From strawberry princess to accused accessory to murder

There seems to be some kind of bad karma surrounding former WV pageant gals (except Kim Parrish, whose fashion line premiers this weekend). Yet another reason I'm thankful I was too fat and ugly for such things.*

The local TV station is reporting that this woman is a former resident of Buckhannon and a former Strawberry Festival princess. In case you haven't heard, the Strawberry Festival is a certified BIG DEAL, perhaps the mother of all the many, many WV festivals. Apparently, it is also such a big deal that its princesses are forever associated with the event, even 13 years later when they are accused of being an accessory to murder.

On the topic of festivals and pageants, it's too bad we don't have a Lemon Festival here. I would have liked to have been a lemon princess - bright and sour. Another good option for me, had I been a beauty, would have been the Hick Festival in Parsons. Then every time I did something bad or failed at something, people could whisper, "You know, she was Miss Hick in 1995...what a waste."


*If I repeat this enough, perhaps I will start believing it.

Meet Lucille Redenbacher

If you looked at my plump cats, you'd assume that they dine on "people food" on a regular basis, but it's not so, I swear.

There is one exception: Lucille's popcorn habit. Whenever I make popcorn, as I did tonight, she absolutely MUST have some. And since she has claws, unlike Spooky, and isn't afraid to use them, I am inclined to give her a few pieces. She's been doing this since she was a kitten. It's the only food she's ever shown any interest in, aside from tuna, which she will sniff but not eat.

(yes, I do some shopping at Target...it's impossible to get the crappy digital camera to focus that close-up, so instead you have a clear shot of my shopping bag and the phone)

Hillbilly Hollywood News Round-up

The Mid-Ohio Valley - film-making mecca! Well, maybe not, but a film crew was there recently to shoot scenes for Steven Soderbergh's "Bubble." At least one of the scenes was shot near the Brooklyn Hillbilly's former abode. Funny that he might have had a better shot to be on camera had he stayed in Parkersburg and not moved to the Big Apple.

Also relating to Parkersburg, former resident and former Miss WV Kim Parrish will launch her clothing line - Fashion Instinct - April 29. She is probably best known for her nine-year stint on QVC.

Elsewhere in the Mountain State, Brawley Nolte, the son of Nick Nolte and Charleston native Becky Linger Nolte, was arrested in Kanawha County for possession with intent to deliver. Jerry sent me this tidbit. I must admit that I didn't know Nick Nolte was ever a resident of WV.

Sadly (to the Brooklyn Hillbilly), it's being widely reported that Jennifer Garner, former Kanawha Valley resident, and Ben Affleck are engaged. Don't despair, BH - when Jennifer gets your offer of marriage, which includes, I hear, a slightly dinged-up Oldsmobile (!$#!* deer), pre-paid Fingerhut account, and woman-bending-over lawn ornament, I'm sure she'll drop Ben in a heartbeat.

April snow showers bring...?

Hmmm. Don't know what. But at any rate, we've got snow showers, and for the first time, I've covered some of my perennials (the hostas). So now I have a lovely display of upside-down plastic cat litter buckets and flower pots ringing my house.

Hillbilly biking

On Saturday, I biked the Abingdon to Damascus leg of the Virginia Creeper Trail - about 15-16 miles. I was getting ready to type "That's the most I've biked since" and then I realized that I have NEVER biked that much in one day. I've done a few miles at a time on the North Bend rail trail and the Decker's Creek and Caperton trails in the Morgantown area, but I think the most I've done at once is probably around 4 or 5 miles.

About half of that section of the trail was a very slight downhill slope and the rest was flat, so it wasn't terribly difficult pedaling, but by mile 10, I was experiencing serious pain in the, um, arse. I hadn't thought to bring my gel bike seat cover from home, nor did it occur to me to pick one up at the bike rental place. Yowza. I won't make that mistake again.

The early and mid-spring wildflowers were out along the trail, and that the trip especially enjoyable (until mile 11 or 12, when nothing was enjoyable except dreaming of a gigantic feather pillow to sit on). I've forgotten about 85 percent of what I learned in elementary and high school, but for some reason the spring wildflower collecting project in 5th grade stays with me. While most were flowers along the Virginia Creeper trail were ones that we have here, I did see several firsts, including what might have been a wild bleeding heart and a red trillium. My father says that kind of trillium is also found in the WV mountains. I did not see any Virginia bluebells in Virginia. Interestingly, I've only seen those at Core Arboretum in Morgantown, WV.

In addition to the wildflowers, I saw something else I'd never seen before: a snazzy BMW SUV parked in front of a very modest single-wide trailer.

Lord opens office in San Diego

We've known for some time that the Lord had homes at Monongalia General Hospital and several of the other WV hospitals, but it seems the Lord has opened a branch office in sunny San Diego.

Lois sends me the following from one of the state's newspapers:

(Name of deceased) went to be with our Lord in San Diego, Calif.

If this didn't appear on the obit page, you'd start to wonder if this person weren't just out visiting on the west coast, or, as Lois suggested, going to watch a Padres game.

Lois' e-mail prompted me to take a quick scan of some of the online obit pages of various state newspapers, a hobby I've admittedly allowed to slide in recent months. I found that the Parkersburg News and Sentinel had, by far, the most interesting offerings. Scan the page and you'll find several references to the exact minute the deceased "passed." I'm sorry, but even if it were my close relative, I wouldn't feel the need to know precisely the moment he/she left "this earthly plane." Nor do I particularly need to know who, generally, was hovering nearby as the person was "called home."

It's too bad the legislators could have "snuck" into those "mundane details" a law mandating the use of "died" in the first line of all obituaries. I'm even OK with "passed away," for some variety on the obit page. See how I've mellowed?

Look, Bobby, this poor fellow in Nigeria needs our help!

We are an accommodating sort of people here in the Mountain State, so accommodating apparently that when someone who from Nigeria approaches us and asks us to please cash a money order and send them the cash, we politely do so. A local TV station reported tonight that there have been five recent cases of this in Randolph County alone.

Um, how long have these Nigeria scams been around? One would think by now, with hillbilly internet access freely available, word of the Nigerian scams would have reached all of the hardscrabble hills and hollows. I remember when I was growing up, someone - a teacher or someone, I can't recall - stated that it took fads about 7-10 years to filter into West Virginia culture. This individual never precisely identified where it was the fads were traveling from, but maybe there was something to that statement after all.

My cup runneth over

with links to excellent material.

First, Dave sent me several goodies: 1) Conan O'Brien's WV state quarter and 2) O'Brien's idea for a new WVU mascot. (Note - I'm having trouble linking directly to these posts, for some very weird reason, so here's the main page of Dave's site.) Before fully reading Dave's post on the latter, I e-mailed him saying that I was pleased to see a comic picking on something new about our "grite stite" ("great state," as spoken by former Gov. Caperton), but then I saw his note at the top of the post. Ah, the bestiality joke was the night before.

And then, it took Martha in Kentucky to inform me that the legislature passed a bill declaring English as the state's offical language. That wasn't the overall intent of the bill, but the language was inserted "among mundane details about record keeping" in a bill pertaining to members that cities can appoint to boards of parks and recreation. A bill to make English the official state language has been introduced annually and has failed annually since the late 1990s, according to the article. Apparently, if you want to get something passed, the way to do it is to insert it into "mundane details." Who knows what we'll find inserted into the legislation that passed.

Speaking of hair...

I was flipping through channels Saturday morning when I saw what appeared to be weeds growing from the Duchess of Cornwall's head (second photo shows the hat to which I'm referring). They said it was wheat. I guess I'm just really out of it and should have spent my weekend fashioning a headpiece from the forsythia growing in my yard.

But Camilla's little hair ensemble was by no means the most outlandish. One of the other guests (perhaps her daughter?) had what looked like an entire shrub on her head. Oh, how I wish I could find a photo of that one.

So, I think it would be fitting and oh-so-fashionable if WV brides started sporting rhododendron branches on their heads, preferably branches substantial enough for the state bird (Cardinal) to perch on during the ceremony.

Really, I'm OK with my hair looking like this

I've not gone to the same hairdresser twice in a number of years, and therein lies my problem, most likely. As I do not think far enough ahead to actually make an appointment and am more inclined to think as I'm driving to Wal-Mart - "Oh, I should get a hair cut" - I'm probably destined to repeat this again and again.

Before each haircut, I tell the hairdresser the same thing: "I just want it trimmed, about an inch. Same haircut."

The result is almost always vastly different.

But before I get the result, I get the interrogation. I am nearly always asked, "Are you growing your hair out?"

My hair is quite short, and for some reason, hairdressers automatically think I am in the process of "growing out" my hair. Perhaps they cannot fathom that someone intends to continue living long-term with such a hair style. Surely someone who looks this bad is working toward a different look, they must think.

I can quickly tell when a hairdresser is really disgusted by my hair because she almost immediately moves from inquiring about my master plan for my hair's length to inquiring about the possibility of adding highlights.

"Have you ever thought about putting some highlights in your hair?" Some venture further and speculate that highlights would look "really good."

No, I say, I rather enjoy my current dull, mouse-brown color. I like blending into a crowd. The best thing about this hair color is that no matter what I do to it, I look like white trash, and I don't have to feel guilty about not trying to look glamorous.

"Do you use any styling products on your hair?"

This apparently comes out of sheer desperation, after I have expressed no clear direction for my hair length and no interest in highlights. The least they can give me, I suppose, is styling product evangelism. Even those who have struggled to comb through the hair spray ask this.

Yes, I do use styling products, I say. I have ruined many a contact lens with hairspray, and I have even been known to use mousse or gel on really special occasions.

This doesn't shut them up, though. They launch right into their spiel on gel, mousse, freeze, etc. They don't actually try to SELL me the products on their shelves; apparently it's enough to do community service and tell me that styling products exist. You need to REALLY lift up on your hair as you blow it dry, one told me, REALLY lift it up.

Right, and then will I look like the woman on "Cold Case"? If so, I might REALLY lift up on my hair. I might even stand on one leg and hop up and down, and attach leeches to my scalp, and, well, you get the picture.

Some just take matters into their own hands. Convinced that I'm a utter hair moron, they simply change my style and tell me about it later. "I decided to cut this bottom layer and bring it up even with this other one." Gee, thanks for the consultation.

Another one about gave me a heart attack when she picked up what appeared to be scissors and started snipping down close to my scalp, all over my head. When she spied my huge eyes, she explained that she was simply "thinning" my hair to make it more "airy." Grand. Airy was just what I had in mind.

And then there was the girl who decided my natural hair part was to the left, not down the center as it has been parted for at LEAST 10 years. Curiously, it required significant amounts of hairspray to keep the hair in this "natural part."

So, you see, when I happen to get a hairdresser who just cuts my hair with minimal chatter, I tip very, very well.

(I've been trying to post this for days, and thanks to miscellaneous Blogger problems, I've been unable to do so.)

WV - Wild, Wonderful Home of the Social Security Lockbox

In case you haven't heard, the President was in Parkersburg yet again, this time to tout Social Security reform by touring the Bureau of Public Debt which houses the Social Security IOUs. Here's a Washington Post article that has links to the texts of his speeches in Parkersburg. Apparently there is a filing cabinet that contains the IOUs, and reading that made me immediately wonder why we didn't put that on the state quarter? Ah, I guess it would not be nearly as exciting reproduced on a coin, unless of course you draped it with a folksy quilt.

More Hillbilly Crime Highlights

An apparent double murder was the talk of the homeland this weekend. As usual, some of the best coverage can be found at The Hur Herald, where it's noted that the murders took place very close to the JL homestead between Palestine* and Lucille**.

Elsewhere in the Mountain State, a creative firestarter grabbed headlines when he microwaved gasoline.

A West Side man decided to microwave a can of gasoline in his kitchen after an argument early Friday morning, Charleston police said.

The resulting fire destroyed the house he rented, but nobody was injured.

(Charleston Gazette)

Take that, Mississippi! Don't you wish you could lead the nation in per capita gasoline microwaving mishaps?




*For those of you stumbling upon this after Googling "Palestine:" I am referring to a small town in the U.S. state of West Virginia. E-mailing me about politics in the Middle East and related topics will be a waste of your time.

**Random fact: My cat is named for this precise WC locale.