There beneath the blue suburban skies 25 May 2010

Summer may have arrived early in Rhode Island.

I can remember it being unseasonably cool all summer last year.  We didn’t even think about putting the a/c units up until late July, and got around to doing it mainly because we had company coming to stay with us.  It was in the 60s every day and 50s at night through July.

Not that I complained.  I am not a fan of summer, which, if you have read me for long enough, is something you’d already know.  Fortunately the last two states I’ve lived in have complied with my wishes and haven’t gotten too terribly hot.  That was doubly important in Washington since we didn’t have a/c at all.  We didn’t need it!  It would be hot for all of a week or two.  It was just a waste of money to buy a/c units.

Here, it’s hot for about a month, maybe six weeks — at least, by last year’s pattern.  It is worth it to buy the a/c units, mainly so we can sleep at night.  In Washington that was never a problem because no matter how hot it got during the day, it would always drop into the 50s at night.  It was like Nature’s air conditioning, and it was lovely.

Today was wicked hot.  Well.  Not really.  It was only about 75º, but under the blazing sun it felt a lot warmer.  It made for a lovely day for photos, however.

Kurt took the morning off to take me to breakfast (the first time in a looooooooooong time he’s been able to do that), but on the way home we just couldn’t figure out what we wanted to do.  The antique store was closed, and we didn’t really have the time to head up to Massachusetts to go to Target.  We ended up driving around aimlessly, and that’s how we were up at Island Park to take the above photo.

I love those beachfront homes, especially the red one.  It seems to be a popular architectural style here in New England because I see a lot of homes shaped like that.  Many have the cedar shakes that have weathered to grey, and while I find them charming, Kurt’s not really a fan.  Hmph.  I think we can agree on something beautiful like that red house, though.

We also ended up at Easton’s Beach, which if you’re a beach bum and you’ve been to Newport, that’s where you hung out.  Me, I’ve never been, mainly because I am not a fan of the beach (have you seen how pale I am?), and also because it’s just too dang crowded.  When my friends came to visit last summer, we took them to a beach known mainly to locals to circumvent the crowds.

I just wish the beaches were free.  Or at least cost a lot less money.  Going to that local beach cost us $20 per car.  Ouch.

But with the weather being so nice and warm, and really the hottest day thus far, I decided it was time to haul out the hose for the girls.  Initially I wanted to fill up the inflatable pool we have, but when Kurt had the pump running for a good 15 minutes and it was still barely inflated, I gave up.  Who knows.  It might be riddled with holes.  On to plan B!  But plan B involved this plastic mat that my in-laws had given us a year or two ago, and when the kids jumped on it as it filled with water, one of the sides burst.

So much for a fun water toy.

Plan C then, right?!  Not so much.  All I had left at this point was a generic slip n’ slide.  The first problem is that the water never really shot out of the holes.  I think the darn thing is too long to get any good water pressure built up.  Secondly, I don’t have a sloped yard.  It is flatter than flat — so sliding down a slip n’ slide isn’t really possible.

Poor kids.  No pool, no water mat, and now the slip n’ slide sucks.

Well, they didn’t know the slip n’ slide sucked.  They thought it was great!  But I have learned my lesson and will invest in an old-skool lawn sprinkler for maximum fun.  And I think I may have to invest in one of those plastic wading pools that are a foot deep so the kids can play.  I’m pretty much done with anything inflatable.  It’s too easy to break.

Tomorrow should be even hotter.  I think a trip to Job Lots or Benny’s to stock up on water toys is in order!

Those flashing lights seem to cause a glare 24 May 2010

Yesterday my friend KarmaCat calls me up to see if I was up for a bit of antiquing.  Um, YES!  Never am I one to give up shopping with a friend, especially if it’s to look at old or vintage stuff.  I was in the car so fast, I think I left Kurt’s head spinning.

(For the record, I think he likes it when I leave him with the kids every so often.  For one thing, the kids are with me all the time.  I am sure they like having someone else to entertain them.  And for another, he likes playing with the kids and being able to spoil them without me trying to spoil the fun.  I don’t generally spoil the fun, but for example — he let the kids get some ice cream from the ice cream man last night, where I wouldn’t have done that, only because we still had cupcakes in the house.)

Once I got to KC’s place, we decided to get some food at Iggy’s down on Oakland Beach.  It’s a Rhode Island institution, most famous for their doughboys and chowder.  The interwebz tells me a Rhode Island doughboy is pizza dough dusted with sugar.  We didn’t have any, so I can neither confirm nor deny this.  And Wikipedia insists that a doughboy is just an outdated word for a soldier.  Hmph.

Wikipedia, I am disappointed in you.

Anyhow, KC and I enjoyed a delicious lunch of clam cakes and chowdah.  I had white chowdah (is there any other kind?!  Well, Rhode Island specializes in clear chowder, and that’s pretty good too), while KC opted for red.  I had to rib her about that for a while.  What kind of self-respecting native New Englander eats Manhattan clam chowder?!  Haha.  Poor KC.  But she took it in stride.  She’s a good sport.

Once we had stuffed ourselves silly and enjoyed the sun, the salt air, and the amazing people-watching, we hied ourselves off to the north end of the state to visit one of the biggest antique stores she knows of.  And it did not disappoint.

This place was enormous!  If you’re not a regular customer at antique stores, you may not know that many of them are large stores that rent out small booths to many vendors.  These vendors go out on eBay, comb garage sales, and frequent estate sales to get great deals they can resell in their booths.  This one was no different.  It was row after row after row of vendors’ booths, so many that it almost hurt my brain to think about how much stuff was in this store.

What I really loved about this store was the level of customer service.  I picked up this amazing hat that would have felt at home at the Kentucky Derby, and before I could move on to the next booth, one of the workers tapped me and asked, “May I put that up front for you?”  Every single time I had decided on an item, there she was to take my item to the front.  It really helped keep my hands free for photographing.

I ultimately did not get the hat.  Oh well.

But I did find a 1964 edition of The White House Cookbook by Janet Halliday Ervin.  What’s great about it is it includes a section on “The Laws of Etiquette: The rules and habits of polite society circa 1887.”

For example:

The voice should never be loud, no gesticulation should accompany the speech, and the features should be under strict control.  Nothing is more ill-bred than a half-opened mouth, a vacant stare, a wandering eye, or a smile ready to break into a laugh at any moment.

Oops.  I laugh too often and too loudly, for one, and I noticed yesterday I was gesticulating wildly.  I think it was my inner Cranston-ite coming to the fore.

Here’s some clothing advice for the heavier among us:

She should not wear a tailor-made suit fitting her figure closely.  It brings out every pound of flesh for the benefit of the looker-on.
She should not wear a rosette at her belt.
She should not wear a lace or ribbon ruche about her neck, though the soft feather one is permissible if it have long ends.
She should not wear a short skirt.
She should not wear her hair low on her neck.
She should not wear a string of beads about her neck, rings in her ears, or, if her fingers are short and fat, many rings on them.
She should avoid high sleeves and loose gloves.
She should shun champagne.
She should hate ice cream.

Well, that last one is a little much.  Everything in moderation, I always say — even ice cream.  If one can’t have ice cream, why continue on?

The rest of the cookbook is devoted to recipes included in the first edition, published in 1887, plus favorite recipes of and biographies of every President’s wife or official hostess (there was at least one unmarried President).  Not only that, but there is a section on “Prescriptions, Recipes, and Such for Health, Household, and Happiness, circa 1887.”  At the very end of this section is a blurb from The Milwaukee Journal of 1963 speculating what the house of 2000 would have.

The electronic home of tomorrow with “automatic bacon and eggs” was predicted in a speech here… A household electronic center will, when fed instructions on magnetic tape:

Wake you up in the morning
Start the coffeemaker
Cook the bacon and eggs
Open the garage door and warm up the car
Do the laundry
Regulate the heat
Wash the dishes
Clean the house
Pay the milkman
Balance your checkbook
Complete your income tax forms

Um.  Where is my electronic home??  Where is my flying car??  I’m feeling rather gypped.

Watchin’ you sleep 18 May 2010

One of my favorite things to do is to go antiquing.  Or thrift store-ing.  Or both at the same time, though the number of thrift stores in this area is woefully small.  That’s another thing I am looking forward to when we move to Virginia — there are thrift stores everywhere.  Salvation Army, Goodwill, Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters (CHKD, or, as we refer to it phonetically, Chick-a-duh) — there are so many to choose from.  And the prices are wonderful.  Goodwill especially has awesome prices, or it used to.  I could get paperback books for a dime or a quarter.  Once I even got a King James version study Bible for 75¢!

But here on the island, I can think of just one thrift store, and I wasn’t too fond of it.  And of course we have Savers (it’s Value Village on the West Coast), but that’s a nationwide chain of stores.  They say they support local charities, but I wonder how much of my money is staying local.  But Savers is all we have here, so I manage.  Sometimes it’s hard to get a good deal there, though.

Anyhow.  This weekend we decided to go thrift store-ing and antiquing.  Kurt got home early on Friday (yippee!), so we headed north off the island to visit one of my favorite antique stores in New Bedford, Massachusetts.  This place is huge, and not only does it feature plenty of antique furniture and kitchenalia (two of my favorite things), but it also has an entire shop devoted to vintage clothing.  I can’t fit into most of it, since women were historically much more slender than they are now, but I still love to look and dream.  One time I found the absolutely perfect dress, a pale gold frock from the 1950s that would have looked smashing on me.  Too bad it was four sizes too small.

I did manage to find a screaming deal there.  I found a Voigtländer Brillant camera, very much like this one.  Only the one I bought is in much, much better condition, complete with custom case, a long cord release, and a manual.  There was no price on it, so the cashier called the owner of the booth, who decided to give it to us for $28.  Then they found the price tag, and it was originally closer to $50.  Since it hadn’t sold in a while, the owner decided to honor the $28 price.

Screaming deal indeed.  That webpage I linked to suggests $70 to $80 for a camera in very good condition, and while it’s not mint, I’m sure it would command more than that since I have so many accessories.

Woo hoo!

Then on Saturday, we went antiquing once more — only this time we went off the island the southern way and stayed in the state of Rhode Island.  Hey, it’s harder to stay in the state than you’d think!  It’s like, whoops, we crossed the border and now we’re in Massachusetts.  During one of our travels, we crossed the state border at least five times.  That’s what you get for living in a tiny state.  Kurt mapped out the entire route, from antique store to antique store, so I was in heaven.  We started off at my favorite one on Route 1, a smallish store with lots of furniture and kitchenalia.  Right off the bat, without even going inside, I found the perfect table to replace this cheap, small table we’d gotten at the Christmas Tree Shops for $10 — and that had broken a long time ago.  The one I found at the antique store is bigger and has loads of storage underneath for magazines, and was just $18.  Except.  It’s black.  Fortunately it’s wood, and I could easily refinish it.  At least I think I can.  It’d be a learning experience.

And then it was off to another antique store!  And another and another!  I found an older copy of The Joy of Cooking for just $2, and this is a cookbook I’ve been wanting for a long, long time.  I also found an old Polaroid camera in a case, complete with flash and other accessories, for $3!

And finally, at a pretty upscale antique store that featured mostly furniture, I finally found the perfect chair for my reading nook.  It’s dusty blue, and not really my favorite color, but it’s a recliner.  It’s small, just the right size for my nook, but it’s so cozy and comfortable.  It has a lot of padding, and I can just see myself reading all winter long while Kurt’s out to sea.  And it was just $75!  We still have the pastel rainbow chair that was there before, but I don’t plan on keeping it.  It’s broken, in that it leans wayyyyyy back so it has to go against a wall to keep it upright.  And the matching hassock has an enormous rip in the upholstery.  I got tired of the huge marks it was making on my wall, so this new recliner is going to be perfect.  I’ve already sat in it to read for a little while, and it’s just perfect.  I’m so happy.

What can I say, I’m easy to please.