It's My Birthday!

The Earth has once again traveled around the Sun which means, gulp, that I am now another year older … and another year more fabulous I like to think. How old am I? Somewhere between forty, and death. That’s all you get. And so, because I don’t need much, nor do I want for much, I thought I’d share some of the things I like best about the Life of Bob as it stands today.

Our house; no, we didn’t get any snowfall this year, but this picture of the house in the trees with the snow is one of my favorites so it’s the one you get.

The kids …clockwise: The Great Tuxedo™-—I call him that because it drives Carlos crazy; Consuelo, giving me fierce innocence; Ozzo, with his ever-graying beard; and MaxGoldberg, of the Boca Raton Goldbergs.

And here we have “buddies”—or as Carlos calls them, “homosexuals”—Max and Tuxedo during a morning nap.

Two of my favorite things in the house are the Twisted Kitty sculpture I bought eons ago in San Francisco; as soon as I saw it I bought it, and the owner of the store knew the guy who made it, so he called him, and the sculptor came down to thank e. He said he’d been trying to sell it for a year, and no one bought, so he told the shop owner, “One day someone will come in who sees it and grabs it right away.” And that person was me. The clock next to Kitty is my parent’s Anniversary Clock that they received on their Wedding Day; after my Mom passed, Dad sent it to me, so it sits on the mantel, too.

Books. Do we have books. This is the bookshelf in the office, overflowing with books. My next purchase is new, stronger, larger bookshelves. And because it’s not eb=ugh, we have books throughout the house, on the Chinese cabinet in the living room …

… under glass of the coffee table ….

On dressers and nightstands. And here’s the latest addition, that Carlos gave me this morning. I cannot wait to read it because y’all know I loves me some Pete.

Lastly … the homemade Birthday Cake from the Kitchen of Carlos. As I’ve said before, he’s a MasterBaker and would MasterBake all day long if he could. I tried to snap a picture of him this morning, because he’s my all-time favorite thing, but he’s sly about ducking the camera, and shy about being a blog-lebrity.

And there you have it, happiness and birthdays. If y’all forgot to get me something, check back later today for a gift suggestion.

Just sayin’.

Around The House

A little art around the house ... the three smaller prints on the side are woodblock prints we bought in Bellingham of an ancient fish, an ancient tree and an ancient moth; I'll take closeups later.

The Native American watercolor was done by a friend of mine and I have had it for decades, taking it with me on every move. My friend Roz painted two Native American Chiefs for me, and I have both in our living room; I'll also take a picture of that one later. On the far right are two watercolors painted by a woman named Verna Gannon in Sacramento that hung in a restaurant some friend's owned. Each time I would go to that restaurant I would look at them and then I bought them. One is an eerie scene of trees in fog, and the other is a brilliantly colored vision of people that seem to be rising.

We bought this African jug on a trip to Aiken; it's not terribly old, but I loved the color and the roughhewn shape of it. Plus, it was sitting in this wooden base, which we found out was sold separately, but we bought that, too. Looking closely, you see it was once one piece of wood, carved into a stand that also has faces on the tops that hold the jug. It isn't African, but again, it looked so good together we bought both.

Lastly, there is a Mexican art form where people paint brilliantly colored impressionistic paintings on tree bark that has been flattened into a canvas. We have several around the house, but these were gifts from Tia Gloria and are my favorites.

So, there you have it, a little more Things I Like Around the House.

For the Stunning Deedles: The Kitchen

I had posted some photos of things in our kitchen that I liked, and the delightful DeeDahLahDeeDah remarked how large the room seemed, so I figured I’d shared what it looked like when we moved in and what it looks like now, with a little paint and some scrubbing …

As you can see, in the photo, for the love of god, there were blue mother**king sponge-painted walls and a freakin’ chair rail. Also, what I politely called a Porn Lamp above where a table might sit. I went an olive green on the cabinets and a sunny yellow on the walls and ripped down that stinkin’ rail.

In this picture you see more brown than should ever be in a room, as well as an old, OLD, OLD Jenn Air Downdraft stove and the skinniest fridge I’ve ever seen. We kept the stove a while until we had a gas line run to the house, but the fridge went away instantly, as did the cabinet above as the new one was ‘human’ height.

This is the other side of the room, with the old and new paint, as well as a new dishwasher and, yes, I have one, and no, I’ve never used it, a trash compacter. I have decided that since we are not, as yet, redoing the entire kitchen, I am going to buy a small wine fridge because I need wine more than I need my trash compacted.

And these last photos are the kitchen today … well, the kitchen about a month ago when I took the photos. Lighter, brighter, and with new lamps, a new gas stove, and without a freakin’ chair rail!!

There you go, Duchess Deedles.

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 …