Aliens May Have Landed but I've Still Got My Feet on the Ground

I am working on creating my own reality.

Because I have a short attention span, it is important that my world be filled with wondrous things...like, for example, the alien takeover of Franklin County, Virginia.

I was cruising along Republican Church Road when I crested the top of a small hill and saw this:

You can perhaps not see it exactly as clearly as I did because I was limited to using my cell phone camera to take the photograph, but there are huge swirling circles in that field.

A less creative soul might've seen this and thought "Ah, the farmer got drunk and drove his tractor through the field."

But I saw alien crop circles. I saw Mel Gibson clutching his wee small daughter, preparing to defend himself and his family against an onslaught of marauding alien invaders.

And while these crop circles were nowhere near as neatly placed as the ones in the movie "Signs," I still decided it could've been aliens instead of DWI farmers behind the event.

It just makes my day a bit more interesting if I take the less traveled neural pathways, you know?

Enter...my butt...

The other night my son installed this in his doorway:

Well, I walked back and forth, passing it I don't know how many times in the span of about 24 hours before mentioning it to a very fit, very athletic friend of mine.

"He can even do one-armed pull-ups!" I exclaimed. "Can you believe it?"

My friend is much younger than me. "How many pull-ups can you do?" she asked.

Little snot.

"Are you kidding me? Have you seen what I'm lugging around behind me? I can't lift that off the ground with both hands, let alone carry my chin along with it!"

But in my little world, where all things are possible, there was just that one small chance that maybe...just maybe...I could indeed do it.

So, once the boy was safely at school and the dogs otherwise occupied, once I was absolutely certain NO ONE was around to witness the event, I walked down the hallway. After looking over my shoulder one more time, to make sure no one was watching, I quickly reached up, gripped the bar with both hands and tugged- at first gently and then as hard as I could.

Nothing happened.

Well, okay, so my shoulder hurts, but the bottom line is, my chin never approached the bar.

A lesser woman might see this as failure. Not I. In my little world this only means I have achieved what some people spend entire lifetimes trying to accomplish...

I am one with the Universe. I am centered in my world.

Yes, dear reader, I am totally grounded.

Technorati Tags: creating your own reality,creating your own happiness

Dr. Phil Doesn't Live Here

 

I'm in my youngest son's beat-to-death 1998 Toyota, riding with him for the first time. 

It's early evening, just beginning to turn dark. This is my favorite time of day. The darkness is not yet complete, more blue-gray than  black. The lights in the homes along the way cast a cheery, golden glow over the rooms inside.

It's raining and a gentle patter of drops hit the car's roof, more whisper than storm.

Here we are- The almost-grown boy and his mom, enjoying the companionship of a non-essential errand. 

We talk about the news show we just watched and what we think of the cops seizing the children in the Texas compound.  We take the keys back to Ellen's house where the Youngest has been dog sitting. I think, but don't say, what a good driver he is and I feel a tiny bit better about him driving alone out in the world.

And then I blow it.

"What do you think makes a happy home?"

The question, coming out of nowhere, blind-sides him. His head whips to the right and he gives me a quick, disbelieving look.

"Dear God, Mom!" he says.  "What was that?"

I try to cover for myself.  "Well, I was reading this article about the qualities of a happy home and they interviewed these kids and..."

"Mom, God, is this one of your psychological issue questions? You sound like Dr. Phil. What is wrong with you?"

I slink down in the passenger-side seat.  "Well, I just thought it was interesting and..."

"Mom, relax. We are happy," he says, reading right through me. "We're fine."

"Yeah,you're right," I say.  "That wasn't one of my kinds of questions.  I should've just said, 'What band do you think is on the edge of making it big?' instead, because that's really a lot more interesting. Besides, if we don't have a happy home by now, it's too late.  It's just what it is, I guess." My voice trails off, uncertain.

"Wolf Mother," he says.

"What?" The kid thinks I should've been more of a Wolf? Is this some kind of metaphor? Is he trying to say I should've been stronger, more directive, more of a take-charge parent?  I mean, if so, he's right.  I should've been more pro-active, about a lot of things not just...

"Wolf Mother," the Youngest says again.  "They're going to make it big." He looks over at me, like he thinks I've lost my mind. "You know, you asked about the band?"

I laugh, sounding, I'm sure, hysterically relieved.  "I thought you meant you wanted a wolf, or you wanted a wolf mother...you know, as part of a happy home?"

He shakes his head slowly, then laughs. "A wolf? Mom, sometimes I just don't know how you come up with this stuff!"

"Me either," I say, sighing.  "So do you have any Wolf Mother we can listen to?"

We pull over. He gets out his I-pod, puts on the music and we start up again, slowly moving our heads in time to the driving bass, agreeing they are reminiscent of Led Zeppelin.

The Youngest Unnamed One is right about Wolf Mother.  They're a good band. And he's right about everything else, too.

We get out of the car and stop beneath the pin oak in the middle of the front yard. "Isn't this cool?" I say. "The tree's branches are so thick it's like peeking out at the rain from inside a tent."

He stops, not appearing to be humoring me but instead looking up and feeling it with me.  "Yeah," he says. "It is."

We stand there for a moment, listening to the sound of the rain hitting the leaves overhead. 

 

 

Note to self-

No more reading self-help/inspirational articles in an attempt to receive validation of my parental abilities. Dr. Phil doesn't live here- we do.

 

Technorati Tags: family life,parenting,teenagers

Staking Out the Big Ugly

It was planting time again. Time to put in more vegetables and check on the DIY Self-Watering Planter.

So far- so good!

As for the Ugly Spot...It's now dotted with little bits of green...wilting gourd, watermelon and cantaloupe seedlings that were just totally freaked out by the rock and clay pile. Despite watering and a good talking to, they just fell over in a slump. I marked them with rusted fence stakes and pounded-out metal rings we found lying at the bottom of the former blacksmith's hut...a.k.a The Ugly Spot.

We'll see.

Tomorrow, I've got to tell you about the half-buried moonshiner who used to live here.

Spring Comes to Town Like Pumpkins Cover Ugly

Lest you think the town house has suffered from lack of attention due to "cabin fever," let me assure you that is not the case!

The roses, lilacs, camellias and a host of others are bursting into bloom.  There are a bunch of new shrubs out front and a small gaggle of friendly hostas who've come to live in a previously uninhabitable bed in the backyard. 

   

 

 

 

 

The little seed pods we started almost two months ago are multiplying faster than we ever imagined, making it necessary to start a "townie" vegetable garden as well.

 

  

Mertis potted up a little gift basket of hollyhocks, foxgloves and assorted veggies and took the poor little orphans to our friend, Ellen- the greenest of green thumbs- in hopes they'd find a good home in her yard.

In the meantime, it's back up to the cabin tomorrow to do some serious vegetable planting.

When we had to take down the big tree, we were left with an ugly patch of roots and rocks.  We've tried to smooth it every way possible, but no joke, it's just a hard, immovable hunk of red clay and white quartz. (Which is strange as the rest of the soil isn't so thick with clay or rocks.)

 

 

So, in the spirit of "use what you have"- I'm thinking nothing covers ugly like a pumpkin vine.  Those suckers seem incapable of "failure to thrive."

In fact, the one and only experience I've had growing them was when the Unnamed Ones wouldn't let me pull out the seedlings that sprang up from the Halloween pumpkin I'd tossed into a raised bed right in front of our old house. That vine took over the entire front yard and grew all the way out to the street- a good 75' away.

Seeing as how I've got plenty of pumpkin, watermelon and gourd seeds, I figure I'll scatter those puppies out around the rock bed and see how well that works...It's the best I can do for now- at least until we get around to building a pole barn.

 

Technorati Tags: creating your own reality,country life

DIY Self-Watering Planters

You know, I can't stand to pay a lot of money for something I know I could probably make myself without having to spend near as much.  Take, for example, self-watering window boxes and planters.

Since I divide my time between the mountain and town, it's impractical to have pots of flowers or window boxes at the cabin.  Last summer was proof enough of that.  I filled planters with lovely summer blooms and one pot with a tomato plant only to have them about die of thirst.

This year I found self-watering window boxes and planters online.  What a great concept!  They have reservoirs that hold extra water and so you don't need to be around every single day to give your thirsty plants a drink.

And for that privilege, you pay way too much money.

I put them on my garden "wish list" and 2 window boxes and 2 tomato planters as presents. But I could use a lot more of them, as the cabin gets sun while the house in town doesn't get much.

When I opened the boxes and saw how the things were constructed, I thought, hey, even I could do that! Maybe.

My rule for such projects is simple- you have to use what's lying around.  No spending money on things that may not work out. (New rule set in place after the black landscape fabric fiasco.)

 

 

So, I had a pottery bowl that had been given to me as an intended future sink for one of my renovation projects that never happened, a broken fireplace grate left behind by the cabin's former owners, a plastic plant liner and an old dog pull toy made from braided rope that I found out in the field, abandoned.

 

 

The plastic liner becomes the reservoir.  The un-braided dog toy becomes the wick to fit through the hole in the planter and slowly provide water and the purple sink is the new planter.

 

I suppose we shall see what we shall see.

 

Technorati Tags: life in the country

Queen of the Garden

Remember this?

 

Remember how heavy those rocks were and how long it took to carefully place them around the perimeter of my black landscape fabric?

Neophyte that I am, I was so proud. I was totally sure an ounce of prevention would pay off in me not having to break my back pulling weeds in the sweltering, midsummer heat. 

Well, I am proud to report my little Weed Prevention Program is paying off royally! And so early in the year, too!

 

Yes, indeedy- When I arrived Friday afternoon there was not one weed to be found way up there in that tree.

Plenty of pricey black fabric, but not one weed.

The neighbor lady stopped as she drove by Sunday afternoon. She was on her way to a tea party but when she spotted me working in the yard, she made sure to pause long enough to congratulate me.

"Like your tree decorating," she said, smirking.

"Oh, you mean my Earth Day banner?" I asked, tossing my head and pretending I had arranged the artful masterpiece 70' high in the air on purpose.  "It's my way of commenting on the wretched state of our environment," I added. "You know, draping the tree in a shroud to symbolize man's destruction of all that is life-giving and nurturing."

Given that I was wearing shiny, new pink rubber rain boots, with their bright, white price tag dangling from the upper buckle, it was a bit of a hard sell.  But then, that's me.  I'm all about trying.

 

Technorati Tags: life in the country

Happy Earth Day from the Cabin

 

It was an off-again-on-again rainy weekend in southwest Virginia but lots of planting got done.  The lilacs are blooming and I have new neighbors.

 

In the pink birdhouse...a pair of bluebirds!

 

 

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: life in the country

Spring- Inside and Out

 

 

 

I drove up to the cabin to work today and found Spring well on its way.  Yes, the beans and corn seedlings are toast but the roses are greening out and the Lilliputian Echinacea is still happy. 

Hope is perhaps still alive.

 

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: life in the country,Spring

Green Bean Popsicles

Uh-oh...Hard Freeze Warning for the Cabin.

Can you say green bean popsicles?  Cause that's what I'm thinking they are now.  Little, crunchy popsicles that used to be seedlings.

Note to self...Just because you read one report that says Spring is running 15 days ahead of itself, it doesn't mean you should take it as gospel and plant tender, little baby green shoots.

Live and...well, freeze and learn.

 

Technorati Tags: country life

Some Local Virginia Mountain Bloggers I Love to Read...

 

 

There is a lot of good writing out in the Blogosphere.  Lately I am drawn to writing from my new neck of the woods- the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  I suppose I've become a human tea bag, steeping myself in the words and wisdom of people who know so much about mountain and country life. 

I love that so many writers and artists live nearby. 

I stumble on new sites by searching but also by clicking on the blogrolls of bloggers I already admire.  But I would REALLY appreciate any links you'd like to pass along to me that I might've overlooked. 

While we're at it, if you haven't checked these blogs out, you are missing a treat.

Blue Ridge Blue Collar Girl- I was reading her profile and noted we have a lot in common.  We're both writers who began our blogs to get back in touch with our writing muse and to find a part of ourselves that we felt was lost.  I think she's accomplished that goal.  Her posts are both poignant and at times, wickedly funny. 

I found Life at Dogfight Cove in the middle of the night last week while I was up at the cabin.  Trust me.  You need to see and read this for yourself.  This is really rural living.  (I love the header shot that so perfectly captures Life at Dogfight Cove.)

These are just a couple of my recent favorites.  The others are over in my blogroll along the sidebar.  I love Fred over at Fragments from Floyd lately because he hates Windows Vista as much as I do.  (But don't mind me, look at his photos!)

I always check out Doug Thompson's blog.  His pictures were the initial draw but his fearless confrontation of local injustices and bigotry is always cogent and succinct.  What I'm trying to say is, he doesn't take s**t off nobody! (I like to imagine him as a loveable curmudgeon...with a torn rotator cuff.)

Now, your turn.  Please send some new links my way!

Maggie Wants To Go Back

Maggie says she doesn't want to be the one to say anything but she's ready to go back to the cabin. I think she likes being the top dog. Here she's just one of 4.



Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell me about it. That's the bad thing about vacations. They end.

May the Blue Bird of Happiness Come to Roost in Your Trailer

The view from the back porch this morning as I drank coffee and contemplated saying goodbye to my week away from my regular life. A few moments later the rain began in earnest.



But a good pan of cornbread chased away the gloom.



I managed to squeeze in a few more pages of writing before it was time to take our morning walk and then clean the place from top to bottom.

The cabin afforded one last sweet treat before we left.

I had two bird houses which had been sitting on the porch for months, so this week, in a fit of "a place for everything and everything out of my hair," I walked out into the yard and hung them up. Didn't think another thing about them.


But as the rain cleared and I stood once again on the back porch, staring numbly into space, look who flew right slap out of the pink trailer birdhouse...



What a cool way to end the week.

Day 8- Goodbye Cabin

Goodbye little house.



Goodbye truck.


Goodbye neighbors.


Goodbye mountain.

Tomorrow is the last day. The last part of a day as we leave in the afternoon. Maggie won't know what to do with herself when she's once again just part of the herd.

We did get a lot done. The garden's started, sort of.
The trim got painted, partially.
A book got started.
A mountain got climbed.
The back creek is a creek again.

We learned a lot too...

We'll carry a cell phone the next time we climb a deer stand and scoff at turkey hunters.



We'll buy a wheelbarrow so we don't have to tote rocks to the garden, one bucketful at a time.



And we'll always take time to stop and watch the sunrise...even if it is from the cozy comfort of our own bed...

Day 7- Living Larger

At 1 a.m Maggie says "Surprise! It's morning and I'm ready for my walk!"

I tell her I don't think so, but she says "Well, let me outside then. I have to go. Really. I do."

At 6 a.m. she says "Hey! It's morning! Let's go walk!"

I crack an eyelid.


I do not consider this to be morning. I consider it to be closer to the middle of the night. So I roll over and she goes down the stairs in a huff of dog fur.

At 8:30 she tells me deer have overrun the garden and are eating all the lettuce.


I'm out there before I remember- there is no lettuce. Just black plastic and a half a ton of rocks. I know they don't look like much in the picture but those little suckers weigh a lot, especially when you lump them all together.

Which reminded me I needed to plant a few things. This is when I open the package of fake bamboo trellis stakes and find they didn't send the clips to hold it all together. Surprise, I learn later- the trellis kit only includes the fake bamboo poles and not the clamps. You have to buy those separately.

Okay, now isn't that a little like buying a kitchen sink without the faucet?

Oh, yeah. Bad analogy.

Well, buying trellis poles without clamps is like buying um...salsa without chips.

Anyway, being as how I once dated an ex-serviceman, I decide to follow the advice he seemed to live by "Adapt and Overcome." (Don't know what that says about him dating me, but well, never mind. Just go eat some of those chips and salsa.)

Those are my homemade bean trellises. I ran out of bean plants though, so one trellis is a cucumber, tomato, carrot in the middle trellis.

The bean trellis has lettuce in the middle. I figured it might be done by the time I got a bean plant to actually climb my homemade trellis.

Four hours later I went in to do the real job of the day- writing a novel.

3 hours later, I had a kid who wasn't in the plot and there was a dead body in a farm pond instead of in a cafe.

So I went to see Joe on my way to Dairy Queen to eat myself to death.


Joe was way up there...


At the tippy-top of the house he's building all by himself. He clamped two pieces of scaffolding together to get up there, pulled a muscle in his side and then the wind picked up. But Joe was in one of his determined moods, so he wasn't coming down until the last sheet was bolted in place.

Joe leads a fairly terrifying life. Makes stringing bean trellises and getting lost in the woods or finding dead bodies in farm ponds seem very, very tame.

But I still went to Dairy Queen. I just didn't get the usual. I decided to live large, kind of like Joe only not. No medium strawberry sundae with whipped cream for me today, no sir, buddy! I got a caramel sundae AND a diet Coke.

Now that is living large-er.

Meanwhile, back at Joe's- he was staring out at this...

Day 6 Up at the Cabin- How You Gonna Keep Em Down on the Farm...

Today I can barely move...Yesterday, after I cleaned out half the gunk in the back creek in an attempt to make it look like a creek and not a dumping zone for abandoned tree limbs, Maggie and I climbed to the top of the mountain.

In fact, I think we may have climbed more than one mountain because "we" got a little turned around...For 3 hours. We went uphill and down, following soil roads and trying to retrace our steps. It was a journey let me tell you.

And as usual, we saw more strange things nailed to trees. In addition to the teapot, there was this-



Yeah, a deer stand, I know. But it was painted in Camo and covered in Gilley net. As it was almost at the top of where I thought I was going, I climbed halfway up to take pictures of the view (and figure out where exactly I was) but by then my legs were too tired and the rungs too far apart to keep going.

Did I mention I'm afraid of heights?

About 2 hours into the ordeal I looked out and saw Joe's house way far off in the distance, across a deep valley or two, so I knew we were in for a long hike home.



This was especially disheartening as I hadn't even intended to walk all the way to the top of the mountain but wound up going anyway because it seemed as if the summit was only just up ahead.

Did you ever notice how many trees there are on mountains and how, after awhile, they all start looking alike? It's the same thing with the top of the mountain. Sometimes the crest is just the crest and not the top- but with all those trees in the way, who can really tell?


Did I mention I forgot to put in my contacts and was wearing big old rubber rain boots?

So, the dog and I kept on going because, well by this point, we had to if we ever wanted to see home again.

I kept telling Maggie not to worry because moss grows on the north side of a tree. She seemed comforted by this, but then, she is a dog.

I found it comforting that we were, by now, most definitely headed Down. And since Down is where the cabin is I was beginning to feel encouraged.

Then someone let the dogs out.

Did I mention our part of the mountain backs up onto a hunting club?

I had just said to Maggie, "I sure am glad it's not hunting season because we might be on their property!" when the dogs that had been in the distance suddenly seemed a whole lot louder. In fact, it sounded like they were closing in fast.

So we take off running downhill (which is damned hard to do in rain boots) and that's when I heard a whole bunch of fake-sounding bird calls, like a bunch of fellers trying out their bad turkey impressions.

For some reason this flew all over me.

I mean, I'm obviously LOST. What other kind of crazy fool, soccer mom would go out walking in rain boots in the middle of a hunting preserve with a fussy schnauzer on a sissy leash?

And yet, here these yahoos were- tracking me with coon hounds or beagles or something obviously vicious and snarly AND taunting me with fake bird calls!

Well buddy, I snapped.

"Hey, knock it off!" I yelled. "You don't even sound like real turkeys anyhow!" (I know, witty repartee, but did I not mention I was exhausted?) Anyway, it was like a freaking miracle- the dogs went away and the fake birds must've gone right along with them because it was totally quiet.

A minute later an entire family of turkeys came flapping, flying and running right out of the woods and across the path in front of us.

I think this was purely coincidental.

Did I mention Joe stopped by later and told me that yesterday was the first day of Turkey season?

"Man," he said. "Something could've really happened to you! You should've taken your cell phone. "

Yeah. If I'd known I was going to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in galoshes with a cranky dog I'd have taken the cell phone for sure. That way I could've called when I realized I was lost and said- what- "I'm lost come get me. I'm at the corner of Deer Stand and the Fifty-Fifth Green Boulder I've seen today?"



"Your cell has GPS, you know," he said.

Oh. Well. Yeah. There is that.

Did I tell you he was laughing his head off the whole time I was telling him about our near-death experience?

Anyway, we survived and have moved on to another adventure I'm too whooped to describe.

It involves maybe a half a ton of white quartz rocks and a bunch of black plastic.

When Joe drove by on his way to town and saw what I was doing he just shook his head and grinned. Then, because he's such a nice guy, he listened with a serious expression on his face while I described my idea,. He was nodding the whole time like today I was finally making sense or something.

Which we all know I wasn't.

Hey- and I wrote 8 more pages!

And I found this in the tree closest to the teapot...Looks like a homemade hose reel to me. But again, why put one in a tree nowhere near a spigot?

Day 5 at the Cabin- Unexplained Mountain Mysteries

All right, now somebody has to know the answer to this...

Why are teapots and coffeepots (2 so far, but there could be more) nailed to a couple of fence posts around the old home site?

Look-



And let's not forget the iron in the tree episode. I'm telling you, this place is full of weird, unexplained things.

So if you have any earthly idea why any of these things would be where they are, or what they were used for, I'd love to hear it. Would it help if I told you an old moonshiner lived here? And that he raised bees? (So he wouldn't have to explain needing to buy all that sugar for 'shine.)


Here's the critter hole of the day...big and spooky...

Day 4- Mist on the Mountain, Critters in the Hole

Look in the lower right corner. See the deer? A whole family greeted me as I drove home from the store last night.



I know. Big whoop. But there's no TV up here. We do the best we can with what we've got to work with.

This morning it was still rainy and cool.


So, Maggie and I went off in search of adventure and found a bunch of new critter holes.





We watched the mist rise off the mountain.

Found a little bit of treasure...



and a few signs of Spring.




We returned home only a little bit worse for wear...

Day 3- Snug in my Little Log Cabin

It is still raining. Can you believe it? This was the view from my bedroom window this morning, before I rolled over and went back to sleep for 3 more hours.

The back creek is actually a creek now- full of water just like the others. Raking out the leaves and the muck paid off, I guess. But then, we must've had another 2" last night. Maggie and I ran around the cabin stuffing towels in leaks and grabbing buckets to put under the drips. It poured in through the chimneys which may explain why the gas logs won't light.



I think Joe's dog, Shannon, is pregnant.



I've been writing all afternoon but now it's time for a break. Maggie and I might ride into town and visit the D.Q. Maybe not though- we can always make a cozy fire and snuggle up inside. After all, there's no real rush to go anywhere anytime soon.


Life is good in the foothills of Southwest Virginia...

My Friend, Joe

This is my friend, Joe. He's the one who sold me the cabin but better still, he's become my true buddy.

This is the home he's building all alone, all by himself, just one guy and a bunch of heavy equipment..


At times it gets a little hairy, like when the 90 mph wind took off his second story porch.
But what a view he has!

He can see clear to the Blue Ridge Parkway.


Sometimes I go up to see how he's doing and I just stand there, staring out at the vista surrounding him. I totally get why he's doing this. I understand the beauty of his solitude.

The neat thing is- he totally gets my need for solitude too.

Two creative introverts sharing the same mountain. Who'd a thunk it?

Life at the Cabin

It's all good.

How Can They Miss Me If I Won't Go Away?

It's down to the wire. Tomorrow morning it's lift-off. I'll be gone for 9 days. The Youngest Unnamed One is staying behind, watched over by Mertis. They say they plan to eat out EVERY SINGLE night and have great adventures.

I am a wee bit concerned as the two of them tend to get a little wild and crazy without my supervision.

Take the Christmas debacle for instance...



They climbed up on top of the roof and hung the giant wreath from the tippy top of the house. I know, it's only a one story home, but still, it was dangerous don't you think?

Mert and the Youngest have been known to get wild for no reason whatsoever....



This puzzles me because when I'm home, when he's not under Mert's influence, the child is such a calm, retiring thing...



Okay. That was years ago, I know. He's a junior in high school now and Mert has never been arrested for any major crimes, that I know of. Sigh.

I'm sure they'll both be fine. Just fine...

In fact, sniff, sniff, I bet they won't even MISS me!

They Favor, Don't They?

I was going to make this a Wordless Wednesday. I uploaded a bunch of miscellaneous photos of the Youngest Unnamed One, thinking I'd do a retrospective of his ever evolving self. And then I caught the side-by-side resemblance in two pictures- one of Dad as a boy and one of the Youngest.









I believe they favor.





And that makes me smile.

Look, Ma! No Braces!

Both boys have been saddled with braces and in both cases, they've worn them for YEARS. In fact, we the myth about our orthodontist is, she won't release you until you provide another hostage. After all, that's how we found her- one of my friends was a patient.

But finally, after three long years, the Youngest Unnamed One has been cut loose.





Tonight there will be feasting and celebrating in the castle. Dancing girls will gather round the bonfire...All right, so maybe we'll just go down to the cafeteria and eat whatever we want.

Still, it's a happy day in the neighborhood.