Hampton Roads, Virginia KittenBiscuits • 5d ago • 100%

Ghent Masquerade

ghentnorfolk.org

DETAILS: - Friday, October 25, 2024, 6:00-10:00pm - Colley Avenue between Shirley Avenue and Brandon Avenue (essentially in front of the Naro) Masquerade in Ghent is free and open to the public. Ample parking can be found along the streets and parking lots. - Pre-Judging for Costume Contest: 6:00pm - Parade: 6:30pm After the parade, get ready for a monster mash with live music. Plus, there will be activities for kids, refreshments and adult beverages.

Hampton Roads, Virginia KittenBiscuits • 5d ago • 100%

ZooBoo (21+ edition)

virginiazoo.org

DETAILS - October 25 @ 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT - Virginia Zoo - 3500 Granby St, Norfolk, VA 23504 Note: "For the wellbeing of our animals, all trails and the Goat Yard will be closed during the event." OP's thoughts: so what the hell is the point of going to the zoo when you can't walk around and see the animals? Well it looks like they will have other activities available to enjoy {laser tag, escape room, tarot readings, etc}, and TBF it will be close to dark when the event starts, so the animals really do need to come in to bed down for the night. The World of Reptiles will be open, and the train will be running. If you are a fan of the zoo grounds, then you'll enjoy this event. If not, then see my other post for Oct 25 events. ZooBoo Kid-Friendly dates are [Oct 19](https://virginiazoo.org/event/zooboo-7/) and [Oct 20](https://virginiazoo.org/event/zooboo-8/)

Halloween Lovers KittenBiscuits • 1w ago • 75%

Peekaboo!

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aww KittenBiscuits • 2w ago • 100%

Good morning, sunshine


Ask Lemmy KittenBiscuits • 3w ago • 95%

What is your favorite memory from spooky season?

Mine would be the time my dad rigged a harness and "hung" himself from the carport beam, dressed to look like a stuffed Halloween decoration. He would grab at the bigger kids and parents when they came up to the door for candy. Scared the living bejeezus out of them.

Husband sent me this pic that he found on the site formerly known as Twitter. I'm impressed that they either found sock yarn/#10 thread in dayglo yellow, or that they used basic cotton thread and found dayglo yellow fabric dye.

Mildly Interesting KittenBiscuits • 1mo ago • 95%

Whoopsiedoodle!

www.wtvr.com

 ...The semi was headed west when its raised bed slammed into the overhead sign near mile marker 200 as it approached the I-64/I-295 split. Virginia State Police said the crash happened shortly after 9:30 a.m. "The cab continued on and then stopped, obviously, because it had separated from the bed of the tractor-trailer," Matt Demlein, a spokesperson for Virginia State Police, said. "We're still investigating as to what led up to it actually hitting the sign. It was empty at the time." Troopers do not know why the bed was raised or how long it was up before the crash. But officials said the truck had stopped at a weigh station about a mile earlier, which is equipped with cameras...

No Stupid Questions KittenBiscuits • 3mo ago • 100%

How do I know when it's time to call the "honey wagon"?

This might fit better in the DIY group but here goes. How do I know when it's time to have the septic system pumped out? We had a new one installed 3 years ago. It was an upgrade in size. I'm not sure the capacity. It was negotiated to be done as part of our purchase contract, and the old owners didn't give us a copy of their contract with the installer. Just the inspector's report that plans were adequate for the number of bathrooms we have. There are only 2 of us. We don't put that much water into the system. But we've been having a LOT of rain. Over 5" in the last week and a half, and over 9" since Jul 1. Our elevation is between 1 and 4 ft (not a typo), so the water table is very close to the surface here. I'm getting periods of methane smell in the house off & on for about a month now. I've run water to make sure all the traps aren't empty. It's possible it could be coming from the vent stack for the washing machine, but it's not all the time. So with not a lot of use put into the system, is 3 years too early to have it pumped out? How can we tell?

ADHD Women KittenBiscuits • 4mo ago • 88%

What apps do you use to outsmart yourself?

I think I'm learning about myself that no single solution will be my miracle solution. I try things and they work for a bit, then it just wears off. Well I'm in that place where I'm fed up and looking to try something new. What apps or non-digital tools do you use to keep yourself on track?

Thrift Store Hauls KittenBiscuits • 4mo ago • 100%

DC woman learns her thrifted vase is authentic Mayan antiquity

Edit to add credit (it was there earlier, then somehow got lost): [https://www.npr.org/2024/06/21/nx-s1-5013645/mayan-vase-thrift-store](https://www.npr.org/2024/06/21/nx-s1-5013645/mayan-vase-thrift-store) For a long time, Anna Lee Dozier thought she had just stumbled upon a good deal. The Washington, D.C., resident paid about $4 for what she assumed was a reproduction of a Mayan vase. It turned out to be the real deal: an artifact that’s at least 1,200 years old from the ancient civilization. And now, it's headed back to its homeland. Dozier bought the vase about five years ago at the 2A Thrift Store in Clinton, Md. She was about to leave the shop when she spotted it on a clearance shelf by the checkout. "It did look old to me, but not old-old, like 20 to 30 years old, maybe," she said. Dozier, a human rights advocate with Christian Solidarity Worldwide who has worked with Indigenous communities in Mexico, said that the pottery was a special find even before she knew just how priceless it was. "I could see that it had some kind of link to Mexico, in terms of what it looked like, and since it's a country that I work on and it's really important to me, I thought it would be just a nice little thing to take home and put on the shelf and to remind me of Mexico," she said. Then, this past January, while on a work trip to the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, she saw on display Mayan vases that were strikingly similar. "Some of the things I was looking at looked awfully like what I had at home on my shelf," she said. "I still was dubious that it was real, but just thought it looked enough like that that I asked to speak to someone in the [museum] offices and just ask, if I had something of interest, what would be the process to authenticate that." She was told to contact the Mexican embassy, she said, which she did. After sending in photos and dimensions of the vase, she said she was told by Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History that she had an authentic piece of history on her hands: "I got an email saying, 'Congratulations — it's real and we would like it back.'" The vessel dates back to between 200 AD and 800 AD, according to the Mexican embassy in D.C., during the Classic period – what historians widely regard as the height of the indigenous Mayan civilization. On Monday, the Cultural Institute of Mexico in D.C. held a ceremony to mark the repatriation, with Mexico’s Ambassador to the U.S. Esteban Moctezuma Barragá in attendance. "I am thrilled to have played a part in its repatriation story," Dozier told local CBS station WUSA. "I would like it to go back to its rightful place and to where it belongs," she added, "but I also want it out of my home because I have three little boys and … I was petrified that after two-thousand years I would be the one to wreck it!" Now, it’s out of her house, and will be shipped to Mexico’s Museum of Anthropology and History before it’s sent to another museum in the country, the outlet reported. Dozier said she’s been asked why she didn't try to sell it or find out its monetary value. "Giving it back feels so much better than it would if I put it on eBay and I got a bunch of money,” she said. “It’s really important to recognize that some of these things, especially with such historical and cultural value to an entire country and people — you can't really put a number on that."

Nostalgia KittenBiscuits • 5mo ago • 76%

Old matchbooks I found at my grandmother's house

 

Local Lore KittenBiscuits • 8mo ago • 96%

Mahala Mullins: Catchable, but not fetchable

northeasttennessee.org

Imagine a moonshiner so notorious, so untouchable, that even the law couldn’t haul her in. Picture a whiskey queen who ruled from a rugged fortress in rural Tennessee, and that’s where history buffs will learn of the legendary Mahala Mullins. Catch-able, But Not Fetch-able Mahala Mullins wasn’t your average moonshiner. In fact, through the mid-1800s she was one of the most notorious bootleggers and sellers of illicit whiskey in Tennessee. It wasn’t that the government didn’t know about her. They did. It’s just that, whenever they came to arrest her, they couldn’t quite get her out of the house and down the rugged Appalachian Mountains. Records report that she had a dozen warrants for her arrest, and numerous treks by officers were made through the 16 miles of remote Hancock County backwoods to her cabin. So even if the revenue agents made it all the way up to her house, they’d never be able to lug her back down. Because of this, lawmen would say she’s “Catch-able, but not Fetch-able” due to her tipping the scales at more than 600 pounds. Mullins would even taunt them by saying, “Take me if you can.”  Working from Home Sometime after giving birth to her 19th child, Mahala was infected with elephantiasis, which permanently enlarged her. Eventually, she grew too large to move from bed. And from her bedside, she’d pour and sell whiskey in large quantities to locals, confident in her immunity from any sort of punishment. At the time, moonshine was noted as a way to “let loose,” medicinal, a cleaning agent, or a preservative. Mahala’s famous pear brandy brought in customers from all across the mountains. Mullins was too large to be moving around the home. So, she took on the entrepreneurial mountain woman spirit of conducting operations that supported her large family from her bedside. She was often open in saying that it was not wrong for her to make a living in that manner. Mahala’s cabin was a special reserve for her, as her husband and sons had lost their lives in mountain fights and were buried in the backyard so that she could gaze at their gravesites from her bedside. Mullins always seemed to be confined to the mountaintop ridge in which she lived, having spent her childhood and adult life within a three-mile radius, never venturing to town or seeing a railway train. However, she delighted in visitors and conversations, having been known for telling a great story and offering cookies and milk to her guests. Around age 75, Mullins passed away and was removed from her cabin through a hole that is now occupied by a chimney. She was buried in her four-poster bed beside her late husband and sons along the ridge on the homestead. Melungeons in Appalachia Mullins was also noted as one of the most famous Melungeons of her time. Melungeon is a term that first appeared in print in the 19th century, used in Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina to describe people of mixed ancestry. The Hancock Couny area was known to host one of the largest populations of Melungeon people in the country. Melungeons were considered to have a mixture of European, Native American, and African ancestry. And, Mahala Mullins was just as about as mysterious as her heritage.  Mahala Mullins Cabin The cabin has been relocated to town and into a museum that tells the story of Mahala and the area. Vardy Community Historical Society 3845 Vardy Blackwater Road Sneedville, TN 37869

Asklemmy KittenBiscuits • 1y ago • 100%

What is the weirdest thing that your family does together?

When I was a kid, it'd have to be Memorial Day. All the extended family would convene at the old family cemetery to decorate the graves. That isn't the weird thing... the weird thing was we treated it as a family reunion and picnicked together among the head stones.

camping KittenBiscuits • 1y ago • 100%

Where have you been camping so far this summer?

I camp in a travel trailer, and have done 2 road trips so far with the hubby. First trip was Savannah>St. Augustine>Charleston. We were short on choice in Savannah and stuck with a KOA sandwiched between Hwy 17 and 95. It... was a safe place to park and the showers were decent, I'll give it that. The campground in St Augustine was out on the barrier islands and just a whole old Florida vibe (North Beach Camp Resort). I loved the privacy between spots, and the 2 restaurants within waking distance. Not cheap, and not normally our thing, but it was our anniversary. On our way back north we stopped in Charleston at a city park that had a campground (James Island County Park) . It was perfect y'all. Affordable, in/out privileges with a gate code after hours, a lake and a water park on site, wooded campsites with full hookups, and didn't feel crowded even though it was relatively full. Our second road trip was to a music festival that took us through West Virginia. We stayed in a couple of state parks passing through, and I definitely want to go back in the fall. WV just has beautiful parks, and I got a good dose of "felt like home" even though I'm from southwestern VA. Being on the east coast, I wish we had more prevalent places to boondock such as BLM land. Sure we've got logging roads in National Forests, but there is also a lot of privately owned property peppered through the forests I'm familiar with, and I'm nervous I'm going to piss someone off by trespassing. So where all have you been this season? Hit me with ideas!