Murder and Hijacking

Some sad, sad news today.

Anon CP's Rhode Island Reds, Henny and Penny, were murdered last night.
A nighttime marauder found their way into the inner sanctum of the Omlet and well, you know the unfortunate rest...
Bo found them and buried them, as a gentleman should.

Only last week, H&P gave us eggs.

R.I.P. little Henny and Penny. You were good chickens and will be sorely missed by your chicken Mom and the mascots - especially the bird whisperer one.

Henny and Penny's fine handiwork

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In a vain attempt to catch up to Anon CP on Ancestry.com in the related-to-royalty department, another afternoon has been wasted spent there. Guess what? I'm still from indentured servants y'all. (Someone had to help out all those royal relatives of CP's.)

But I did find that a couple of someones hijacked my great grandmother.
To Wyoming.
Changed her name.
Added her to the Sioux reservation rolls. (Not that that isn't cool and all, but Georgia is not known for its Sioux population.)

WTF.

It's probably not proper Ancestry form, but I wrote both of them an email saying - Hey, she ain't yours, so knock off that picture stealing.
In the nicest possible way of course.

The Cat Lady

I saw her again last week on the way home, pulling into a spot behind Home Depot on the quiet secret thoroughfare that cuts over to Mt. Moriah Road. Truckers sometimes sleep overnight there in their cabs.
Occasionally she's there in the morning, letting the cat roam around on a leash. A small camp of homeless people live in the nearby woods, having relocated since the area by the new Marriott was clear cut. You can see smoke from their campfires and just a glimpse of a tent from the street.

I first saw her when stopping for coffee at the BP on the way to the old new job. At first I thought she was traveling, the front seat of the crossover SUV full of hanging clothes. A tabby Maine Coon looking cat perched on the back seat and I spotted a litter box. The vehicle was clean and newish. We passed in the doorway, her out, me in. She was trim, blonde, wearing Privos. Then I saw her several more times, same gas station, same time.

And it dawned on me that she was not traveling. She was living in her car.

She is not a regular on the intersection corners. In the homeless hierarchy, she's a tier or two above those folks in a tent. She's got mobility, a safety edge, and protection from weather. She probably has a job. Her clothes are organized and seem to be clean, her car is neat. She's got money for gas, to do laundry, and buy cat food. But not enough for an apartment.

I think about her as I drive home, less than a mile away; think about living in my car with three cats; about how close I am to that (aren't we all really?).
It scares me.

ancestry.com

Last Sunday, instead of writing some pithy, fascinating post about what's going on around here, I spent close to twelve hours on ancestry.com. I could not feel my legs, I sat so long.

When I was in Ireland, someone said we Americans were so funny (they meant weird) with all of our wanting to know where we were from. Guess that's what happens when you're a country of immigrants.

I myself want to know why people moved. People moved more back then than one would think. I get coming here from the "old country" in the first place, but what compelled them to pick up and head down to Georgia from Virginia? Was the mother-in-law THAT bad?

Moving must have been easier back then, especially if you were one of my people (we come from a line of indentured servants, not landowners). No realtors, no movers, no 2,500 square foot house to disgorge into a giant van. Load the wagon, hitch the milch cow to the back and head out.
Need a new chair? Carpenter husband will make a new one when you arrive in the promised land of Florida. Your job, (one of about a thousand) as a woman, is to have fifteen children and hope two or three will take.

Two things drive me crazy - naming twenty generations the same two names and changing the spelling of last names all willy-nilly. They were not concerned in the slightest about us here trying to make heads or tails of which George was actually the one who came from Ireland. I have actually employed spreadsheets to help me. (It was my gggg grandfather and mother - I knew you would want to know.)

Anon CP is finding ALL kinds of peeps in her search. Cousins and castles and Dutch folks, oh my!
I'd better get cracking...