Under a Blue Moon

Bleshoo

So I made it out of my snozzly fog long enough on Thursday to hit up an antique store. Or emporium. What do you call those places that are hundreds of vendors under one roof? This particular place calls itself the Antique Trove and there is one in Roseville and one in San Carlos. Both convenient to me depending on what day of the week it is.

Today it was San Carlos. I tend to get overwhelmed in places like this and that old expression ‘can’t see the forest for the trees’ begins to make sense to me. I need a purpose otherwise my eyes can’t rest on anything except the alarming number of old furs for sale. So even though I was kind of kidding the other day about looking for handkerchiefs that’s exactly what I went in for.

I made one pass through the place. There was a woman following close behind me that wasn’t adhering to the antique emporium etiquette protocol. First of all those booths are all about the size of a small walk-in closet and are jammed packed with Aunt Enid’s old fox stole and a ton of very expensive, tippy, breakable things.

There’s barely room for one person so the polite thing to do is to wait for the person ahead of you to take a look around before taking your turn. This woman is probably one of those people that get super duper close to you when you are at the check out line in the supermarket. It’s not like her jamming her cart into your Achilles tendon is going to make the person in front of you check out any faster, right?

Anyway – I believe there is a post in here somewhere – oh yes. So I made one pass and was going to take my consumptive self back out to my car when I decided to just walk through again quickly. And wouldn’t you know the second or third booth from the front door had a great selection of hankies that I just flat out missed the first time around. I bought two single ones and at the very bottom of the heap was this old box and it had a set of three handkerchiefs that had never been used. Jackpot.

I have no idea what I’ll ever do with them. They are too pretty to blow my nose on. I may try incorporating them into pillows or something like that.

*Bleshoo ~ when I was little that’s what I though people said when you sneezed. I think I was about 24 before I realized it was actually bless you. Same with next door – which I thought it was next store which made no sense but I went with it. My people need to learn how to enunciate.

Easter

Well I never made it to the antique store yesterday – perhaps today. Instead I went to downtown Los Altos and walked up and down Main Street while the rain held off.

I was looking for Easter decorations and Cover Story (where the bunny with the bomb came from) usually has a good selection of Bethany Lowe, Nicol Sayre type things. I overheard the owner telling another customer that Easter decorations don’t do as well as the other holidays like Christmas or Halloween (not technically a holiday but you know what I mean – it’s a decorating opportunity).

That kind of surprised me – I think the Easter things are really adorable. The eggs are Wendy Addison and the Easter cart and boxes are Nicol Sayre. How cute are they?

My niece used to work at Cover Story when she was a teenager and she said that they had a big problem with shoplifters. Someone actually came in and stole a big old rooster. Now how do you sneak something like that out? Whenever I’m in there I feel like they think I’m a shoplifter so I spend the entire time trying to look as honest and trustworthy as I possibly can. I’ve never shoplifted a thing in my life so I don’t know why I feel almost guilty for something I have no intention of doing.

I’m giving up guilt for Lent.

Slow day

I’m a little slow to post today. Actually, I’m a little slow at everything today. This cold has taken a firm grip in my chest and the coughing is just flat out wearing me down.

I have Alanis Morissette’s song "Isn’t it ironic" stuck in my head since I am ON VACATION and I immediately get sick. Well it may take a cold to slow me down because I’m finding I don’t do it very well on my own. I took two weeks off from work with just the vaguest of ideas of how to fill my time. I have plans to go here and there but what I’m finding is that I feel almost frantic with the need to r e l a x and slow down. I feel like I need to make the most of this time off and that it is just slipping away and I’m not feeling the serenity I was thinking I would.

Well I did get up and go to the bakery for brioche. That’s pretty slow. Next on my agenda is to go an antique store or two and look for some linens. I’m feeling the need for some old hankies.

In the pink

Okay I’m not really in the pink. My dad says that ("I’m in the pink") whenever anyone asks him how he is. If by chance he doesn’t say it then my sister and I hover around him nervously until he bats us away with a "oh for crying out loud ~ I’m fine."

In my search around the house yesterday for ideas on how to rearrange things I noticed how many pink objects I have. I never really consider myself a collector of anything but maybe I’m an accidental collector. I do have a small collection of teacups that are sadly tucked away in china cabinet in a room that rarely gets used.

I was thinking of how I could display them more prominently and was thinking maybe I could get a pretty painted hanging china shelf and hang it on this huge expanse of bare wall.

I don’t know how to exactly explain what I’m thinking of except to say it would be sort of like this only with three shelves instead of two.

I’m not sure Rick would go for it so it might have to be one of those stealth decorating things I do. Except that I would probably need him to make it for me so he might get suspicious.

Sick day

(Edited to add: This picture was a premonition. This morning I woke up to Belle mewling in that certain way when she has brought us something. Usually a lizard. Or the occasional snake. Lot’s of times it is little birds. She’s stealthy, that cat. She doesn’t kill them – she brings them in and let’s them go and we have to deal with them. So this morning she’s mewling but comes right into my bedroom empty handed. I get up, have my Diet Coke and write my blog entry for the day. I was trying to find a vintage get well card in my stash of images but liked the colors in this one.

Well now I can hear chirping coming from somewhere in the house. I have all the doors wide open hoping it will fly out on its own. So far I can’t find it. I also have a confession – I have a phobia of flying things. More specifically butterflies and moths but birds flying in close proximity to me freak me out.

What a way to start the day. For the bird and me.)

This cold has firmly planted itself into my chest and doesn’t appear to want to leave. I’m moping around the house half-heartedly starting little projects and abandoning them when my energy and motivation wane.

What my body really wants is to nap and I’m so not a napper. I hate that feeling that you aren’t entirely asleep and when you do wake up from your stupor you feel totally discombobulated. I feel groggy and stupid after napping, not refreshed.

So instead I’ll wander about and see what rooms need rearranging.

It’s funny, my husband, while aware of this blog, isn’t a regular reader. He’s more of a sporadic reader. Yesterday he asked me what the URL was so he could catch up.

He was reading for a while then hopped up from the computer, went back to the guest room and then came back into the kitchen where I was sitting. "I didn’t realize you had painted the sconces in the guest room."

The guest room is straight down the hallway and you can see the sconces from the doorway. He must have walked down the hallway a million times since I painted them.

I think I’ll spend the day changing a few things up and will see how long it takes him to notice.

Blue Goose

Saturday was glorious here in Northern California. Clear skies, mild temperatures and it seems like all the pear trees have started blossoming over night.

And I have a miserable cold. I haven’t had a cold in about three years and have been quite smug about it, actually. So much for my record. And of course the reason I have a cold is because I am finishing up one massive work project and have a teeny opportunity to take some time off before the next one starts so of course I’m going to spend it sick.

Rick and I decided to take a drive and check out a produce market in a little town called Loomis. It was a nice day for a drive so we took a meandering route. The Blue Goose Produce market is on historic highway 40 – it used to be the highway people would take to get up to Lake Tahoe before 80 was built. We stopped in at the market and the proprietress tucked us right under her wing. She was showing us locally bottled salsas and vinegars, soup mixes, mandarins (very big crop up here). She was telling us that her daughter came in and told her that the big discount supermarket had the same salsa for half as much. "Oh well, the Blue Goose is in the business to make money and we throw in a little extra charm when you buy it here."

The building is the old Loomis train station and has actually had a building kind of built on around it so when you are inside you can see the platform where people would buy their tickets and wait for the train.

She insisted on showing us the ‘ball room’ she has for rent. It was all set up for Senior Burrito Bingo night. 800 seniors were expected to show up later on in the evening for Mexican food and a little church sanctioned gambling. I thought that sounded like splendid fun but we had more of highway 40 to travel so we bought some soup mix and overpriced salsa and hit the road.

Proof Spring is around the corner ~ my daffodils are blooming:

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