NC Native

I have nothing against people who were not born and raised here deciding to live in NC for whatever reason. Let me make that perfectly clear before we get started. I've never lived anywhere else, just in three places in this one state. I love nearly everything about this state, its beaches, its mountains, its people. I remember writing an essay when I was in school about NC. The theme was to try and convince a movie company to film here (oh, did I mention several movies and television shows are made here?). I remember going on and on about our white beaches and our beautiful green mountains, how we actually have four seasons here as opposed to just the one they have in some states. My point is that I have a proper respect for my state and a wish to keep it a nice place to live.

Now let me tell you what's wrong with it. The roads are falling apart, and we can't pull together the money to fix them. They're also rather trashy. Strip malls and posterboard neighborhoods have sprouted up everywhere. But even with these things, some cities make the effort to keep things green. In the city I call home, Raleigh, the mayor in his infinite wisdom kept a program in place to keep trees and bushes and such on roads despite great resistance. People said it was a waste of money and that we couldn't balance the budget as it was and we could always go back and put the program in later when we had the money. You know as well as I do, and apparently Mayor Meeker does, that money would disappear and the program would never be reinstated.

I love this state. I didn't always. When I was growing up, I really wanted to go to New York or Paris. I thought living in the South meant living with backwards rednecks . It wasn't until I had the opportunity to actually experience my state that I learned we're actually pretty forward. I won't go into details because I'm losing my point here, but trust me when I say that I love my state. And I feel the need to defend it when non-natives start tearing it apart, both figuratively and literally.

I had to go to a conference yesterday. In the first session of the morning, upon learning that several participants were late due to a wreck on the beltline, the woman speaker told us she just doesn't understand how a person can flip a car in 90 degree weather. Because they NEVER do that in New York, where she's from. Because they always just get right back up and keep going where she's from. Because she's used to driving in feet of snow and they don't wreck. She told us it's a NC thing. She asked why it happened. A lady told her it was because of the NC shuffle or the NC slide where a driver goes from the far left lane to the far right lane in one move. This obvious expert said she's been studying it for a year. A YEAR. I was so disgusted with the both of them I could barely pay attention to the session. (And yes, I wrote how disgusted I was down on the comment sheet.)

North Carolinians are proud people. We love our state. We put up with out-of-towners for the business, but we really don't like those transplants telling us how bad a place this is to live. Tell me truly, who would really want to listen to someone ripping their home apart? I 'm going to try and refrain from the inevitable comment "maybe if so many people hadn't moved here, it wouldn't be such a bad place to live!". Well there I said it. But let's go ahead and take it a step further. Maybe if you hate it so much, you can go back to where you came from. I can't count the times when someone starts complaining about traffic and strip malls and the degraded roads, I've wanted to tell them to just go back home . Go home. If you can't like where you live, or at least make an effort to help find solutions for the problems, get out. When people complain about trashy roads, I want to tell them to go adopt a street for crying out loud and stop griping. I'd like to see a lot less talk and a lot more action. Only then will they all be off my shit list.

And just in the interest of full disclosure, my daddy was born in New York. I still have relatives there. I don't hate northerners. I just hate being told my state stinks.

Quick Pics

Unloading the camera for my knitting pictures and came across these:

more Say-say pictures:

The first one is a ghost with eyebrows:
















G- says this one is called "danger":

















and last not but least a snake G- found in the backyard while mowing:

Gotta run now

Week in Review

I was going along quite nicely there for about a week. Posts nearly every day. But finding time to blog with work and two little ones sometimes doesn't equal out nicely to nearly every day. Case in point, I just had to settle a fight over a matchbox car (keep in mind we have enough matchbox cars to fill a plastic bin AND a suitcase made especially for matchbox car storage). I've kept notes all week however, just itching to get my fingers moving, but not finding the time. Till now of course.

I have no dates, just random notes so that's how they'll be presented.

Alas, the unthinkable was confirmed recently. Dumbledore is indeed dead. I've spent an entire year laboring under the delusion that the gentle wise wizard had just pulled a Gandalf, had just taken a Draught of Living Death, anything but died. All my hopes were dashed when J K Rowling pulled this out of her hat at an August 2nd reading in NYC. I know people think I'm odd, throwing myself into the Harry Potter universe as I do. I can't fully explain it. I have a tendency to take people and adopt them as my mentors (unbeknownst to them of course). I praise their words, deeds, knowledge. I watch their shows, or read their books, or listen to what they have to say in one way or another because I trust them as experts. Maybe I didn't have enough role models growing up that I seek them out so eagerly in adulthood. I can't fully explain it. But I digress. My point is that delving into Rowling's universe is exciting, it's engaging, and having the opportunity to share a massive puzzle with millions of people is a thrill. When she announced Dumbledore is indeed dead, she said that she wanted people to move on with the grieving process. She's right. Now I can move past that particular hurdle, as sad and hard to accept as it is, and set out to put the rest of the pieces together before the last book comes out. Only my fellow Harry Potter fans can truly understand this but I hope I've at least explained my obesssion a tiny bit.

I had to go into the office for a couple hours yesterday to do an upgrade on our computer system when no one was on it (don't I sound important). I left my little ones at home napping with daddy. As always, I turned on Pottercast in the car, but I couldn't concentrate. I finally paused it and called myself at work (I do that a lot). If I can get myself back into that feeling, I'd like to describe the drive for you. It was an unseasonably cool day yesterday, but instead of making me comfortable, it just made me long for autumn, all two weeks of it (that's all we get here in NC). I had on my trusty clip-on sunglasses (best $200 I've ever spent were on these eyeglasses with sunglasses attachment) which served to make the sky bluer, the grass and trees greener, and gave the whole drive a very dream-like trance. I love drives like that. Usually I hate driving, always have. My sister and I used to fight over who was going to drive to and from school. But at times like yesterday morning, when there's a slight breeze in the air, just enough to make it feel like you've wrapped up with a light blanket on a chilly night, when the world seems like for that moment that nothing has gone wrong, when you almost have to shake yourself awake and make yourself concentrate on the road, during those times, I'd rather be driving than anywhere in the world.

Well, I've spent as much time today as I can allow. The interruptions are starting to take longer and come at more frequent intervals so it's time I pay sole attention to the family. My last note, which really was a thought that ran through my head several times this week, was that I need to start a novel blog. The thing is, I'm in an inspiration slump. All I want to do is fingerpaint what I see, trees, sky, whatever. Maybe if I can draw it out, I can people it and come up with a story to match. We'll see.