monitorkitty

So I’m doing a test post for my Technorati Profile

I really do exist – no, really. It’s just that a certain ickle ironclad is eating me alive at the moment. And I’m having to maintain a blog as part of my job…..

Can’t remember if I mentioned it here – but you can check it out (such as it is… ) here.

And in other news….the nor’easter rages even as the christening of CVN-77 approaches…and an outdoor wedding, too.

Yikes!

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

– Percy Bysshe Shelley

may we prevail.

Wow – we’re old. When you can count in decades….you’re officially old. And yet I don’t feel it…..

10 years ago, we thought we got married – at the Wren Chapel at William and Mary. I say *thought* – because between the best man (Jim’s dad) and the minister (the late, lamented Larry – may he be reenacting some really cool historical event in heaven) – they managed to fill the certificate out so wrong that when we returned from our two week long honeymoon, we found that we weren’t actually married…

Three weeks after our wedding day – the assistant clerk of court in Williamsburg signed the papers (after much use of Mike Nesmith’s legacy of Liquid Paper and some fast FedEx-ing) and we were legal. So we have two anniversaries – which is useful if we have two really cool restaurants we want to visit for special occasions.

But – in honour of the day that our friends and family stood up for us – and especially in honour of the day that both Jim and my dad wore tuxedoes….we officially celebrate the 17th of August.

I wish all of our friends could be so happy. I know that some of you are hurting tonight – reeling from injustices and grief. I wish that we could do something…

It’s not much – but we send our thoughts and our love. For always.

Summertime, and the chance of a scattered thunderstorm is easy…..

Friday afternoon, we were all toiling away at Ye Olde Boat Museum on all manner of nautical things when a storm swept in and knocked all the power out. After about 10 minutes, folks started packing up to go home – since it was nearly 5 anyway.

But for me – it doesn’t pay to leave before – oh, say 5:20 at the earliest because of the traffic between Ye Olde Boat Museum and Holloway Hundred (which Jim has now dubbed our house and 1/2 acre….).

So I stayed – and was rewarded.

Eventually the power came back on so we weren’t all sitting in the dark (which we would have done, trust me…)and I was able to finish up an important missive on scatter patterns of exploding shell within the gun deck of a frigate. You know – exciting stuff.

Of course – by waiting, I had allowed another thunderstorm to sneakee up upon me carefully – and this was the kind of storm that you don’t dare go out in – particularly with an umbrella that screams “strike me!! oooh me! over here!!!”

And that’s when we saw him.

Imagine a guy that looks like Ving Rames wearing the tightest, smallest black shorts imaginable. Pair that with black shoes, black sock and a black knee brace.

Are you with me so far?

Now, pour him into a two-sizes too small black Batman t-shirt and you’ve got the ensemble.

Now put him in the middle of a rip-snorter, gulley-washin’ lightshow of a storm.

In front of our very eyes he was doing short sprints – then dropping- in the middle of the road – and doing push ups.

This – in the middle of a storm that was causing havoc everywhere – that was burning down buildings and trees just a few blocks away. A storm that was flooding our roads by the Museum.

And he just kept doing it. Back and forth we watched him – even as trees were being hit right in front of him.

The surreal nature of the entire scene kept all of us mesmerized.

And then finally, the storm abated somewhat, and we went home.

I guess he’s still out there somewhere – saving the world from something.

I’m just not sure what.