Category Archives: weird stuff

Apr21

A week we all want to forget

Posted on Sunday, April 21, 2013 by Dianne

Well it certainly was a week from hell. We will never know what those two brothers were thinking up in Boston, but I will not give them more thought than they deserve. I know 4 innocent people are gone and almost 200 injured. When the younger one got captured, we had a storm going through, and then sat in the dark for 3 hours. That was really strange.

I was thinking just this past Wednesday how lucky I have been with not getting a cold for a few months. I was sitting in the car on the way to the preschool. A few nights before I had been in a crowded room with up to 30 people at one time. I watched the thermostat go from 67 to about 71! So on Thursday I woke up with my second really red left eye in a few weeks. Yesterday I went down and took my mom to a book sale, so I was around old books and pollen. Today I was walking around outside a little when the pollen count was 10.3 out of 12. I’m asking for trouble! I got it-post nasal drip, congestion and sneezing. Ugh.

We went to our second geocaching event in a year Thursday, a get-together in a Chinese restaurant. We chatted with a few people, but you could tell which people knew each other better. We were given coords for new caches, but I didn’t have my device to plug them into it, and I don’t know how yet. We did go and find about 3 of them that were just in the area-easy ones!

So when I went to mom’s, we went up to my hometown and we ate lunch in a place called Sligo’s. There was some amazing Celtic stencil work in there, so I took some photos of it.

Today we went to church and after we grabbed a few hoagies at Wawa, I asked if we could find a geocache down the road (Delaware). We were lead near a big sign and it was magnetic. Lo and behold it was yet another cool reflector cache stuck to one of the metal supports of the the sign! It looked rather new and it was!

Then we went to find one in a neighborhood park. At first we couldn’t find the entrance and we finally did! It was deserted, so we had the place to look for ourselves. We went right instead of going left and when we got close to ground zero, I saw a weird piece of wood and flipped it over and the box was attached via magnet! Under the wood and under the lid of the box! It hadn’t been found for 7 months. Here is a cool tree we saw near the cache:

I made a nice pork loin dinner tonight. The guys were both working late. Hate eating along, but Brian got in after 7.

We have tickets to go to New York on Thursday to see the Rachael Ray show. I confirmed it-for the third time, but doubt we will go. They made it earlier to check in, so a friend who has seen it said to get there 2 hours before that! So we’d have to get up around 6 am, leave 8 or so, grab the 10 o’clock train and go stand and wait until 1:30 when they let us in the studio! And you are not guaranteed to get in after all that! Sean and I went to see a Philly show, got there late, were last in line and made it to the second row and on tv a few times! We got to see Phillies pitcher Cliff Lee and comedian Kevin Hart. We have no idea who will be on RR. Plus driving there (gas money to a train station in NJ) and the train round trip for two is $60. If we feel good, we may good. It’s really hard to get tickets to shows! I really miss NYC too.

Oct29

Places I loved all my life

Posted on Monday, October 29, 2012 by Dianne

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We’re waiting on the ‘monster’ storm Sandy to arrive. Today I picked up a few things outside that I thought would get tossed around in the wind and rain we are expecting within hours. We put tarp down in hopes that the water would run away from the foundation and not go in the basement. We have lots to drink, enough ice for a few days and flashlights and candles. It seems she will take her good ol’ time coming inland and staying a bit. Right now it’s rainy and a bit breezy.

So I am worried about our beaches and coastlines…we have seen on tv and FB the flooded out streets of Wildwood, NJ and the waters covering Route 1 between the Delaware beach resorts of Dewey and Bethany. It’s going to be a mess and it’s probably going to be a while before things will be like they were when people are going on vacation in the summertime. I am glad I’m not on vacation now (if we were in NJ/DE/MD) as I’d be scared about where I am and what’s going on at home.

Brian’s a bit under the weather and I hope that Sean and him can tackle any labor this may make them go through. I won’t be able to do much leaning over as my hip has been bad this weekend. I did have one good night, not sure what I did, I took one glucasomine chondroitin that night.

Wish us well and again…we are on standby. We will be filling up pitchers of water and the tub tomorrow morning. We need the tub water for the toidy. Not fun.

I think this is Atlantic City, NJ about 1975

Cape May, NJ

Ocean City, MD

Rehoboth Beach, DE

Fenwick Island, DE

Aug16

No we weren’t casing out the place, we swear!

Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2012 by Dianne

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Last night Brian and I headed to Philadelphia for a tour featuring vampires, ghosts and sex. Believe me, I am not shocked by anything as I grew up with three brothers. Rain was threatening all afternoon, and on the way in it did rain about 10 minutes. We went in a little early to geocache. There were not a bunch of them in the vivacity of Independence Hall, but we saw there was one on Sansom Street where jeweler’s row was. Oh, I had printed out a coupon for a parking garage and we went into the incorrect one…bummer. Also saw where my cousin’s store was and will have to go there sometime. The family has owned a Danish furniture store for years-it’s called ‘Dane Decor’.

So we walk down to Sansom. Almost 30 years ago, we walked around there looking for my engagement ring. Because Princess Diana had a sapphire, I wanted an emerald with diamonds around it. We went to a few stores and settled on Sydney Rosen & Co. The salesman talked me out of the emerald as a main stone, so I got a .33 diamond with two emeralds on each side. Years later, I got my ring cleaned and sized again and not sure if all the emeralds had cracked, but some had to be replaced.

Back to yesterday-so we start looking for a nice size cache and the GPS is bouncing back and forth. We look down stairwells and in planters. We did this for 30 minutes. I thought it best to tell the policeman we were looking for something hidden since we are in the diamond district. So a man walks by me and says ‘8 ft. 6 ft…..’ I asked him if he knew we were looking for something and he said yes and if I wanted to know where it was. I said…well I think it’s in a planter. He said look for one just with dirt…and then pointed to a restaurant! I think I could of found it without him telling me about the restaurant part. Within a few minutes we found the empty planter (the hint was on the earth). It was almost buried with a tile over top of it. It had a lot of stuff in it too, which I found the ones around here usually don’t.

Here I am with the cache with Sydney Rosen behind me!

Next we went to the Bourse Building as we didn’t have time to locate a Cheese steak place I read about. We had 15 minutes to grab a slice of pizza (we had the kind with a top crust). A shop was still open and I went in and grabbed a few little things for Sean, Mom and me.

Then we headed on over to the Liberty Bell pavillion. We had both seen the Liberty Bell a few times, but not here. We had to get our belongings examined like at the Mrs. Obama event!

It was really humid and I had to pull my hair back-whew!

For Zoey-look at this gorgeous Sweet Potato vine!

We then headed for the tour across the street at the visitor center. We first looked around a gift shop there-wow stuff is expensive!

We had a young guy about Sean’s age and he didn’t want his photo taken. I guess maybe it’s because of what he is talking about. We stood at the visitor’s center for 10-15 minutes as he told us about the infidelities of our founding fathers. I knew about Jefferson and the slaves. Something about John Hancock that I didn’t buy.

Then the part, which must have been this guy’s favorite part was talked about down the ways. It was about hookers in Philly in the colonial days. I knew it was a tour that was ‘R’ rated, but why not show us maybe where a brothel was?

We went over to Washington Square. That was used as a mass burial yard. Very creepy. He said a guy he knows was digging in his basement nearby and bones fell out of the wall. Okay, maybe after over 200 years? Thanks to standing there all that time I got at least half a dozen mosquito bites.

That’s the unknown soldier…the guy said they pulled some guy out of the mass grave in a uniform.

He told us a lot of stuff, but didn’t show us many sights. This building (not sure if it’s the original) was a prison and where the first balloon sailed all the way over to Deptford, NJ (really not that far).

I really liked seeing the Old City Tavern up close. The ghost story is that a bride was getting ready for her wedding and her bridesmaid knocked into an oil lamp and set her on fire and she met her demise.

Here’s a local tv program and the head chef and a clairvoyant are talking about ghosts in the tavern.

Entrance way of the Old City Tavern-look at all the famous people chef Walter Staib has met.

The guide left us across the street from here at a grid pattern that was set up the way the original city streets were laid out. And that was it. He even had the nerve to ask for a tip. This wasn’t a cheap tour, even with the discount. I was a bit peeved as they took a registration fee on top of the Living Social deal. And the other tour took you in a circle. This one, we had to find our way back to 6th and Market.

More sights:

Souvenirs!

The Declaration House where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Constitution

Independence Hall at night. We heard the clock chime three times.

This was unique. What’s in the remnants of I think the Beale house. There are three videos going and places to sit. This one looks like it’s above a fireplace. There are windowless window frames also.

I think we enjoyed walking around on our own more than going on the tour! I’d love to eat at the Old City Tavern sometime and visit a few more places and look for a few more caches. 40 miles isn’t that far away.

Mar1

Solemn Sunday in NYC

Posted on Thursday, March 1, 2012 by Dianne

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The last day we were in NYC, Sean left to go to his meeting before us. We then all met up at St. Patrick’s Cathedral where we went to mass like we did almost 5 years ago when we attended Karin’s wedding.

This was taken the night before:

It was a nice service and not as long as our church services here! We then decided to head over to Central Park and Strawberry Fields to see the Imagine plaque in memory of John Lennon, the Beatle who was killed across the street outside of his home, the Dakota building.

Brian on the left there, our biggest Beatles fan:

The Dakota:

What pretty sights here! I can just ‘imagine’ how pretty it is in the summertime. We’d like to see it all green and lush too. I believe Sean said it had over 800 acres here.

For it being a brisk day, there were still a lot of people milling around.
Our next ‘must see’ place was the new WTC Memorial which was in lower Manhattan. We had timed tickets for it. Sean paid for the almost $20 taxi ride as Central Park was on his ‘wish list’ of places to see, so that’s why we went. I am really glad we did though.
When we got to the memorial area, we were a bit confused as to where to go as they had fences with blue signs all around the area (lots of construction here). We went down one way, though the signs had arrows pointing the other. I saw other people walking the wrong way. We got in the line, which moved quickly, but they have a security check point where we had to put our coat and belongings through the x-ray machine! I believe our tickets were checked 3 times. With all the walking, etc. and no lunch, I has a bit light-headed going in the memorial area-so I was keeping my head up, believe me as it was hard to go in there. It was quite a place to see-such large flowing squares of waterfalls where the twin towers use to go. You start to read the names, but then you start seeing names like ‘Sean’ and you can’t read them anymore.

This is the museum under construction

I read that the remains of about half the victims will be placed somewhere in the museum as they couldn’t be identified.

I happen to look up Vanessa’s name and read a little bit about her. Her mom is a writer who said 3 days before Bin Laden was killed, an angel fell off her table and the wings ‘perfectly’ broke off the back of the piece. She feels her daughter earned her wings then.
We only stayed about 20 minutes or so. We stopped to hear an excellent guide say how the letters are chiseled out to make the names, so something is missing, like the people here. The falling water is like ocean tears. He stood near a tree that survived the attacks, it was being nursed back to health and had wires, etc. to train the branches. It may have been a sweet gum tree. I had no desire to have my picture taken here, though Sean did and his face told it all. We nodded to the police officers standing near the exit to pay our respects to their deceased brothers and sisters in uniform.
We found a little place to eat a block down from here, after we had gone through the gift shop. We bought pens, a wristband and a ‘gold’ sweet gumball tree leaf to symbolize the trees they will be planting in this area. Most of the money goes to the memorial. They had moving videos playing and items like a wallet from a victim with his lucky $2 in it as he asked his fiance to marry him, it being the second time for both.
The restaurant was near the Freedom Tower

I believe they said a floor a week goes up. I heard there is also a Subway Sandwich shop a floor or two below that follows the workers up so they have a place to grab lunch or a drink.
The restaurant was nice with Picasso like painting and the shine from the Freedom tower coming in through the window

I ‘check in’ at the different places we go to with the phone app ‘FourSquare’ and this restaurant had a link to another NY app and we got $20 off. Too bad they didn’t take any off the price of beverages. I tell the guys to get water, but they don’t listen. They made me peppermint tea as I was chilled to the bone.
So we walked up a few blocks-it was about 4:30 and not one taxi was stopping. When we thought we had one, the guy asked where we were going and we said 42nd and he shook his head. The young woman said we should have just climbed in as they aren’t allowed to refuse passengers. After 20 minutes or so, a taxi did stop as he was headed in the direction we needed to go. A few times the 3 of us were squeezed in a Ford Escape taxi. We gave him a good tip for helping. He said that time of day the shifts change so they won’t stop that much.
We had a busy 3 days and saw a lot of neat things and we’d go back again! The more you go, the more you can find your way around. Not driving was a good idea. The bus was convenient as were the taxis.
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I got a Connect My DNA kit from a LivingSocial.com offer as I thought it would be fun to see the distribution of my DNA. I knew I was English, Danish, Swedish, German, French and Irish. They send you the cotton swabs on sticks to collect DNA off the inside of your cheeks and you send it back in an envelope with a barcode on it. I remembered to look last night and low and behold, they must have messed up or mixed me up with someone else as I am not, Russian, or mostly Irish or Syrian! I wrote to them this morning and let them know I know my heritage from genealogies from both sides of my family. I’d like a re-test for the money I spent. We don’t have one Russian that I know of in my family.
I guess I’m off to go shopping with my mom soon. The above info made my mind wonder a lot last night until I told myself it just couldn’t be true for goodness sake. : )
Last but my least:
Our view going home Sunday night:

Oct12

Spirit of 76 Ghost tour in Philly

Posted on Wednesday, October 12, 2011 by Dianne

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It’s really hard to take photos at night, but I hope you enjoy my efforts here.

Dr. Philip Syng Physick house, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Here’s a shot of Sean listening to Emma, the tour guide down in Philadelphia last night. We walked about 1.5 miles throughout the darkened streets of the Old City area, something neither of us had done before! Here we are at Dr. Philip Syng Physick’s elegant house and she was telling us about him being the father of surgery and how some gory stuff about waiting for bodies to be disposed. It was rough back then.

Where two thousand people are buried. It looks like a park and has sidewalks. Unfortunately some homeless guys were on the benches. It’s suppose to be really haunted here. I felt a bit weird walking around here. At the far end was the stump left from the ‘Moon tree’. It was grown from a seed that went to the moon and back and planted for the Bicentennial. There is a sapling from it planted now.

Pine Street Cemetery (pretty sure) where Nicholas Cage filmed a scene from the movie ‘National Treasure’.

A quaint home on Pine Street. Not sure what home, but a witch was suppose to reside on this street centuries ago.
A trip to Philly wouldn’t be complete without a visit to The Liberty Bell!

I don’t recall seeing it in this pavilion. We didn’t get to go in any buildings or cemeteries which would have been more interesting. Independence Hall is somewhat shrouded in the front as it goes through renovation

There are still cobblestone streets. Rubber against cobblestone sounds strange

The building where we were suppose to have dinner (grabbed a slice of pizza), but I forgot it closed at 6 pm. It would have been a great place to look around as there were some stores there too.

We did park right next door.
Suppose to be the most haunted street in Philly-Pine Street. Full apparitions were spotted here.

I did see a few pinpoints of light in the two upper window (left and middle) of Carpenter’s Hall. People say they have seen a face in the first window. A few people living here heard footsteps and pounding on the walls.

If you click and enlarge, you can see the lights too.
Awesome statues:

Commander John Barry-Father of the American Navy
and
The Signer-George Clymer-signed both the Constitution and Declaration of Independence

And finally-a graveyard you just don’t see every day-St. Mary’s

Aug28

We survived Hurricane Irene!

Posted on Sunday, August 28, 2011 by Dianne

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It’s been a tense few days, but when we woke up with power and less rain we were very happy! According to the weather people, Hurricane Irene made landfall around 5:30 am in Little Egg Harbor, NJ, south from here, about 2 hours or so away. Unfortunately, my mom lost power around 10 pm or so and they think they heard a transmitter blow. Mom is more suburban than us. We do have a little water in a few places in our basement, but very manageable. Because it didn’t rain as much as they thought, that saved us. Also we put plastic around outside. Brian and I are dopey from nerves and achy from doing stuff outside. Thank goodness he cleaned the rain gutters out more as that probably helped too. Whew!

Now to look forward to the Bruce Hornsby concert on Tuesday and the Beatlemania trip on Saturday. No more hurricanes for my last hurrah of the summer. ; )

Update: 11:14 am is history-she’s a tropical storm now!

Aug26

Getting prepared

Posted on Friday, August 26, 2011 by Dianne

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This is a scary, bustling time here. Definitely the calm before the storm. Today I was moving plants and stacking chairs up. I filled both watering cans, a metal bucket and the garden cart with water. When you have a well, when the power goes out, so does the ability to flush a toilet. We learned the hard way back in 1998 when we didn’t have power for 3-4 days. Brian was getting water from the stream out back to use. Not a pleasant experience. I am making ice, but bought a bag for the big cooler. I did get to the store. We have several groceries stores within a 5 mile radius, so I chose one outside of Kennett and it wasn’t bad at all. It’s funny what people buy when they think they will be stuck inside. Other than water, lots of canned nuts were gone. Not a lot of meat was purchased. Like me, they are worried about wasting money on food that may spoil. I bought tuna, soup, crackers, pudding, celery, and other things that may be easy to eat. I figure we could do soup on the grill. I’ll have to be really hungry to eat it that way though. ; ) I cooked half a dozen hard-boiled eggs and also some bacon. I boiled up some pasta. I think we will be okay, much more prepared than all those years ago. We have lots of bottled drinking water. I’m more worried about my two large windows. I told Brian we need to make sure there isn’t any metal that will be flying around the yard. Of course another thing is 6-10 inches of expected rain that may have no where to go. We just had a lot of rain yesterday. Last year we had an issue with water pouring out of where the hole in the wall is for the well, not fun. I was thinking if we used the big funnel (we have) at the end of a hose and had the other end in the big sink in the basement, that may work or help. We have a few things to figure out, but I am worried about all the stuff in that basement. I’ve been wanting help to clean it out for years, we do a piddly clean up and stop. I do have a terrible dust allergy and I got pneumonia after putting Christmas stuff away last year. Not sure if that’s a connection, but it could be. It’s been smelling musty, so I put on the portable fan and spray Lysol aroun. If you don’t hear from me for a while, you know we lost power. I will try to ‘tweet’ until the phone battery goes (I’d have to charge it up again in the car) which shows up in the left side bar. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as I will you who may be affected by this monster storm.

Aug23

Shaking, rattling and…finally rolling….

Posted on Tuesday, August 23, 2011 by Dianne

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This will mark a first in our lives. Close to 2 pm, e.s.t. a 5.9 earthquake shook a wide area on the east coast up to Maine or even Canada. It originated in Louisa, Virginia.

Sean and I were standing near the dining room table and the china closet and chandelier started to rattle. Brian was home for lunch and sitting in the lounge chair and he felt it moving! It may have lasted up to 30 seconds. I thought a tree had fallen down out back! I called the neighbor and she felt it too. All we had to do was turn on the tv and we saw how widepread it was then!
We were on our way out to West Chester U. where Sean needed to get his I.D. before his classes start next week. We sat for a while, called the college and they said things were calmed down. We did decide to ‘roll’ there and Sean got his I.D. and we walked around the campus which brought back memories for me as I went there back in 1981-1982! : ) We then went by my late Uncle Don’s house which was sold a few weeks ago. There’s a dumpster in the driveway and many bushes have been trimmed. I helped clean up his yard (with either Brian or Sean) a few times. It made us feel bad, but life does go on.
We also got a little shopping in. I saw a PT Cruiser just like mine-same gold, but very customized with lots of chrome. I did take a photo. This is only the second gold one I’ve seen since I bought mine. They are certainly loved and enjoyed.

So things are good, I thank goodness the tremor wasn’t stronger. What an experience.

Aug10

PC is having issues

Posted on Wednesday, August 10, 2011 by Dianne

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Yesterday afternoon it got really dark around 12 and we had a downpour with lightning and thunder. I was in the family room and the power went off right after some electronic equipment made a terrible squealing sound. The power was off for a minute or two, but the laptops wouldn’t work for about 5 hours. Brian tried to get an internet connection with the PC and was getting a message about something being unplugged. He rebooted it, etc. and nothing. To make a long story short, looks like it needs some kind of network card that may have gotten fried. It should be around $10 if we are lucky and if that’s the problem. I do all my photo uploading on the ‘big’ computer as we call it, so I will resort to camera phone shots or photos on Flickr (I have over 11k there to chose from). Hope it is just the card. He can get on Windows.
We had two powerful storms go through! Wow-what a wild day weatherwise!

May2

painted gourds

Posted on Monday, May 2, 2011 by Dianne

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Dianne checking out painted gourds, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Just curious if you’d add these to your garden decor? I thought they were a bit cosmic and snake looking. Interesting colors!
I got outside and weeded around the pond and out front where I planted burgundy Pansies, pale pink Nicotiana and yellow and purple Johnny Jump Ups (you can see these plants in the wagon photo below). My Bleeding Hearts and a ground cover (what’s it’s name?) look very lush this year. 2 down and about 6 to go plus around the house. I have to kill some faux Snow on the Mountain plant that took over my entire side bed. I use the weed wacker, but you have to get the roots. More work for me!