In the end, it was just a house.

It was only the stage upon which the dramas and tragedies and comedies of lives were played out.
At the same time, it was sad this foggy morning to see our neighbors' house torn down by the unknowing sweeps and crunches of the big orange machine, with the truck ready to carry off the debris that was once a cherished home.  Sixty-three years of being a home, and it came down in about two hours.

The same thing happened to the house in McLean, Virginia that my parents had taken care of for so many years, the flowers and curtains and door mats, the thousands and millions of decisions and actions both small and momentous that had taken place there   The laughter and tears and snow shoveled and lawns mowed and shrubs trimmed and leaving for college and bringing the granddaughter by to be admired, until we had all left and the machines came.

It's all gone now, replaced by a McMansion whose owners have no clue as to the lives that took place there, now writing their own.
Yeah, I know that in the end they were just houses, but things took place in them that will echo through eternity.  I hope that when the time comes, ours will go peacefully after being the stage upon which more good than bad took place.
I hope that yours is a place where love can dwell, and where peace may be found while it stands.
Dave

Blizzard! In Raleigh!! North Carolina!!!

Or so you would have believed listening to the excited on-air meteorologists.  Schools closed early, (like five hour before the first flake fell), bread and milk was flying out of the stores, and everyone got really excited.
With all due credit and apologies to Gary Larson, one of our favorite old Far Side panels was this:

And that's how blizzards usually go here in Raleigh.  When one hears a forecast of dire wintry conditions, someone in the household will inevitably say, "More like defused nuclear warheads, if you ask me!"  The city is said to possess three actual snowplows, though if needed a few more can be rigged using plows on trucks.  Brine stripes are sprayed on the highways, but anyone who has lived here for a while realizes that the proper response is to hang out, watch a movie, get up late and wait for the sun to come up and put everything right again.  

On the other hand, it is pretty for a couple of hours, and kind of fun.

The daffodils, on the other hand, are not amused.

With the shift in the climate of the world, we'll be getting fewer of these kind-of-fun blizzards.

We hope that you had a nice day off, too.

Dave & Paula

Keep an eye on your house!

As I mentioned in the previous entry, our part of town has become popular as folks have been having to build further out from the city center; we're suddenly close in.  As Paula likes to tell people, she's within two miles of Costco, Target, Trader Joe's, Walmart, Wegman's and REI.
A local developer started it all by taking down the first mall in Raleigh, North Hills Mall as it was catching its last breath.

In its place he put up a 'walking mall' with a fancy hotel and snooty shops and restaurants.  A lot of tall office space and apartments have sprung up around it, and now the area is known as "Midtown." At least for this brief moment it's fashionable.  

More and more of the older houses are being bought up, torn down and replaced with new ones, some approaching the million-dollar mark.  The house to our left, and the two directly across the street have been marked for demolition and replacement.  You could almost feel this little 60-year old house trembling when the excavator was unloaded today.   

Luckily, our house is updated enough that we'll be spared that fate for the time being, and hey, we've still gotta live here.
However, just to make sure no one got the addresses mixed up:

We hope that no one mistakes your house either.

Dave & Paula