Monday Amuse

blue

This past week has been Dull and Dreary. Dark and Grey. Not the kind of days that entice one to venture outside for strolling.

The enticement lay more in staying indoors with a pot of tea and a good book.

So, that's what I've done.

A couple of weeks ago I was visiting - shopping - at my neighbourhood antique shop, which is dangerously only a less than 10 minute walk up the road when my eye spied

this mug. a Fire King D handle breakfast mug. In Delphite Blue.

A lone survivor, the 3 siblings having succumbed to irreparable maiming in the kitchen sink crashes of 1972, 1973 and 1988.

It seemed a shame to separate him from his distant cousins the mixing bowls. The middle one still has nightmares of her favoured big sister

clattering to the floor at the hands of an inept yet eager 6 year old cookie maker.

Delphite, the tea mug now joins Lustre, the coffee mug

as my newest old favourite mugs.

a night out in '67

A guide to an evening's entertainment from Tuesday Feb 7 1967 (Toronto Daily Star)

Spaghetti with meat sauce, bread & butter
All You Can Eat
after 14 years STILL
95 cents
from 12noon to 8pm
Toronto's Brown Derby Tavern

enjoy a Sing-A-Long in their Gay Nineties and Roarin' 20's Room

Dancing lessons are big and now you can start "6 months of weekly parties" for the Pre Grand Opening special price of $14.95 at the Fred Astaire World of Dance

or you could visit the Victory Burlesk for a stage show (adult)

shows at 1:30, 4:30, 7:30, 10:30

You could head over to The Royal Alexandra Theatre
to see Robert Reed and Pat Suzuki in The Owl and the Pussycat
at 8:30 pm with ticket prices from $3.00, $4.90 and $5.90

or at home you can turn on the TV and watch
Dick Powell in The Tall Target
Tense suspense story of the plot to kill a President!
at 6pm on WKBW channel 7

if you didn't have a television set yet, there's always the AM radio
where CFRB plays Starlight Serenade from 9:05 - 11:00 pm
Composers included: Rimsky-Korsakoff, Chopin, Puccini, R.V. Williams, Sibelius
or Candlelight & Wine on CHFI
or tune into the FM dial on CJRT and learn in Dutch (lesson #6)

Your choice of movies this week includes:
My Fair Lady (Technicolor)
Alfie ( Restricted) (Technicolor)
Hawaii (Color by Delux)
Dr Zhivago (Adult) (in Panavision Color by Metrocolor)
Sand Pebbles (Color by Delux)
The Ten Commandments (Technicolor)
Georgy Girl (Restricted)
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Adult) (Color by Delux)
Melina Mercouri in Topkapi and Never on Sunday (Restricted) (Color)

Sun - Thurs $2.50 for Orchestra and $3.00 for Loges
Fri, Sat, Hols $3.00 Orchestra and $3.50 Loges
Matinees: .50 less than above prices.
8PM and 2PM - reserve seats at Box Office or phone theatre
Smoking in the Loges only.

the postie has been ... a few times

I do appreciate this sense of humour from Holger in Liepzig


Life is Beautiful from Inese in Latvia


Sabine in Germany has reindeer near her town!


Maria in Moscow also included cool stamps


and a vintage (1925) shot of the Galata Port in Istanbul from Ahmet.

and finally, from Pika in Slovenia

washday

Since I don't have one of those guys from Monday's Amuse hanging about just waiting to be helpful, I made my own way down to the laundry room the other day only to find a crude sign on the locked door saying "closed for electrical issues".

Huh?

Mystery solved yesterday when it was discovered the price of the washing machines had risen. Some interesting 'electrical issue'.

A few months ago we were treated to new machines, ones that took smart cards instead of coins. The coin machines were annoying in that instead of just taking quarters, you had to use 1 loonie and 2 quarters, then 3 quarters. So, when the price went up to $2 I guess the machine couldn't handle the dilemma of 2 loonies or 1 loonie and 4 quarters.

Problem solved by getting new machines so the price could be raised by cents: $2.10, $2.20, $2.25, $2.35, $2.45.

And, sneaky bastards, the times get to be altered too. So now instead of a 40 minute cycle, it quietly went down to 38 minutes. At first, I noticed some of the machines were 40 minutes and some 39 minutes, then if you paid attention, you noticed that the machine would jump from 40 to 39 within seconds making you wonder how long that 40 minutes actually was. I never hang around the dismal place to find out.

Oh, there are more tales from the laundry room, but I have more laundry waiting downstairs to be brought up and folded and put away.

Monday AMuse

burberry and turkey

Not for the squeamish.

Remember that ending scene from Fargo, where the victim is put through the wood chipper?

Except this time there is an awful lot of 'great' prattling on, and on,
"you need a little bit of levity in this job"
"certainly we'll invite a little critiscm for doing this too, but it was fun"

Here is a video showing what happens to the turkeys that don't get pardonned.

organization is fun

Ususally around this time of year I am busy wandering in and out of various office supply stores, stationers, booksellers, etc. seeking out the most perfect appointment book for the following year. For some reason, I love doing this. It fills me with great pleasure and a sense of fulfilment when accomplished. And great hope that the appointment book will be well thumbed and full of notes and well, appointments.

I am very particular about this book. It must be a weekly, so that when you open it up the whole weeks worth of daily activities can be seen on two pages. And, because the majority of my appointments are in the evening, the time must go beyond 5pm, preferably to 9pm. I like to circle the time and write in the name beside it. This limits the choices severely. I usually like it to be a professional black cover, but often alternate between black and burgundy. Secretely, I would love to have one in one of the bright springy green or light blues so that I can find it more easily. But not pink, I hate pink. And, it must feel right - the paper has to have a certain weight to it, the cover mustn't be so flimsy as to get bent, laying flat is a bonus, as is a bookmark. It should also be of a size that fits easily into a purse, or even a large pocket, but not so small that I will lose track of it or have to write neatly with tiny letters. I have been known to spend a good month or more researching every available new appointment book before making my final choice.

Then last year, I found the perfect book. So perfect, I want no other. It doesn't have a time going well into the evening, but I've learned to not be bothered about that. Mostly I have only one appointment an evening anyway, so that was the first particular to fall by the wayside. It is a weekly, but not on two pages, only one. But the other page is lined and I find I am using that for notes more often than I thought possible (sure saves on the bits of paper I usually use then lose). It has a ribbon bookmark and an elastic band thingy to keep it all closed. And the cover is nice and soft and pliable. It lays flat when open. There is an envelope attached for keeping receipts handy. It is used by the most creative and freethinking people the world over (or so it claims). It is actually a pleasure to write in its pages. I write down thoughts and ideas and overheard conversations and books I want to read and things I want to buy and addresses (she says breathlessly) and can easily find them again and when they were important enought to be noted.

I managed to get it on sale for half price. Which was good because it originally cost $40.

And is a Moleskine

And I love it.

I cannot wait to get my 2009 copy.

But I will. Because, I am cheap. No, I am thrifty.

And I know that by the middle of January it will again be half price.

melancholy

the bitterest tears shed over graves

are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.

harriet beecher stowe

I was at another funeral on Monday. He was an older man and in poor health, but no one anticipated the sudden heart attack that took his life. He was declining, not dying.

Such events make one melancholy. Thoughtful. Introspective.

He was at once on the periphery yet so integral to my life since I was born. His extended family a familiar extension of my small family. As my brother and I grew older and moved away from the home where Fred lived across the street and eventually away from the city we grew up in, we lost touch except through anecdotes and occasional Christmas visits. But the connection is forever there.

We see each other and the time melts away in uneven patterns. We are all older. The next generation is older and the family resemblances are happily and sometimes shockingly noted. The memories return, unbidden, erupting.

"Oh it is so nice to see you"

"It has been so long, hasn't it"

"I hope to see you again soon"

And you can feel the air ever so slightly move. It changes, it reverses as the words are said. As the words are left unsaid.

Because you know, you both know, that it will likely be at the next funeral that you see one another again.

~~~~~

geewits had a link on a post about a week ago for a musical interlude by her FIL. I thought of Fred when I heard her Bill's rendition of A Froggie Went A Courtin and listened to the recording several times. Fred was a musician at heart. He loved nothing better than playing his banjo or guitar. He tried to teach me that song when I got my first guitar, but I was never very good. Thanks, geewits, I'll keep listening to Bill singing and think of Fred's big smile as he plays his banjo. A perfect composite.

otis

(SITTIN' ON) THE DOCK OF THE BAY- written by Otis Redding and Steve Cropper - lyrics as recorded by Otis Redding December 7, 1967, just three days before his death in a plane crash outside Madison, Wisconsin - #1 for 4 weeks in 1968

Sittin' in the mornin' sun
I'll be sittin' when the evenin' come
Watching the ships roll in
And then I watch 'em roll away again, yeah

I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Ooo, I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time

I left my home in Georgia
Headed for the 'Frisco bay
'Cause I've had nothing to live for
And look like nothin's gonna come my way

So I'm just gonna sit on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Ooo, I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time

Look like nothing's gonna change
Everything still remains the same
I can't do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I'll remain the same, yes

Sittin' here resting my bones
And this loneliness won't leave me alone
It's two thousand miles I roamed
Just to make this dock my home

Now, I'm just gonna sit at the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Oooo-wee, sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time