Home is Where the Refrigerator Is

Well, I have moved to a far and distant land. Not distant from where I moved to, obviously, since it's the same place. But far from where I'm not living now. Assuming that the place in which I am not living now is not nearby, in which case it would be a far and near land. And that simply wouldn't do.

Ahem. . .anyway. . .

So, here I am now in the smallish Appalachian town to be known here as Wolf Hills, billions and billions of centimeters from where I used to live. So far, the change seems to have been worth it.

I packed up all my belongings on a Sunday and drove for fourteen hours, and unpacked things on a Monday. The process of moving was about as straight-forward and uneventful as such an event can be. It was rather amusing to see at one point that the road I was driving down was at the same time highway 81 South and 77 North simultaneously. . .so East and West may never meet, but North and South do so at least once that I know of.

Wolf Hills is a somewhat odd town. It's partly the stereotypical backwoods Appalachian mountain town, while at the same time being very cosmopolitan (there are at least three Starbucks within five minutes of me, oh joy) and at the forefront of American culture. Our local theatre is regarded by the theatre world as being at the same level as Broadway, and all sorts of Very Famous People linger around on the streetcorners (my neighbour is a famous Oscar-winning actress of about my own age, who comes to town to work on her hobby of painting between acting jobs).

Here are some views of Main Street, which I wandered up and down.

Around town 1

Around town 2

Around town 3

Around town 4

Around town 5

This is a little parkish sort of place, where they occasionally have live bands and suchlike to terrorise the pedestrians passing by.

Park

Here's the hotel just around the corner from me.

Hotel Not-California

And this is the town theatre (for live performances; the cinema is down at the end of Main Street I didn't get to this day).

Theatre

Another town park, with a big hill in the middle of it.

Town park

Looking from the top of the hill back at where I took the previous picture from.

Hill 1

And more views from the hilltop.

Hill 2

Hill 3

Hill 4

I'm currently boarding, until I decide on a more permanent residence. The house I'm staying in is about 250 years old, and like pretty much every building that age on this continent George Washington did indeed sleep here. In fact, it was his headquarters building for a while, though most of the time it was just the local tannery. Luckily, all the tannery smells have long faded.

The house is currently owned by a moderately elderly lady, Dixie. It is also often over-run by her enormous clan of sisters, brothers, cousins, children, grandchildren, and the like. I shamelessly take advantage of the huge piles of cooking that result, and hide away in my lair when things get too exciting. Or else I lurk in the enormous garden and lounge around in the sun.

The house and its environs:

The place 1

The place 2

The place 3

The place 4

The place 5

The place 6

And for those of you of botanical mindset. . .some flowers!

The Garden of Good and Mediocre 1

The Garden of Good and Mediocre 2

The Garden of Good and Mediocre 3

The Garden of Good and Mediocre 4

The Garden of Good and Mediocre 5

The Garden of Good and Mediocre 6

The Garden of Good and Mediocre 7

The Garden of Good and Mediocre 8

The Garden of Good and Mediocre 9

The Garden of Good and Mediocre 10

The Garden of Good and Mediocre 11

The Garden of Good and Mediocre 12

The Garden of Good and Mediocre 13

And here is the cat, Abby.

Abby

Abby does not like men. This is due to the fact that the last few men who have stayed here had dogs with them, and Abby does not like dogs. That is due to a dog eating Abby's bright white sister about a year ago, while Abby was sitting about twelve inches away and camouflaged by her colourings. So this is what I generally see of Abby:

Abby's disdain

And that is where I live now. Later on I'll get ambitious and post something about the wondrous things going on around here, but for now I think that this is enough.

Days of the Dragon, continued!

Now that I have my Internet up and running (or at least staggering gamely in the right direction), I can amaze and awe the world with the further exploits of Smerk & Co. in the Americas!

After her many adventures in foreign and fascinating places such as Baltimore, Smerk sadly started to feel a bit under the weather, which put something of a limit to her depredations across the countryside. All the same, we managed to keep her well occupied. Even if sometimes it took the efforts of everybody involved to get her up and out of bed.

Droopy dragon

You know how dragons can be in the morning, after all. . .

Since we'd missed being able to celebrate Easter together on the 23rd of March, we decided to go wild for Orthodox Easter on April 27th. I boiled up some eggs, and we tried to figure out how to use the weird egg dying kit that I'd picked up in some store. We got rather creative, though I do say so myself.

Eggs 1

Eggs 2

Eggs 3

Eggs 4

Eggs 5

Smerk was quite pleased with her dragon eggs, I believe.

Dragon egg

Though she did still have a tendency to flee in terror whenever a camera was pointed in her own general direction.

Run away!

But here you can see the fruits (errrrrr, the eggs) of our labours!

Fruity eggs

I even have a brief bit of video, if I can ever figure out how to get it onto here. . .then you, too, can hear the dulcet siren allure of Smerk's sultry Southern voice!

Keeping a wild young dragon occupied is a full-time job, I assure you. When roaming around the countryside terrorising the locals was out of the question, it was often time to pull out the cards or other games. Jenga turned out to be a valuable tool for keeping Smerk tamed. . .more or less.

Jenga 1

Jenga 2

Jenga 3

Jenga 4

Jenga 5

We also got a bit creative in designing our own carefully engineered structures.

Jenga 6

Jenga 7

Jenga 8

Jenga 9

Some designs were. . .even more unsuccessful than others.

Jenga 10

I also made sure that she got outside on occasion to experience that nice healthy Maryland carbon monoxide and to tan her freckles. On one sunny day, we decided to venture out to the City Park to test out that most devious of Aussie inventions: the boomerang.

Smerk had been thoughtful enough to provide a small pair of them.

Weapon of Mass Destruction

Since Smerk is a warmth-loving critter, the weather decided to be nice and calm and sunny and rather cool. All in all, though, it was a good day for being out.

Park 1

Park 2

Park 3

Park 4

There were even a number of moving target available for us to try out our boomerang skills upon.

Geese 1

Geese 2

Here is Smerk, demonstrating for us all the proper form and technique for miniature boomerang flinging:

Smerky form 1

Smerky form 2

Smerky form 3

As you can see, she has an excellent form indeed. . .

After about half an hour of practice, we managed to successfully work out the proper method to throw the boomerangs in such a way that they sort of flopped loosely to the ground after flying in perfectly straight paths and then loose themselves in the grass. We figured that that was skill enough for kangaroo hunting, as the roos would be so confused that they'd be easy to catch. Or else they'd die of laughter, and we could scavenge the bodies.

As all good things sadly seem to do, though, Smerk's travels in the Northern Hemisphere had to come to an end. For her last full day here, she decided that she wanted to venture to the beach again. And so once more we drove out to the wilds of Assateague Island, where we explored the "Life of the Dunes" nature trail.

There were plenty of dunes, but not much in the way of nature other than shrubs. And one killdeer that eyed us rather curiously for a while, perhaps wondering if adding Aussie hair to its nest would give it that cosmopolitan flair.

Killdeer

Smerk had fun exploring the ruins of the town that had been built on the island, clambering about on the old highway. It would probably not be the best road to try driving along today.

The high road

The town was built by some rather over-optimistic developers who forgot about little minor things such as storms, which tend to do rather drastic thing to small sandy islands.

After a few hours the day got cloudy and cooler, and it looked as though another storm might pay the island a visit soon.

A little atmosphere

And so it was decided to take Smerk home and thaw her out again.

The next day was the first of May. The day of the Smerk's departure. M'aider indeed. Once more I ventured forth into the perilous world of the Baltimore Metropolitan Area, to take her to the airport there. In spite of the obligatory confusion and snarl-ups involving the checking in of her baggage, we managed to get her to the security checkpoint well before her flight took off. For the rest of the news on her return to civilisation, you'll have to get the information direct from the dragon's mouth.

All in all, and in spite of nefarious germs making their presence known, I think that the occasion was most successful indeed. I got to admire Smerk's freckles in person. She got to be introduced to the world of Indiana Jones movies (even if she did fall asleep halfway through the first one). Maryland got to learn just what it's missing by not being part of Australia. When my fiendish plot to kidnap Smerk and lock her away in my basement finally comes to fulfillment, I think that all should go well.

Here's hoping that that reunion comes soon!

(And I hope you all had as much fun seeing Smerk in her nighties as I did. . .)