"Antique" Shopping 2--Albuquerque

     This is not a great photo of this poster.  I had some trouble photographing it because it is covered with glass and I kept getting a distracting reflection of the room, so ultimately, I went with this slightly blurred off-center photo.
     BUT, I wanted to put this up because I so love this poster!  I have had the strangest experience with it, and when I saw it at the antique store the other weekend, I had to buy it.
This is a photo of the famous Route 66--or Central Ave.-- in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1969.
There is a silly sort of kitsch version of this poster that has actual lights embedded in it, like in the car tail lights.  That was the poster I first saw.
     I was in a cheap Let's Go budget traveller lodging in Amsterdam around 1993.  We were sitting around one night chatting with the proprietor in this big open room they had there overlooking the street and as we talked and joked and exchanged stories I was staring at this poster.  At some point it came to me that I knew all of the signs and all of the buildings in the picture.  In fact, I knew them quite well!  I was very excited and incredulous.  Here, half way across the world, was a picture taken from my childhood.  One that I had never been aware of until that moment.
     When I was a kid, we used to drive this street fairly often.  We would sometimes beg my mother to take us down it at night so we could see all the lights and neon.  For example, in the top right near the front there is a flower/star type shape that used to light up in neon petal by petal and then appear to spin. And so many advertising icons are here.  I cut it off in my picture, but on the right there is also a huge bucket of chicken that used to rotate above Kentucky Fried Chicken.  There is the Travel Lodge sleepwalking bear in his nightshirt, and the huge Ramada Inn man with the long trumpet, and some kind of larger than life lumberjack guy atop a building, though I never did know what he was advertising.  You can see how all of these images appealed to a child.  The tall gold and white First National Bank on the right was always a cue for me so I knew where I was.  I believe it had a sort of rampish parking lot that let drivers go under the building to drive-up tellers--though I may be mistaken.
The car on the right in the foreground is a Chevrolet similar to one my father used to have.  In fact, I remember rolling the syllables of Chevrolet around and being told it was the best kind of car to own.
     I am so happy to have found this poster on the cheap--and framed as well. It not only brings back memories of my childhood, but it brings back Amsterdam and all those crazy years I lived abroad.  I have had a rich, full life--and it's still going.

. . . and speaking of Holland!  Here's some tulips!!  (But that's--yep--another story!)

"Antique" Shopping 1--Las Vegas

Here is something we found at a nearby antique market and couldn't quite pass up.  Aside from reminding me of Oceans 11 (which I recently watched on TV), this brought back my own memories of Las Vegas.

     When I was in college, I hung out with this guy from L.A. for awhile.  At spring break, he decided we should drive across several states to his house in California and meet up with his sister and some of our other friends.  It was evening when we finally got on the road, and his car a big, long American type--maybe a Lincoln or an Eldorado--shimmied on the snow.  After hours of driving in the dark and lonesome desert, we began to see a glowing light far, far out in the distance.
     "That's Vegas," my friend said.
     The car engine hummed and my eyes were drawn to the glittering light out there in the miles of flat nothing.  The closer we got, the more the light glittered, until finally we could make out distinct shapes of buildings.
     "Have you ever been to Vegas?  Never?  Well, get ready because we're gonna drive the strip!"  My friend laughed and started imitating Elvis singing "Viva Las Vegas!"
     And we did drive the strip--or whatever it was--long crazy streets lit up and pulsing with flashing neon and row upon row of light bulbs zinging on! on! on!  We passed get married quick one-couple chapels, and cheap steak dinners, and slot machine gas stations, and famous casinos and casino men, walking importantly in suits with their hands behind their backs or else calling to you to step right in with their arms outstretched. And girls teetering on heels, all glitz and bangles with their eyes made up, laughing. And the lights!  The lights! They were like nothing else.
     Soon enough, after several (now annoying) rounds of "Viva Las Vegas"and reckless swerving, we rolled out through the other side of town and were back in the dark flat nowhere desert, the glow of Vegas behind us.
     Eventually, I drove and experienced the terror of just almost dozing off behind the wheel in spite of pinching myself to stay awake somewhere in the California deserts, and we made it to LA.  But that, of course, is another story for another day.
     Las Vegas then, in the 1980's was still the old Vegas.  Before it became a sort of false move set monument amusement park sort of place.  Before so many tourist destinations became homogenous false amusement park sort of places.  (Don't I sound like an old crank?)
     I'm glad I saw it then.  That old Vegas.

Before and Afters

I did some paint changing over the last few weeks.  I know the yellow was really dynamic and dramatic, but in the end, it was just too much and I had to go back to something neutral.  I gave the bright yellow a good eight year chance.  Eight!  

In the end, I felt it was not relaxing at all, and the light in the room, especially on gray days or at night, was always too weird.  (I have to say, that in the pictures, I prefer the yellow :-(  But I know that in life it seemed to cause me anxiety.)

Before

After

Also, around the Buffer Zone there have been some major changes--bigger than my domestic paint dilemma.  Here's the mysterious house from this post:

Before

After

Well, so this isn't really an after--more like an in progress.
I heard rumors that the man of this house was selling drugs (?) and "dropped dead downtown."  Honestly, though, those are just rumors.  The man who lived here may not have been the man I remembered from the previous post.  Whoever he was though, left the house suddenly.

Now, for the last.  This house that used to have the rooster:

Before

After

It really is a before and after.

Quick Baked Pasta

I have a somewhat picky eater teen at my house.  But one thing he does love is baked pasta shells.  I found these lumaconi shells and had to try them.  I planned on using an 8x8 pan, but it made so many, even my flat 9.5 x 13.5 wouldn't hold them all.

I fill them up with a simple blend of ricotta, grated mozzarella, and fresh chopped parsley.  A friend of mine taught me the easy method of jamming this filling into a zip-lock type freezer bag and snipping off the corner so you have a sort of homemade pastry bag.  Then simply smoosh the bag and the filling zips right into the shell.
I just use jar sauce on this to save time, and bake it till it gets bubbly and a little crispity on the edge.  Sorry there are no pictures after it cooked.  Everyone was just way too hungry and it didn't look so appealing half eaten ;-)

Spring Dreams

I finally found time to clean up my yard and put in a little vegetable box.  Hooray!  I have always used barrels for tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers, but I wanted to have a go at some other edibles.  My problem is that I have so much shade.  The sun shines on the driveway.  Hence, my container gardening.  But I've been watching the sun patterns over the last summers and have decided I can probably grow a few things in this one little space.

Look at that smiling wolf on the far left!  Better than a scarecrow.

 Here's what everything looks like now.  In another few weeks I'll take another picture for comparison.

Lemon tree blossom

Lots of blossoms.  Will there be lots of lemons?

Blood oranges.  New this year.  

Looking over the shade.  Sometimes I imagine putting in a pool here.  Something rustic with stones around it like you might find in Hawaii or some place.  I don't really care for swimming, but the idea of a pool seems relaxing.  Of course, while I'm imagining, I imagine a pool guy too to keep all the leaves and pine straw/cones/general mess out.  While I'm at it, he can bring my lunch in a dish with a cover over it, and lemonade with lots of ice and a long straw, and he may as well do the dishes too.  And he can be very handsome and bring a large leaf fan thing--okay, okay!  Enough.
I'll just keep the yard and the rabbit run.

Some Old School Blogging

Okay--Today I am playing along with the Old School Blogging invite from Alma.

So, here are my answers to the 6 questions:

1. How did you meet your husband?   I had bought an advance ticket to see the band Idlewild, but the night I showed up Roddy Woomble, the singer, had a sore throat so there was a little clapboard on the sidewalk outside the venue saying they had cancelled, but the other band, The French Kicks, were still playing.  As I lingered there on the sidewalk, thinking about should I just go home, a tall skinny guy in a black leather jacket started talking to me about the band, trying to convince me to go in.  He was really sweet.  He said, "It'll be fun.  I'll buy you a beer."
So, I thought, why not?  And I went on in with him only to find out he worked there, had booked the band, etc.
I used to see him every time I went to that venue and he was always so nice.  After about a year, I realized I was going to see bands I wasn't even all that interested in just so I could see him.

2. What are the most surprising things about married life?   I suppose it is just the long ribbon of it, the way the two of us are always getting to know each other, the way we make the story of our life together from one day to the next.

3. How did you find out you were pregnant the first time?   I had wanted a baby for awhile, but was pretty much tired of trying when I realized it had finally actually happened.  It was not a time of  rejoicing by then, but a time of great disequilibrium.  I took a pregnancy test alone in my bathroom and broke into tears.  Despite this rough start, having my son was the most wonderful thing I ever experienced in my life.  The moment they put his little just born self in my arms, I felt my heart swell with a kind of love I had never known existed before.

4. How did you choose your baby's first name?  My son was born in Italy, and Italians thought he should have an Italian name. These all sounded silly to me though, especially as he had his father's German last name.  In the end, we chose a super American cowboy name.  (In fact, both of my sons have cowboy names.)

5. Describe yourself 10 years from now.  I will probably be an excellent gardener and have a lovely yard because by then I will have finally figured out how to grow plants.  I hope I will be writing and traveling.  However, I really think it is impossible to know because life seems to shift so very much for me every seven years or so in ways that have been totally unforeseeable, except in a reverse sort of way.

6. Describe how you find bliss either by using words or images.  I find bliss in the small piazza's of Italy, in the wide and unpopulated expanses of the American West, and when I am laughing and hanging out with my boys.  I also experience a kind of bliss I suppose when I am not conscious of myself at all, but am in a sort of room-of-my-own creative headspace.

So--there you go--Old School Blogging from Alma and Greta at #IPPPP.
I don't know that I have five followers who even read here regularly, but any that do are definitely invited to play along.

Pine Pollen

It seems to have come early this year.  Way up at the top of the pine trees are these little yellow clusters of pine tree perpetuation.

Just look at all of them!  Millions of these jubilantly burst their yellow pine dust and shower it everywhere as spring arrives.  The air literally glitters with pollen.  It covers everything.

As I wandered around in my backyard, the intoxicating smell of wisteria wafted on the breeze.

Nature is all early green and gold.  (Really, I shouldn't be tramping around the ivy in flip-flops.  Too unstable and not snake proof--though honestly, I'd be delighted to see a snake.)