Where Globe-Trotting meets Beach-Combing
The fantastic photographer who came with the kids and me to welcome home Chris’ ship is a military spouse. I found out about her from a military spouse group. I would not have made it through this tour without other military spouses (and my mom!). And we wouldn’t be able to be nearly as invested…
Suzanne Wolfe’s “Confessions of X,” is historical fiction about the life of St. Augustine’s love interest. This historically unnamed woman leaves her skeezy uncle’s house to promise herself to Augustine. He makes no promises to her. They are of different social classes and can’t legally marry, but their arrangement is generally respectable. They have a…
The day Chris sailed away from Norfolk, I made a goal that surprised me: to get a story in Norfolk’s Virginian-Pilot. When our family moved to Norfolk two years ago, I had been pregnant with Wheezy Woo and decided to feel free not to worry about working during this tour. Deployment changes your mind about…
We stood in the rain for three hours. “Good thing they’re getting home and not leaving,” I thought. Leaving in the rain would be so depressing. Nothing can put a damper on homecoming! The rain clouds parted for a moment and the sailors, who’d all gotten soaked manning the rails, came streaming out. So much…
I did it. We did it. It’s done. Homecoming is forecast rainy rainy rainy, but who the heck cares? The kids were super grouchy this afternoon, wouldn’t nap, screamed and cried constantly, and went to bed early so we missed the homecoming info meeting. Typical. But you know what? Who the heck cares? I stopped…
I think Seascapes by 19th Century painter William Trost Richards is the first exhibit to come and go since I’ve worked at the museum. Amid the garish colors and questionable endurance of some other pieces in the modern and contemporary gallery, the crashing seas and shimmering blue greens seem a calm harbor. Today’s its last…
Today was cool, cloudy, and unbelievably vividly green. Norfolk’s famous crepe myrtles are all leafy again. It looks like someone poked the air with a pin a glowing green primordial ooze is seeping out into the world. Between cloudbursts we popped over to the zoo to eat our pb&j lunch. A peacock thought Eloise was…
