iseecerulean

A few weekends ago husband and I went to the annual Men's Club rummage sale in Alden, a quaint little town on the shore of Torch Lake, near where he grew up.  We didn't buy much this year, but we did donate much, as the rummage sale supports several food pantries.  I didn't take pictures of the rummage sale because it was raining off and on all morning, they kept having to tarp and untarp the tables.    We walked over to the Alden Mill House when we were done to buy some spices, then headed home.

The James Whitcomb Riley Home.....unfortunately, pictures were not permitted inside, it was gorgeous.

The B&B I stayed at....

Around the corner from the B&B....

In the Lockerbie Square historic district....

My best friend, Susan, upon the moving out of another grown daughter, moved her studio into an empty bedroom.  She sent me lots of pictures (to shut me up, because I'm whiney).

Look at this....I wish my studio looked half as warm and comforting....

Do you see, on top of the wire cart, that fabulous wooden Varsity Prunes box?

Sigh...I want one.  I really, really want one...I want to put it on top of my worktable to corral my stuff.  While I was giving thought to how many pounds of dried cherries it would take to bribe her husband into stealing it for me I went to my local antique stores to see if I could find something similar. 

My first stop...Wilson's....downtown....4 floors and 20,000 square feet....surely I will find a box.

Neat suitcases and globe...nicely reupholstered chair...but I've no place to put them...

This little wooden cabinet would be great in my studio, on the little wall between my closet and the door...if only it weren't two inches too wide...sigh...

Ohhhh....a three drawer jewelry box, underneath a pretty lamp...I can store miniatures in that...yes, please!

EGAD!  Look at those lamps!  They win that day's Ugly Lamp Contest.  They're hideous!

Ah ha!  A box!  I'm not very keen on Yeast Foam (bleck!), but it's a good size....there is a little sticker on the other side that says "not for sale", but maybe I can talk them out of it if I bring them a pretty new box to put postcards in. 

The only other box there....it wasn't right....

I consoled myself with a cerveza and a chicken chimichanga, next door, at Union Cantina.

I love their front door....

Over the next couple of weekends...Wilson's East Bay, Cherryland Antique Mall, Bay West on Garland, Rolling Hill Antiques....

I almost bought this...

but not this...this is creepy.

Ugly Lamp Contest contender....

Neat apothecary tins, but I've no place to put them....

I want this juice set!  But I've no place to store this!  I need a bigger house.

Oh, look!  A set for you too, Susan.

I found this for you too!

These tall old metal gym basket things would make great studio storage for someone....not me, I don't have room for them, but someone.  (That's husband, for size comparison.)

I had never seen one of these before...I can't believe it's still intact.

A giant ugly lamp, hosting an ugly lamp party...

Notice the lack of wooden boxes in the pictures?  Sigh....

I did get a few things...a wire basket, an old purse, a multi-tool and a wooden handled monkey wrench....husband bought himself some lathe tools and a beer glass.

My last hope....Walt's....

I found some big crates in the basement....and upstairs, some old wooden cheese boxes (I didn't take picures of) that were too small...

Boom!  Jackpot of wooden cherry lugs.  But they weren't priced and Walt wasn't there...besides, I have one at home already that might work, I'll try that one first, if it does I'll come buy another to replace it.  It's not quite what I want though.  I want a prune box.

Susan is keeping her eyes open for me, maybe she'll find something good when she's out and about today.  I have my fingers crossed. 

Pictures taken at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.....

A close up of the background, so you can see what I mean about his brushstrokes (a "Ma'am, please step back away from the picture." moment)...

As it turned out, I didn't lose the pictures of my trip to Indianapolis.  I took my camera to the camera shop, told them about the error message and missing pictures, asked if I needed a new memory card because I can only take five pictures before it's full, then handed over my camera....the guy took my memory card out, held it up to the light, squinted at it, put it back in, turned the camera on, then said "you've got 1,776 pictures left to go, see.....and there are lots of pictures on here, did you go to a museum?"

I got no explanation for the errors and why I couldn't access my pictures, because he couldn't reproduce the problems...I think taking the card out and putting it back in again was the equivalent of turning one's computer off then back on again.

Oh!  Computers!  Yet another pain....my hard drive failed.  It's replaced now, but all the data was unrecoverable.  I learned my lesson about saying "we should really figure out a backup system" and not actually doing anything about it.  I lost thousands of pictures, and my husband has to re-import hundreds of CDs.  We now have a time machine set to back us up daily.

A lot has happened in the month since I last posted....it's been crazy. 

Wakefield, our tomcat, came home in early May with an injury to his eyelid that required surgery to fix.  Thankfully his eye was fine, but his inner eyelid had been cut in half by another cat's claw and had to be sutured back together.  He had to wear a cone on his head, stay inside the house, and get antibiotic goop smeared in his eye twice a day...it was torture for all of us.  When we took the cone off and let him out (sooner than we were supposed to) he disappeared.  It's not unusual for him to disappear for a few days at a time, especially when he's angry with us, so we didn't think much about it at first.  As his absence grew longer we got worried...then, after a couple of weeks, a half mile or so from the house, an orange colored carcass appeared on the side of road.  We grieved. 

A week or so after I got back from Indianapolis my daughter called me at work and told me to check the list of cats up for adoption on the Humane Society's website.  I assumed she was going to try to convince me to get a kitten, but there was Wakefield, staring out at me, looking very sad.  I whooped into the phone and said "I'll meet you there!"

I'm not sure they believed us when we said he was our cat, because he'd been there over a month....my daughter replied "I've been checking the website regularly since he went missing, I didn't see him until now"....then they remembered that they had kept him segregated from the rest of the cats and didn't put him on the website for a few weeks because when he came in his eye was all watery, which meant to them that he had a respiratory infection.  They don't have a veterinarian on staff, but gave him a course of antibiotics and wormed him before they listed him, for good measure.   He had been adopted out once to a couple who really liked him, but who also had a dog, and Wakefield is scared of dogs, so they had to bring him back after a week....after they'd taken him to their vet for a check up and had all the regular vaccinations done, since they didn't have his medical records.  (He was already up to date on them).

Once they brought him in to us and he almost wore the fur off his head rubbing all over us while purring like crazy it was pretty obvious we were his people.  We had to go through the entire adoption process to get him back, since he'd been gone so long, but he's home now, and very happy. 

Ester had mixed feelings about his return, because he didn't smell right.  After he'd been home for a day she decided it was okay.  I had a great picture of the two of them all snuggled up together, but lost it when my hard drive crashed.

 A couple of nights after his return we got a phone call from the Humane Society...the woman who'd brought him in as a stray had just called them to say he was at her house again.  We walked over to introduce ourselves and bring Wakefield home....she was young, unkempt, not too bright...two cars up on blocks in the driveway (I didn't think we had that in our neighborhood...the cars are hidden from the street by overgrown shrubbery).  She said she thought because he was so friendly and skinny and covered in ticks that he was a stray.  She said he was trying to come in her house to eat.  Covered in ticks?!?  Absolutely not.  Go into her house?  Not with all the barking emanating from inside...was she trying to coax him in? 

After some discussion (which was difficult to keep in a friendly tone of voice, but I managed it) we explained the difference between ticks and scabs from sparring with the other neighborhood cats.  We assured her that he is well loved and has a home, that he has always been friendly with everyone because no person has ever given him a reason not to be....and that despite his not being overweight he is well fed.   She was a friendly neighbor all in all and I think her heart was in the right place when she tried to save him, even if her brain wasn't.

Let's see what else....I hired a new assistant, I really like her and I think she'll do great....I took too long a break from the gym, started again this week and am really sore...I have pictures to share from my trip to Indianapolis...went to a couple of art fairs and did some antiquing, I have pictures to share from those trips too...I'll save that for other posts in the next few days, I've rambled on enough this morning.

Wakefield, home again, asleep on his chair on the front patio.  I almost got rid of his ratty chair when I thought he was dead...I'm glad I was too busy to get around to it.