UPDATE: See, told you it’s an imperfect interface. Two of my songs cut off; my original Donovan was barely even there. Replaced and re-mixed.

I got this idea from Paola, whose mix I listened to this morning. The interface is a bit frustrating (It would play a song but then tell me “Sorry, that’s not available), but the results are pretty fun.

Arbito and Snaggs Mushroom Fantasy show at Schmancy, Nov. 14, 6-9 p.m. (Online presale starts today 12N PST.)

Seattle Prop 8 protest, Nov 15, 10:30 a.m.

Clamming!

“I stand here with my own history and the story that I bring to the American table. And I am sharing it. I am not forcing it and I am not delivering it with the expectation that others have to follow it or change their personal lives for it. I am not giving it as propaganda or to support some fictional ‘agenda’ nor am I giving it as a means to convince you to be like me but to understand the preciousness of being able to be oneself.”

Uncle Beefy opened his heart to us. I urge to you read the entire thing.

Awhile back, a woman named Ann commented on my “fireplace dreams” post about her difficulties getting someone to install her vintage modern fireplace. Like me, hers is not actually a Preway (though they’re enough like them that I think I referred to mine as a Preway). But unlike me, she didn’t inherit hers from someone who had the original manual. I didn’t realize that contractors are very reluctant to install fireplaces when you can’t supply a manual or a serial number! So in an effort to help out Ann and any collectors of vintage modern fireplaces out there, here is the entire manual that came with our fireplace. It may not be the exact fireplace that you have, but it probably won’t hurt to see it. Plus, old manuals are fun! The entire manual follows (all PDF format):
manual1
manual2
manual3
manual4
manual5
manual6
manual7
manual8

Items in eating repertoire: entire ham knuckle, eggshells, two TV remotes, four entire corncobs sans corn.

I offer this as a public service. But first, know that our dog Sofa is a very large boy, a long-haired English Mastiff who weighs around 170 pounds. So this might not have turned out the same with a much smaller dog.

So a couple weeks ago we did the usual treat-buying at the usual natural pet store. With a new puppy around, the chewy toy-buying has increased because if we don’t supply it, she’ll find something else that will do. (Like my out-of-print copy of Budget Living’s Home Cheap Home she destroyed today that I just reordered on eBay.) So two weeks ago we got the dogs each a “Porky Jerky Knuckle Bone” from Merrick Pet Foods, each one about 8″ long and maybe an inch around. Now, usually when we give them bones we can hear them chewing and chewing for what seems like hours. This time, I unwrapped the bones, handed them over, and went downstairs to change the laundry. I came back upstairs about ten minutes later to find Dahlia still chewing away on her bone, and Sofa staring at her looking unhappy. Where was his bone? I thought maybe it was under the couch (no) or the hutch (no) or the rug (no) or in the bedroom, or under his dog bed, or in my office, or the bathroom, or the kitchen. No, no, no, no, no, and no.

I called in my  husband, and with horror we realized that Sofa had gulped down the entire bone in the time it took me to walk down ten steps, put wet clothes in the dryer, put dirty clothes in the washer, and start both machines. He’s a big dog, and it seemed unbelievable that he could do so, but unless we have a bone-stealing ghost, it was the only explanation.

I called an animal hospital that we trust, and she asked me a few questions — type of bone, size of bone, size of dog, is dog exhibiting any distress (choking, sensitivity to pressure on stomach). And then she said, well, the thing is, he’ll probably be able to break down the bone. If you bring him in, what we’ll do is take an x-ray, look at it, and say, “Yep, that’s a bone,” and charge you for it. The only way to get it out of there would be to open him up. But since most dogs can actually break down bone matter, you’re better off just keeping an eye on him for a few days, making sure he’s not straining to go to the bathroom, press on his stomach every so often to see his reaction, and then — hip hooray — checking his poop to see if the bone, um, is in evidence.

So that’s what we did. Sofa was totally fine. We did call him “ham knuckle” for a few days. And we found that bone fragments in dog poop look pretty much like bone fragments in dog poop.

By the way, chicken bones are still very dangerous for dogs (they splinter) unless they’re raw. And always call your vet first, of course!

Items in eating repertoire: two pairs of shoelaces, clamshells, Steve Madden slippers, edge of rocker on Herman Miller chair, Lasher by Anne Rice (we forgave her that one), Budget Living’s Home Cheap Home.

Me: Aw, look how pretty I was 17 years ago!

Husband: You’re prettier now.

Me: Why, because I no longer wear that striped jacket?

Husband: No, because you no longer have those scary straight eyebrows.

For the record, this is the one I chose as the headshot for my job (I was PR director for the local opera company) even though it required cropping for the double exposure. That shirt was made of washable silk. Remember those? It was pea green. I made $13,000 a year and had to dress up every day. Those were good times.

It was hard to get here, but worth it. (That’s the top of Tiger Mountain. “Mountain” is a bit of an overstatement, but I still felt as if I might expire climbing it.)

Sorry for the light posting…the work, it is heavy.

for some reason this room makes me feel calmer

I like the nuts the best, I think!

Happy Acorn Anthropomorphic Trinket Box Dish Set from fruitflypie, $65

Purple and pink squirrel button ring by redhynes, $5.25

Kawaii squirelly clutch by marymoondesigns, $22

Forest Animal Squirrel Trinket Box Vintage Design in White by fruitflypie, $24

Classy Squirrel Earrings by BirdUncaged, $12

Squirrel Girl Print by theblackapple, $18

Print 8×10-You guys have met…right… by sticknymph, $17

Squirrel Embroidery Pattern by badbird, $4

This photo by Paul Costello, spotted at Absolutely Beautiful Things, really struck a chord with me. Obviously I’m not over the antique farmhouse sink that we left behind in our old house back in Cincinnati. This photo is how I like my kitchen to feel. It’s sort of there. But let’s take a trip back in time and visit our old kitchen, which was three times the size of my current kitchen, and which took us about two years to finish. (We were converting a two-family back to the original one-family plan, so we had a crappy upstairs kitchen to use while this one was in progress.)

Yes, this was our kitchen in the old house — that’s the “after” shot above. When I moved in, this was the tenant’s kitchen. When she moved out, we decided to take over the entire house and return it to its former pseudo-glory. The kitchen was lovingly outfitted in the ’70s with faux brick backsplashes and wooden cabinets with crossbeams that called to mind stables. Like, the ones for horses. One of Dave’s tenants had thoughtfully painted the whole shebang a dark purple. Then another tenant adding some bright green highlights here and there. Oh, and the refrigerator was entirely painted with chalkboard paint. Dave was a very tolerant landlord.

Anyway, everything when you renovate is so expensive, we decided to salvage the cabinets. We pried off the horrible cross bars and I sanded them down and painted them. I used Martha Stewart paint in two different shades of green for the walls and cabinet interiors. Honestly, it was horrible. Painting cabinets takes forever, and having to reach inside them, then turn them upside down and do more when half of it is dry. Ugh. It was bad. And yet, it was completely easy compared to what Dave went through. One day when I was chiseling, the chisel went straight into the wall. Wait, are plaster walls supposed to…MOVE…like that? It turned out all the plaster had come unmoored from the slats. Dave had to repair the walls with more than 100 drywall screws. This is how the wall looked when he was done. Can’t tell, can you?

A few notes about the above photo. We paid movers $100 to bring a refrigerator down from the upstairs when we were ready to use the kitchen. Then it broke. The day before we were to host 50 people for a Fourth of July party. We had the same movers bring us a brand-new refrigerator, that you see above, from Home Depot — it was the only way to get delivery on the Fourth of July. It was a huge refrigerator with an ice maker. Sigh. I miss it. ANYWAY, where was I?

Oh, okay. Dave and my brother worked together, tiling the counters and backsplash in the kitchen. While that was in progress, I found the sideboard above at the antique fair in Burlington, KY and we bought it for $45. When we got it home, I started to look it over, and it dawned on us that the entire thing was filled with mold. So we had to remove the old countertop that was on it, replace the back panel, and I treated the entire thing with mold killer and several layers of Kilz. Then we repainted it, Dave retiled the top, and we replaced the hardware. Looked nice when we were done and added necessary storage to the kitchen, but sometimes that bargain is a hard-won bargain.

Just a close-up of the tile work and the paint colors. And our old booze. Actually, I think we still have most of that vodka still. Maybe. Perhaps it’s a new bottle. Just perhaps.

Look way up to the first shot of our kitchen, and you’ll notice the peninsula. Dave built that entire thing using one salvaged cabinet. The rest was pure ingenuity on his part, and ordering some legs online. (Can’t remember where; will have to ask him to remind me.) He is truly skilled. You see why I married this guy?!

Finally, what got me on this whole reverie: our previous antique farmhouse sink.

There are antlers in it in that photo. I was cleaning them. I’ve since read that you shouldn’t clean antlers with water. Whatever! I loved that sink so much. We bought it for $78 on eBay! And I’m not kidding when I say we saw the exact sink other places for $1500. We picked it up in the middle of Michigan on the way back from one of our annual trips. The sucker was cast iron and HEAVY. My brother and Dave displayed great feats of strength getting it placed on the counter. The fixture was from a restaurant supply place and was cheap, cheap, cheap. The lights only cost $8 or so and were from Home Depot. The flying eye is a sculpture I bought for Dave for his birthday in Michigan at the Tamarack Gallery.

This is our kitchen sink these days:

It will get better!