Losing my mind but not my marbles

I've always loved coloured glass of all kinds. I grew up surrounded by coloured glass as my mom has a really pretty collection of small glass pieces that she keeps in a sunny window on the inside porch off the kitchen. Many a morning I'd be munching on my cereal, transfixed by the sun shining through the beautiful cobalt, ruby, amber, emerald and amethyst pieces. My hometown, Sandwich, used to have a functioning glass factory for a few brief years in the mid-1800's. It shut down after only a short time, and Sandwich glass is now one of the most expensive kinds of collectible glass you can find. I even saw a pair of Deming Jarves dolphin candlesticks in the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco, which surprised me.

So it's no surprise that I fell in love with marbles. I would never, ever play "keepsies" with the other kids because I didn't want to lose my precious marbles to anyone. I had a very small bag of marbles until my First Communion in 1972. My Aunt Glady & Uncle Yimmy couldn't make the trip up from Yonkers for the big event, but they sent a gift that I will never forget. Marbles. Loads and loads of them. I'm not sure what the story was, but I think someone they knew was getting rid of the collection so they asked if they could have it to give to me. Here are the regular cats eye-type:

These are glass but they call them "aggies", since old marbles were made from agate.

It seems that marble terminology varies from region to region. I've heard these called "shooters" but where I grew up, we called them "boulders". The really super large marbles we called "jumbos".

These are my very favourite kind of marble. Again, in my area we called them "crystals" but they are also called "clearies" because you can see through them.Here are some that were given to me by friends.



I bought these in an antique store in Sebastopol, CA. Nothing too valuable, just your basic pretty marbles from the 1950's, including an old metal jack and jingle bell.

This is a collection I got off eBay really cheap.

I bought this jar of them at an antique show in Tacoma a few years ago.

Now we are getting into the "cream of the crop" when it comes to serious collecting. I paid A LOT of money for this large, 2" sulphide of a dog, but I wanted to have at least one near-mint sulphide. They are extremely expensive because they are very old. I've seen them sell for up to $1,500 and higher. Some marble makers have gone back to making sulphides, but the antiques are the ones I really love. They may not look like much, but every serious collector needs at least one sulphide in their collection! I have 3 sulphides, which is about all I can afford. This is another dog. The third smaller one has a chicken.

These are called "onionskins" and they too are very old, usually made in Germany. When I say "old", I am talking early late 19th to early 20th century.

These are called "swirls" and they are most often German as well, and produced in the same time period as onionskins. They usually have a latticino core surrounded by the swirls of colour.

But when I see a modern-era art marble, I often can't resist buying one.

Or two.

Or three.....These are super old "Bennington Clays". This particular set was found somewhere near a Civil War battlefield in Virginia. Most Benningtons were produced in the mid-1800's, but unlike the German glass marbles, they are not terribly expensive or valuable.

Finally, this set of 6 oddly shaped marbles are ones that I made a couple of years ago. I took a marblemaking class at The Bead Factory in Tacoma and lemme tell ya, it's really hard to make a perfectly round marble. Mine don't roll, so much as wobble. But hey, at least I can say that I made marbles!

Happy 60th Birthday to Bob Weir!!

Long before I lusted after Bobby Goren, there was another Bobby in my life....Bob Weir, rhythm guitarist in the Grateful Dead.

20 years ago, on a solo trip to Maine to visit my BFF Michelle in October, 1987, I stopped at a record store along the way to get some tapes for my trip. I was looking for something different. I purchased "Skeletons From the Closet" by the Dead b/c I knew a couple of the songs on it. That tape changed my life. I was instantly converted and the first time I laid eyes on Bob Weir, I was in lust.

Today's Bobby's 60th birthday!

Wasn't he cute in 1967 at 20? ALL the girls loved Bobby. Guys too. Jerry Garcia even said, "Hell, Weir was prettier than a girl!"

This is a picture of my bedroom at my apartment in Sandwich, MA, taken in the fall of 1988. I remember when my mom and dad came to visit after I had it all decorated. Holly was over at the time. My mom walked slowly through the room, pointing at all the different pictures, going, "Is that Bob? Is that Bob?" Finally she points to one and goes, "Who is that?" and I said, "Bob." Holly and I cracked up. When Brian and I got married and moved to SF, I lovingly unfurled that black and white poster to put on the wall. Brian says, "Oh no you don't. You are not putting that Bobby Cheesecake poster on our wall." I said, "Please? How about down the hall? You'll never even see it!" He goes, "No. No Cheesecake." So alas, Bobby Cheesecake is rolled up in a poster tube and stored in the garage attic.

This is the livingroom of the apartment. I probably should have moved the vacuum cleaner hose out of the way before shooting the picture!

Here's Weir Road in W. Yarmouth, on Cape Cod. There was also a regular green street sign on a pole at the corner of Weir Road and Rte. 6A. One night at about 10:00 pm, Holly and I drove up there and managed to get the pole out of the ground, but we couldn't get the sign off the pole. Unfortunately we had to leave the whole thing behind. We figured we'd never be able to make it back to Sandwich without the cops pulling us over....it would have looked really suspicious, don't you think? Two girls in a 1966 Dodge Dart with the top down in the middle of November, with a 10' street sign & pole hanging out the back. "Oh no officer, this is our street sign, yeah that's it."Here's a picture of Bobby I shot at Shoreline Amphitheatre, in California.

This was the night we were 10th row at Shoreline. Here's Bobby at Winterland in 1977 when he was 30.
And this is Bobby today.

Harvestin' Cranberries

A few years ago, when I was still in California, I happened to mention to my coworkers that I grew up across the street from a cranberry bog, where I'd play in the summer and skate in the winter. They looked at me, perplexed, and asked, "What's a cranberry bog?" I said, "You know, where they grow cranberries?" They said, "Really? We thought cranberries grew on trees or bushes, like blueberries!" Then it occurred to me that unless you were from a cranberry-growing state (Massachusetts, New Jersey, Wisconsin & Washington), you may indeed think cranberries grew on bushes.


But no, they grow on vines that run along the ground. The bogs have "islands" where the berries grow, and in between the islands are irrigation channels. All through the summer they use sprinklers on the plants, drawing water from the channels. When the cranberries are ready for harvest, the growers flood the bogs and the cranberries float on the surface for gathering. Then in the winter, they leave the bogs flooded so that they freeze and protect the plants below. If you don't live near an ice skating rink, you can skate on the bogs, although the surface isn't very smooth and a lot of leaves and bits of long grass do poke through the ice. Still, if you have a hankering to go skating on a nice afternoon, a bog does work in a pinch.


I shot these pictures 20 years ago, in October, 1987, of the harvest at a bog along Rte. 6A, in East Sandwich. This is one of the bogs I also used to skate on because it was pretty large and the quality of the ice was better than the one across the street from my house.


It's a truly stunning picture, to see all these bobbing, ripe, shining bright red berries.

The harvesters can wear hip-waders, as they are standing on the bogs, which are only flooded about 8"-9" deep, although the irrigation channels would obviously be deeper. They stand in a line and drag a boom across the water to gather the cranberries close to shore.

Then the berries are sucked out of the water and shot into the back of this truck. On the far upper right corner, you can see the chute angled. When you drive by on Rte. 6A, it's a really cool sight to see all these berries flying out of the chute into the truck.

Here's a pretty fall scene.

I believe this is "Smiling Pool", in East Sandwich. It's located behind the Green Briar Nature Center. Children's author Thornton W. Burgess set his "Peter Rabbit" stories in Sandwich and the creatures lived around Smiling Pool. Other Burgess characters included Jemima Puddle Duck and Jimmy Skunk. The Green Briar Nature Center also sells a lot of delicious home made jams and jellies. There is also a Thornton W. Burgess Museum in downtown Sandwich, on Shawme Pond.

!!!!!!!!!

When I got home from Shipwreck Beads last Saturday, Brian said to me, "As Extra-Special Producer, I need for you to compile a bio for a guest who will be on my show." Since he usually likes to do his own research I was surprised, but I said, "Sure. Who is the guest?" With a twinkle in his eye and a shit-eating grin, he said, "Bill Mumy." I yelled, "BILL MUMY? THE BILL MUMY?" Brian laughed and said, "Yes." Meanwhile I was jumping up and down and yelling, "OHMYGODOHMYGOD I AM SO CALLING IN!!"

I am not entirely sure how Brian did this, but out of the blue Friday night, he ended up on Bill Mumy's home page. He listened to some of Bill's music and decided to email and ask if Bill would like to be on his radio show sometime. Bill emailed back that his publicist would be in touch.

Bill will be on Shakedown Street on Sunday, November 11, 2007 at 4:00 p.m. I will do another blog post that week to promo the show again. Brian will of course touch on Bill's extensive acting career, but the show is going to revolve around Bill's music.

By the way, I have been warned by Brian not to get all gushy and over-the-top on the phone when I call in (which I won't), and not to ask questions about Lost in Space, (which I wasn't).

Na Na Na Na, Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye!

Oh it's a good day to be a Boston Red Sox fan!! We watched in delight last night as the Cleveland Indians beat the NY Skankees to advance to the ALCS game against the BoSox. I can only imagine how loud and rowdy bars all over New England were last night. It's always good to see the Skanks lose.

I saw a tshirt in Maine that I wanted but it only came in kids' sizes. It said, "I love 2 teams, the Boston Red Sox and Anyone Who Beats the Yankees." The Boston/NY rivalry goes back literally decades, when the Sox stupidly traded Babe Ruth to NY in 1918. Of course the curse was broken in 2004 when the Sox finally won the World Series. Fingers crossed that they can do it again!

Cleveland celebrates last night at Skankee Stadium.

Gonna cry now Alex? Go ahead, cry. Cry like the little bitch that you are. Cry baby cry.

Looks like Joe Torre will be unemployed soon.

A-rod sucks.....
...Jeter swallows.

On the left we have that traitor, Johnny Damon, who left the Sox to play for NY. Bastard. Several Sox in the past went to play for NY and I spit on them. Wade Boggs. Roger Clemmons. Johnny Damon. It's akin to a 49er going to play for Oakland (i.e., Jerry Rice). Have some loyalty, you know? So it's nice to see Damon go down in flames.

GO SOX!

Photos courtesy of the NY Post.

The Happiest Place on Earth

No, not Disneyland. For beaders, it's Shipwreck Beads in Lacey, Washington. I wish I could have found a picture of the inside of the store because it's amazing. I have to limit myself to one trip per year, usually after Christmas, or else I'd spend vast quantities of money. This place is mecca. Seriously. I remember back in the early 90's when I was just starting out making jewelry, I got a tiny black & white catalog from this place up in Mud Bay, Washington. That was Shipwreck when they had a teeny tiny store and only a few beads. Since those days they have moved twice to larger spaces to accomodate their growing product line. When we first moved here, they were in Olympia and the store wasn't huge but it was homey and there was a killer mural on the wall of a beach scene with treasure chests overflowing with beads, a mermaid, pirate ship, etc. A few years ago they moved to their new space in an office park in Lacey, which is actually closer to me than the old store.

I've been to a lot of bead stores. In fact, whenever I travel, one of the first things I look up is the closest bead shop. My bead store travels include:

General Bead, and other stores that have since gone out of business, San Francisco, CA

Beads & Rocks and other stores that have since gone out of business, Berkeley, CA

Baubles & Beads, San Rafael, CA

Out on whim! - Cotati, CA

Garden of Beadin', Garberville, CA

Bead Emporium, Hyannis, MA

The Beadin' Path, Freeport, ME

Beadworld, Victoria, BC

Beadworks Granville Island, Vancouver, BC

Let it Bead, Portland, OR

Bead Man, Cannon Beach, OR

Blue Iris Beads, Kent, WA

The Bead Factory, Tacoma, WA

Imagine That!, Poulsbo, WA

The Bead Shop, Long Beach, WA (which is 2nd only to Shipwreck in my opinion)

My boss recently gave my coworker and me an unexpected, "just because" bonus to recognize our hard work and good attitude under the extremely stressful conditions under which we have been toiling this past year. So the first thing I did was go to Shipwreck Beads, of course. The store can be really, really overwhelming because it's so big. But, there are lots of helpful signs and the aisles are nice and wide so that you can easily wheel your shopping cart along without squeezing past someone else. There's a cafe that serves coffee, tea, bagels, juice, sandwiches and pop. There are large, clean restrooms and yesterday I noticed that they've created a nice waiting room with couches and a television, no doubt to placate cranky husbands who somehow found themselves shopping for beads with their wives instead of home watching the game like most other self-respecting husbands. But my "Men: The Unnecessary Accessory" rant is a subject for another time.

The key to shopping at Shipwreck is to go with a list of things you actually need, and get those first. After that, spend time wandering the aisles and getting stuff you want. Because you can never have enough beads you know. Like the line from the Grateful Dead song "I need a Miracle" says, "Too much of everything is just enough".

Here's the beaded booty I scored: Can you tell I favour blues, purples, greens and pinks?

I coveted this ornament which was in a 1/2-off bin. And the nesting box set had to come home with me as well.These are the supplies I had to shop for first, before indulging in the above stuff. Earhooks, crimp beads, split rings, beading wire, bead spacers, and crystals.

Finally, as I've mentioned, I collect marbles. I have wanted one of these "cat eye" or "miracle" style glass marbles for a long time, but I could never decide on a colour and they were also $15 each. Then they dropped to $7 each. Yesterday, they were on close-out, 6 for $16. "Patience, Grasshoppah. It is a virtue." The 5 round things below the marbles are little wooden marble stands. I bought 8 total and 3 of them are already being used for my sulphide marbles.

Fun Warshington Trivia!!!

Yes, I know, but I spelled it wrong on purpose.

This trivia is brought to you by the State of Washington Voters' Pamphlet, which we received in the mail today. The cover features an exciting array of Washington Symbols. I had no idea we had so many! Note that the cover says, "Edition 1", which can only mean that we are in store for many more Editions of symbols that apparently represent the state. Bird: Willow Goldfinch. I know that Kristy of the "Eats Shoots & Leaves" blog knew this, based on a blog entry she did today. But in my 8+ years here, I have never laid eyes on a Goldfinch. Tons of Stellar Jays though. And woodpeckers.

Fruit: Apple. No huge surprise there; Eastern WA is thick with apple orchards.

Mammal: Orca. I'm on board with that one for sure.

Insect: Green Darner Dragonfly. I have to confess that I breathed a sigh of relief, because based on the number and huge size of the spiders, I really thought that would be the state insect. But the dragonflies are huge and absolutely beautiful. Like flying jewels.

Grass: Bluebunch Wheatgrass. Here's another one to satisfy the folks in Eastern WA so that they don't start whining again about how everything in the state revolves around Western WA (read: King County & Seattle).

Gem: Petrified Wood. OK, if they say so. I never really considered petrified wood to be a gem; I always thought it was more like a rock.

Tree: Western Hemlock. Are they serious? How can it not be the Douglas Fir??????

Fossil: Columbian Mammoth. Hmm....my money was on Jean Enerson, an anchorwoman on KING-5 news who's gettin' a bit long in the tooth. It's not a pretty sight when she wears anything with a v-neck that shows her upper chestal area.

Frog: Pacific Chorus Frog. Is that anything like the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus?

Vegetable: Walla Walla Sweet Onion. Yeah, our onions do rule, and I am not now, nor have I ever been, a huge fan of onions. But these are really good.

Dance: Square Dance. HUH? Not the mosh pit?

Fish: Steelhead Trout. Again, HUH? Why isn't it salmon? Are Steelhead Trout salmon? And if so, why don't they just call them salmon?

Flower: Coast Rhododendron. They are glorious too. There's a beautiful rhododendron garden on the Weyerhaeuser campus. Too bad the season's so short.

Ship: The Lady Washington. And not the Kalakala? That poor, rusted old hulk of what was once an amazing ferry back in the 30's? Poor Kalakala....it's the Rodney Dangerfield of Puget Sound...it gets no respect.

Folk Song: Roll On, Columbia, Roll On. Never heard of it.

Song: Washington, My Home. Again, never heard of it. I was expecting "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

I was surprised that there was no state candy listed. Last time I checked, Aplets & Cotlets were still duking it out with Brown & Haley's Almond Roca (East v. West again) for the coveted "state candy" title. Perhaps our next voting pamphlet will solve that mystery.

This cartoon cracked me up. The dog on the right reminds me of little Pepper with the floppy ears.

Pleased as Punch

I've been a bit distracted of late, because Brian's been having some "issues"....the kind which required a colonoscopy. Last night he did the laxative extravaganza, or as they call it "The Cleansing Protocol" which I'm sorry, sounds like a procedure that would have come out of 1930's Germany. Anywho, he said that the experience redefined "shitting your brains out". I took him for the procedure today and everything's A-OK, i.e., no cancer and no polyps. Just a big herkin' hemorhoid. He was sent on his way with instructions to eat a high fibre diet. Needless to say, I nearly burst into tears of relief. He was wicked hungry when we left so we grabbed a quick bite at Denny's before heading home. He's still hungry so he went out to get a big ol' burger for dinner but I'm still a bit full from my club sammich.

I will, however, stop short of posting the very festive photos they included on his written report. Brian teased that he wants to use one of them as his screen saver.

There is a history of colon cancer on my father's side of the family; his sister died from it and dad always had polyps. This is why I have always committed to eating a high fibre diet of my own. I figure if you keep things moving along, nothing can stick around and grow. This is why American low-flow toilets don't accommodate my needs. ahem. So while my doctor has been telling me I should have one done, I'm putting it off as long as possible.

I'm also pleased because, being the uber-efficient person that I am, I decided to schedule the installation of new kitchen and upstairs bath sinks and faucets for today, since we would be home anyway. It ran about $1,600 over budget but lemme tell ya, it was SO worth it. While they were here we had them change out the flusher-dealybob on the upstairs toilet and the sink pluggy-thing in the downstairs sink. Isn't it sad that my father was a plumber and yet I picked up virtually zero of his knowledge or the terminology? First time my toilet overflowed I stood there screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" at the top of my lungs....I had no idea what to do, except grab a pot and start bailing water into the tub. I didn't even know there was a shut off valve. It was 6:00 a.m. and I called Brian at work in a panic, shouting, "WHAT DO I DO???" He goes, "My god, your father was a plumber how could you not know what to do?" What the hell did I know? I was too busy with my crush-of-the-week and collecting records and baseball cards.

So between the unbelievably expensive high tech generator installation last January, the new gas range, new sinks/faucets, fixed front deck, new mailbox and the roof and gutter cleaning, we've sunk well over $10,000 into the house this year. Fortunately all in cash, so we didn't have to charge any of it. We just keep thinking "equity equity equity" every time we do another upgrade.

After the plumbers left, Brian logged on to his email and found out that Blog Talk Radio has listened to a few of his shows and have decided to list him as a "Premier Show" because of his topics, interviews, skill and listener stats. I'm so proud of him! I always told him that he'd kick ass at radio, and as one who did radio for years, he is a thousand times better than I ever was. I sucked at audio production so bad that I switched my major from Mass Communications Radio to Mass Comm TV Production after my sophomore year.

Finally, I'm pleased because the weather here is just fantastic right now. Simply glorious!! As I write this, it's about 55 degrees, dark and pouring buckets. We are in full-on fall and I couldn't be happier. I spend the hot summer days lurking in my centrally air-cooled home, with all the curtains and blinds drawn....blackout fabric covering the front door and my bedroom window so as to shut out the hot sun. But in the fall and winter, I feel like I come alive.

Thanks again to all of you who sent good thoughts and karma our way.

IZ U MAYK CHEEZBURGER? WE CAN HAS? PWEASE?

Every time I'm upstairs cooking, my "Secret Service Detail" has to follow me around and stand right next to me, till I finally shoo them out. Usually it's just Sagan who insists on enthusiastically "helping", but occasionally Pepper will come up and vocalize in the funniest way with a series of growly-type howls. I call her "Chewy" because she sounds like Chewbacca. After I shoo them out, the above is what I usually see, two goofy faces peering around the fridge at me.