Three Saddles; Three Little Words

Above are three English saddles I bought at an antique store in Morrisville this week,being investigated a little by Maisy. I paid $60 for the lot, which felt like a bargain to me because, my gosh, they're leather and someone in Argentina must have had a job of work to make them. Of course, I am leaving aside the fact that I don't ride horses, nor does anyone in my family. Allow me to digress on this point for a moment...

I have actually resolved not to ride horses, nor to allow anyone in my family to develop an interest therein. Of course horses are gorgeous and I am connected with some lovely horse-riding people. I have noticed,however, that horses are sort of like the Sun (or at least Jupiter) in the lives of these people. They are massive, gravity-creating entities around which their owners seem forced to orbit. Everyone I know who has horses spends more money on them than they do on their mortgages. They all seem happy enough to revolve around their horses and to pay for the privilege but I am not going there - despite the fact that we own lots of land and I have a 12-year-old daughter... She can put one of these saddles on a saw horse and pretend, for free. Until I sell the saddles of course.

I bought these, as you have probably figured out by now, with the purpose of reselling them at what I hope might be a small profit. I have decided (and you knew this was coming if you've been following along), to make a foray into the world of commerce. This will, I hope, take the shape of a booth at the upcoming "British Invasion" car show in Stowe this September.

Maybe I'll take a cue from the London street hawkers of yore and develop a cry for my wares (you know, along the "cockles! mussels! hot chestnuts! scissors sharpened!" variety). Since I plan to sell all manner of items, mostly the English dishes and books and pictures - and saddles - that I can't seem to resist, this call will take some time to work out. I am open to suggestions. If you get to Stowe Sept. 17-19 this year, look for me and the kids under the blue and white striped pop-up shelter called (I have ordered a banner) "It's Splendid. I'll Take It!"

I am still awaiting approval for my booth from the event organizers but I have sent them my check and I think they'll let me in, even though I am not selling car-themed stuff. I am afraid this may mean that the kids and I will be lonely at our booth but we're all kind of excited about venturing forth. I may require Shackleton to dress like the Artful Dodger and drag the car people over to buy a teacup. I don't know...

Three Little Words

I have been thinking lately of the power of three-word descriptions to sum people up.
I was reading a little booklet on English Architectural Drawings of the 1930s, something produced in conjunction with a show on the subject in London during the 1980s, and the author of the beautifully written forward referred to someone as an "antic Cambridge don."

Hmm, I thought. This is sort of like Haiku. Let's think, what three words would nail me? I can't hope for "antic Cambridge don." Maybe, "sour-mouth bi__ch"? Sometimes that would be fair. "Past-it writer manque?" (I count that as three words because hyphenated words count as one - sorry about the missing accent). Perhaps this seems too harsh. I'll keep thinking. Why not try this out on yourself. It's not a bad exercise for a Sunday when we should all do a little reflecting.

I have been occupied these last few weekends with planning work on "It's Splendid" and will be continue to be so for the next few weekends to come. This is one reason the old Blog has languished. Thanks to those of you who have continued to drop by. I send best wishes to you to enjoy what's left of summer.

Sunday on the Mountain

I may have been the last person in the US to hear about "geocaching" (or second to last if one of you just read the word for the first time). Anyway, in case that second to last person tunes in here, Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment. As per the official website. Hmmm. I am not sure I am properly supporting the environment by leaving a coffee can in a moldering log in wild Vermont... Oh well. I go there a lot so I'll make sure it doesn't become a nuisance.

Me and the kids hid our first cache ever today, up on Jay Peak. If you get up this way and fancy a short hike, you The coordinates should beon the Geocache website. A clue is hidden in the picture above (well, it's a picture of the coffee can that now holds our cache in situ, so it's a pretty good clue).

That's kind of it for the weekend. Work has hotted up in an unwelcome fashion and we are short-handed. The weekend was a kind of respite from a bad Friday to be followed by a Bad Monday. Ycch. I have decided that if I were to design a personal Coat of Arms my motto would be "I Don't Want Any Trouble." I wonder how you say that in Latin? I'll bet it sounds classy,

Report Writing for Accountants (BTW - as per a couple of posts back) has not been requested by anyone, mirabile dictu. I'll hang onto it for now - maybe til the next time I have to move. The offer to ship it away to anyone who wants it stands for now.

Best wishes for a happy Mondays to any stoppers-in.

So, Galadriel Dropped by the Other Day...

And while she was catching some rays out on the lawn, the Understudy snapped the above shot of her. (Doesn't it look like she's on something?)

(This won't make any sense when I change the banner picture, which I often do because I get bored quickly). My brother gave this Tolkien-inspired Barbie to the Understudy for Christmas a few years ago, not having got the memo, apparently, that we don't really do Barbie. The Understudy grabbed her off the shelf in my office the other day, where she had been keeping company with a barefoot GI Joe from the same source, and decided to do a photo shoot. So, that's all there is to say about that.

Report Writing for Accountants Can Be Yours!

In other news, I wanted to let you know that I went back to the book sale (see the last post) and snagged Report Writing for Accountants.

Can you believe that even though the price had been dropped to zero there were no takers (other than me)? I had a quick look inside and can report that there are no chapters on "creative accounting" or anything that threatens to be interesting. Also, I see on the fly leaf that it once lived in the inventory of used book seller where the proprietor was trying to get $7.50 for it. That's seven dollars and fifty cents! You don't have to be an accountant...

All the unwanted book-sale books were headed for the pulp mill the day after I plucked Report Writing from among the doomed. So I feel very slightly virtuous for having saved this one, at least this one, from the macerator. But like so many rescue stories, this one may end badly unless I can find someone who wants it now. If anybody knows an accountant, or someone, anyone, who wants it (a $7.50 value, after all), email me your contact info, and I will send it to you for free! Media mail is on me, so long as you're in the U.S.

It's clearly time for me to go read some other blogs. Bye for now.

Mystery of the Library Book Sale

Now why hasn't this one flown out of the Stowe Free Library Book Sale?

Probably people are waiting for the movie. I know I am.

Some Friendly Advice

I've been away for a bit - not really away, away, just not writing here. A few ideas have dropped onto the stony ground of my imagination over the last week or so, but none seems to have taken hold. I thought the I had a BIG IDEA for a post about the metamorphosis that earnestness has taken over the last 150 years or so while I was reading Lytton Strachey's biography of Queen Victoria last night.

Turns out that when Prince Albert, future consort of Queen Victoria, and his brother Ernest were examined for their confirmation by the German Bishops of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, crowds gathered to watch. Strachey reports that every one was riveted. The princes did well and this was considered a good show. Hmm. I thought. Times have changed, haven't they? Earnestness remains, but no one seems to be looking for it in the correct religious sensibilities of future princes. What's the equivalent these days? Maybe some students presenting an alternative energy project at contest sponsored by Bill and Melinda Gates?

That's kind of as far as I got. I kept reading. It's really a great book.

So, just so you few who continue to stumble in here don't go away empty handed, I thought I'd dispense some advice. I know how we all enjoy getting advice. I especially enjoy the nuggets dispensed for me by Whusband. I enjoy it so much that I have decided to fine him for any sentence that begins with, "What you should do is..."

But that's us. I am sure you'd be happy to take advice from me! And who knows, someday when I am gone my kids might read this blog looking for maternal wisdom. (The picture above of the Understudy was snapped this week by one of her friends. "How soon hath time...")

So for you and them, my best piece of advice is "Drive slow in parking lots."

I know I have already shared this but I am offering it again because it is really excellent advice. If that's not enough, or you find it a bit shop-worn, I'll also add, "Don't smoke."

And, if you must smoke, don't smoke on the street or at least never walk with a lit cigarette. It looks really cheap.

I hope inspiration is being kinder to you all. Bon weekend.

Patient to Doctor (incredulous, amazed): You Use Restasis?

I always have been and ever shall be a TV person. Deplorable in many quarters, I know, but there it is. And, I'll say it, there's actually a lot of good stuff on TV. Lately I like American Pickers. Of course there's also a lot to be depressed about. The saddest, next to infomercials, is the network news- no, strike that, the commercials during the evening news.

"I got my Hover-Round delivered straight to my home and it didn't cost me a dime."

People born before 1940 are apparently prone to a certain kind of credulousness. Put someone in a lab coat and give her a stethoscope and they're sold. I also love how the perscription drug ads attempt to paper over the ominous side effects the government has forced them to reveal: "May cause internal bleeding, dry throat, blindness and death. Tell your doctor if you're taking any medications, including antacids, as this may cause a certain form of paralysis." These warnings are always accompanied by images of barefoot middle-aged people flying kites on a beach at sunset. I amuse myself by thinking of the gap between the reality of the people who are meant to go to their doctors and request whatever drug and the actors who fly the kites on the beaches.

Best of all (for purposes of the credibility gap) are the ads for exterminators and home alarm systems. In case you missed it, the super competent young-ish people of America have decided to forego careers at NASA or in Special Forces so that they can monitor alarm systems and keep bugs out of people's homes. E.g.:

Dear Dr. Granger,

After long, hard consideration, I am afraid that I am going to have to decline JPL's offer of a post-doctoral fellowship in Remote Sensing of Atmospheric Composition Ground-Based Spectroscopy. I know it represents a very fine opportunity, but I have been offered a position as a security alarm monitor by a national home security provider. So, despite my abiding interest in the measurement of atmospheric species and aerosols that affect air quality and ozone chemistry in Earth's atmosphere, I feel that I can better use my talents keeping my fellow Americans safe from intruders who are even more directly menacing than greenhouse gases. Thanks so much for your interest and best of luck in filling the position.

------------

Dear Colonel Granger,

As you know, I have been mulling over whether I should re-enlist next month. I have been very tempted by the opportunity to fly a FA/18 Super Hornet Jet, and by the prospect of getting into anti-submarine warfare and mine countermeasures. However, after much deep thought, and prolonged counsultation with my family, I have decided to take up a new mission as a civilian. As you are no doubt aware, insects and pests of all kinds are, at every moment, attempting to penetrate food storage areas and otherwise hygenic areas of the homes of our countrymen and women. Terminix (TM) has offered me an opportunity to combat these waves of vermin and I feel I must not let it slip by. Plus, I prefer the Terminix (TM) uniform. Thank you for the confidence you have shown in me.

Let's Hear it for New York!

How are you spending your heat wave?

My grand plan for this week - one that I hatched in my bed in the early morning hours of winter days months ago - was to use this week for a multi-day bike tour of the Erie Canal bike path: my own personal shake-down cruise.

Welllll. As things transpired...

The Understudy had been willing to wager that I would not make my bike trip, which obnoxious of her (whereever does she get it?).

Suffice it to say that Shackleton and I are here, not far from the Erie Canal Bikeway, at my Dad and Stepmother's house near Albany (where else do we ever go?)

O.K. So the Understudy was mostly right with her forecast, but partly wrong since I brought my bike along (not my vintage English roadsters but something more modern that resembles a shark, in its way). And for each of the last three mornings I have taken my shark with its 21 gears and its bum-saving seat out for a spin. An hour the first two mornings, on roads around Dad's house, and two hours yesterday - actually along a section of the Canal Bike Path. Given the heat (96 degrees yesterday) I was more or less compelled by health and safety considerations to finish up these rides by 9 AM. (That, and the fact that I had reached the limits of my endurance - no way could I have ridden that bike for a whole day).

The section I rode yesterday could have been marked Memory Lane, well known to me as it was from my ever receding childhood, adolescence and early 20s.

In some shoe box somewhere there is a picture of me on this stretch of path astride my new red Ross 10-speed in a "Virginia is for Lovers" poly blend T-Shirt, flare jeans and Tom McCann sneakers. I am sporting a hair cut that could have been achieved by cutting around the bottom of a mixing bowl Oh, 2003 where have you gone? (kidding! this was darkest 1977). I went by the little league field where my brother once got his jaw broken by a bad hop, and the GE lab where my father has toiled for decades, making possible the house where I have been luxuriating in AC, bathing in a big whirlpool tub and watching the Netherlands push past Uruguay in giant HD splendor. (No wonder we never go anyplace else).

Here's some of what I saw on these trips: (Taking picture with my camera phone provided cover for my need to hop off the shark and pant).



An old school building...



Where once we came for field trips...



Lock 7 on the Mohawk River

Pathetically short as my little bike tours have been I have been inspired to ride a lot more this summer. It was really great to feel a little sore and get the old metabolism moving. Oh, and have I mentioned how I had no misgivings at all about loafing at the parental palace all day after an hour's work in the mornings? It's so freeing to have accomplished a bit of exercise first thing - like buying an indulgence.

Shackleton, however, has spent his days here a little lonely, without the Understudy (though he refuses to admit it). He mostly spent yesterday in the kid zone (read, "basement") making videos of the local toys (camera was taped to "truck man") and watching TV. I took pity on him and joined him for a little TV around dinnertime. We watchd a PBS show which included a section about kids bowling.

"Let's go bowling!"

Great. Wii bowling has a lot to recommend it - like no bowling ball and high likelihood of high scores, but real bowling meant leaving the house and it was time for that. Also, downtown Albany has a throw-back alley that I went to once for a charity bowling event 20 years ago. Here was a chance not only for bowling, but for a cultural experience for a Vermont boy.

Suffice it to say we had a great time at the Playdium. (See today's banner). It is in a racially mixed neighborhood - something we don't have much of in northern New England. It was mobbed with people of all ages and colors and there was a snack bar and a regular bar and insufficient air conditioning. We worked up a sweat. The scoring equipment featured little videos that mocked us for throwing gutter balls. A good time was had by all. Well, maybe not so much by the two young guys who got the alley next to me and Shack. They listed their bowling names as Ice-T and T-Rex and I think my presence dampened their good time. (Middle-aged broad who looks like she might be a teacher or some otherwise unwelcome entity). I noticed that despite their quasi gangster appearance and youth, they bowled really bad, like, worse than me and looked kind of gay doing it. More than a little gay. It's good to get out and see the world!



Back to VT at noon today. No AC awaits once we get back there. Oh dear.