Wanderlust & Pixie Dust

Vintage Pa, Ma and Me

February sucked.  It sucked real bad.  Pops had two hospital visits and I lost one of the loves of my life.  That's dad on the right.  Mom said that this is one her favorite pictures of him.  Me too.  He looks so handsome. It's difficult to pull back the curtain at the hospital and see your father dozing and all of a 114 lbs.

He is home and doing fine for the time being.  Things get a little scary when a parent gets to be in their 70's.  Emailing an old friend last week got me to thinking.  I made mom dig up a shoebox or two. I became hellbent on trying to find one in particular. 

Somewhere there is a photo of me and Al (Al and I?) standing in the same line to beat the bejeezus out of a pinata.  I think that we are about 5.  I can't remember if we are standing side by side.  Something tells me that Al is peering from behind me.  Maybe I'm wrong.  Unfortunately I didn't find it, however I did come home with these. 

That's mom up above in jr. high.  I always thought my mother was prettier than everyone else's mom.  Sorry my friends but I still do.

Here I am chilling out on a park bench.  Banning Museum can be seen on the left hand side.  We used to climb and crawl over every inch of this place as kids.  I recall how we used to shriek and scream, telling tall tales to one another about how we thought that we saw a ghost peering from the circa 1864 windows or a head rolling down the stairs.  You know how kids are.

I look like a little boy.  I'm starting to look like a boy again the way my hair is thinning out these days.

Here I am on the left.  Sis took one look at this and made some wisecrack to the effect of "Yeah...that's your mug alright."  Smart butt.

Neato Brown Boots.

I'm trying oh so hard to part with a few things.  Keep what you really really really love Valerie and thin out the rest.  It's soooooooooooooo hard.  I'm about to put these boots up for grabs in my shop.  I just did.  Click HERE.

I couldn't squeeze in all the photo's I wanted to show so I thought that I would do a short post on them.

   

I'm always amazed but shoes of old.  Vintage and antique shoes hold up amazingly well.  These shoes were apparently polished by a previous owner but it is still easy to see how wonderfully sturdy and wearable they are. 

I saw a pair recently up for auction that dated to the early 1830's.  Lovely, delicate, cream colored slippers that looked as if Jane Austen had just stepped out of them.  In one of the shoes one could still easily read a pretty label.  Oh my.  I swoon to think of them even now. They sold for over $250.  Oh my again.  While attempting to find a picture on line of something similar, I stumbled upon Something About Mary.

Did you look?  Mary has some great links to lose yourself in for awhile.  

While we're at it, check 

this beautiful pair with a gabillion straps out on Ebay.   I want a pair like this in a bad way.  Is that so wrong?  I want them to fit perfectly.  I want to wear them and prance around in them and glance at myself in the mirror to catch a glimpse of them, all day long.  I just do.

Yay.  Found another pretty pair. Pretty embroidered velvet slippers.

In honor of our baby girl, our 3 angels.

The day after we lost our Abby we wandered over to one of our favorite nurseries.  I think that we both needed something to brighten up our world.  Our home and our yard was starting to look the way we felt.  My Pauly discovered this beautiful Bleeding Heart waiting just for us.

 

He called me over to see what he had found.  I took one look and knew exactly what he was thinking.  We would have to take it home in honor of our Abagail.  It reminds me of all 3 of our  beautiful poms.  What a perfect flower.  Is this even a flower?  What is a Bleeding Heart anyway?

 

A 6-pack of pansies also followed us home.

 

I definitely know what a broken heart is.

Bye my love.

Download MVI_2454

Yesterday we said goodbye to our sweetheart.  She seemed so perfectly normal one minute but for the most part,  she was constantly gasping for a good lungful of air.  The vet had suggested that we say bye to her a week ago but I just couldn't do it.  He said that she had lost most of the use of her lungs and that it was time to think of her first.

Little tumors or bumps were starting to spread along her spine.  Her back legs were stiff and wobbly.  However, she had a spirit and a fire in her like nothing else.  If you click on the download up above you can see our sweetpea.

 

She still had a hearty appetite.  She still begged for her cookies.  The night before she had horrible gas.  While at first it was amusing, it soon became painful to watch.  I sat up with her all night holding her, reassuring her, trying to give her some comfort.  She was so agitated.  It tore me apart. The more upset she became, the harder it was for her to breath.

Was she suffering?  Did we do it too soon?  Were we supposed to wait until her lungs collapsed completely on her while we were away?  Pauly keeps trying to remind me that we took away her struggling.  I can't help but think that I took away her cookies.  I took away her sunshine. 

I know that there are those of you who think childless dog people like me are crazy.  Ask me if I care. She was my soul mate and my companion.  My love and yes, my substitute child. Our lives were so wrapped up in hers, in making her comfortable. Our house is full of her and yet no longer home without her.  It's hard to imagine life without thinking of her first upon waking.  Without tripping over frozen ice pads spread out on the floor to keep her body temperature down.

 

Such a price to be paid for so much love.  With real children you hope and expect to leave this earth way before they do.  With dog babies, we hold them tight (when given the chance) and kiss them gently on their head and say good bye.  

Peanut, I miss you and love you with all my heart and soul.

I took these two pictures.

I like them.   The colors.  The way everything looks against the grey.

 

I just wish that one crucifix was not backwards.

It irks me.

"She was a pretty child, good natured, inclined to be quiet, but possessed of a curious mind." Vincent Cronin

Sis gave me a vintage book awhile back entitled THE ROMANTIC WAY An illuminating study of four women in pursuit of love and high adventure.  "Here. You can add this to your ETSY SHOP."  Sure, I'll take it.  Far be it for me to turn down a free book.  I opened it and started to read.

Caroline- Duchesse de Berry, Marie d'Agoult, Eve Hanska and Marie Bashkirtseff.  But which to read first? I began with the second Marie. 

Long ago during my F.C. (First Marriage) I had unearthed a translation of her passionate diary from French.  A nice old copy published in 1913 no less.  My first attempt at reading the diary of this talented painter, I was a bit taken aback.  I was much younger and newly married.  Her diary was so frank and honest. It was overflowing with more melodrama than I had ever known.  Now that I am older and have experienced more of life, the good times and the bad, her intensity of life is a strange comfort to me.  I lift her words up time and time again.  And choose a page at random. Anywhere will do.

"I am the most interesting book of all."

"I dream of the gallantries of past centuries and all unaware, I am the most romantic of women-how unhealthy it is!" 

Such intensity.  It's hard to read her words and not consider the time in which they were written.  To try and imagine what it would have been like to see the world through her eyes.  I could ramble on about the poor woman all night but I started out with the intention of blogging about Eve & Balzac. Was she indeed a "poor woman."  Some live to be 100 and do not love and live as she did.

"There are moments when I do not know what I detest, what I love, what I desire, nor what I fear."

Tragically, Marie only lived long enough to see her mid 20's.

Okay now I've gone and done it.  I've lost my mojo for Balzac and Hanska.  And I forgot that the title and quote for this post was in reference to Eve.  It certainly does not describe Bashkirtseff. Oh well.  Another night perhaps...

Pondering Some of the Reasons Why I Like Old Stuff. Jesse James, Chief Joseph & Sam Elliott.

Woke up at 4:30 in the morning.  Can't sleep.  I have a lot on the brain lately I guess.

I remained snuggled up like a bug in a rug for the longest time because I knew if I got up, my doggies would then copy me and get up too.  It's pouring rain at the moment.  I knew that they would moan and groan about venturing out into the cold and would most likely take care of business in the house soon as my back was turned.  They did.

I've been thinking a lot about why I feel so drawn to the past.  I thought about this while I stood on my street corner yesterday waiting for the little ones.  I may have touched on this subject a little previously and in my profile.  It seems to really be on my mind lately.

My mother truly is to blame.  I say this with the greatest affection as it made me who I am.  Some of my earliest memories are of us curled up beside her as she held us spell bound with ghost stories and tales of the circus coming to town when she was little.

According to mom, the circus actually set up shop in the field next door to her house.  Can you imagine such a thing? I would have lost my ever loving mind if a circus pulled up next door.  How exciting.

Oops.  Wrong circus. Maybe she was just telling fibs.  Mama?

There were always coffee table books about filled with photo's of Jesse James and The Younger Brothers.  Even as a little girl I thought that Jesse was dashingly handsome.   Ghost stories and tales about the illegal room underneath Grandma's old house (liquor?) were always being told. 

A life long love for books was formed.  My mother used to let us walk alone to the local library day after day.  She wasn't being a bad mom.  This was wayyyyyyyy back when you could still do this sort of thing.  We no longer let 7 and 10 year old stroll several blocks alone now do we?

I remember this library being dark and tiny.  Now I know why.  I just Googled it. It had been built in 1927 and was only 3700 square feet.  Pretty small for a library.  I read everything readable in the children's section and then made my way around the rest of the sections.  Stretched out for what seemed like forever, I carefully poured over books in order to choose something extra fascinating to carry back to mom.

Time and time again I returned to one book in particular.  It was a book about Chief Joesph and the Nez Perce.

Even as a little girl, and even though I already knew the ending,  I cried every time I came to his famous speech:

I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohoolhoolzote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say, "Yes" or "No." He who led the young men [Olikut] is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are -- perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.

Later there was a Movie of the Week that had the same effect on me.  Egads.  I thought that it had been made in the 80's.  Try again!  It was made in 1975!  And it had Sam Elliot in it!  I had forgotten this glorious fact.  Sorry if I sound a little excited here, I am. Hairy chested thick mustached men have never really been my thing but he certainly was. Funny though, how you can have a crush on someone at such a young age without really knowing why.  A life long crush I might add.  I loved his sexy voice before I even had a clue what sexy was.  Ain't life grand...

I digress.  What was I talking about?

Mozart on the brain

 

Little sis had been going on and on and raving about this wonderful little used bookstore she had discovered in Torrance, California.  Recently we had the opportunity to check it out for ourselves.  Just before we entered the store sis reminded me that it was indeed, a little store and not to be disappointed.  As if! Chica should have known me better being my sister and all.

She needed have worried her pretty little head. 

Well first off the store was small, truth be told.  BUT.  It was a combination used books/used CDS/used DVDS in English and Japanese store.  Evanescence wafted across the shop as we entered and then was quickly replaced by Asian pop music.  No mind.  It was all part of the ambience.

We spent about an hour in there and walked out pleased as punch.  Between the music, the books and pretending that I was back in Japan (back in my old airline days) a great afternoon was had by all.  Thanks little sis.  Thanks husband.

One of the books I picked up was  Marrying Mozart by Stephanie Cowell. I actually had checked this out at the library a while back and never got around to finishing it.  This time I was easily able to lose myself in the tale of 4 lovely sisters and their intanglement with Wolfgang.  I couldn't help but be reminded about one of my all time favorite movies Amadeus.  Am I showing my age? 

My poor husband was forced to watch the trailer and various film clips on YouTube that first night.  Supposedly the book has been optioned for a movie.  Lovely idea.

What I love best about this movie is F. Murray Abraham's

divine portrayal of Antonio Salieri.  I could watch every scene with him in it repeatedly.  The ending of this particular scene never fails to amuse me.

Here is part one from the movie in case you have never seen it and maybe, just maybe I have peeked your curiostiy: click here.  I've decided to quickly put the book, Marrying Mozart

up in one of my shops. I am trying so very hard to go through my books and part with a few. Books, books and more books.  Can one really never have too many?  Yes.  When there isn't anywhere to stack yet another.  

As of last night my brain was still very much in another era, place and time. 

I indulged my vintage impulses and desire for a 13 inch waist by watching The Duchess

with a piping cup of hot chocolate in hand.   

Interesting: the UK version of The Duchess trailer.