Sharp days

I am unutterably sad. It seems that my girl is finally succumbing to the renal failure that we’ve been nursing her through for years. Maybe she’s just having a bad day and will be bouncing around again tonight, but I don’t think it’s likely.

Here she is on the coffee table a little over a week ago. She’s not allowed to be up there. We didn’t let her stay long this time, but she never even tried until recently. Her tail is looking rather posh here, but you can also see the spiky fur of a kidney cat.

I’ve known this was coming for years, got a reminder several times a day when administering all the various meds, and have felt I was perhaps overly pragmatic about the reality of death as I dealt with loss in my life in the past. Yet I am feeling crushed right now. In between checking in with her, I keep trying to work on the front room, and the butterfly that appeared out of nowhere the other night has shown up again.

It’s really a moth, right? The moth of death?

Happy hoary days

Back to our regularly scheduled winter.

Winter wonderweirdfulness

It’s January 9th. I was lucky enough to have a day off work—a holiday gift so much better than the frozen turkeys of years past—and decided to nab the chance to do yard cleanup that I neglected last year. In a T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Bare-armed in January!

The snowdrops are pushing out. This usually happens after the snow—not before.

Weird days, indeed. I’m enjoying this, quite frankly, but I still have to remind myself what month it is several times a day.

 

Window warp

Hey, those windows we installed last year have been installed! Yeah, they’re new. Yeah, I kinda hate that. Yeah, so I rationalize it by the fact that they are replacing horrible replacement windows that would never clean to a clear pane and I had to caulk every winter if I didn’t want to dance with flakes and breeze.

And what stuns me even more than all that? I posted the vinyl windows on Craigslist, and a guy named Bob jumped right up and grabbed them. I only rue the idea that they might end up in some poor tenant’s apartment.

And yeah, there’s still some work to be done. By the end of this year, I swear!

Kidney cat with corn

Photo: Helen Levitt, 1942

Shiatsu today?

Have I mentioned that I run a day spa on my front porch?

A door story

Came upon this nifty blog called Vintage Found Photo Stories via this post about a Masonic door knocker. The mere phrase makes my mind conjure crazy contraptions. A hand-shaped knocker that slaps you around—sure you want to go in there, how about a little hazing first? A doortop fez whose tassel you yank to announce your presence? Or how about the eyebell?

Image courtesy Adam Dodson

 

 

Vinyl adventures

I’m looking for someone to refurbish these 50s dinette chairs. I know where to get new old-style vinyl. But I haven’t had any luck finding someone who will reupholster them for me. I especially want to preserve that swoopy white edge.

References and offers appreciated.

OK, so after I wrote that up there but before I posted this I found something that blows me over. Step-by-step instructions and a video on Pink of Perfection. Seriously. It’s been out there for years and I only just looked. And I only just went into the kitchen and flipped over one of the chairs to see that the piping is not nearly as complex as I imagined it was while staring at it from across the room. Well, that’s how it is sometimes when you’ve got a heap of projects and a head full of ideas and only 24 hours in a day. So maybe I will do them myself, but I would still love to hear of any reasonably priced options for hiring this out. Cuz like I said, heap of projects!

I’m bummed to say it look’s like Beatrice’s Atlantis is no more. But it seems she’s running an upholstery service, so if you’re looking to refresh your dinette chairs in New York, look her up.

And thank you, Sarah! You’ve made my day.

I spy fungi

But don’t know which ones. Hiking quite often leads to spotting mushrooms quite often and thinking I really need to take a fungi ID class. Every time I think of this, though, it seems I’ve just missed one.

I’m pretty sure this is a puffball. An aging puffball that’s about to turn to spores. But dang, lookit that thing!

And I’ve no notion what this is.

But it’s beautiful and I want to get to know it. And eat it, if advisable. Rawr.