After Yesterday's Dumb ....

 ... I opted for a palate cleanser of some of my favorite things through the years. 

Like my paternal grandmother, Agnes Dorothy Nolan, born in San Francisco just one month after the  Big Quake of 1906. She was tiny, barely five feet tall, but she was a pistol!

Carlos and me in Key West the week I flew to Miami to meet him. This was the third day of my trip and by then i knew this was where I belonged.

Mom and Dad on the deck of their house in Blue Canyon.

Tuxedo, showing off the goods to the Sun Gods.

Little MaxGoldberg used to sit in the window behind the shades, and then pop his head out; I love his little wink.

Consuelo. Is it me, or does she kinda match the sunroom love seat? Did we adopt her because she went with the furniture?

Ozzo, all done up a la the Obama Hope poster.

This is Lady, who lived to be twenty-one. I had dolled her up with gold stars for a Christmas card; she wasn't happy, but she let me do it to her.

Scruffy was the old man of the house, who had bad legs, a bad eye and lost an ear to cancer before he passed. He was tough but lovable.

Spunky was the bitch of the house, but she loved to be scooped up and held on her back while you rubbed her belly. I love her hypnotic eyes ...

Sweetie, whose name truly fit her, dolled up for that same Christmas card as Lady. Sweetie also lived into her 20s.

Tallulah Belle. The first cat we adopted in South Carolina. Her favorite nap spot was inside an empty pot. We didn't have her long, but she was something.

Thomas was a cat Carlos adopted in Miami, though to be fair, it was actually Thomas who adopted Carlos. He as a huge cat, of no discernible breed, who looked mean but wasn't at all; he was a pussy cat.

And this is Voncie, Lady's brother. He was smart as a whip, and crazy as a loon.

Sidenote: no, it isn't lost on  me that we have certain cat "types" ... Lady and Tuxedo. Max and Sweetie and Scruffy; Voncie and Tallulah; Spunky and Consuelo. I think if we ever found a cat that looked like Thomas, we'd grab him up to.

Things I Like #8

Once again, in a post inspired by, or stolen from, Mistress Maddie, here are some things I like that are around the house.

This is my favorite corner of the living room because it’s Carlos and me, and some friends, and some trips and some things my father gave me. The desk is Carlos’, brought from the family home in Mexico. It’s a small roll-top desk with little drawers and compartments and a desktop that pulls out for writing.

Above the desk is a photograph I bought at a winery in California many, many years ago. It’s a simple black-and-white photo of a window, with a shade drawn down and bent, stopping just short of the windowsill lined with broken glass. It seems so desolate and peaceful and as soon as I saw I, it was in my hands. 

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it … oh, sorry. This accent light was a gift to me from some friends; I like that it looks like a flower and has a frog sitting on the handle. It’s whimsical, you know.

And finally, a gift from my Father. The Little Leather Library Collection that has been in my family’s homes for as long as I can remember. My parents bought the set when they lived in England after getting married, so they are older than me, Each book measures 3x4 inches and there are all sorts of stories; Shakespeare plays; essays on Lincoln; Poe poems; and these two …Uses of Great Men and As A Man Thinketh.

The Little Leather Library Corporation was conceived of by publisher brothers Charles and Albert Boni in about 1914. In 1916 they showed their prototype to ad men Harry Scherman and Maxwell Sackheim, who worked at J. Walter Thompson Company. Scherman suggested approaching the Whitman’s Candy Company of Philadelphia and proposed the “Library Package”, a box that would include a copy of a literary classic enclosed with Whitman's chocolates. Whitman’s Co. ordered a total of 15,000 copies of fifteen of Shakespeare's plays.

After the Whitman’s order came additional titles, sold by Woolworth's for ten cents each. In 1917, it is estimated Woolworth's ordered over 1 million copies of The Little Leather Library. That was when the collections began to be sold as a set, with twenty to thirty books in each set. In the first year, sixty titles were published, and one million were sold in a little over a year.

I have read some of them, and some I feel are a bit too delicate to open, but loving books as I do, I get a kick out of a ‘little’ collection.

And there you have a small corner of Casa Bob y Carlos.

Things I Like #7

Once again, in a post inspired by, or stolen from, Mistress Maddie, here are some things I like that are around the house.

The sunroom, while the spot where the cats sun themselves and the dog sleeps at night, is mostly Carlos’ domain because he’s the Green Thumb in the family. While I’m good at gardening in the yard, pruning, planting, weeding, trimming and mowing, house plants tens to, um, die, around me.

So, this is one of my favorite spots in the house with plants Carlos has cultivated for years … like the Bonsai that we bought in Miami fifteen years ago; it’s doing splendidly in Smallville. 

Carlos also does quite well with roses, this one on the back deck just started blooming again.

The monkey? Carlos loves all things monkey and once tried to persuade to buy a chandelier that was about eight feet  across and nothing but monkeys holding lights. Seriously.

Oh, and an appearance by The Great Tuxedo, who saw a camera and struck a pose.

Things I Like #6

Once again, in a post inspired by, or stolen from, Mistress Maddie, here are some things I like that are around the house.

One of the things I like best about the house is how it’s changed from when we bought it, to how it looks today. When we bought the house, the crown molding, chair rails,  window trim, French doors, and baseboards were wood, but stained a hideous brown, and the living room walls were light blue above the chair rail, and a whisk broom painted effect in a darker blue below.

I hated it.

I painted three walls a gray, and one longer wall a darker gray; I removed the chair rail, and then painted the crown molding  and baseboards an ivory. I had a friend whose home had no such moldings and she painted “moldings” on the walls. I thought for a moment, and thought how to make our crown and base look a bit more dramatic, and the solution was to paint a stripe, in the same ivory, below the crown molding and just above the baseboards all around the room.

I like it.

I also—after much debate with Carlos, painted the mantel in white, and once that was done, we opted to switch out our Old—emphasis on old—west ceiling fans for something cooler … like a wooden airplane propeller. There are two in the living room and they look great and circulate the air better than those four-paddled monstrosities of yore.

More to come …

Things I Like #5

Once again, in a post inspired by, or stolen from, Mistress Maddie, here are some things i like that are around the house.

When we moved into Casa Bob y Carlos, the foyer was red. I didn’t like it at all. Doesn’t mean I don’t like read because I had the outside of house, well, parts of it, painted red. But I didn’t like red inside …

So I chose a blue so dark it almost looks black, and in a semi-gloss so we’d get some sheen, and I think it looks amazing.

The art on the walls were gifts from a friend … here’s a close-up:

The hutch was originally an orange-y looking wood, but I painted it an olive green, and then spray-painted the inside in gold to highlights Carlos’ collection—or some of it—of teapots. The inset panels in the drawers were also painted gold.

I think it looks much better dark dark blue … sets the mood for the rest of the house.

More to come …

Things I Like #4

Once again, in a post inspired by, or stolen from, Mistress Maddie, here are some things i like that are around the house.

In the kitchen…the bottom piece is was painted by my mother on a cabinet door. My mother  was a Tole painter—the folk art of decorative painting on tin and wooden utensils, objects and furniture—for many years and this is one of my favorite things she ever did, so it’s in the kitchen and I get to see it every day.

Side story: Carlos and I moved to Camden shortly before my mother passed away and the house we ended up buying wasn’t at all, really, what we wanted, but when looking at it with the realtor, a few weeks after my mom passed, when we opened the front door, I could see across the living room, into the kitchen, and I saw my mother sitting at a table, smoking a cigarette, drinking coffee and looking at the backyard. That’s when I knew it was the house for us, because my mother saw it, and felt at home there.

Now, that piece above my mom’s work we bought at a Christmas art show in town; it was the only thing that wasn’t Christmas in the whole building and, yeah, it fits our house; I get to look at it every day, too.

Carlos loves blue glass, so these pieces that he’s had for years and years, along with a one more, sit in the corner hutch in the kitchen. The glass egg was a gift from a friend, and the wee coffee cup, which stands on three legs on it saucer, was a gift from Carlos to me. I’d seen my fave TV character-slash-altar ego, Karen Walker drinking out of a three-legged coffee cup and Carlos scoured the internet until he found one, and then ordered it for me. Trouble was, it’s about an inch-and-a-half tall, more for an espresso shot than anything else, but it makes me smile.

In the other hutch on the kitchen are three cannisters I bought at an antique store for use at Christmas, with candies and cookies inside for guests. But I liked them so much they’re on display year-round.

Lastly, we found those two little cat paintings at an antique store intown, and one was Tuxedo and one was Consuelo; I searched for a MaxGoldberg, but, alas, no luck, so we just bought the two home. Ssssh, because Max hasn’t noticed them and we don’t want to hurt his feelings.

The bottom piece is a chalkboard and magnetized calendar that works for every year and date; you simply move a magnetized strip under the month, day and year and you can use it forever. We got that on a trip to Greenville. It fits perfectly in our Bella Cucina!

More to come.