CRIME BLOTTER AND STEWBILEE

Last week was a slow week for crime, it seems. Not much was going on. A couple of things did catch my eye.

When a woman moved out of her boyfriend's house, he and her son got into a fight. After pointing a shotgun at her and threatening others in the house, he fled before police arrived. Later he came back. And poured grease onto her clothes. Hope she doesn't get hold of the shotgun!

In another item, a woman tried to shoplift a leopard print bra and underwear set by sneaking it out in another store's bag. Hey, how could anyone resist that leopard print?

And then an intoxicated man was talking on his cellphone outside a woman's house. He asked if she had a cellphone charger and she told him no. Then he came up and beat on her door while cursing. When he left, she went outside to find her keys missing from where she'd laid them on her porch railing. Don't think I'd have left my keys outside with a drunk stranger running around!

Finally, in another vein, we went over to the 15th annual Stewbilee this morning. There was one booth with games for the kids, other booths selling popcorn and snacks and drinks, one selling cupcakes, one doing henna tattoos, and a ton of portapotties lined up. There was also live music, a classic car show, and my favorite: the Pooch Parade of costumed doggies!

I almost forgot the Brunswick stew samples! It took us about an hour to try each offering. We went through 25-30 tiny sample cups and I don't think I want any more stew for awhile!

I'll have some pix on here in the next few days, but here's a sign from the beanbag toss.

UNKNOWN FLOWERS

I've asked this before but no one seems to know the answer. I guess I'll have to bestir myself and take some to the local garden club or something if no one recognizes these flowers.

These flowers are so thick, I thought this was a bush last year. But over the winter they died down to some flower stems. Nearly this entire space was bare. Below are a couple of closeups of the blossoms.

Anybody with any idea of what they are? I like them and sure would like to put a name to them!

LOCAL AUTHOR EVENT

Our Literary Guild (that used to be a Friends of the Library till they disbanded and reformed due to a conflict with the system library director at the time who is no longer in charge; in fact, our county formed our own separate system) put on an event to benefit local authors yesterday and invited twenty authors to participate. I was happily one of them. They set up tables at the Casino atrium for each of us to display and sell our books, furnished lunch, and generally catered to us for the four hours we were there. It was a lovely experience, easily one of the best put-together of its kind that I've attended.

Here are some pix. Yours Truly is in the first as we're setting up. I am fortunate my guy's done stuff like this. He made up the boards and set up the table and did all that. All I had to do was sit there. (Of course, since he practically forced me to participate since I am the shy, retiring type, I guess he felt like he had to make it easy.)

Then here's Dr. Christina Johns on the right. She's written a fictional semi-memoir.

Finally, here's Buzz Bernard. His book Eyewall, the story of a hurricane hitting St. Simons hit too close to home for me.

A fun day. Thanks go to all the volunteers who worked so hard to make it successful!

CRIME BLOTTER

Most of the local crime column has been the same old stuff. Man hits man, woman hits man, man hits woman, woman hits woman. But there were a few that caught my eye.

Two juveniles were returning a shopping cart but when they pushed it inside another cart, the front window of the business shattered. Evidently, the owner believed they were trying to do the right thing and declared it an accident. How nice!

In another a woman reported a friend of her boyfriend was at her house taking a shower, and she did not want him there. He was arrested for trespassing. Teach him to go where he's not wanted!

Then an officer responding to a burglary in progress call, found other officers making the suspect get on the ground. The homeowner said she didn't know the man and didn't want him in her residence so he was arrested for burglary. Guess the officer who arrived late had to do the paperwork!

Then there was the woman reporting another woman threatened to kill her. This happened when she asked the other woman to make her child stop playing on a public computer other people were waiting to use. Hmm. Wonder why she didn't slap the tar out of the child's mother instead of reporting her. On the other hand, she might have been one tough mama!

And my favorite: a woman reported her iPod missing. Seems she was riding in a car when a mouse started running around inside. She stopped -- I would have jumped out screaming, but I don't know what she did -- and two men stopped to help. They got the mouse out, but when she got back in, her iPod was missing. Guess they felt they deserved a reward for facing down that big, bad mouse!

I love our local paper's crime blotter column.

TRAVELS

We've been traveling again. Had a family reunion up in north Georgia and made a trip out of it. While we rode through some of the small towns, my guy took some pix of county courthouses.

My light mystery, TAXED TO THE MAX, features a courthouse murder. When I get the ebook rights next year, I plan to self-publish. My talented guy has been learning to do covers so I'm excited that he'll be using one of his photos for it.

Here are a couple he took on this trip. The first is in Washington, Wilkes County, GA. Built in 1904, the top part was destroyed by fire in 1958. Repairs gave it a flat roof and allowed it to be used until an approximate restoration of the top portion was done in 1989. The original clock tower was taller.

And this one in Lexington, Oglethorpe County, GA was constructed in 1887. It is the oldest Romanesque Revival style courthouse in Georgia :

LIZARDS

On the island, we have little lizards. Once when we were heading up to north Georgia, one hitched a ride in an indentation on the hood. About three hours into our trip, my guy noticed a little head bobbing up occasionally so we stopped and put him off in a grassy area. I hope the other lizards in his new environment were friendly.

Yesterday at breakfast, I was looking out the windows at the hummingbird feeder and saw what I thought was part of the jasmine vine on the bottom. Looking closer, I saw it was another lizard. The hummingbird kept zooming in around him and at him, but it didn't scare him off. He stayed all day. I guess he was catching insects. They're cute but pesky sometimes. Especially when they sing after dark.

LABOR DAY ACTIVITIES

We went up to Fort King George yesterday for their Labor Day events. I love their reenactments. Er, that is, their living history activities. (They get rather tetchy about us calling them reenactors.)

My guy got some nice pix. This first is showing how to play the children's game of Graces. A ribboned hoop is thrown by one person (using two sticks) and caught by another. Here the soldier is catching it. He and his lady playmate did a pretty good job.

Other games demonstrated were quoits (kind of like horseshoes only with rings), rolling the hoop with a stick, and nine-pins (kind of like bowling).

There was a blacksmith demonstration going on, too, and then a musket demonstration. And of course the obligatory cannon firing after a little lecture about the different projectiles (cannon balls, grapeshot, linked balls, mortars, canister, et cetera.

This was a small cannon, but it made a loud noise so they told us when to cover our ears. And there was a lot of smoke afterward!