bag”, so to speak, and his Prussian methods of discipline soon slid into abuse, which I escaped when I left for the University of Florida on my 18th birthday.

He did give me my love of gardening and all things green. No matter where I’ve lived, I’ve always had something green and alive around me. There is nothing more relaxing or renewing than the smell of good soil and when it’s combined with the sharp scent of herbs or the funny nose-wrinkling odor of tomato plants, it’s just my idea of total Nirvana. That part of my father will always be with me, and I am glad that it overshadows the negative.

I visited my old home when I was back in Florida in 2009 for my 30 year class high school reunion. The subsequent owners (my dad moved from there in the late 1980s) have more or less decimated the landscaping to where it almost looks like 1961 again, and although the ligustrum hedge is gone, the memory of a suburban childhood spent in the good company of nature and a yard of wonder will remain with me forever.



Happy Birthday, house.

...a blogger looks at 50...

...and bravely says "Bring it on".





(while the little voice inside says "I wish I was 14 again")

...Thank you, God!

Nick Lowe has a new album - "The Old Magic" - coming out in September on YepRoc Records.

Nick's "Lately I've Let Things Slide" inspired the name of this blog, and this is fabulous news! Yay!

Architectural Eye-Catchers...

...P'burg edition.


Does anyone know if P'burg needs a copy editor for their historical plaques? ("grandeous"...really?) Although I see someone took the Wite-Out to the ill-advised apostrophe in "its"

Mister Ed & the Free Bridge Sign

So, of course I *had* to ask the DRJTBC drone if there was a sudden plague of horses in Northampton county - such that would necessitate a sign like this at the "free bridge" that connects Easton PA with Phillipsburg, NJ.

His toe-the-bureaucratic-line answer? "Well, we really did have to put these at other bridges that were more rural, so they just decided to put them at *all* the bridges". Our tax dollars at work, although I'm glad they also alert the horses to the fact that the bridge might be slippery, too.

Mister Ed thanks you.

I don't know...

...who has been feeding the models at Italian Vogue...




...but for the love of God - don't stop!!!!

...my dad...

You'll have to excuse the next several entries. I'm turning 50 in two weeks, so it's time for the stereotypical introspective blog posts.

While I believe my mother (who died just after I turned 15) shaped my life in so many ways, it's probably my father who shaped it in most of the negative ways.

My father was extremely handsome; there is a photo of him somewhere - around 20 or 21 - and he looks exactly like Leonardo DiCaprio. He was the youngest of three, and the only boy. Family legends abound as to his indulgence; one memorable request for a pony during the height of the Depression was denied. He banged his forehead bloody on a heat register until said pony was made available.

His narcissism only increased as he grew older. Everything was about *him* My mother spent 90% of her life trying not to "upset SW".

My mother could not have children, and my younger brother and I were adopted. When my mother died in 1976, I have no doubt my father felt he was left "holding the bag". I've lost count at how many times I was told I wasn't wanted, or that I was useless and stupid (high school GPA just a little too low for admittance into the NHS), fat (5'10" and about 140, and yet he still would count cheese slices and measure the level of soda bottles to make sure I wasn't eating too much) and ugly (a matter of opinion, I suppose). Discipline slid into abuse and it stopped only the day he dumped me at the University of Florida on my birthday.

He taught me a lot of things - never to trust men *too* much, and conversely, to love too much and try to please too much in the desperate hope that maybe they'd stick around despite how useless and stupid and fat and ugly I was.

He taught me to doubt myself at every turn and to never believe I could actually *do* anything successfully.

Yet despite all of this, I manage to "take care of myself" as a single woman. Every relationship I've had has failed for one reason or another, but I haven't given up on finding "the one". I wish I could have had more joy from life, but that little voice inside of me - the one that sounds like my father - somehow always kept telling me I didn't deserve it.

I hope I can silence that voice during the next decades of my life, and not only find "the one", but to have joy during the search.