Shoes and Pie

We Wish You a Retro Christmas

One of the things that I do well is shop. I have a bit of free time these days, which I can spend searching online for pretty, useful, and/or elusive things (like a faux-jaguar hat to match my ’60s-vintage coat). As a public service, and to further make it more difficult for me to find time to sew, I thought I might start occasionally posting cool finds that I stumble across on these here digital pages.

As an etsy shop owner, I have a certain bias towards that particular coalition of artisans and vendors. Oh my, there are wonderful treasures to be found there! And, as regretsy.com has hilariously made everyone aware, some real stinkers as well. While you can find many wonderful and perhaps wacky vintage Christmas treasures within the shops there, the Vermont Country Store has a reputation for stocking brand-new versions of those items that you remember from Christmas at your grandparents’ house.

The items shown above are, clockwise from top left:

• Holly and Ivy Salt & Pepper Set
• Light-Up Santa Face
• Teardrop Ornaments
• Color-Changing Star Tree Topper
• Colored Bubble Lights
• Christmas Snow
• Bottle-Brush Candy Cane
• Ball Ornaments
• Christmas Stocking Kit
• Clip-On Snowman
• Silver Tinsel Tree and Color Wheel

Truth In Advertising: I am receiving NO compensation or any other “encouragement” from VCS for this post. I was simply tickled by the items in their Christmas catalog and decided to write about them. However, if VCS wants to thank me in some box-at-my-door way, it would be rude of me to refuse a gift.

Mid-Century Sugar Dispenser

The above is a photo, hastily taken in my father’s kitchen, of my grandmother’s sugar dispenser. With full permission, my dad got it when my grandmother moved to her condo, and was no longer in the mental or physical condition required for entertaining. My grandmother had it for about as long as anyone can remember, and it is a bit of industrial design genius: You pick it up, with your index finger through the loop. With your thumb, you depress the black plastic plunger. From the spout on the opposite side, precisely one “portion” of sugar (I never measured, but probably a teaspoon) drops out and into your cup of steaming tea or coffee. It doesn’t leak. It doesn’t stick. It has never broken. It isn’t ugly. As you might imagine, every member of my immediate family (and a few less-immediate members) want to get their hands on this item. And we have looked for others. Oh, have we looked. The only mark on the item is a very clear “Suko” stamp on the bottom. We have searched etsy, we’ve searched eBay, we’ve searched Google. Nothing. Nothing even like it. And so I now ask you, Dear Readers, have you ever seen anything like this, perhaps in your grandmother’s kitchen? Preferably in your local hardware store, where they have a dusty old case of 24 sugar dispensers that they forgot they even had? WE WILL BUY THEM.

My Autumn Vacation

Warning: The following post has nothing to do with sewing, cooking, or vintage shopping. I took the weekend OFF, yo.

If you read me regularly, you know that my darling boyfriend lives in Sacramento, while I reside in Denver. This, as you might imagine, leads to a lot of travel back and forth. This past weekend was my most recent trip out, and we “accomplished” a bit more than usual. I thought I would share with you all a potentially dull breakdown:

FRIDAY
I arrived in the evening, feeling tired and somewhat unwell, but antsy to go to the Starbucks where Nick and I always hang out with friends. We were lucky enough to see a favorite friend-who-is-a-barista on her break, enjoy our drinks, and as I grew more tired and more unwell, Nick kindly took me home, where I sacked out almost instantly. Fun times.

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SATURDAY
I woke up feeling much better, but Nick now felt sluggish and cranky. We took our time getting ready for the day, and finally headed out to Starbucks (of course) to meet up with our friend Ally who was honoring Nick and me by spending her last day in town with us. The three of us spent a little time playing around in Old Sacramento, reading Christmas cards and looking for t-shirts and trying on amusing hats. Eventually it was time for Ally to go, and we hugged and wished her good luck in her new life in Virginia, with no shortage of watery eyes. Nick and I drowned our sorrows in fried goodness from the Spud Shack (poutine for him, France-style fries for me, fried zucchini sticks to share). We later welcomed our friend Rob over for a dinner of grilled London Broil, potatoes, garlic bread, salad, and still-warm Toll House cookies. Classic comfort food!

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SUNDAY
Nick and I both woke up feeling healthy, but a minor, nagging headache I had kept getting worse and worse. Thank goodness for Advil, and lots of it! After stopping for coffee (at a DIFFERENT Starbucks!) we drove down to San Francisco to meet our friends Rich and Patricia for a dim sum lunch at Yank Sing. It was, as to be expected, absolutely delicious. It was Nick’s first dim sum experience, and he seemed to enjoy it. We practically rolled out on our tubby bellies! Neither of us realized at the time that we were mere blocks away from Miette macarons and Cowgirl Creamery cheese over at the Ferry Building, but I doubt that either of us could have stood to look at MORE FOOD at that point. Instead, we drove a short way to Fisherman’s Wharf, which Nick warned me would be touristy, but hey, I’m a tourist. We squished a few pennies, tried on more amusing hats, watched the sea lions bark and fight and mostly sleep, bought a couple of snowglobes, and decided to head home once darkness descended upon us. On the drive home, I finally got to taste my first In-n-Out burger, ‘animal style’ as instructed by a now-Colorado-once-California friend.

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MONDAY
Nick was back to work on Monday so I washed some dishes, read a little Steven King, watched the season finale of Mad Men, blah blah blah. The treat of the day was dinner with Nick at a Mexican restaurant called Kico’s. Mmmmm, was their salsa ever tasty! Full of cilantro, and so fresh. House-made flour tortillas. Deep-fried tacos. The biggest bottle of Tapatía I’ve ever seen (above, photo by Nick). Our dinner platters were overflowing with food, so the Big Yellow Dog had quite a treat ahead of him on Tuesday!

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TUESDAY
My flight wasn’t until 3, so while Nick was toiling at work our friend Rob kept me company and we hung out, enjoyed a delicious lunch at the old service station which is now Suzie Burger, talked over coffee, and finally parted ways at the Sacramento airport. Time to plan my next trip out!

This (was) Halloween

Present at the “The Future” themed Halloween party:

• Ripley and Kane (Alien)
• Obama Christ
• Dr. Who
• Axiom passenger (Wall•E)
• Miss Galaxie 1959 (yeah, that was me)
• Star Trek TOS and TNG
• Terminators
• Jayne, Inara, and the “Two by two, hands of blue” guys (Firefly)
• Seth Gecko and Santanico Pandemonium (From Dusk Til Dawn)
• OctoMummy and her archeologist
• 2012, uh, “ascenders”
• My New Bikini Body (STAR magazine cover)
• Illegal Aliens (aliens in convict stripes)
• Fortune teller
• Robot vampires
• Pigs In Space
• Jessica 6 (Logan’s Run)
• Zombie (only one!)
• Jane Jetson
• a few others, yeesh!

Snapshots taken by me, @jgamet, and @lesafumi are posted on my flickr page. Professional photos to come later. Also, stay tuned for photos from my current client’s office Halloween party, which was postponed due to snow and is being held this coming week!

Feeling Stabby

I apologize for not writing more frequently. It’s my annual Halloween Madness combined with my free-time-management inadequacy. You may have notice that I’ve relisted some old items, but haven’t added anything new to the shop in a couple of weeks. I promise, I have a pile of stuff to list! Some housewares, more purses, and a couple of lovely wedding dresses that may get blog posts all of their own.

But right now: I need to vent. Because I am so. Effing. Frustrated.

By October of 2006, I had been with T-Mobile for 8 years. Technically, I started with VoiceStream, and when T-Mob bought them out, well, there I was. And it was good. VoiceStream had the occasional billing issue, but once T-Mob came in, the glitches stopped. The service was good, I only dropped calls in one geographically wonky spot, everything was fine. But in 2006 I wanted a fancy new phone, and the incentives with new carriers were better than the incentives to stay with T-Mob, so I decided to switch. Enter: Verizon Wireless. I signed up for a first-month-free dealio that included a new RAZR phone. I hated the phone, but more importantly, I hated the Web site. This may not be a big deal to some people, but I pay my bills online. I monitor my account online. I download ringtones online. And Verizon’s site seemed to be set up to discourage all of this. My paperwork stated that I wouldn’t be locked into a contract if I canceled within two weeks, so I canceled at 12 days, returned my phone, and switched to Sprint.

Precisely two weeks after initially signing up for a first-month-free, no-contract-yet deal with Verizon, they send me an e-bill for $254.29, my “early cancellation” fee. I remember that the phone maze required to reach a live representative further assured me that leaving had been the right decision, but to Verizon’s credit, the phone call to straighten out that issue was otherwise forgettable. I must have pointed out that I’d canceled before being locked into a contract, they reviewed the paperwork and agreed, and that was that. Done with Verizon forever. Woo!

Fast forward three years: This past Monday, I rec’d in the mail a bill for $21.11 from a collections agency on behalf of Verizon Wireless. This is obviously an error, so I called the number on the letter, which connected me to a recording telling me to either pay or dispute the claim in writing. Well okay, I will, but in the meantime, let me call Verizon. In the three years since my last call to Verizon, they’ve done nothing to eliminate the phone maze. After answering the same set of automated questions twice, I finally reached a human. Who couldn’t find my history in the network until I explained the two-week, no-contract situation. With that, he was able to locate me. And then explained that he isn’t allowed talk to me about my account, because it’s been sent to collections. He offered to give me their phone number. I explained that it’s a recording, but he said no, this is a different phone number. For Verizon’s own internal collections department. That they can talk to me. It then took him four minutes to “find” the phone number, but he finally did. I wrote it down. I called.

It’s a Verizon recording that automatically connects me to the collection agency recording.

Stab stab stabby stab.