One of the greatest ladies I have ever known passed away yesterday. She was 104 years old. She was a true southern lady in every sense of the word. She was my neighbor when I lived in Alabama, and had been my grandparents’ neighbor for more years than anyone could count. When she got married, she married a younger man, so she lied about how old she was to appear younger than him. It didn’t work, everyone knew how old she really was, at least in her later years. She loved animals and animals loved her. It’s a sign of a good person when animals love you. I remember as a child going to her house across the road from my grandparents’ and she always had some candy from the candy kitchen where she’d worked longer than anyone could remember. She was an old lady all my life, but she loved gardening, especially her rose garden. Up until maybe a year ago, she still worked in her garden. She cut the grass with a pair of scissors so that it was perfect and pruned her roses to perfection. I could go on and on about how great she was and what a wondrous woman she was, but I will end on this note. Yesterday, she took a sip of Coca Cola, said she was tired and then closed her eyes and took her last breath. There is a small community in Alabama that wept openly yesterday because they lost one of the greatest ladies they had ever known.

I slept in today. I needed to. I was tired from the last few days. I fell asleep before Murphy Brown even went off. I did get up this morning and put something in the crockpot for dinner, now I’m catching up on my posting.

A few weeks ago, my grouchy, unfriendly neighbor moved out. The new lady who moved in is really nice. I often catch myself talking to her if she’s sitting out on the front porch. She’s definitely a talker, and I’m usually held up if she’s outside when I get home. It’s nice to actually have a neighbor I like and get along with.

Then there is my other new neighbor, he’s cute and kind of sexy. He’s obviously gay. No straight man dresses this well. Actually, it’s lots of different things that makes my gaydar go off. Anyway, I keep trying to find a way to introduce myself, but he keeps slipping through my grasp. He doesn’t seem as keen to meet us, but maybe that will change.

Tonight, I am going to a gallery opening at a museum in Burlington. It’s called the “Impossible Ideal: Victorian Fashion and Femininity.” It should be quite interesting, especially to see how another museum does their openings. Here is a description of the exhibit:

The Victorian era (1837-1901), named for the reign of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, is known for extreme expressions of women’s fashion, and for a narrow definition of women’s roles in society. Tight-laced corsets, wide hoop skirts, bustles, and trains exaggerated women’s forms while restricting their movement and activity. Thus fashion, and the popular magazines that promoted it, reinforced the “cult of domesticity”—the idea that women’s place was in the home and not the public sphere. This feminine ideal belonged to an urban leisure class, excluding great swaths of rural or working class populations. Mass print culture also implicitly and explicitly promoted a vision of the ideal woman as white and Protestant rather than any other race or religion.

Even as mainstream periodicals promoted the Victorian cult of domesticity, they also provided a forum for debate about the “woman question:” to what degree should women be educated, seek work outside the home, and have certain rights within marriage, including the right to divorce. These discussions were evidence of a growing restlessness on the part of women, and an ambivalence on the part of the magazines’ editors and contributors, many of them female. While mid-century styles reflected the restrictiveness of women’s roles, by the 1890s fashion evolved to express increasing autonomy. Sleeker skirts, broader shoulders, lighter fabrics, and suit styles that mimicked menswear gave women greater freedom of movement, representing how more women were venturing outside the home for education, excercise, or to work for philanthropic or activist causes.

Through women’s clothing and accessories from the Fleming Museum’s collection, along with excerpts from popular American women’s magazines such as Godey’s Lady’s Book and Peterson’s Magazine, this exhibition explores how fashion embodied the many contradictions of Victorian women’s lives, and, eventually, the growing call for more diverse definitions of women’s roles and identities.

I’m very happy. After two years of saying she would come, my mother is finally coming to visit. Her plane should arrive around 11pm tonight. I know that’s late, but it seems like planes always leave Burlington at 6 am and arrive at 11 pm. I don’t know what the airport does between those two times. By the way, her plane leaves going back to Alabama at 6 am Monday morning. My father refused to come. I’m not sure why, but he just didn’t want to. Tomorrow, my mother and I are going down to Hildene, the Lincoln Family Home, in Manchester, Vermont. We are also going to the outlet stores down there. I don’t know what we will do on Sunday; it is supposed to rain. We will figure something out though. Sadly, with her here, I will miss the very small Pride Parade in Burlington on Saturday. It is definitely not something that would interest my mother. A PFLAG mom, she is not.

Labor Day honors the American Labor movement and the contributions that workers have made to the strength, prosperity, laws, and well-being of the country. It is the Monday of the long weekend known as Labor Day Weekend and it is considered the unofficial end of summer in the United States. Here in the town where I live, there is a weekend long festival to celebrate Labor Day. There will be a big parade today. Truthfully, the parade itself isn’t that great but when the whole Corps of Cadets from the college marches down the street, that’s impressive. They all look so good in their uniforms. It’s a nice sight to see.

I am so glad it’s Friday. Even though I had Tuesday off, it still feels like it’s been a long week. There has been a lot to get done. I will be especially busy at work today. I’ve got some writing to do for the next exhibit, which opens next Friday. The weekend will be spent grading. I hate to have to spend the weekend grading, but the term ends Sunday. I have one more term teaching online at this university and then I will be done with them. I do not like or agree with their style of learning.

Vermont can be an annoying state. With all their rules and regulations, they go overboard. Case in point, I’m having to go have my car inspected for it’s Vermont inspection. It’s already been inspected in New Hampshire where I bought it. I bought my car in New Hampshire because it was a couple of thousand dollars cheaper over there. Though it’s been inspected in New Hampshire, it is not a valid inspection in Vermont. I was told by the DMV, “We are looking for different things.” How ridiculous is that? Should all car inspections be the same no matter what state it is. I grew up in Alabama where inspections were not required. I like that way better.

I just bought a brand new car. It only had 17 miles on it when I drove it off the lot. It’s a Honda CR-V, and I’m in love with it. It’s a bit bigger than I had anticipated when I started looking at this SUV, but that’s not a problem. It has just the right amount of roominess. It also has everything on it: remote start, heated seats, push button start, it syncs with my iPhone, and the list goes on.

It was an easy purchase too. I did most of the negotiating online and over the phone with their express buy option, and lucky I did too. The guy in charge of the express buy is gorgeous, and he had a butt like you wouldn’t believe. Anyway, all in all it was a great experience and they made buying a car so easy.