A Stone appears and a"SMS" Update

Gentle Friends over the weekend, Saturday evening about 7:15 or so, the "stone of death" that has been plaguing me for the past month or so passed..... I was doing my thing and whizzing through the cone/screen that the Doctor at the Emergency room gave me  - like I have been for two weeks and there it was, no pain no nothing, just one second it was not there and the next it was...... so I'm taking it to be analyzed as I was requested to do and I'll probably be cancelling my Urologist appointment for later in the week, now that the problem is no more.  BTW the stone seems pretty big to me, I'll not pop a snap on the Blog since that ain't classy.  ;)

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Here's a snap of where I am with SMS as of last night....

... I've changed a couple of silks along the way and will catch all that up later on. 

I made it over to Needle in a Haystack and picked up some fun stuff, I'll show tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by, do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

Love is a Warm Quilt.....

Gentle Friends, I thought I would wrap up the week with a cute snaperoo.....

....  I did some laundry a few days ago and one of the things that got washed was a quilt.  It seems that every time I do laundry, the hounds know, especially the Hump and Lolinator.  They sort of wait until I dump the warm clothes out to fold them to make their attack.  I usually throw a couple of towels out first so that they can settle and I don't have to keep moving them to fold things up.  Well, within seconds of the quilt hitting the sofa, three Who's hit it running.....and stayed there until it cooled off.  I live such a glamours life!!!

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That's about it for the week sports fans.  The plans for the weekend are to start off tonight running around to the thrift stores to free up tomorrow for a run over to Alameda.... and  a visit to Needle in Haystack, they are having their annual sale and I wanted to make a "stash run."  I'll let you know about it next week - have a safe weekend!!

Take care,

edgar

Thrifty Thursday

Gentle Friends, it is a dry Thursday here by the Bay... yesterday it was a drippy, wet day, and just rain, rain and a little more rain.  Not a very hard downpour but steady - and really refreshing.  I do love rainy days!!  On the way home from work I had a follow up at the Doctors, and since the "stone" hasn't moved (I was doubled up with it Monday evening) and I am still screening...... and nothing has "popped out" yet, I am now going on to see a Urologist, my life just gets funner and funner doesn't it!!!  

If that wasn't the high point of the day, then the two screws in my back left tire letting the air slowly out must have been!  After coming out of the Doctors I had to stop to fill up the tire with air, to get home, to run and feed the hounds...... then it was off to Larkin Bros. Tire Company over on S. Van Ness to have the tire fixed.  I got there by 5:15, they close at 6, so it was just under the wire, or I would have had a flat this morning, which would have just sucked!!!!  They are really super, I had been there before with the old car, I would Highly recommend them for fast and honest service.  I thought there was only a single nail/screw, but once the tire was off the rim,  the guy found a second one...... just my luck.  

After the tire issues were dealt with we stopped off and picked up dinner, I was in no mood to cook and clean up.....  and since it was Wednesday, TCM was showing films of the Star of the Month, the wonderful actress....

....Mary Astor - 1906-1987.  

I caught the end of "Little Women" - 1949, and the whole wonderful "Meet Me in St Louis" - 1944.  I really enjoy her films, she won best supporting actress for her role in "The Great Lie" - 1941 co-starring with Bette Davis. 

Here's a great quote of hers......"  "There are five stages in the life of an actor: Who's Mary Astor? Get me Mary Astor. Get me a Mary Astor type. Get me a young Mary Astor. Who's Mary Astor?"  Isn't that great I just love that quote!!

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Since it is Thursday, that means thrifty finds from last weekend......

...... and I hit the regular places, picking up the pair of super 19th century brass candlesticks at a Goodwill, and we hit an Estate Sale of a real Film Fan.  Actually I went both Saturday and Sunday to the Estate sale, there were 100's of DVD's, many of them I already had. I went back for more on Sunday since the DVD's were 1/2 priced so I picked up another bunch - they went from $4 to $2, how could I not go back??

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That's about it for today sports fans, thanks for stopping... do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Box of Love

Gentle Friends about a week ago I wrote a Post extolling the virtues and just plain old wonderfulness of PetMeds.com - just because I was so overwhelmed and impressed by their super service.  When I wrote about it I never thought anyone at PetMeds would ever read it or see my little ole Blog Post........ how mistaken I was.  I got a really kind comment from Abby Rosenberg thanking me for the nice Post - which blew me away and made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside......... but the Who Hounds also got a a sweet "Box of Love" from PetMeds also........

.... it was so unexpected and such a sweet gesture.   The Hounds were all over it and were so excited to be getting a prezzie of their very own. 

The Peach, Lolly, Smokie and Wahumpi - all send great big Thank You kisses to those super folks at PetMeds!!!!!

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There you sports fans, and remember......  "Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.  ~Mark Twain"........

Take care,

edgar

A Little Baking and a New Horror Story

Gentle Friends, over the weekend I got to rattling the pots and pans and baked up a fresh strawberry coffee cake....

....  and I looked and looked and the cookbook this came from has gone missing from my house.  Where it is is beyond me, and I looked for that sucker and came up with nada! So, if it ever turns up I'll post the recipe.  it was pretty easy to do, a basic yellow cake base, 3 cups of sliced fresh strawberries, some walnut crumbly topping, and there you go.

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.... here's a little tid bit that I read yesterday that got me going about the upcoming new Season 4 of American Horror Story: Freak Show.....  "Set in Jupiter, Florida, in 1950, Freak Show finds Jessica Lange playing a German ex-pat who is managing one of the last freak shows in the U.S. Her group of “unusuals”? Kathy Bates, Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Angela Bassett, and Frances Conroy all play performers whom Lange’s character has rescued; Denis O’Hare and Emma Roberts are also in talks to return. Freak Show’s 13 episodes will track this group as they do anything to keep their business around."  ........how super does that sound????  I can't wait!!

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That's about it for today sports fans.  Thanks for stopping by, do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Mystery Update

Gentle Friends, the weekend came and went without a bit of a stone in sight.  I aim for the little cone shaped screen and there's nothing to see when its through.  For now, I'll be just moving along and doing the regular things I usually do and just not think about it too much.

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On the stitching front, I continued to work on the Spanish Mystery Sampler, to be referred to from now on as the SMS......  here's the progress...

...  as you can see I have worked the left side to the end, I am not sure if I'll stitch a bottom closing vine or add my personal info, there's lots of time to think about that.  One of the changes I am making is that I traded the white for a pale green coloured silk, I thought the white was on the dull and washed out side.  Another change I made is in the sixth row, the "blue ribbon" row I call it.  The green and red "rose" looking bits were stitched all in white on the original, I am stitching them more as flowers, now the dilemma is whether to leave the dark "Rose of Sharon" silk or change it for a lighter shade of red/pink???  something else to think about.

That's about it for today sports fans, thanks for stopping by, do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Stone, A Finish and a New Start

Gentle Friends, usually one thinks of the Blarney Stone on St Patrick's day....  I had a run in with another stone, a kidney stone, on Monday.  I actually felt it about two weeks ago , but having never had one before didn't know what it was and the pain went away so I didn't think about it again...... until this past weekend, Sunday morning to be precise.  And I am nothing if not stubborn.  So I hung onto a heating pad all morning and the pain went away again....  then it came back Sunday night, Rico kept insisting I go to the hospital, but I kept resisting.  Then Monday morning after I got to work I was doubled over in pain and went back home to my heating pad and the fetal position in bed with the who hounds......  Rico left work and came home and unlike the "feral cat" I had become... hissing and fighting to not go to the Emergency Room, it hurt too bad and I gave in and went.  After a few hours, a CT scan and some great drugs....... they sent me home with the knowledge that yes, I had a kidney stone, and some prescriptions for more drugs.  So that's what I have been up to the past 4 days - just taking pills and trying to feel somewhat normal - and waiting for this stone to pass........

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On the cross stitch front........I did finish up the band sampler last weekend......

A re-working of "Hibernation Day" by Heartstring Samplery -

With all the changes I call it "Winter Band Sampler"

36ct PTP "Truffle"

Here's my Floss conversion...

Mullberry - I went with - CC Apple Fritter

Shaker White - "         " - CC Snowball

Mustard Seed I Kept

Old Hickory - "            " - WDW Dirt Road

Piney Woods - "           " - Victorian Motto Green A

Pecan Pie - "                " - CC Hickory Sticks

Here are some close ups.....

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I did start a new  sampler.......

"Spanish Mystery Sampler" - Shakespeare's Peddler

40ct "Bisque" - my conversion of Belle Soie, and some colour changes 

I am quite a bit further along than this snap shows, but you get the idea.

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That's about it for today, thanks for stopping by, do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Puppy Posting....

Gentle Friends I thought I would wrap up the week on a "cute" note.....  and here he is cuteness personified.... Smokie....

....  or as he is known around the olde hacienda... Mokie, or Mokie Pokie Butt, Squirlly, or just plain old Monkey Butt!!  He's a sweetie and knows it!!

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If you have been a regular ready of the Blog, then you know I eschew advertising in a big way.  Not a day passes without an email of three asking "wouldn't I like to make some money with my Blog" - I just delete and move on.  My Blog is not for sale, and nothing drives me more batty that pop-ups and blinky adverts while I'm reading or surfing around the Internet, it just ain't what I'm all about!!  

Now with that said, I wanted to sing the praises of a company that totally came through for me and one of the Who Hounds.  It was 1-800-Pet-Meds. 

 If you remember last Spring we rushed the Peach to the Pet Emergency Hospital with what turned out to be congenital heart failure.  

She got better and has been a bouncy old lady for going on a year, but she does take three pills twice a day, every day to stay on an even keel.  This past year I have been filling her prescriptions locally, and the prices have just been creeping up and up until I knew I had to find another source, enter 1-800-Pet-Meds.  I placed an order over the weekend for two of the three pills she takes (they don't carry the third) and there was a glitch in communication between them and the vet Hospital.  I was down to a single pill of the two I ordered and started to panic a bit, knowing that the Peach needed her heart pills.  After a couple of calls to there super efficient and extremely nice customer service person, Missy everything got worked out - and -  they popped those pills into and overnight Fedex and I had them in hand yesterday and our sweet little old Lady didn't miss a dose!

... the package was well packed and even came with a chew treat!  So, I ended up not only saving quite a bit of money but their customer service was top notch - and - the site was easy to navigate!  

There ends my little commercial for today

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That's about it for today sports fans.  Thanks for stopping by, do stop again!!  Have a super weekend!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Thrifting

Gentle Friends, it's Thursday all over which means a snap or two of last weekends thrifting...

....  I found a great transfer ware creamer, a copy of the superior version of "Bleak House" with the roll of Lady Dedlock being played by that wonderful actress Diana Rigg ( I have such a soft spot for her, and have ever since I first saw her on the stage in London in the roll of Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf") a nice copy of "The Night Before Christmas" and a couple of older tape measures.  In addition to the tape measures I  found at the Estate Sale we went to.....

....was this great little runner.  I think it cost me .25 - I just couldn't leave it, all that handwork that was just sort of tossed in a heap of linens.   There wasn't much crafty stuff, and I think this was missed. The only other piece of hardanger I saw was a larger unfinished piece, that I wish now I had also gotten, but I didn't.  I am pretty sure that whomever the house belonged to was Scandinavian ( or a big fan ) as I saw a ton of cookbooks from that region and little travel trinkets from Norway and Sweden.

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That's about it for today sports fans.  Thanks for stopping by, do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

Some SF Snaps

Gentle Friends, over the weekend we went up on the roof of our building.  In all the years we've lived in this here I've never ventured up on the roof.  I am the biggest chicken about high places and avoid them at all costs.........except when I force myself to just "suck it up" and go for it.......usually when I am out of the country.  A couple of  examples,  St Mark's Campanile in Venice, or the "Stone Gallery" in the dome of St Paul's, London - for some reason I am a bit more brave when I travel!!   

So I had my camera when I went up and here are some shots......

.......looking SE towards the South Bay.....

... turning to the left and looking NE towards the City....

... turning left and looking towards the West up at Sutro Tower and Diamond Heights....

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Yesterday evening from our balcony we could see .......

.... looking out across Noe Valley towards China Basin we saw this fire getting started and it burned and burned and then we flipped the TV over to the news and .....

...... all the channels were reporting the fire... it was new construction and the fire started on the ninth floor, it kept burning for a few hours and eventually the building collapsed... and from the balcony-cam was this...

.....giant black plumes of smoke and we could even make out flames as they got bigger....  this could be seen all over the Bay Area, many thought that ATT Ball Park was on fire but that is a few block from this, so it was never in any danger.

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That's about it for today sports fans.  Thanks for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

"Winter Band" Sampler update....

Gentle Friends, another quick weekend passes, and we arrive on a slow,wet Monday morning...... I did get some stitching in on the the band sampler and here is where it stands as of 10 pm last night.....

.... as you can see it is bee-bopping along just fine.  I did, however have to frog and restitch the first basket of fruit, it was off by a single stitch. I was really mad at having to rip it out and restitch, but that's how it is sometimes, that single stitch would have thrown the whole row of fruit off and that would have made me nuts!

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That's about it for today, short and sweet.  Thanks for stopping by, do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

"Showboat" just keeps rolling along......

Gentle Friends, after I got home and dealt with dogie time - going out, dinner, Peach pill time..... I think I need to just pop a snap of  some Who Hounds... I usually have them watching me stitch every evening...

... I took this from where I sit stitching (notice the green floss lower left) I usually have these two, the Peach and Humpi watching me and thinking sweet dogie thoughts....or are they waiting for a snackeroo??

Back to "Showboat"........ I finally got to pop my DVD of

 "Showboat" into the player....  and I was just blown away by what a great improvement this new DVD version is over what we see shown on the TV - and is far superior to my Pirated version.  Yes, I know it is bad that I had a friend burn me ripped version from an illegal DVD, but there was no other way to get a copy of the 1936 film.  The last time it was released, 1995, was on LazerDisc, and then it was bundled with the 1929 and 1951 versions - so you could have all three. 

This new DVD R version is clean, bright with great contrast -  all of the skips, breaks and scratches in the film have been removed and it really is a great remastered film. I posted a preview clip from Warner just before this Post showing how great it looks!!  Here's another clip from YouTube of the version that usually get played on TCM (you can see the TCM watermark in the lower right corner)...

....  it is Helen Morgan's performance of "Bill" -

 this was her last film, she died only a few years later, in 1941.

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I would highly recommend this version of the film, it is beautiful and one of my favorite films of all time!!

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That's about it for today sports fans.  Have a super weekend, and thanks for stopping by!!

Take care,

edgar

Show Boat 1936 (Preview Clip)

A Little Thrifting....

Gentle Friends, Thursday it is and thrifting is the theme....  last Saturday, I made the rounds, short as they were.  I can usually browse around for a good 45 minutes to an hour, but it seemed that there wasn't much to see and so I quickly perused the shops and got back home very quickly.  I did find a couple of things....

... so, for less than $5 I picked up a book from my Amazon Wish List, and a couple of films I didn't have.  

 A Film Friend of mine dropped off for me a "Wednesday Gift" as he called it, a remastered copy of ....

"Showboat" - 1936 - starring Irene Dunne, Allen Jones, Helen Morgan, Paul Robeson and Hattie McDaniel, of the three versions on film, 1929, 1936 and 1951 - I think this, 1936 version, is the best of the three.  It was remastered and released by the Warner Home Video's Archive Collection recently.  We went to Ash Wednesday Mass last night and I didn't get a chance to watch it ..... but, I will be sure to watch it tonight and I pass on some thoughts about it in tomorrows Post.

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There you go sports fans, thanks again for stopping by, do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Rainy Day

Gentle Friends, since it was so rainy over the weekend here's a snap of the city from Sunday afternoon.....

....  it was a fleeting moment, and was gone within minutes.  I stepped out onto the veranda and snapped away and this was the best of the bunch.  This is looking NE out across Noe Valley towards downtown, and can see the Trans America Pyramid  in the center, this building was built in 1972 and is located in North Beach.  The large dark building to the right of the TA P is 555 California Street, formally known as the Bank of America Center.

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There you go sports fans, a damp SF - thanks for stopping by, do stop again.

Take care,

edgar

Making Treats

Gentle Friends, I had a request from some of Rico's co-workers for the Monday morning baked goodie...  it was for a Pineapple Upside Down cake.  It is an easy cake to make and takes almost no time to pull together.  

... it starts off with a yellow cake mix............ butter a 13 x 9 pan, sprinkle a cup of dark brown sugar all over the bottom of the pan, then arrange drained, pineapple slices from (1) one large can pf pineapple, reserving the juice, place cherries in the holes.  Prepare the cake mix according to the package directions substituting the reserved pineapple juice for water.  Pour over arranged pineapple and bake in preheated 350 oven for about 30-35 minutes.  Allow to cool before turning out to slice and serve - super easy!!

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My friend in North Carolina sent me some raw peanuts from the University Club Kiwanis - and I finally got around to making some sugared peanuts....  they go from this.....  in a few steps...

.....  in a largish skillet pour 2C white sugar and 1 C water....

...then pour 4 C  raw, red skinned peanuts into the skillet.....

... stir constantly over med-high heat until the water evaporates, about 20-30 minutes..

... turn these into a large baking pan, cook in a preheated 325 oven for about 30 minutes stirring about every 5 minutes...... and you get ....  this, a wonderful snacking treat!!!!

.....  They are a real treat, we don't get raw peanuts out here in the far West!!  Thanks Dale!!

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That's about it for today sports fans.  Thanks for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

Weekend Stitching

Gentle Friends, it was a damp weekend here by the Bay - and we spent it close to home for the most part.  I continued to stitch away on the  "Winter Band Sampler"......  and here's an updated shot of what was accomplished.....

...  I finished up the house and have moved on to the "pine forest" part of the sampler.  Talking about the house...I have two skeins of "Apple Fritter," the red coloured floss, and they are quite different in shading.  I used the much darker skein for the house fill and will save the light shaded skein for the rest of the red on the sampler.  I also moved the bird from one roof to the other, as it fit better with my changes.

That's about it for today sports fans.  Thanks for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar