Mosquito bites: 8
Bloody gashes on shin: 1
Giant, painful zits: 1
Photos taken at car show: 14
Photos taken of ONE car at car show: 11
Pairs of dangly plastic whistle earrings: 1
Enormous black sun hats: 1
Estimated ’40s-vintage Vogue suits: 1
Saving-for-birthday-present vintage faux-leopard coats: 1
Circa 1969 PlayTape 1200 machines: 1
PlayTape cartridges: 3
Flat pennies: 3
Things to do upon returning home: approximately one million
Filed under amusement, fashion, friends, jewelry, life-threatening clutter, nostalgia, romance, relationships, shopping, vacation, vintage
I’m a big fan of collecting vintage…well, just about anything. As is my Very Bestest Friend In The Whole Wide World, who is currently in town. (Whoop!, right there off the bat). When we’re in each other’s cities, we go to as many thrift and antique stores as we can reasonably handle. It’s a bit of a drag for whomever of us is the visitor, because our purchases are limited by luggage space, but perhaps that just makes us more thoughtful buyers.
This is my turn to be limited only by what will fit in my car, and I didn’t go crazy. A breezy, gingham summer dress. Gold-seamed stockings. A stylish Arrow men’s summer shirt and some more dress patterns for the store. And this wonderful, red-and-white, makes-me-smile, Schrafft’s candy rack. Perfect for holding up my stock of bracelets for both storage and the occasional booth show. I could even lock the ends with a small chain if I wanted, to prevent theft when/if the rack is ever unattended. It is now easier for me to see, at a glance, which color combos I’m out of stock on. And heck, it just looks cool.
Here’s a photo of my awesome rack ;)
A blog post? On a weekend? No, Hell hath not frozen over. Although, by looking out the window on this April morning, you may not realize that. Yesterday was beautiful; sunny and warm, so today? Snow. Welcome to springtime along the Front Range.
If you follow me on Twitter (@ampersandwich) you know that I was sewing a skirt the other day, and even hinted at a blog post about it, but suddenly stopped talking about it. Here’s the deal: it’s coming out really well. Seriously. The first evening of sewing went off without a hitch. The initial fitting is just about perfect (as with anything I sew for myself, I could have cut it a little smaller). The only thing I have left to do is the waistband, which I’ve been putting off because I’ve never done a waistband before and I don’t want to screw up an otherwise excellent sewing project.
On the other hand; without the waistband, it’s unwearable. So there’s that.
Also, I desperately need to finish this skirt because not only will it be fodder for an interesting (I hope) blog post, but because it’s a planned outfit for Day One of my annual pilgrimmage to the Viva Las Vegas rockabilly weekender, and Day One is getting very, very close. So close, in fact, that while I certainly miss the income that comes from being employed, this is the last weekend before the big event and were I having to head to the office on Monday, I would be FREAKING OUT right now.
Which brings us to Viva Las Vegas. Vivaaaaaa Las Vegas. In past years, I have spent the month or so before the trip planning and plotting and packing with local friends. This year I’ve been on my own, although with the supportive buzz and hum of assorted online “friends” whom I expect to run into down there. I suppose I should be more assertive (eek!) about getting people’s phone numbers, so we can actually coordinate general times and locations. It can be difficult to find people in the sizable crowd even when you DO know what they look like in 3D. I was planning on spectating from the safety of The Boyfriend’s arm, but it turns out that he has a handful of friends who will be there, and he’ll want to spend some time with them. My last attempt to make friends with his friends didn’t go so well, so I think I’ll bypass this “opportunity” for now. (It wasn’t their fault. It’s just that, even when you explain social anxiety to folks, they think that once they say “hi” and the sky doesn’t fall down, that I’ll become a normal person. But it doesn’t work that way. This, apparently, leaves them feeling inadequate. Or something.) A couple of my own friends recently decided to go as well, but they’ve been keeping to themselves lately and I don’t want to interfere with whatever they’ve got going on. So I guess I’m back on my own again, for some events. As a result, if you’re down at The Orleans and see a ’billy girl hyperventilating quietly in the bathroom, that’s just me, freaking out about having to interact with other, live, human beings. Please move slowly, bring me something to drink, preferably liquor, and I’ll be okay. I have already put the schedule of bands I want to see into my iPhone, so if you can help me calm down enough to operate it, I’ll know where I need to be next.
As for now, I need to busy myself with finishing the skirt, creating three more hair flowers, researching spray tans so my pasty glow doesn’t blind people poolside, getting my hair color touched up (appt is on Wednesday; nothing like the last minute!), making a new necklace, and figuring out how to fit 8 dresses, 8 handbags, 8 pairs of shoes, plus all of my toiletries and whatnot, into ONE suitcase and ONE garment bag. If I have time left over, I’d like to sew my Standard Oil patch onto the back of my jacket (Suggested company motto: ‘Squishing a dwindling supply of dinosaurs for over 100 years’) and paint flames on the cuffs of a pair of jeans (although I’ve been saying I’m going to do that for a year).
Today’s agenda: Finish skirt. Glue flowers. Make trip to Walgreen’s to exchange the Almay Moisturizing Eye Makeup Remover pads for the less drippy Almay Oil-Free Eye Makeup Remover Pads. Seriously, I think Almay took all of the oil they WOULD have used in the oil-free pads, and added it to the oil in the moisturizing pads. Dipping a cotton ball into straight mineral oil would be less oily. I went through two tissues before switching to a washcloth just trying to get the excess oil OFF of my eyes. I’m all for moisturizing the delicate eye area, but come on. Oh, and the gal who will be doing my hair on Wednesday asked if I could stop by her shop today so she could take a look at what she’ll be dealing with. And, um, post this. So, step one begins… now.
I don’t read Maggie Mason. Do you hear that, Universe? Here is a crafty, educated, independent, liberal woman who DOESN’T READ MIGHTY GIRL. I have nothing against Maggie, it’s just that, in an ever-increasing world of Well-Written Blogs, I can’t read everyone. And, since I don’t have a 2-year-old or live in San Francisco, Mighty Girl is not always relevant to my life.
Why the preamble? Because I only stumbled upon Maggie’s list of 100 Things To Do a freaking year after she’d written it. And I thought about making a list for myself, but Item Number One would have to be “Make list of 100 things to do before I die” and I’d probably never get around to crossing that one off. Besides, I’ve already been feeling a bit “what’s my point” lately, so I’ve decided to come about this from the opposite direction:
25 Things I Would Already Have Crossed Off My List If I’d Bothered With A List In The First Place (in no particular order, other than the order I remembered them in, and some of them happened more by chance than desire, but we can’t always pick our good fortune.)
1. Live in NYC
2. Get tattooed
3. Visit Europe (I can now cross through that three times, and I promise I’m not done)
4. Pick up and move halfway (actually, more) across the country with no friends, family, or job waiting for me
5. Buy a new car, like NEW new, not new-to-me new
6a. Go to art school
6b. Actually make my living at it
7. Own a computer, and a COLOR monitor (I am old enough for this to have been, at one time, pure science fiction)
8. Fly in a Cessna
9. Eat a crêpe in Paris
10. Watch the sun set at Cape May
11. Visit the Statue of Liberty
12. Go to the observation deck at the World Trade Center
13. Learn to play an instrument (I never claimed to play it well)
14. Stand underneath the Eiffel Tower
15. Drink a beer at a sidewalk cafe in Amsterdam
16. Take a Duck tour through Boston
17. Buy Sky Sox season tickets
18. Make a decent pie crust from scratch
19. Watch the vintage car races at Lime Rock
20. Zoom through Harriman State Park in a Mercedes 190SL with the top down (bonus points to the cop who pulled us over for NOT ticketing us, although we were very much speeding, and the FAIRLY EXPENSIVE car was not registered in either of our names)
21. Dip my toes in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
22. Shop at Harrod’s
23. Tour a real castle (I’ve done this a few times, actually)
24. Eat a slice of Black Forest cake IN the Black Forest
25. Watch a ballgame at Fenway Park
In keeping with the theme of the anti-meme, you are hereby not allowed to post your own list. Ha! But I encourage everyone to think about all the things you’ve accomplished that other people may only dream of.
An old Jersey friend (that is, I’ve known her for a long time, not that she’s old!) shared this vintage promotional video today. Seaside Heights was a day trip for me growing up, and I used to go down a couple of times every summer. I spent HOURS in Lucky’s Arcade, without ever knowing that it had such history! After all these years, only two mementos remain from my days on the boardwalk: a Lucky Coin (perhaps two, but I can’t currently find PROM 88 DEWD), and the uppermost piercing in my left ear. Also, the memory of my friend Kim looking at me at the top of the log flume and saying, “Your hair DOES look better when it’s wet!” Good times, good times.
Note: this little film is 16 minutes long! However, it’s totally worth watching if you enjoy amusement parks, or the shore, or boardwalks, or hyperbolical marketing videos, or 1960.
Filed under amusement parks, friends, nostalgia, vacation, vintage
shoes and pie 