Retro Y'all!

The same video that miscategorized The Knack as a "one hot wonder" also did the same to Dead or Alive.  (See Retro Y'all from two weeks ago.)

Of course, the supposed one hit is "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)."

But they forgot about something!

Wikipedia reports that, while neither song made it into the Top 10, both songs did have a similar level of US success.  "Spin Me" made it to number 11, while "Brand New Lover" got to 15.  That's certainly worth noting, surely.

Retro Y'all! (Inaugural Edition)

Music for Inauguration Day

 This is the only thing I could think of when faced with today's events. 



Steve Earle wrote this song around the time of the 2004 elections, when we were in the throes of the Iraq invasion and staring down a second  Bush term.  It's still pretty applicable today.

Reading for MLK Day

No ramble today.  Instead, I want to point you to a post over at my friend (and better blogger than I will ever be) Roger Green's blog, where he looks at King's Nobel Prize acceptance speech, which is still as moving and thought-provoking as it was all those years ago.

All those years ago.  Heh.  All those years ago, and yet here we are, in the middle of the same goddam struggle, which is heating up yet again.

Today of all days, with Friday's cannon staring us in the face, we need to remember who King really was--not the easy to swallow postage stamp version--but the real King, the man who consistently grounded his actions in an all-consuming, radical belief that we could be better than we are, as long as we grounded our movements for change in unconditional love.

I'm struggling with that last part right now.

We as a country are standing on the precipice of a huge, dark ugliness that must be fought.  We must also take care that we do not become that ugliness in the process.

Retro Y'all!

I watched a video the other day that claimed The Knack was a "one hit wonder."  Said one hit is, of course, "My Sharona."  Immediately, I thought, "Wait a minute!"

What about this one?????

According to Wikipedia, "Good Girls Don't" peaked at Number 11 on the US charts.  I know that's lower than "Sharona" which went to number 1, but, still, right outside the Top 10 is nothing to sneeze at.

"One hit wonder," indeed.

Seriously.

PS Someone mixed the song with clips from a vintage dating tips video.  The result is kind of awesome.  (Do be aware that this uses the so-called "dirty" version of the song.)

Monday Rambles

ALL HEED  THE WISDOM!

That actually explains a lot....

Here lately, this is definitely a necessity.

WEATHER REPORT

So we've gone through a week of freezing temps and snow and are getting ready to go into a week that is supposed to peak at around 70 later on.  Sigh.  Welcome to the Ohio Valley.  Still the warmer weather will give me a chance to do some stuff outside, which is nice.

We've already started making our junk pile for the Feb. set out by the back fence and it's getting a little untidy.  I would like to straighten it up a bit.  Some of the neighbors have already started throwing things on the curb, even though it's early.  We're a bunch of rebels in my 'hood, for sure.  I need a nice day to get out and scavenge.

I'd also like to spend an afternoon at storage making a load of furniture for the booth.  I'm starting to see I've got a good deal of room for some more big stuff.

SPEAKING OF THE BOOTH

I'm just about finished re-stocking.  Sales have been consistent, despite the weather.  I have heard that tat returns will be delayed this year until the end of February, which is worrying.  I really need that sales boost.  At least that gives me more time to prepare.

Today, I have to try and work another bookshelf into the book booth.  I think I have figured out how to do it.  Keith is getting ready to thin his books and has warned me to get ready for them.

I'm on a crusade right now to get the back log out of my house.  We want to swap out my junk room and the bedroom, as the junk room has more closet space.  The bedroom will be turned into a workroom/office.

Every morning before I go the mall and every evening after I get home, I try to get together a box or two of stuff, which goes to the booth the next day.  I'd rather be figuring out how and where to place it there, where it can make some money, than here, where it is just in the way.

AND NOW A WORD FROM MY MOTHER

I've also been going through old boxes of stuff to see if there's anything that I can sell, donate, or otherwise get rid of.  There's just too much crap around here.  In the course of doing that, I found a folder of jokes and clipping and stuff that my mother used to stick in with her letters (remember those?) when I was in college.  I have a briefcase full of those letters too.

Among them all was this gem, which she sent me while I was in seminary.  I promptly taped it to the door of my dorm room.

If you think that my sense of humor is crazy, you should have known my mother.  She was a nut!

JUST CALL ME DOPEY

I forgot to tell you all that I'm on Ritalin now to try and deal with my treatment-related fatigue.  Apparently my fat, old, tired ass has a lot in common with a sixth-grader who can't sit still.  It actually does help a lot, without the side effects I was having with the steroids.  It's not the same kind of manic energy boost, but more of a controlled, sustaining effect.  I do need to take more than one to keep going through the day.  If I miss my afternoon dose, I sure start feeling it!

DVD OF THE WEEK

In three words:  AMAZON SISTAHS HOLLA!

Sadly, there's no throwing wheel action here, but she kicks plenty of mythological ass!  I highly recommend this one and am now super-psyched for the movie this year.

Retro Y'all!

This one seems like a good one to start the year off right!



Did you get a new calendar this year?

Photo Catch Up

So, I stayed in and out of the snow for yesterday.   Sadly, I have to get out in the cold today, as there are booth things that have to be done.  I'd much prefer to stay in and out of it all again.  Oh well.

I managed to get quite a bit done during my mini-sojourn in the warmth, including sorting some photos on my phone.  I had a whole bunch of stuff taken throughout November and December, but never got around to posting.  Despite my best intentions and because of my somewhat less than best efforts, I managed to fall into my standard pattern of spending December overwhelmed and under-blogged.

Or at least, that's the story I'm telling the people.  The truth is far, far darker.

I was in jail for molesting a Wise Man in public at an outdoor church Nativity scene.  Oh, the shame!

Actually, that's a cover story concocted to conceal my activities as Spider-Ed from my enemies.

Or I could just be clowning around as usual.  Take your pick.  The Spider-Man mask is for sale at the booth.  I was testing to see if it really was one size fits all.  By the way, do not that the proper spelling of "Spider-Man" includes a hyphen.

As for the Wise Man incident, we were out at our favorite holiday activity, when I decided that I was finally going to see what those amazing Nativity figures were made out of.  Every year for as long as I have been in Louisville (30 years as of this fall), they've been placed in front of that church.  I imagine they're even older than that, since it would be kind of pretentious of me to assume that they just started using them in honor of my arrival in town.

Turns out, they're blow molds!  I've never seen any like that anywhere else.  They are so incredibly detailed and well made. 

Curb finds!  Some former neighbors of ours operated a restaurant not far from us that was a combination BBQ joint and (over-priced) junk store.  They closed the whole operation down recently and have been placing things out on the curb, bit by bit.  And I've been picking them up, bit by bit.  This was a recent batch.  Like I'm really gonna pass up a feather boa purse!

The little block is filled with craft supplies.  I gave some to another vendor and have been selling the rest.  I got so excited about all this stuff that I almost forgot to pick up a prescription!  Keith actually saw it all before I did and just automatically pulled the van over.  He used to ask if I wanted to check things out.  Now he just stops.

A little bit of my Christmas display.  I hit the vintage flocked reindeer jackpot this year.  Most of them came from one sale where a guy was selling things from his aunt's estate.  He said that she loved Christmas and had 8 trees in her house every year!  She must have used the same set up every year, because all the things I got from that sale were labelled as to where they were put for Christmas.  The white reindeer (love them!) went on the mantle, while all the red ones went on the TV.

I do not know why I'm sideways here, but I can't make myself stop doing it.  Maybe it's the Spider-Ed powers kicking in.  I just wanted to show how much my hair has grown out.  I plan to start rocking the most awesome ponytail you've ever seen soon.  I'm holding that brush because I was interrupted while doing my Rhianna lip sync routine performing my nightly brushing ritual.

Every now and then, I have two cancer treatments in one month.  December was like that.  Lily came to visit during the first one.  She always come right to us and spends the longest time with us. 

The second treatment was on December 27.  Since the center had been closed on the 26th, they had a huge amount of people to see that day.  Instead of going to the usual clinic floor for my infusion, I was sent to a kind of ad hoc treatment room they set up to accommodate the extra traffic.  It was cold and very noisy in there, but we got in and out faster than we ever had before.

If you follow me on Facebook you've seen this Christmas Eve pic, but it's one of the best selfies we've ever done, so here it is again.

And that is as good a note to end on as any!

New Year, New Ramble

Happy 2017, Everyone!  I hope you had your black eyed peas and cabbage and are looking forward to a prosperous and healthy new year.

I'm just going to a do a real quickie update here to talk about the holidays a bit and get back in the groove.  I have a lot of pics and stories to share, plus some finds, but I'll save those for another day.  I've gotten behind on my blog reading again, so I'm trying to carve out some time for that as well.

We're expecting snow tonight and tomorrow, so I plan on staying in if it happens.  I have some cartoons ready to watch, plus a couple of documentaries on YouTube.  I'll catch up on some reading, laundry, blogs, blogging, and pricing too.  Maybe a nap as well.  And hot chocolate.  And pie.  Maybe popcorn too.

Of course, now that I have all that planned, it'll be 76 tomorrow and brightly sunny.  Oh well.  If that happens, I guess I'll go to the booth.  I'm heading there as soon as I finish writing and posting this.  I haven't been over there since the Friday before Christmas.  I finished the bulk of my work and decided I wanted a holiday break.

I had a very good month in December, booth-wise, which was most welcome after a weak fall.  I had more $100+ days in December than I had in the months of September, October and November.  It seems to be holding for the first few days of January, but I'm going to work some magic to keep that going.  Mazda is packed to the gills with new stuff to go over.

One of the things I have to do today is pack up the Christmas, which will free up about five shelving units for new stuff.   I'll leave the vintage Christmas in the booth, but make a new section for it.  It will sell throughout the year.  I'll probably make a shelf for Christmas books and music too, just to keep from lugging that heavy stuff out.

I also need to make room for some more furniture.  I have a load ready to come off the Hillock, but just need a spot for it.  I've sold several larger items recently,  so I just need to reconfigure things to make the space.  Our next junk set out happens in a month, so I need to get ready for that by moving more large items.

Christmas sales always confound me.  After two years of low sales on wrapping paper and Christmas cards, I sold all I had this year.  Wreaths and small trees usually sell very well for me.  I sold one of each this time around.  Last year, I sold no ornament sets.  This year, I sold 3/4's of my stock.  It's always a riddle.  The only things I know I can count on are blow molds and vintage flocked deer.  I sold every blow mold I had except for one, and all the reindeer.  That was almost ten blow molds and about a dozen deer.

Speaking of Christmas, ours was really low key.  We decided not to get each other any gifts, in lieu of buying a new mattress, which we really needed.  We didn't even cook.  We had lunch at Waffle House and dinner at a Chinese restaurant.  In an odd way, that was, for us, kind of traditional.  Waffle House was a my father's favorite restaurant and the place where he would have his own holiday meals.  In the days before we bought the house, Keith and I would take a vacation over Christmas, usually to San Francisco or New York or Chicago.  That always meant we ended up eating out at either an Indian or Chinese place on Christmas Day, since they were the places most likely to be open.  When we got married in Chicago two years ago, we revived the tradition of the Chinese food Christmas meal.

By the way, we celebrated our anniversary Christmas Eve with Mexican food and then watched the wonderful Christmas concert recorded at Berea College (my alma mater) on CBS.  Like I said, it was low key, but wonderful.  I had been working at the booth practically every day all month long, so it was a nice to have a simple holiday.

New Years was celebrated with the traditional visit to the Big Flea.  More on that later.

And now the holidays are over.  Time to get back to work.  And blogging.

Here's to a good 2017 for all of us.  Big, wonderful, sloppy, happy hugs!

PS Don't forget to go to the thrifts this week!  They're still awash with year-end last minute donations!  And Christmas clearances should be up to 75% or even 90% off now.