...views of my snowy garden...

…Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her…

~William Wordsworth

It’s my second snow day here in Virginia. On Friday, my university in DC was closed predicting it was going to get bad throughout the day. By 10 am, the snow was coming down steadily. By Sunday morning, we had about 18 inches of snow. It’s hard to measure really because of the snow drifts. On the side of my house, the snow was up to my waste.

 

For many of you, 18 inches of snow is a big ol’ shrug but for me and my fellow Virginians it’s a big deal. Our roads and houses aren’t built for this kind of weather. In fact, a few years back my pipes burst when we had a cold spell. Even dripping my faucets at night was no match for Mother Nature and a poorly insulated home. Needless to say, the area where the pipes burst is one of the first places I shoveled. I do not want a flooded house ever again!

We don’t have the equipment or supplies to respond to such conditions. Three inches is about all we can handle before freaking out as a region.

The snow plow just came through about five minutes ago and even he got stuck. Fortunately, my fella and I have been shoveling since Friday. Even though the heavy snow continued to cover up our work, we knew that it would pay off in the end (e.g. less snow to shovel all at once). Many of my neighbors don’t have snow shovels. Some used buckets, Tupperware containers, and one guy just walked around kicking the snow! Um, yeah, that will teach it.

The wedding pumpkin patch is in the backyard

For my university, the power went out in the dorms. For about 30 hours, the students were without heat and electricity. They were moved to other locations. I emailed with some of my students and they seemed in good spirits about it. This is what happens during a blizzard.

Making a snow angel

In the end, it’s now sunny. The snow is starting to melt some. And while we shoveled to uncover our cars and walkway, we did have a bit of fun.

Don’t let the pictures fool you… I shoveled the walkway and a good amount around the cars. My fella to do it all :D We only have one snow shovel which is a good thing because we have to take breaks. We did get out a garden shovel to break the ice. The front yard is a bit of a challenge because the sun doesn't shine in the very front. In fact, the sun never hits our front door except during one month of year.

...a batty ride...

I posted about buying a new car a few weeks ago. Now that I’ve had the car for a bit, I’m sharing some pictures showing how I’ve made the vehicle a bit more me.   

As a commuter, my cars have a tendency to get a bit junky because one never knows what she’ll need. I have five umbrellas of various colors and sizes (appropriate for hard winds, compact so it can be tucked in a handbag, basic black in case one finds herself at a funeral thus the skulls or bats options are just not appropriate). 

I keep a medical kit and I also keep some magazine reading for times I have some type of appointment that requires me to sit around waiting and oops, I forgot my book. And tissues! I must have tissues and hand sanitizer (and preferably wet wipes for those days you find yourself changing a dirty tire).

... Séance, Seduction, and Houdini: a book review...

“There are two kinds of secrets.

The ones we keep from others

and the ones we keep from ourselves.”

~Frank Warren

The Witch of Lime Street: Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World by David Jaher

Hardcover: 448 pages

Publisher: Crown; 1St Edition (October 6, 2015)

ISBN-10: 0307451062

ISBN-13: 978-0307451064

History comes alive in this textured account of the rivalry between Harry Houdini and the so-called Witch of Lime Street, whose iconic lives intersected at a time when science was on the verge of embracing the paranormal.

It is right before the semester begins which means that for many of us academics our final moments of reading for fun is about to be greatly reduced to more academic texts and pursuits. Last week I finished reading two books. One of which is David Jaher’s debut novel, The Witch of Lime Street: Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World. The book is partly about the history of spiritualism in the early 20th century and partly about the face-off between illusionist Harry Houdini and the young, pretty wife of a Boston doctor named Mina Crandon who went by the name Margery in order to keep her privacy.

The story reads as a work of fiction although it is based in the history of the 1920s. Margery’s advocate was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the writer and physician most noted for his fictional stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes.  Urging her to take part in controversial research sponsored by Scientific American which offered a large cash prize to the first medium declared authentic, Margery underwent an extensive investigation which included illusionist and escape artist Harry Houdini.  Like so many families dealing with loss, Houdini became interested in Spiritualism while dealing with the loss of his mother; yet, he still remained a skeptic throughout his life and attempted to prove that Margery and others like her were charlatans. It turns out that the tests that she was given during the investigation made her one of the most successful Spiritualists in the country. This frustrated Houdini for while he continued to prove what she was doing was fake, others preferred to believe in the spirits, especially Margery’s deceased brother Walter.

While Jaher went into almost graphic detail about the lengths the Spiritualists went through to prove that they were not being fraudulent (e.g. invasive strip searches), readers have to use their own imaginations to truly understand the extent of the ectoplasm that were "birthed" during the investigations.

Personally, I enjoyed that nearly half of the book was build-up to the Houdini and Margery meeting. The rivalry is a slow build with the ending being much more of a surprise than expected.