All posts by Dona

My Life Online

Technology

I had an interesting conversation, a number of months ago, with another wrestling mom, about the virtues and drawbacks of living in a digital age. She asked me if I thought that technology (blogs, twitter, facebook, etc.) encouraged community or discouraged it. This is something I have thought about quite a bit because I spend a fair amount of time online, interacting with folks all over the world and have been doing so since 1998 or earlier.

I’ve discussed my life online in my about page, so I needn’t write about it again. To sum it up, I’ve been online since 1995 and have formed connections with folks from all over the world. Some of these connections were lasting, some were not. In so-called real-life, I’ve also made connections with folks from many different backrounds and places. Few of them have lasted.

I am a different person, in some ways, online and off-line. I’m much shyer in person than I am online, although being online helped me become less awkward in social situations. Back in the late 1990’s I used to visit chat rooms and learned how to join an ongoing conversation. I was able to take that to off-line situations where, instead of standing in a corner of a room at a party waiting for someone to approach me, I was able to approach people and join in conversations without feeling too embarrassed. I also learned the art of “small talk” something that had eluded me all my life.

As much as I think that social media (including texting) can be a good thing, I also think that it can take away from real-life community. I’m as guilty of the next person in that I check my email, text messages and even twitter &  facebook updates while in the presence of others. Not so much friends, as my husband & family, but I have been known to be rude to friends that way too.

Once, shortly after getting a new smart phone, I spent most of the time IMing another friend while out with my friend, Joan. I think I was mostly showing off my shiny new phone, but I was completely out of line. The other day at book group I was checking email as I waited for my ride to get her coat, but I ignored the host while doing so.

I also have missed visits from neighbors during the day while working in my attic office. I cannot hear the doorbell up there, and although I am usually working — and 20 years ago would have had to be in an office instead of at home — I should interact with people during the day — especially if they take the time to knock on my door.

I think that most people can balance their online / offline time better than I can. It is something I need to work on.

So now, I’ll sign off and spend some time with my husband. After all here we are in a motel in the Hudson River Valley and I’m blogging and he’s reading while we wait for our daughter to be ready to meet for brunch.

Secret Room, Secret Dreams

Musings, , ,

As mentioned before, I like dreams about unexplored areas of houses. I’ve dreamed about new houses with labyrinth-like layouts and about finding secret places in our current house. So, when we discovered that we might have a secret room under our screened-in porch, I was intrigued.

Our house was built shortly after World War II in an area of Bethesda called Huntington Terrace. The street on which the house was built hosts several other homes that look similar to ours — a typical brick center hall colonial common in this area. What is unique about the homes is that the home directly opposite is exactly the same — a reverse mirror-image, but no two other homes are the exact same. Another unique quality of several of the homes was an excavated “secret” room under the screened in porch. At least two neighbors broke through the cinder block in the basement to find an extra 1000+ cubic feet of space. At least two others broke through from the outside and created outside storage.

When we first heard about the room under the porch we joked about opening it up and making a root / wine cellar out of it. We also joked (as did several of our friends) that we may find a body in the room. I didn’t really think seriously about it until we looked at the across the street neighbor’s extra room when the house was on the market. Dean went back at least once to look at the room and not long after that we called the man who refinished our attic (my current office) and asked if he could do the job of breaking through the wall and making a door to our room that we now were sure existed. He wasn’t so sure, but gave us a reasonable estimate price and said he’d call when he had time. Months went by, but he eventually called and said he could start work on a Monday in August.

In anticipation I snapped a few shots:

Basement where the door would go
Basement where the door would go
From the outside
From the outside
Porch
Shot of the porch

On Monday at 9:00 am sharp, Peter and his assistant, Eric, arrived to start work. They quickly set up and while Peter brought things in from the truck, Eric started chipping away at the cinder block of the laundry room wall. Checking out the wall The first chip Making the hole

It didn’t take long for Eric to chip through both sides of the cinder block. He asked for a flashlight and we took our first look into the room
DSC_0318.JPG DSC_0320.JPG

Instead of 61 year old air we saw dry dirt. Peter and Eric both tried to push a crowbar into the dirt, hoping it was not packed into the space, but it wouldn’t give. I called Dean and told him the news. We didn’t have an excavated secret room. Instead we had a room full of dirt that hadn’t seen the light of day in over 60 years.

Peter and Eric did find air instead of dirt directly under the porch, but the porch is only about 4 feet above ground.

Dean did some musing for about a day and a half about how he and Andrew could excavate the dirt through the laundry room and out the basement door but calculations came to far too may work hours to make it a reality.

As you can imagine we were all disappointed. I thought I’d get a wine / root cellar. Dean hoped for some extra space so he could set up his workbench inside instead of having to store it outside under the addition. We’re over it now, but it sure would have been nice.

We wondered why some of the houses on our street had excavated rooms and others did not. I recently found an old Washington Post advertisement about our street and it seems that the homes on the opposite side of the street were finished first. I think that by the time the builder got to our house he figured that there was no need to remove the earth from the area under the porch. Little did he know that his decision would make some future owners kind of sad.

In hindsight I wonder if not knowing would have been best. It was always kind of cool to think that there was a room on the other side of the laundry room wall,  just waiting to be uncovered. Now that we know it is just a space filled with dry old soil, it’s taken away a small, but delicious, mystery.

Puppies!

Pets, ,

I’m not a dog person. I don’t dislike dogs, I just prefer cats. Well, there are some dogs I dislike. I don’t like Dalmatians because every Dalmatian I’ve ever encountered has bared its teeth at me. I’m afraid of Dobermans. My Uncle Don raised Dobermans and one bit me when I was 3. I don’t really remember it, but I was told about it enough to make me wary of them. I also don’t like pit bulls purely because of their reputation. I’ve heard too many stories about people being maimed or pets being killed by pit bulls that, even though — until recently — I wouldn’t have known a pit bull if one was attacking me, I didn’t like them.

So when my Aunt Ginny gave me instructions on what to do when I arrived at her house and it involved being friendly to a pit bull, I was more than a little worried. She said that the dog that showed up pregnant on their doorstep and subsequently gave birth under the neighbor’s playhouse was really very friendly though and I should have nothing to worry about.

When I did arrive at my aunt and uncle’s house in Northeastern Mississippi I thought that no one was home. I saw the dog almost as soon as I got out of the car and talked to it as friendly as I could. “Hi there dog. How are you? I understand you are a friendly pit bull, right? Don’t bite my leg, ok?” Then I saw my uncle and was relieved. I’d spilled a nearly full box of Annie’s Goldfish crackers on the floor of the passenger’s side of the car and my uncle said it was ok to give it to the dog. She was friendly — and liked to be petted. Each time I went outside she was right there, ready for some attention.

The not-very-scary pit bull, PD

Ever since reading Lali’s post about puppy-sitting her friend’s Cavalier King Charles Spaniels and remembering when our neighbor’s dog had puppies when I was a child and how much fun it was to be surrounded by several tiny biting beings with breath that smelled of coffee grounds I wanted to hang around some puppies too. I knew I had a chance to do so the weekend I was in Mississippi. The first two days I was there I was too busy to suggest a visit to the puppies. I considered walking over myself on Saturday evening, but didn’t want to be mistaken for a trespasser in case the neighbor or her son were at the house. I did spend some time outside on Saturday evening, looking at the water, watching birds and petting the dog (whose name I’d been told was PD — for “Pregnant Dog”). She seemed to not want me to go into the house — she seemed to want some company and when I did try to head towards the house she pushed me away from it. I thought maybe she was pushing me towards her puppies, but didn’t really think that was possible (although I had recently finished The Story of Edgar Sawtelle which was rife with stories about Very Intelligent Dogs to whom pushing a human to check on puppies would be a piece of cake) so I waited until the next morning.

On Sunday morning my uncle received a phone call from the neighbor whose playhouse the PD had chosen to give birth under. The neighbor was spending a while with her ailing mother, so was unable to check on the dogs. Her son was stopping by occasionally to check on the puppies and when he was there last saw that the puppies were gone. The neighbor wanted to know if Uncle Jack would check to see if PD had moved them or if they were really gone. I was a little worried — having been looking forward to seeing the puppies. Uncle Jack grabbed a flashlight and we walked over, accompanied by PD and, sure enough, the puppies were not under the playhouse. We looked around a little more, wondering what could have happened to them (I suspected coyotes) but we didn’t see any blood that would indicate that there had been foul play. Then we saw that there was a small shed that I’d mistaken for an outhouse that had a gnome sized hole cut out of the bottom of the door. We walked to it, Uncle Jack shone the flashlight through the opening and saw movement. Then a small parade of brown and black puppies trotted out to greet us.

Delighted, I dropped to the ground to get closer to the puppies. All but one climbed on my lap and nipped at my clothes and shoes. PD chose to become part of the chaos and joined in on the fun. She would not stay still to nurse the puppies, even though they seemed to want some breakfast. Then, since most of her puppies were in my lap, she decided that she wanted to be there too. So I sat there, cross-legged  in the Mississippi dust with a full-grown pit bull on my lap while she nursed four of her five 4-and-a-half-week-old puppies. Oh to have gotten a photo of that! It was certainly a moment to remember. (And I actually thought about Lali and her Cavalier experience as I sat there)

After a few moments, just about when I thought my ankles couldn’t stand the pain of being pressed into the hard ground PD got up and went back to my aunt and uncle’s house. The puppies still wanted to play a little, but eventually they went back into the shed with their less curious sibling.

I went back one more time, this time on my own, to get some photos of the puppies. I tried to get a video, but operating a camera and being a climbing toy for 5 puppies is a little difficult. If these guys had been old enough to leave their mother, I might have been tempted to take one home with me. They were really that adorable.

[Update: PD was euthanized on October 14th for complications due to heartworm & scabies. May she rest in peace.]