A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

Or the blog.

Or whatever.

So I've been a little off-schedule of late.  Maybe you didn't really notice.  Who am I kidding?  Of course, you noticed.  Still, it wasn't as bad as this time last year.  I've just gotten beat out of sorts by life, the booth, and the big picture.  Especially the big picture.

I was really intending to get back on track this week, with an on time Monday Rambles post and everything.  I thought it was all going to work out.  And then insomnia struck.

It happens to me from time to time.  Sometimes, I just can't sleep.  Just. Can't. Sleep.  Usually, I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep, so I end up messing around on the computer for a couple of hours (if I'm lucky) or the rest of the night.  The general rule for me is that if it hits between midnight and two, I still have a shot of getting a couple hour's worth of sleep.  If it's after three, I'm probably up for good.

Sunday night, I never got to sleep at all.  I was up all night long.

I answered math problems on the computer.  I took a Spanish grammar test online.  I wrote emails.  I took a quiz and learned that, if I were a cupcake, I'd be strawberry with buttercream icing and rainbow sprinkles.  Then I took another quiz and learned that in a past life I was Eleanor of Aquitaine.  (Which really explains a lot, now that I think about it.)  I did some genealogy work, filling in some gaps on my father's side of the family.

In fact, I did everything but actually work on a blog post, for reasons that I certainly don't understand and cannot articulate.(I think it might have something to do with not wanting to mess up my sprinkles. Or maybe it was the regal sounding voice in my head that kept saying, "Eleanor of Aquitaine does not type.  She dictates.")

Anyway, my plan for Monday was to get out early, go to the booth, work for a few hours, head back to Louisville, and then meet Keith at an immigration rally.  However, at the time that I really should have been hopping in the shower, it finally hits me---I'm now tired.  Really tired.  And sleepy.

I probably should have powered on through it, but I'm not as young as I used to be and I haven't pulled an all-nighter in decades.  I was afraid of falling asleep on the bus and waking up in a corn field in Southern Indiana. Eleanor told me that simply would not do.

So I calculated out how long I could lay down and still catch a late morning bus and get a little work in before having to head back. And then I set an alarm and laid down, with Chiquito, and the cupcake and Eleanor.

Being a middle-aged man with a middle-aged man bladder, I had to get up and pee well before the alarm went off.  As I walked through the kitchen to the bathroom, I heard this really faint, really quick beeping sound.

beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep

It's the alarm panel from our old house alarm.  We had to give up the alarm service when we gave up the landline phone a few years ago. The pad is still there, but the battery is supposed to be dead and it's inactive.

For the past few weeks, though, it's been doing this beep thing at odd times.  There have been at least three such incidents.  We have no idea what's causing them, but if someone punches the "off" button, it stops.

I don't have my glasses on, so I lean in really close and punch what I think is the "off" button.

And all HELL breaks loose.

The actual alarm--the house alarm which has been inactive for a long time--goes off.  The house alarm.  The one that's loud enough for the neighborhood to hear.

WHOOP!WHOOP!WHOOP!WHOOP!WHOOP!WHOOP!WHOOP!WHOOP!WHOOP!

It was like that only way, way louder than you could ever imagine it.

Chiquito starts freaking out.  Sprinkles start flying off the cupcake.  Eleanor becomes immediately as nonplussed as only a medieval English queen with a scheming husband and brood of vipers for children can.  And I still have to pee.

And now it gets interesting.

The alarm itself--the part that's making this ungodly racket---is in the corner of the junk room.  The far corner.  And the junk room is, as junk rooms, are prone to be, full of junk.  Literally full.  It's where the booth stuff that isn't in the shed or in storage ends up.

I have been working diligently in recent days at cleaning and clearing it out.  I take a bunch of stuff over to the booth several times a week.  I have thrown a few bags of trash out and gotten some of the rest organized, but it is by no means done.  The infernal, blaring thing is by not the least bit accessible without spending a half day that I obviously don't have moving shit around.

So I, still with no glasses, try punching the old codes into the keypad.  The main code won't work.  The back-up code we gave my mother doesn't work.  The code for the old cat-sitter doesn't work.  Punching it doesn't work.  Trying to pull it off the wall doesn't work.  It won't budge.

I cannot see well enough to find a hammer.

Now, I'm starting to get worried that the neighbors are calling the police.  Who will come to the house.  And see my junk room.  And me.  With no glasses.  In my undies.

Eleanor tells me that it is beneath her royal personage to cooperate with the local constabulary.  Chiquito is nowhere to be found.  The cupcake is curled up in the corner crying and getting those damn sprinkles everywhere.

I have no choice.  I have to brave the junk room.

I decide that maybe I can climb over all the boxes and tubs and get to the screaming thing from hell.  bear in mind that I still don't have my glasses on.  I'm in my underwear.  And I still have to pee.

I set foot on the bottom box of a small stack, thinking that if I can get on top of the stack, I can just kind of roll along the tops of the boxes.  Or something.  Eleanor starts laughing uncontrollably at the thought, but she's being no help, so I ignore her.

As I pull my self up, the bottom box collapses, making the two on top of it fall all around me, scattering stuff everywhere, basically undoing a lot of the cleaning I have done in there.  I manage to keep my balance, but it's becoming pretty clear that I am going to have to pee in the next couple of seconds or my innards are going to pop open.

At my wit's end, I look towards the corner of the junk room and scream as loud as I can:

"WILL YOU FUCKING STOP????"

Believe it or not, that works.  The noise stops.  I go pee.

When I come back Eleanor tells me that a simple "Desist!" would have sufficed.  I tell her to shut her worthless royal ass up, and she huffs out of the room muttering something about having the cupcake for tea.  I haven't seen either of them since.

Then I get to really worrying about the cops.  What if they come bursting in and shoot me thinking I'm some sort of underwear bandit?  Maybe I shouldn't have pissed Eleanor off quite so soon.

So I sit down on the bed, get my phone and start to call Keith.  And the alarm I set to wake me up goes off.  And now I'm just about on the verge of tears.  I call Keith and tell him the whole story.  He assures me the cops won't be coming and tells me to forget the booth and get some sleep.

Which I do.

And the cops never come, which now makes me worry that I have the most indifferent neighbors who would ignore my screams of terror when the serial killer gets me.

And I have been playing catch up ever since.

Now you know why there haven't been any blogs this week.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Eddie-tor's Note:  We contacted Eleanor of Aquitaine to verify her involvement in the incident, but she denied any knowledge of it.  "Do I look like the sort of medieval English queen who would be the past life of a foul-mouthed peasant who runs around in his undergarments?" she said, as she brushed a few rainbow sprinkles off her gown.  The cupcake was unavailable for comment.  Calls to Chiquito went unreturned.  The neighbors wouldn't answer their doors. It is highly possible that these might be the ravings of a madman.

Monday Rambles

Oh my!  Where to begin?  Is it another week already?  Why, yes.  Yes, it is!  Ugh!

My main stressor from these past couple of weeks is still hanging out there, like some kind of Sowrd of Damocles waiting to smash down on my cute little head.  It has receded a bit, though, so it's not quite so pressing and threatening.  It's not ruiung my present right now, even though it's still threatening to make a mess in the future.  I've got a little more prep time before that hits, so it might not be as bad.  I still can't talk about it in detail, because others are involved and I don't yet have their okay.  I'd certainly appreciate your thoughts and support in the days ahead.  I'll spill the beans when I can.

I spent Friday in an all day training for work that actually turned out to be more useful than I thought it would be.  Of course, putting it into practice will be a lot more difficult than it seemed in the sanitary training environment.  Things get so much messier when you involve real people.

I worked at the booth all day on Saturday, so no sales to report.  I think this weekend will be a work on the house weekend, so most likely no yard sales then either, although I will probably hit a few in the neighborhood.

My sales at the booth did slow down a tad when the double whammy of school and the fair hit, but not nearly as badly as in the past.  In fact, I am running way ahead of even the past couple of months!  This could be another record month, unless things bottom out in the last half of the month.  Even if that happens, I'll still have a good month, thanks to the strong first half.

Posts will most likely be light this week.  There's just too much going on at the booth and work. I may sneak a photo post in, if I can.

My query from yesterday still stands.  Anyone who can tell me what that thing is on about will be deemed by me as a wise person for the ages.  However if we never figure it out, my favorite answers so far are Pat ('homocidal tendencies") and Lynn ("belly buttons").  Lynn actually had the same idea I did!

Happy belated birthday to Shara, who celebrated with a couple of celebrities and, um, a dead person!    

Do you wanna know?

Do you wanna know what my favorite movie of all time is?

This one:



Obligatory song:



Do you wanna know which movie I've seen more times than any other?

This one:



Obligatory song:



Do you wanna know which movie reduces me to a crying mess every time I see it?

This one:



Sorry, but I could not find a subtitled version of the trailer.  Basic synopsis:  Priest falls in love with a young woman from a well-to-do family in his parish in Argentina during a time of political repression in the mid-1800's.   Things don't end well.

More info.

And also this one:



The last scene gets me every time.   Even now.

Do you wanna know which movie I could watch over and over without getting tired of it?

This one:



Odd choice, I know, but I've been fascinated by it ever since I saw it for the first time.  Here's more info about it.

And here's that wonderful song:



What about you?

I am in the land of the living

My dog/house sitting ventures usually take me off the grid for a few days, so I apologize.  I've been house-sitting for various folks for nearly two decades now.  Usually, it's folks who don't like leaving their pets alone and pay for someone to stay with them.  A lot of times their animals needs meds or have special feeding times or need lots of walks or some other special need.  They tend to prefer having their babies at home, rather than in a kennel, because it's less stressful on the pet.

Most of my clients have moved away over the years, so I'm down to this one, and I go over their a couple of times a year.  When I started, she had an aging dog who has since passed on.  Shortly after that, she took in her father's cocker spaniel, who is blind and deaf.  (I stayed at her house for a couple of months a few years ago while her father was in the final stages of cancer.)

It's always fun to stay over there.  It's kind of like a mini-vacation.  I tend to get a lot of relaxing done, because I'm not surrounded by things that need doing around here.  I watch movies and read comics.  And nap.  A lot.

One thing I don't get done is a lot of online things, like blogging.  In the past, I have had little to no wireless access there.  I did discover that the internet access there at the house has been upgraded, but I didn't realize it until my last afternoon there.  I could have been keeping up with things!  Next time, I'll know.

Anyway, that's where I've been this time.  I'll try to get things up to snuff around here over the next week.  After I finish dealing with my own clingy kitties, of course.  They get really needy when I come back after being gone for a while!

Closing Time

The liquor store down the street from us seems to have closed.  When I say "right down the street,"  I mean it.  It's three doors from our house.  Ordinarily, I wouldn't be commenting on something like this.  Liquor stores are not places I normally frequent.  Family-owned, neighborhood-based businesses, though, are an interest of mine, especially those with a long history.  All of that describes this place to a "T."

The beer advertising in the windows has been replaced by curtains.  The lights are out.  There's a notice on the front door about where to deliver mail.  The really cool big neon sign of the beer bottle popping its cap has been taken down.  When I first came to Louisville, it used to still work, but over the years, it kind of deteriorated.  It was still kind of a neighborhood landmark.

This was just a little mom and pop business, the kind where the family lived upstairs or in the back of the business.  The elderly woman who owned it still lives in the building.  I don't know a lot about the history, but I'm pretty sure she kept the business going after her husband died.  When I used to have to catch an early bus to work, I'd see her coming out of the back of the building to open the business up.  I used to wonder then what kept her going.  Now, I'm kind of hoping that the decision to close was her own, not something forced on her by doctors or her children.

The closing of this little corner liquor store won't attract big attention or news.  In fact, I'm not sure myself how when it happened and I walk by the place every day.  I just happened to notice the curtains the other day.  Like I said, these kind of places interest me, because there are fewer of them left all the time.  The little Dairy Dell not far from us has a for sale sign up.  I guess you could say that it's a sign of the times we live in, but it's hard not to be a little nostalgic, or maybe a little wistful, when a place like that closes.

Places like that were once touchstones for neighborhoods.  Longtime residents dropped by for a visit or to catch up on gossip.  Those kinds of businesses were anchors and landmarks.  Even when I was a kid, you could find dozens of them everywhere.  I'm not trying to make any to make any kind of grand statements here about anything, at least not this time.  I definitely do have my opinions and biases, but for right now I'm just feeling a little reminiscent about a place I never visited, but was always there, just three doors down.

And then I peek above the curtains and see all the classic beer promotional items that are still hanging on the walls and my inner junker kicks in:  What's going to happen to all that cool stuff?  And the cycle goes on.

 

Ephemeral

A little while ago, I got a message on my phone telling me I was running out of storage space.  I've gotten in the habit of just whipping out my phone when I need to take a pic for the blog or Craigslist or whatever.  I usually snap several, just to make sure one of two come out okay.

I've got Dropbox installed, so the pictures I take on my phone automatically upload to my PC.  I still prefer to do what minimal photo editing I know how to do on the computer.  I get a little better control than with my fat thumbs on my phone.  Since I use the copies on the PC, all those photos have been kind of piling up on my phone, until I started to run out of space.

I ended up spending a few minutes here and there deleting things I had already used and had no reason to keep.  Do I really need that pic of a Little Tikes table that sold nearly a year ago?  Uhm, that would be a no.  Digital spring cleaning--gotta free up those megabytes!  When I was done, it struck me just how many pictures I had deleted.  It had never dawned on me just how often I grab my phone and snap away. 

I can remember when pictures were things you took at parties and on vacation, and not something you did willy nilly every time you saw a broken phone or some interesting graffiti.  (Which reminds there's a bit of "wall art" down the street I want to snap.)  I'm not being old curmudgeon dude here when I say this.  In fact, I love the freedom and flexibility this little gadget gives me, not to mention the blog content.  Hardly a day goes by that I don't use it.  I'm just surprised at how impermanent all those pics are now.  I use them and I toss them.  Done.

Junkers are used to dealing with what is called "ephemera."  Some specialize in it.  You see boxes of it at nearly every estate sale:  receipts, letter, bills, old brochures,  maps, old cards, notes, postcards, and, yes, even pictures.  Printed materials in other words.  Stuff on paper.  The term "ephemera" speaks to the fragility of paper, its impermanence.  It rips and tears.  It rots.  It burns.  Lots of it doesn't last.

Another definition for ephemera is this:  Things that are useful only for a very short time.  in that sense, all those photos clogging my phone (and probably lots and lots of other phones) are truly ephemeral.  That couch I just posted to Craigslist?  Don't need it any more.  That funny dog I just put on Facebook?  Done with it.  That plate of food I just Instagramed?  Burp.

I don't know that I have any kind of point to this at all.  It just struck me as interesting.  So does this image:  Forty years from now the junkers are pawing through a box of old cell phones and tablets at a yard sale, hoping to strike gold and find one that still has tons of pictures on it.  The box is labelled:  "ephemera."

It could happen.

More Car Deja Vu

Okay, so as I'm writing this (on Wednesday), Keith called me to tell me that the insurance company just called him to tell him there was more damage to the car than previously suspected, so they are declaring it totaled.  Shit.  No idea what we are gonna do now.

The worst thing about this is not that it's the second time it happened to us (within the space of a few months, yet), but that it's the third (or fourth depending on how you count)!  Yes, you read that right.  We've actually lost a total of  five vehicles (if you count the rental) to the shooting gallery that is our street.

We're not alone in this, other neighbors have lost vehicles or had them damaged.  Nearly everyone has a story.  We know because we've heard them.  In the middle of the night.  While we're standing around looking at the wreckage of yet another of our vehicles.  Us?  We're kind of legends in the neighborhood.  Not just for it happening twice in the span of two months, but for the time it happened twice in the same weekend!

I know we have some photos somewhere, but that was several PC's and cameras ago.  We printed some hard copies, and I've rummage around for them, but can't seem to find them.  If I ever do, I'll add them to this post.  Until then, you'll just have to take me at my word.

It was less than a year after we bought the house, so it happened in the days before this blog.  It was over a decade ago, in fact.  It was the dead of night.  It always is when this shit happens, it seems.  We were fast asleep, but were awakened by a pounding on the door.  We opened it to see a crowd of folks standing there.  The woman in front said:  "Baby, your car just got hit."  My first thought was:  "Oh shit.  I'm standing here in my underwear."

It happened on a warm summer night, so there were several people out and about who witnessed the accident, despite it being about three in the morning.  The car was wrapped around the tree, kind of like my truck was in November.  That poor tree has had more than its share of automobiles draped around it.

The witnesses said that the guy hit the car so hard he did a 180 and sped off on the wrong way down our one way street.  He did stop his car a few blocks later and call and report to the cops that he had hit our car.  He claimed that he was being chased and had to speed away.  No other cars were seen that night.  Because of his story, we had a bit of a wrangle with his insurance company to get everything covered, but they did, including a rental.  This was on Friday.  The accident happened in the wee hours of Friday morning and we got the rental that evening.

We spent the day Saturday running errands and shopping, then came home and did our usual stuff and went to bed.  In the early hours of the morning, I got up to use the bathroom and as I was getting back into bed, I heard a terrible BOOM! outside our house.  We opened the door to see the same crowd of faces. (I had taken the time to put on pants this time.)

A very drunken driver had sped up on to the curb at the liquor store three doors down from us.  For some reason, no one was parked between us and that corner that night.  He ran into a couple of street signs, one of which ended up in front of our house, and slammed into the rear of the rental, completely slamming it into the other wreck.  The rental was a tiny ball of stuff that used to be a car.

Our first thought:  "Oh shit.  It's a rental."  Keith got on the phone with the rental company and they told us that we were okay, because we had taken out the insurance coverage they offer when you rent a car.  They sent a tow truck, who got the car and we never heard another word about it from them.  Ever.

Fortunately, one of the witnesses got a license plate number and gave it to me, so the cops were able to chase the guy down.  In a weird turn of fate, the dude was a cousin of someone I worked with at the time!  It was an interesting discussion in the breakroom that day over lunch.

Our car was, of course, totaled.  Due to its age, we didn't get much for it, so we bought a used Volvo station wagon from the late 80's, which we ended up loving to pieces.  The air didn't work, but it was one of the most fun cars we have ever owned.  I keep telling Keith that we ought to just get another Volvo this time around and be done with it.

We got one other thing out of this, our status as the crash kings of the neighborhood.  People still come up to us and ask us if we're the ones that lost two cars in a weekend.  It's been a topic of conversation twice in front of our house in recent months.  Needless to say, it's a conversation I never want to have under those circumstances again.

I'm about to renew my assault on City Hall about this.  I spoke to our Councilman at a neighborhood meeting a few years ago, but nothing really happened, so I don't have high hopes.

Our street is narrow with no offstreet parking, so that makes it narrower.  There's a long stretch without a stoplight, which only encourages speeding.  To make matters worse, there's a slight hill and a small curve as you come into our stretch of road, which not only reduces driver visibility, but also sets a trajectory so that anyone going too fast who loses control is aimed at the cars on our side of the street.  I want a light or a stop sign put in at the corner.  I'd settle for a damn speed bump.

When I spoke at the Councilman's meeting, there were reps from various departments there.  He asked the public safety woman about putting a speed bump, and she replied that they don't do speed bumps, they only do "speed humps."

Hell, I'd settle for one of those. Whatever the difference is.

Yeesh.

Monday Rambles

All right.  Let me try to work around the unfortunate events of Saturday night to get back to regular blogging.  Keith is staying home today to deal with the insurance stuff and get a rental.  I'm not going to work due to snow, so I'm going to the booth and hoping for the best.  It doesn't look to us like the car is as badly damaged as last time, but we're not experts in this kind of thing.  (Although at this point maybe we should be.)  We're holding out hope that it can be repaired.

It's going to be cold and snowy (already) this week, but not sub-zero, single digit stuff like earlier.  I think I can live with that.  It actually got a little warmer towards the end of last week.  Thursday I was prancing around extolling the virtues of a bright, sunny day and thinking it had to be in the 30's at least.  I was kind of shocked to find out it was only 13!  Even 13 feels like a heat wave after weeks of single digit blues.

My doctor called in some anti-biotics for me, so my throat is finally clearing up.  It's about time too!  It was so bad Tuesday that I could barely talk.  I am doing much better now, although I still get pretty hoarse after talking for a long time. 

Tomorrow night is going to be a special night.  I'll write more about that in tomorrow's blog.  It's something I've been looking forward too since November.  We'd better get that rental!  (But if I have to walk, well, I sure as hell will!  Even with all the snow!)  Ain't missing this one.  No way.  No how.

Congratulations to Heidi on her new baby!

We did get out on Saturday (before the wreck, obviously) and hit a couple of estate sales and a church sale.  I'll have a rundown on the finds later in the week.  Everything is in storage at the booth right now.  I'll snap some pics while I'm pricing everything.

Next week, I was supposed to be off work during the day, but I managed to finagle a few hours in a another area.  I'm looking forward to the change, actually.  I'm glad I was able to work that out.  I'm still smarting a little from an extra week's closure at Christmas, plus the snow days we had in January.

Now. to close out, I have a bit of a quandry.  My favorite local comic shop is part of a regional chain with branches in Nashville and Bowling Green.  Last weekend they had a "Five and Dime" sale at one of the Nashville stores, where items were 5 and 10 cents.  Usually, once they have a special sale at one store, they'll follow up by rolling the same sale around to the other branches.  Thing is, I badly want to see this sale here in town.  Would it be really tacky to call them and see if it's going to happen or should I just be patient? 

Looking Back

Happy 2014, everyone!  It's too early to tell what the year will hold, of course, but I can say with all certainty that I'm starting the year out in a better place than I was this time last year.  It's definitely better to be up and around on New Year's Eve than it is to be in a hospital, even if you aren't a big party person.  (I'm not.)

One last super-huge thank you to all of you for playing such a huge role in my recovery.  You can never know how much your emails and comments meant to me.  This blog helped me keep my sanity during a tough time.  I'm glad I had you all to share it with.

I guess I'll never be able to look at 2013 without remembering all the chemo, needles, nausea and such, but other things happened too:

I expanded my booth in one store and made the hard decision to close out at another venue.
I took a road trip and ended up engaged!
My grandfather passed away.
I got a storage space for some of this junk.
Both our vehicles got totaled in front of our house.  (I need to fill you all in on the resolution to that little saga.)
I bought lots of junk.  I sold some of it.
I started a Secret Project, which will be revealed very soon.
I made a friend.
I laid a festering former friendship to rest for good.
I met a junking celebrity.
I got new glasses!  And a haircut!  And older!
And I finally made it to 1,000 posts!

 And that, as they say, was the year that was.  I have some things to say about the year just starting, but they'll have to wait for another time.  I have a Secret Project to attend to.

Thursday Rambles

Oh dear!  I missed Monday!  I had the day off and spent it with my uncle and then at the booth, getting Xmas stuff up.  I'll have some pics of the finished product in a few days, when it's all done.  In the meantime, enjoy some rambling.

Oh the humanity!  (Part I)

I got on the bus the other day and the driver said his fare box was broken, so no one had to pay.  I use monthly passes, so it's not that big of a deal to me.  The woman behind me had cash and the following ensued:

Woman:  I need a transfer, please.
Driver:  I can't give you one.
Woman:  Why not?
Driver:  Because you haven't paid.  I can't give a transfer when you don't pay.
Woman:  You said not to.  Here.  (Tries to give him  the money.)
Driver:  I can't take that and the fare box is broken.  Just get on.
Woman:  But I need a transfer!
Driver:  I'm sorry.  I can't give you one when you can't pay.
Woman:  How am I going to get on the next bus?
Driver:  (Points to the dollar in her hand.)
Woman:  Oh.  (Goes and sits down.)

Oh the humanity! (Part II)

We're out looking for Halloween clearance items during my birthday shopathon.  Keith is waiting in the car, and I am wheeling a cart out from the store when I see them:  Vultures!  Waiting for a parking spot!  Our parking spot!  One woman is holding up a couple other cars in order to swoop into our spot when we vacate it.

I unload my cart and then take my cart to the cart corral.  And she HONKS HER HORN AT ME!  Apparently, I am not moving fast enough to suit her.  My response is to slow down.  I don't mind people waiting for a spot and the lot is pretty full.  But honking at me is behavior I don't tolerate.

I get back to the car, walk over to the driver's side and say to Keith:  "We need to have a pretend conversation because that woman (I might have used another word here) honked her horn at me."  He looks and me and says:  "Really?  I think I need to look at something in the back."  He gets out of the car and we go to the back and he grabs something out of a bag and we pretend to examine it.

By now, she's got a line of four or five cars stretching out behind her and they are honking at her.  She roars off, the line breaks up, we get in the car and leave.

Oh the humanity! (Part III)

I'm in one of the other Peddlers Malls as part of my birthday shopping extravaganza.  It's the day after Halloween and they are playing Christmas music and I am totally hating it.  Totally!  I mean, it's barely November, people!  As I'm shopping, I start hearing other people complaining about it.  Over and over.  Eventually, they start getting on my nerves more than the music is.  At that point, I decide that maybe I like the music after all.

I had a wonderful birthday, as you can see here.  This is me in the process of turning 49.  I think that's my "I'm turning 49" face. (Although it might be my "I really need a haircut" face.  They're kind of similar.)

We went to dinner at my favorite restaurant.  The food was fabulous!  We only go there a few times a year, so it stays really special for us.  It's the "go to" place for happy celebrations!  Guess who my birthday present was?  Yes, I did say "who."

Here's a hint:

Get it?  Here's another hint:

They're gonna be here in February and guess who got tickets as a birthday gift?  (No hints this time.)  I'm over the moon, whatever color it is!  According to folks on the Emmylou mailing list I belong to, it's a fabulous show.

Speaking of birthdays,the extravaganza shopping was not quite all it was cracked up to be.  I found a few things here and there, but not much.  Perhaps my best two purchases were this vintage Santa blow mold:

He's an Empire, dated 1968.

And these:

Santa's a little more interesting than previously believed.

I did get some other stuff, but nothing blog-worthy.

The Halloween clearance hunt was a little rougher than usual this year, for some reason.  Most of the Walgreens did like two days at 50% off, then shipped it all off.  Every other place kept their stuff at 50% forever before dropping it to 75% off.  There's no profit margin at 50% when you consider that you're going to have to sell it for a little less than the stores will have their stuff at next year.  You can do that and make a healthy profit, especially in bulk, but you have to get it cheaply.  That means at least 75% off.

I saw a few too many booths during the birthday shopping that not only didn't really have a handle on this concept, but they were trying to sell their Halloween stuff at more than the regular retail stores were!  They also had tons of stuff left over.  All I had was this:

 It actually looks like more than it is.  None of those tubs are completely full, due to the odd size of some of my leftovers.  I had over 80% sell through, which is really good.  Not to worry for next year, I finally did hit a well-stocked Target with tons of 75% off stuff:

Cashiers do not like to see me coming!

 Now I just have to price and store it all.  A junker's work is never, ever done!

Speaking of junker's work, here's a preview of the Christmas set up at the booth:

Charlie Brown trees UNITE!

In other booth news, the end table Albatro$$ sold!  And I didn't lose money on it, as it was marked down to my cost.  I was so excited, I did the Happy Dance at the booth.  And then I put the Deliverance Desk in its old spot.

Lastly, there's been a new development in the phone saga.  I think it's trying to return the kindness shown to it during its time of need.

I can remember when phone calls were 10 cents!

I've kind of got a lot to do right now, with the holiday transition and Thanksgiving prep and all, but I should still keep blogging.  Look for the return of the vintage Christmas cards right after Thanksgiving.  I've got a ton of them, so I'll probably so several each day.  I've got some scanning to get to!

Floored

This past weekend, I did a bit of pet-sitting.  There's this adorable dog that I have minded for a while when his owner is out of town.  He also lived with two kitties, and I look after them too.  I sued to give him an afternoon walk, but I had to stop that for the surgery, and I've been waiting to see how the longer-term of the treatment affects me before I start back with that.

Pet-sitting, though, is like watching TV in someone else's house, except you have to get up and let the dog out from time to time.  I figured it was low impact enough that I could still handle it, so I said I would do it.  Plus, I've been missing the little fellow.  He's a sweetie.

One thing I forgot was how many steps the place has!  It was okay in the morning, but at the end of the day, I had a hard time hauling it up there.

It's a beautiful spacious older home, and the owner is slowly re-doing it, as time and money permit.  A little while ago, the carpet in the guest bedroom (where I sleep) got pulled up.  Guess what was underneath it?

Don't you love it?  It's one solid sheet of linoleum, from the 1920's to judge by the pattern.  It needs a good clean and shine, and those paint spots have got to be removed, but I am totally fascinated by it.  I love the pattern and the colors.  I could stare at it for hours.

If it were mine, I'd be hauling out the Mr Clean and the scraper and bringing that baby back to its former glory, for sure!  My pics don't do it justice.  The colors are bright and bold.  Yes, the pattern is a tad busy, but that's part of its overall charm.

I know that one day it will be gone, either pulled up and replaced or covered over by carpet once again.  It's inevitable.  I, for one, will be very sad when that happens.  At least I've got some pics.

The Challenge of Chiquito

You can sing the title of today's post to this tune.  Indeed, how does one solve the challenge of Chiquito?

It begins with trying to take a pic of some newly acquired merch.

It was six years ago that I announced his arrival into our household.  He was a cute little kitten and a hyper little bundle of energy.  At the time, I kept saying "Wait until he turns five or six.  He'll start slowing down and grow out of this manic energy."

Suddenly, the help appears!

Well, he's now six and he still runs through the house, climbs on everything, tries to pull pictures off the wall, incessantly demands attention, and just wreaks general havoc.  Keith keeps looking at me and saying:  "You said he would grow out of this."

I try to remind him that Kosh was quite the hell-raiser when we first got him, as well.  In fact, Kosh didn't calm down until he was about three, right after we brought Chiquito into the house.  Kosh seemed to mature and settle down all at once after that.  I suggest that we try the same approach with Chiquito, but Keith just doesn't seem to want to go for that approach.  I think he's afraid the newcomer and Chiquito would band together and gang up on the rest of us!  

Ooo, does that card have a tassel on it?  Why, I do believe it does!

Next year, he'll be considered a senior cat.  At seven, you have to start getting geriatric check ups for your kitties.  I'm wondering if he's going to be an old man swinging from the ceiling fan.  The answer to that scares me.  He may not be slowing down as he gets older, but the two people in this house certainly are!

Is this the face of a guilty culprit?

As I am writing this, Keith is in the kitchen yelling "Get down!"  That only means one thing. We have to keep dishes on top of the fridge and boxes on the cabinets to keep him off of them.  We've never been able to break him of jumping on top of them.  If he gets up there, he claws at the ceiling tiles.

In his defense, he is cute, sweet, cuddly, funny, silly and an excellent mouser.  How do you solve the challenge of Chiquito? 

Goofy Is as Goofy Does. Yes, Indeed.

The scene:  The front of our house.  It is Monday of this week.  Our heroes pull up in their car.

Keith:  I thought I put the garbage can out when I left this morning.

Eddie:  You did and I took it in when I got home.  You know, like I always do after they come through.

Keith:  Garbage pick-up is tomorrow, dear.

Eddie sighs and hold out his hand.  Keith acts as if he places something in it.

You've just witnessed the latest passing of the Goofy Award.

In our household, we pass the Goofy Award back and forth between each other to mark those occasions when one or the other of us is, well, goofy.  I mean really goofy, not just the day-to-day kind of silly that results from living in the modern world.  You know, doing inexplicable things for oddball reasons.  That kind of thing.  Stuff that falls somewhere in between losing your keys and "This is going to go in my notebook of evidence for the mental competency hearing."  That kind of goofy.

We've all been there.  We've all done it.  Maybe it's stress.  Maybe it's age.  Maybe it's a natural state of being.  Or, as in our case, a little bit of all three, I think.  It's kind of our way of making fun of ourselves a little bit and thumbing our nose at the things that make us goofy.  In a way, it's kind of like celebrating being goofy.  Is there a better way to deal with aging's effects on memory than mocking it when it pops up in your life?  Honestly, it;'s going to happen.  Might as well have fun with it.  (Just remember to draw the line when someone ventures outside without any pants on.)

It's also, in an odd way, a sign of our commitment to each other.  We all need a little boost now and then.  A partner's goofiness can actually be something that frustrates you, if you let it.  This is our way of keeping those frustrations from turning into arguments.  The Goofy Award says "I love you despite your goofy behavior.  Or maybe because of it."  It's not insulting, but endearing.  It's a reminder that after twenty-plus years, I am so not going to let a little thing like forgetting to put the milk back in the fridge get to us.  Long haul, baby.  Sickness and health.  Poverty and wealth.  Normal and goofy.  I think that works.  

There is no actual, physical Goofy Award as such.  It's just an imaginary trophy we pass back and forth.  I think it would take away from the fun if we actually had something tangible to pass back and forth.  Besides, as goofy as we are, one of us would probably lose it. This way, not only can one person win multiple Goofies for successive events, but it can be awarded anywhere.  The only criteria is that serious acts of goofiness be involved.

So, who else has a Goofy Award?  What goofy things happen in your household?

Monday Rambles

Busy, busy, busy!

How busy?

Well. this is the week that was:

Monday:  Stock YesterNook. Take flyer draft for Grand Opening. Pick up Mayoral Proclamation for Grand Opening.  Hit two favorite thrifts.  Teach evening computer class.  Edit flyer draft.

Tuesday:  Take proclamation and final flyer to YesterNook.  Prep large holiday booth load for Peddler's Mall. 

Wednesday:  Spend day at Peddler's Mall.  Finish booth decorations and holiday stocking.  I already had done a lot of work, but I didn't like it, so I redid it.  I had to move some tables around, and a whole bunch of stuff.  It looks much better now.

Thursday:  Be thankful.  Cook. Eat. Clean. Work on booth stuff. 

Friday:  Black Friday!  Get up too early to go to Half Price Books and wait in line.  Did not get 100 dollar gift card (bummer).  Take care of holiday shopping at HPB.  It's nice to have a family of readers.  Go to Big Lots.  Hit a yard sale.  (Bust) Hit a couple of thrifts.  Miss out on set of Masonic glasses.  (Bummer) Go home. Eat leftovers.  Work on booth stuff.

Saturday:  Work on booth stuff all day.

Sunday:  Take another load to Peddler's Mall.  Spend afternoon there.  Hit thrift.  Come home.  Work on booth stuff.  Get ready to spend Monday at YesterNook.

Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat. 

I'm laying in my winter stock of smalls, so it requires a lot of work to get it all organized.  I'm trying hard to get everything priced as it comes in the door, so there is less handling time.

Sales were pretty good last week.  I sold a dresser and a vanity chair at YesterNook, and easily matched that amount in smalls at Peddler's.  I move a ton of smalls through Peddler's.  I had a strong smalls day at YesterNook too, which surprised me.  It was the first time that had happened.  I'm moving a lot of vintage Christmas there.

I realized while riding my bike last week that a person riding a bike is soooooo much closer to the fresh-smushed possum guts in the streets!  Yuck!

I also saw the first Salvation Army bell-ringer of the season at the grocery the other day.  I got to wondering if the prevalence of people using debit/credit cards to shop was causing lower takes in the kettles.  There are lots of times I come out of a store anymore and I don't have any change because I never went in with cash!

Some more cyber-cleaning:  The Popdose Guide to Patti Griffin.  It's a little too fawning, perhaps, which is a bit unusual for a Popdose guide, but it does provide some good background into her career.

And finally, wow!  Just, wow!

Okay, so what did happen?

If you look back over the course of this blog, you'll probably figure out pretty quickly that I have a history as a hit-and-miss blogger.  I can go for weeks and/or months without blogging, then release a stream of posts.  Conversely, I can be on a roll, posting several times a week for months and then, BLAM!  I'm gone.

It makes it hard for me to build a following, for sure.  It also makes it very hard for me to do any sort of planning or put things in motion.  And, it gives Roger grey hair.  Or it would, if he wasn't already grey.

It's not deliberate on my part.  I can assure you of that.  There are people in this world who have a hard time getting and staying on track some times, and I happen to be one of them.  It doesn't take much to derail me, it seems.  But, it takes a lot of effort to get this choo-choo back on the track once it happens.

Some of it for sure can be blamed on my own tendency to procrastinate.  Yes, indeed, I am one of those people.  The ones you never want on your team or working on your project.  Worse yet, I'm also one of the ones who can pull a rabbit out of his ass at the last minute and get all the attention for it because it's a rabbit in a spangly tutu wearing a rhinestone tiara juggling fiery batons while riding a unicycle backwards and singing Swahili folk songs.  So sue me.

My mother always blamed this whole tendency on my father.  We must have inherited it from him because she was never like that.  You know the drill.  My brother and I have come to believe that we evolved it as a response to a lot of the pressure that she would sometimes put us under.  Classic nurture vs. nature stuff.  Whatever the reasons, at this point, it is what it is, and I'm not likely to be changing out of it any time soon.

Then, of course, there's also my depression issues.  While I've learned to cope with living with depression a little better over the years, there are still times when it's hard to get moving out of whatever inert state I find myself in.  There's only so much that meds and therapy can do, I believe, and I'm probably about as adjusted as I'm ever going to be.  It's not so bad that my day to day functioning is regularly impaired, but I do have my days from time to time.  I've been living with this for a while and have got the rest of my life still yet to live with it.  And it means that some times the focus to blog just isn't there or else the energy that I would normally devote to blogging needs to be put into something a little more important because it's taking everything I have at that moment to get the things that have to be done taken care of.

I don't necessarily offer any of that as an excuse, by the way.  it's just an explanation of the way things are sometimes.

Now, that's all internal stuff.  Sometimes, there's some external factors that pop up to throw everything off course for a while or longer. 

"Like what?" you say.

Well....

Like the pet-sitting job at the place with no internet access of any kind that stretched from just after Derby to the end of July with only a couple of short breaks.  The father of the woman that I house-sit for was in the end stages of cancer.

Like the laptop that's having all kinds of technical issues, which is currently preventing me from getting to any of my booth data.

Like the new part-time gig that started for me in August.  I was supposed to split the hours with another person, who flaked out, which left all these lovely hours (and the salary that comes with them) to me!  I'm really enjoying it.  The hours are good and the pay is nice.  It's not a permanent deal, yet, but it might lead to some more work to come.  And it keeps me very, very busy.

Like the secret project I've been working on for a few weeks.  I'll be writing more about it sometime next week, but here's a hint.

So, what I'm trying to say is that I'm trying.  Sometimes, I fail.  Sometimes, I succeed.  For the moment, I seem to be back, so enjoy it while it lasts.  Not even I can tell you how long that will be.

Return of the Ramble!

In which your Eddie-tor explains where he's been for the past month and a half.

I started a cat-sitting gig at the end of April and it ended up lasting most of May.  One of the people I sit for has had some family medical emergencies to deal with, so she's been gone for extended periods of time, often with little to no notice.  I spent most of the month at her house with her kitties, where my connectivity is pretty limited.  After a couple of days, I stopped trying to fight with it and entertained myself in other ways.

And, of course, once I got out of the habit, it's been hard to get back in.  Things have been pretty busy on other fronts as well, so I just haven't had the kind of time I normally do for stuff like blogging and planning and writing posts and such.  Hopefully, that's easing up a little.  We'll see.

I managed to make it through my first Mother's Day without a mother and the first anniversary of Mom's death okay.  My brother's birthday fell on Mother's Day this year, so I had something happier to concentrate on and that helped some.  I'm starting to get into my shed and deal with some of Mom's things, so my emotions are pretty wobbly sometimes.  So many memories.

I went to the big flea market alone over Memorial Day weekend and realized how much I miss her at times like that.  We used to do the flea market together at least once a year.  It was kind of weird not to stop at vendors she would shop from.  It was even weirder not being able to snark on stuff like we used to do.  She and I were forever finding something to carry on about or make fun of.  I had to do it all in my head this time.

Yard saling has been really lame for weeks now.  Lots of traveling and sweating for little hauls.  I made an awesome score this past weekend when I got a metric ton of Peanuts memorabilia for about twenty bucks, but it was the first rave-worthy score in ages and ages.  Even many of the annual sales I love to hit have been mediocre at best.  Not nearly as many opportunities to score a box of swag for five bucks.

Booth sales have been off too.  I owe you all reports for April and May, which I will get on soon.  I'll elaborate things in more detail at that time.  I also owe a couple of book reports too.  They'll also be forthcoming.

I even tried setting up at a community sale at a local church to pick up some extra bucks and clear out some booth duds.  Turn out was lousy for some unknown reason, so I only made about fifty bucks.  Did get rid of some stuff, though.  The organizers were making plans to have leftovers donated, so I left several items there, rather than drag them all home again.  I'd like to try the whole experience again, only with more buyers and better sales.

We've been having August in June for most of the month.  Hotter than normal.  More humid than normal.  I so miss regular seasons.

I got a smart phone the other day, so I may start tweeting again.  The "p" on my old phone only worked intermittently, which is why I stopped before.  Apparently, most of the words I like to use have "p's" in them.

My latte tastes funny.

Chiquito had a little growth spurt a while back.  Sometimes cats will have one last little burst of growth at around three, which he is.  It's made him very hungry all the time.  He's taken to trying to wake us in the middle of the night for a feeding.  I've started to put out a little extra food for my growing baby.

Kosh on the other hand is pretty much the same.  He wasn't well for my extended stay away from the house in May, but seems to have gotten over it.  Little does he know I have three nights of cat-sitting this week.  He's pretty clever in that he's learned the signs for when I'm prepping to leave for a few days.  So he starts getting freaky and extra lovey whenever I start packing up or carrying things out.  The problem is, he can't distinguish between my packing to leave and getting a booth run ready.  I'm messing with booth stuff all the time and it frequently involves packing a box or taking one out, which starts him to worrying needlessly.  Haven't figured out a way to explain things to him.

I also haven't figured out a way to end my Rambles posts, other than just stopping.  Posts on particular topics can wind themselves to a good conclusion, but just sitting down and rambling on and on is harder to wrap up.  The only way I really know to do it for sure is to shut up.

So I will.

Monday Rambles

Well, we went from near 80's to wintry mix in the course of a week.  Welcome to Spring in Kentucky!  Forecast looks more typical for this time of year this week, which means showers at some point.  Still, better showers than more wintry mix.

Next week, I promise I'll lead with something other than a weather report.

Cold, windy weather didn't stop the yard sales from happening over the weekend, thankfully.  I'm still on limited buying mode right now, but I picked up a few things, including a basket of vintage flower frogs, some vintage Christmas stuff, and a stack of ValueTales books.  Not too shabby.

Sales were pretty awesome over the weekend, after a so-so week.  The analysis is going to be interesting this time around.  I've got lots of holes to fill when I go in to re-stock, which means that some of this overstock will be going away.  That's also a good thing.

As a part of the good weekend, by the way, the most expensive item I've ever had in the booth sold!

The trees all around town, including the one in front of our house, are blooming.  Thankfully, the colder weather doesn't seem to have affected them.

I do apologize for the lack of posts last week.  It might continue for the next couple of weeks.  I'm not sure.  I'm having a hard time getting a handle on the Part Time Gig this time around.  It's a good deal more challenging, which I'm enjoying because I'm getting to do some different things, but it's cutting into other time.  Maybe I can carve out a little time to get some posts scheduled.  If nothing else, I'll have a bit of a break next week, so I can get something done then.

I'll also have another round of cat-sitting that week (for the whole week), so poor Kosh will have a rough time of it.  Keith says that when I'm gone, Kosh seems to think that, if he's just sweet and loving enough, Keith will go get me and bring me home.  Poor guy.

One thing I need to do this week is get the bike out, check it out, and get it ready for riding.  It's been too long.

Oh dear.  I have no way to end this one, so I guess I'll just stop typing.  Rambles, indeed.

Monday Rambles

March is such an unpredictable month.  Bright, sunshiny fifties one day and dismal damp mid-thirties the next.  Sigh!  We had a lot of rain early last week.  I'm so tired of rain.  I need to get out in my shed and organize the stock I have out there, but it's been just too damn damp.

I nearly sold out my limited stock of furniture last week--two of three pieces are gone.  I'm psyched to see one of them go.  It had been there nearly a year, and I was getting far too comfy using it as a display piece.  Thankfully, most of the items I was keeping on it sold a few days before it did,so not very much was displaced.  Good-bye outdoor bench!

The other wasn't really for sale, at least, not yet.  I bought a small bookshelf a few months ago for 2 bucks at a yard sale intending to use it to hold paperback books.  I was intending to keep it around for a long while, then sell it when I found something better to use.  Since it was kind of nice looking, I put a price tag on it to keep people from dismantling it trying to find a price.  I hate to mark things as not for sale in my booth, unless it's inconsequential (but necessary) thing like metal bookends and doll stands.

Since I didn't want it to sell, I priced it high enough that I thought no one would be willing to pay for it.  And it worked, until last weekend.  My first thought when I saw it sold was "I can't believe anyone would pay that price for that shelf."  My second was:  "Oh shit!  There are books all over the floor at the booth now!"

I'm having a bit of a moral booth dilemma right now, too.  I have a card table that I have designated as my "seasonal" table, so that I can include more timely bits of merch in a more prominent fashion.  For a few weeks now, it's been split in between  St Patrick's Day and Easter.  I'm going to be putting the St Pat's stuff away this week, so the whole table can be dedicated to Easter.  I sold a lot of Easter stuff in recent days, which leaves me some holes to fill and not a lot of stuff to do it with.

Up to now, it's been pretty much baskets and bunnies for my Easter section, but I got to wondering about some of the items I have on my religion wall.  I have, of course, a ton of crucifixes, a couple of Last Supper and Jesus in the Garden pictures, and a whole lot of Easter devotional and Way of the Cross booklets.  Is it appropriate to mix all that in with the bunnies and stuff?  I don't want to commit some kind of religious faux pas.  It seems like it's all right at Christmas to mix Santas and Nativity sets, but Easter has a different vibe to it.  What do you all think?

Sales are all over the freaking place right now and I have no clue what's going on.  The booth report this month will be interesting.

Went to the most disorganized, terrible estate sale this past weekend.  I got a few things, but left other ones, because I just did not want  to deal with the woman running the show.  Too many things were not priced.  Everything was cluttered and all over the place.  Drawers in furniture had not been cleaned out.  She was snapping at customers that they were taking too much of her time.  And she tried to get away with handing a friend of mine a bunch of artist sketch pads to get out of giving me four dollars in change.  It was a nightmare and I most certainly will not attend another of her sales in the future.

I may end up being a little quiet here this week.  The new round of the Part Time Gig starts Monday and most of my hours are evening this time.  That'll take a little bit to get used to.  Plus, I have a lot of new stuff to prepare for the PTG this time around, so that may eat my time up.  I have a lot of bones of posts laying around, but not much complete or near complete content.  Sorry, folks.  Just remember, it's not you.  It's me.

By the way:

HAPPY SPRING!

Did you see the "Super Moon" over the weekend?  Do you know what I kept thinking every time I heard the term "Super Moon"?  This:

I'm such a dork.

Book Report: Feb 2011

I'm trying to encourage myself to read more this year.  I love books.  I've got a ton of them.  I need to read more of them.  Thankfully, since the booth came along, I do much less buying for myself, even when it comes to books.

I'm always telling Keith that I'm so glad I know how to read.  It's brought me great pleasure over the years.  I just wish I had more time to do it.

Here's what I read in February and what I thought about it.  I'm hoping that tracking them this way will encourage me to both read and blog more.  We'll see.  By the way, I totally stole this idea from ottermom.

Berlin: City of Smoke by Jason Lutes:  An old favorite.  I picked up this volume a couple of years ago when it first came out, but only got around to reading it just now.  Lutes' evolving story of the last days of the Weimar Republic in Germany remains as engrossing as ever.  His storytelling style is one of the most cinematic in modern comics.  After you read a page for content, you almost have to go back and reread it to study his technique.  Amazing.  I've got my doubts whether this one will finish or not--there are supposed to be nine volumes, but it's taken a decade or more to get the first two out--but I'll be there to enjoy the ride for as long as it lasts.


Age of Bronze: Betrayal by Eric Shanower:  Another volume from a favorite series that had been sitting on my shelves for too long.  Shanower's art is packed with exquisite detail and his re-telling of the TrojanWar saga is compelling reading.  There are seven volumes projected in the series.  After a decade of publishing, three are out, so I'm hopeful this one might finish.  The individual comics seem to come out a couple of times a year.


The Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martinez:  "Intellectual" thriller and murder mystery that lays everything out in plain sight, but twists the reader's perceptions of events so that the finale comes as a complete surprise.  I loved this one.

Spider-Girl:  Avenging Allies by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz:  I thought the art was weak--too many distorted faces and distended torsos for my taste, but greatly enjoyed the story.  I had long since passed out of super-hero comics when this one came along, so I really didn't know the character, only the trials and tribulations of the book's publishing history.  But, this was fun!  Real fun!  Like reading comics used to be.  I'll be keeping an eye out for other volumes of this one that I can snag cheap.


The Authority Vol 1:  Relentless by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch:  The Authority has been around a while now, but this was my first exposure to them.  I like Ellis' work, but this book shows up one of his primary weaknesses--his inability to edit himself.  I know from being on his mailing list a while back that he's constantly coming up with one or two sentence ideas for story elements, then filing them away for future use.  This book reads like he just dumped hi idea drawer out and threw in whatever he could find, but didn't quite develop anything beyond his first thoughts.  Not to mention the repetition of certain plot elements between the stories in the book.  Did we really need to see the team fight off two back to back invasions of Los Angeles?


Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist by MC Beaton:  Most disappointing book I read in February.  I love Beaton's Hamish McBeth mysteries, so I had high hopes for this.  Agatha Raisin is spoiled and obnoxious and leves me cold.  Worse yet, the murder was pretty much incidental to the whole book.  I was kind of getting drawn into Agatha's issues with her ex-fiance by the end of the book, but I'm on the fence about whether or not I'll read anything else in this series.

The Book of Lost Souls by J Micheal Stracynski and Colleen Doran:  This one reads like a rejected submission for a SyFy original series.  Doran's moody art is nice, but the stories are flat and predictable.

Yotsuba&! vols 1 and 2 by Kiyohiko Azuma:  Quirky little book that was a big hit with the manga readers a while ago.  I can see why.  The book is genuinely funny, with a main character that is in turn annoying and endearing.  Imagine a Bart Simpson or Crayon Shin Chan, but as an innocent.  I thought the second volume was better than the first because the comedic timing was sharper.  I'll be looking for more of this one.

Le Portrait de Petite Cossette vols 1 and 2 by Asuka Katsura and Cossette House Aniplex:  Two volume manga series about a man who becomes obsessed with an antique portrait of a young girl and is eventually led to his demise by her spirit.  Creepy and disturbing.

It really astounds me that the majority of my reading for February was graphic novels.  I've been laying off of comics for so long now, that it's almost like I was never a comics fan at all.  I just kind of drifted away from them.  What's even more surprising to me was how much I enjoyed reading them.  It's like comics were fun again like they used to be before I got involved in comics fandom.  I'm starting to think that it was fandom I was burning out on, not comics.  We'll see how this trend holds up for next month, although I sure thought I read more books without pictures last month.

Bits and Pieces

Just another bunch of randomness...

So I go to my booth last week for my regular stock and clean, just like I usually do.  I always start out walking through all the spaces and collecting items that don't belong to me.  When I go to my wall of religious items, I found that someone had turned all of my crucifixes upside down.  All of them.  Now we know.  Satanists like to look for bargains at flea markets too.

(Sorry no pic. I have got to start taking my camera with me.)

I took a hammer and nails with me, so I hung most of the crucifixes and religious plaques up on the wall around the shelves.  It makes that space stand out a little more and will probably keep the Satanists and vampires at bay for now.

I'm planning on having an actual written (non-video entry) written for every day this week.  I'm working on the booth report right now.  Did expanding make me rich or cost me my shirt?  Find out tomorrow!  I'm also going to start doing a monthly recap of the books I read the previous month.  You can find out what a well-educated, well-read kind of guy I am!  Or not, as the case maybe.  Mostly not.  I've got a couple of three things atarted for each of the other days, but haven't decided which way I'm going to lean yet, so you'll just have to wait and see.

Speaking of video entries, there was some kind of snag on a couple of my entries from last week and the videos didn't show.  I think it's fixed now.  So, if you really wanted to see Jenny Lewis and Jonathan Rice doing "Love Hurts" or Guy Clark and Emmylou Harris doing "Dublin Blues" now is your chance!

I went cat-sitting for a couple of days last week, which put my dear buddy Kosh over the edge while I was gone.  Since we lost Bennie, he doesn't deal well with changes in the household at all, particularly when it involves me.  If I just start getting stuff ready to take to the booth, he starts wandering the house with his worried look.  Poor guy!  When I got home, he was GLUED to my lap!

The weather is warming and staying warm, during the day at least.  It's still cold enough in the morning for a coat, but it all means Spring is one the way.  Yay!  It also means lots of rain around here too.  It rained a lot on Saturday, but fortunately, there were a lot of indoor sales to go to.

I guess that's enough on the babble front.  Before I go, I do want to send out good flea market vibes to Mari-Jo, who just opened her own booth.  Good luck with it and I hope you have fun!

Oh, yeah, and a great big Happy Birthday to my buddy Roger Green!