2001-08-04
feeling kinda
birthday countdown: 15 days.
you know, the more i think about the sitting in the hammock thing, watching the house at night, the more i think about a Magritte painting. that's what it looked like - dark evening, light spilling out, just enough to see the house... i know i have it squirrelled away somewhere. will come back and update here when i find it, so you can see what i mean.
*urg* oh my lord... the guest bed in my parents house is like a slab of concrete. it seems comfy when you go to sleep. when you wake up? like you slept in a mortuary. eh. i always forget that i'll be in pain in the morning. one of these days, i think i'll just stay on the couch. remind me of that next time i say i'm going to my parents, okay?
had a nice morning antiquing with mom. it was rainy, so she suggested going over to the antique warehouse - it's not a warehouse, really, or, it is, but more of a collection of dealers. can't remember what they call it. anyway, it was a nice way to spend an hour or so. i went in looking for furniture. yeah, that's practical, right? like i could slog an end table home on the bus. :) here's the thing: i don't shop like a girl. i go on a mission. i decide what i want, and then go hunting for it. mom, i think, is not used to this. she was meandering around, peering at all sorts of things. so we meandered for a bit, and then i honed in on tables.
if you remember, i just got a new couch. this means all the other furniture is about to be replaced. i'd dearly love to find a nice antique (as in, at least not brand new) end table. i'm also in the market for a night stand. the one i have now is a spindly, braced on three sides, spool leg castaway. it's served me well, but i'd like to have something nicer. with, perhaps, a shelf for books. or a drawer. also - not a salvage piece.
i didn't find any of that. what i *did* find were a slew of ship models. funny, what jumps out at you. not that my recent fascination with boats has anything to do with this. ;) some of them were quite nice. there was a half hull of one of the America's Cup winners that would look nice on my mantel piece, if i had a mantel.
oooooo... oh, i did find one piece that i'd be more than happy to build a room around. it was a Swedish binnacle, in wonderful condition. a binnacle, in case you're not familiar, is a stand or case for a ship's compass. it comes from the Latin for 'little house'. there - doesn't that scare you, that i'm so into reference materials that i'll give you the Latin? *g* anyway, it was in wonderful condition, and it was soooo tempting. not $2500 tempting, mind you. but i did think about it.
even more tempting was the 1950s 'sip and smoke' set. it was a coffee cup with flared sides (picture a sugar cone with the bottom lopped off), and a matching saucer that looked like a fondue plate - figure eight sort of thing, with a round part for the cup and a round part as an ashtray. cracked me up - because it was such a throwback to when that's what you did in the office, drank coffee and smoked. it had a little picture on the side, and a slogan (which i've forgotten), and i laughed over it a lot. it was certainly a more affordable indulgence than the binnacle. but i didn't get it, in the end.
what i did get was a picture of a square rigger, another sugar chicken in amber glass, and a salt cellar, also in amber glass. i've wanted to start a collection of salt cellars for a while, and when i was looking, i debated long and hard between glass and china. finally decided that the china ones just didn't look right, and anyway they would never match up with my china place settings. so i went for the glass one. never did find a spoon i liked to go with it, but that will come later.
mom started to fade towards the end, and i worried about her, because we still needed to go to Peterson's to get groceries. she does okay for limited amounts of time out in public, and i didn't pay enough attention to that. when we were in Peterson's, she tried to insist on giving me money for the bus. i managed to distract her long enough to get her to forget that, but it still concerns me. hrm.
we did get thru the errand, and home in time to have some lunch while catching the first game of the Sox double header. mom is continually surprised that i like the game as much as i do. apparently, i was quite vocal about my *dislike* of it when i was a kid. hey, you grow up, things change. ;)
before i took off, dad showed me the spyglass he got when they were in Arizona. it's beautiful, with a braided leather cover. i also think he picked up the table compass then, too. it's gorgeous - brass, with a ship's wheel around the rim. and i swear that i saw a Naumkeg Indian peeking out of the bookcase - it was the logo for his dad's bank. it was interesting to hear dad talk about his family; also reminded me that i need to get cracking on the geneaology stuff, for a lot of reasons, not the least of which being dad's love/hate relationship with his family. he's excited to know all this now, but also suspicious that the DAR and Mayflower memberships somehow aren't real. i mean, you need to prove your lineage up the wazoo to get accepted. they don't just hand them out to any old Joe. so it should be fine, yes? somehow, he doesn't trust it. so for his satisfaction and curiosity, as well as my own, i really should do something soon.
headed off to the bus after that, and managed to stop into Clark's at South Station to catch the last few innings of the winning game. yee ha! that was lovely. they're that much closer to a sweep of the Rangers, my boys are.
then headed over to the Pavilion to work th Ringo Starr show. more details later, but at least let me say this: it's the first time i've ever seen the whole usher staff watch a sound check. Ringo took a bow after that, then said (in his adorable British accent, for which i have a weakness) 'thanks! there'll be a few more of you in a couple hours, eh?' *snicker* yeah. like, 5000 more.
stopped in at the Gs, my own personal Cheers, on the way home, and ran into Joel and Cary. (small segue: check out his site! if you never want to get ticketed again on street sweeping day, he's your man.) hadn't seen them in a while, so it was good to catch up with them. Cary finally has a diagnosis for what's been keeping her low the last few years - fibromyalgia. not wonderful news at all, but as she said, at least it's a quantifiable problem now, and they can come up with a plan to manage it. also had a great time talking to their friend David, who reminds me very much of someone else i know, altho i can't quite pin down who. we talked about Eddie Izzard, and Tolkein, and trivia, and all kinds of other silly things. made for a good, if long, night. managed to catch the score on the second game when i got home (whoo hoo! just one more game! go, boys!) and then crashed *hard*. the long weekend and the heat conspired to make me sleep like a rock. whoofdy.
