Announcement: O'Spawn Estates Open!

Subject: Announcement: O'Spawn Estates Open!
From: SDShad
Date: 09 Aug 01 - 07:20 PM

Been away from the 'Cat for a few days, due to: 1) administrative overreaction to the Code Red Worm and 2) we closed on a new house on Monday!

It's a marvelous ranch house with a large fenced-in lot (our dog loves it, although our old girl retriever passed away a couple of weeks before we got here :-( ), and plenty of spare crash-space and music-making space, so I decided to drop a quick note in a non-BS thread (musical content ahead), and issue the invitation to anyone undertaking a Bill/Allan style Mudcat trek to add us to your itinerary if you'll be travelling near South Dakota! Drop us a PM a bit ahead of time, and we can plan to invite other acoustic-and-folk-playing friends over for a dandy hootenanny. We can probably sleep as many as five guests if need be.

To be honest, the ability to so easily have real, live music in our home is one of the things we're happiest about. So join us some time, if you're in the area!

Chris & Beth

p.s. "The O'Spawn Estates," by the by, was the joking name we gave to our old, cramped rental home among another online community I've mentioned where I was known as Shadowspawn (or, at times, Shad O'Spawn). The name fits this joint better....

Subject: RE: Announcement: O'Spawn Estates Open!
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Aug 01 - 07:35 PM

Heya! Congratulations!!! (Sorry about your old girl passing away.) One question, have you got a/c?**BG** (Hot this week, eh?)

I thought your title was some Irish version of Spaw!LOL

luvyakat

Subject: RE: Announcement: O'Spawn Estates Open!
From: Noreen
Date: 09 Aug 01 - 07:39 PM

Thanks for the invite- next time I'm travelling near South Dakota I'll be sure to let you know!

Sounds a lovely place, enjoy it.

Noreen

Subject: RE: Announcement: O'Spawn Estates Open!
From: Allan C.
Date: 09 Aug 01 - 07:40 PM

Yeehah! Glad tidings, indeed! I hope to try again to be on your doorstep someday.

Subject: RE: Announcement: O'Spawn Estates Open!
From: SDShad
Date: 09 Aug 01 - 07:43 PM

Well ya know, sis, the Pioneering O'Spawns did pass through Ohio on their way to Iowa, and we do seem to have picked up some peculiar characteristics there.... :-)

And AC: Yes! Central. Good central. We've really appreciated it this week, although it makes us curse our old house all the more. I already sang "Uncle John's Band" and "Do Re Mi" in our nice, new, air-conditioned, spacious living room!

Chris

Subject: RE: Announcement: O'Spawn Estates Open!
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Aug 01 - 07:51 PM

YaHoo!! Sounds great! Mabbe yew could have a fambly reeyewneeon with them cuzzins from Ahia!

sis

Subject: RE: Announcement: O'Spawn Estates Open!
From: SINSULL
Date: 09 Aug 01 - 08:51 PM

Central air? Can I live with you. My ten cats won't be a problem - I promise. It's 102 here today and I am hoping to die.

Congratulations on your new home. Someone else will have to provide the "Bread, Salt, Wine" blessing. I will get electrocuted on my keyboard if I attempt a search - very sweaty!

Fill your home with love and music.

Subject: RE: Announcement: O'Spawn Estates Open!
From: Hollowfox
Date: 10 Aug 01 - 09:42 AM

Congratulations! Are you still in Vermillion? I was there in 1994, when the annual town band festival was going on.

Subject: RE: Announcement: O'Spawn Estates Open!
From: LR Mole
Date: 10 Aug 01 - 12:44 PM

House can sleep five? How many can it eat? (Thank you, Mr. Thurber).
All the best in your new digs. South Dakota, though? Is that one of those corn ones?

Subject: RE: Announcement: O'Spawn Estates Open!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 10 Aug 01 - 12:51 PM

Great news!

~S~

Subject: RE: Announcement: O'Spawn Estates Open!
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Aug 01 - 01:02 PM

Since you have Central and we may be related, expect my arrival soon.

Congrats Shad!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: Announcement: O'Spawn Estates Open!
From: SDShad
Date: 12 Aug 01 - 10:23 AM

Okay! We did the big move Friday night and Saturday, and now feel much more that we're really in our home. We still have piles of cleaning to do, an unfinished basement full of random junk, and some more toting of things I can carry by myself out of the house proper. But the overwhelming bulk of our stuff is moved over. Even with it all in boxes, it fells like home already.

Various replies:

Wella, Sins, we do have fairly big a golden retriever. If he's anything like his father on this, he'd absolutely love your cats, but I don't know how well most cats react to a seventy-pound dog wanting constantly to bathe them, play with them, and be their buddy. Then there's Beth's cat allergy, but there is always the old horse barn :-) (a glorified shed, really, but apparently when it was still legal to keep a horse in town, it was in fact used for that purpose). And indeed, "fill your home with love and music" is a major plan with us. A woman I sing with in the Gospel Buckaroos stopped by after we were done moving yesterday--she'd spent the day in divorce mediation with her soon-to-be ex, and needed to decompress. Bad, bad day for her. Didn't get around to making any music with her last night, but we did just talk with her and hang out, which is what I think she really needed at the time, so we covered the "love" part yesterday in the way we intend to for as long as we're here.

Noreen: hey, I've heard you sing on HearMe (gotta get PalTalk set up at home soon). We'd love to welcome you to our circle. And hey there, Kat, you know, you're a lot closer to SoDak than Noreen......

Allan--we've got to see if you can coax Bill into a prairie adventure again, too. But come on out your own self anyway. It's a warm feeling to know that we could put you up in some style the next time through.

Hollowfox: yes, still in Vermillion. The old Golden Age of Bands festival has morphed over the years into the Vermillion Summer Arts Festival, with acts like a steel-drum group, folk, gospel, bluegrass, and "Celtic" groups, taking place of the old brass band routine. Always fun. Stop on up (? down? left? right?--can't remember whereabouts you live) again some time.

Mole: no actual eatings confirmed yet. We've had one sleeping already, though. :-) And not only is SoDak one of the corn ones, it's the home of the world's only remaining Corn Palace, in Mitchell. Plus soy beans, wheat, ranches, etc. And badlands, mountains, and prairies. "Land of Inifinite Diversity" I think they used to say in the tourist literature.

Pat: we'd be honored to welcome you into our home; name the time and we'll have bells on. And--and!--we have exhaust fans in both bathrooms and ceiling fans in the dining room and kitchen, so thee and me are both safe so long as we don't cut one in the living room!

Susan: you and Hardi planning a westward trip again any time soon? We'd love to see you in 3D, and invite you to worship with us at our New-England-colonial-style Congregational church on any given Sunday....

Thank you all for your kind words. Hope to meet as many of you as possible here in the future.

Chris (Beth's still asleep....)