I need to slow down but I can’t do it this week. Monday I
had lunch in a near-by tourist town with my Gathering Girls pals. Tuesday it
was a fun lecture/slide show about a huge art contest in town that registered
1,200 entries from 40 countries. Wednesday---today---you’ll find me at the
cemetery getting my husband’s gravestone ready for winter and stopping for my
flu and shingles shots. Thursday I’ll be going to the audiologist to get my
hearing aids turned up because sentences like, “I love your cat” are starting
to sound like, “I love your fat.” Friday my cleaning service girl is coming. Of
course, these things were/will be in addition to all the normal details of
living---fixing meals, doing laundry, taking showers, walking the dog, watching
‘Dancing with the Stars’ and the new ‘You’ creepy-but-addictive TV show on
Lifetime. And I won’t tell you about how many times Starbucks waves me in to
test their new fall menu of drinks. So far the Maple Pecan Iced Latte wins my
vote over the Pumpkin Choco Chai or the Hot Apple Chai. Wouldn’t you love sit
in on a drink naming session? I would. Same for the paint companies that create
so many new wall color names every year. Seriously, how on earth did Sherwin
Williams come up with ‘Salty Dog’ for what looks like Hyper Blue straight out
of an artist’s tube with a dab of black added in? But I digress.
Back on topic: I am also babysitting seven closed e-Bay auctions
and seven active auctions. Are you sick of hearing about my widowhood adventures
at e-Bay yet? If you are, you'll be happy to know that I only have October to
continue the hard-charging listings before I’ll quit until after Christmas. In
the meantime, here’s a pop quiz/history lesson for you. Do you know what the
item is in the photo above? I’m guessing ‘no.’ It’s known as a Yellow Dog, popularized
by something Teddy Roosevelt said the first time he saw a group of them in the
dark of night. A reporter traveling with him wired a story back East and a front
page newspaper headline soon proclaimed: “Roosevelt sees Yellow Dogs in Texas!”
It was one of my husband’s favorite possessions because after he bought the
cast iron what-the-heck-is-it, it took us two years to find out the answer. If
only Google had been invented sooner. I showed my niece another what-is-it last
year and within a few minutes she took a photo of it, posted it on a website
that helps ID things and we had an answer to the what-is-it question that had
eluded me for two decades.
How we found out what the pot with two spouts was used for is the kind of
story Don enjoyed telling to anyone who’d come over and spot it in the house.
We were on our way to a Romance Writer’s Convention in San Antonio, Texas in 1990
when we stopped at a tourist visitor’s center. Smack-dab on the front of a
museum brochure was an unidentified and unexplained two spouted pot like ours. Off
we went on a 100 mile detour just so we could learn that it’s an oilfield derrick
lamp, the official name that no one uses anymore. At night from a distance the
yellow flames coming out of the spouts looked like yellow eyes to good old
Teddy and the shadows the lamps cast on the ground below looked like a pack of dog
heads below the derricks where they hung. I can’t imagine what it will be like not to live with possessions that
all come with stories to tell.
The art lecture/slide show I went to was billed as an Armchair Art Show. The art show it featured was the brain-child of Betsy DeVos’
son and is billed as the “largest public art show in the world.” It runs for
two weeks and the pieces are all over our downtown area. A $200,000 prize goes
to one person who is voted in by the public and another $200,000 goes to someone who is picked by a
five member panel of art critics and it is possible for one artist to win both,
bring their prize money up to $400,000. Five other artists win $12,500 each.
Our senior hall took four busloads of people downtown to see the art this year and
I have gone in the past years. But the crowds and pressure of meeting back up with
the bus a dozen times over an afternoon so it could shuffle us between various venues
was too stressful. The ‘armchair tour’ via a slide show was a new addition at
senior hall this year and it was extremely well attended.
Much of the art I don’t
understand and much of it is ‘message art’ created to draw attention to things
like human trafficking, saving the bees, the environment or white rhinos, or to
commemorate things like the Pulse Night Club lives lost or people who suffer
from PTSD. The public gets to vote twice---once to narrow it down to the top
100 pieces, then again to narrow the 100 down to the top 20. The winners are
yet to be announced but one of the art jurors thinks a bunch of tee-shirts
hanging on some clotheslines should be the top winner and I thought it looked
like a bunch of ho-hum tee-shirts hanging on clotheslines. She’s too young to
remember drying laundry that way, God, I have paint brushes older than her! After
the art lecture three of my Gathering Girls pals and I went to the Guy Land Cafeteria
for pie, coffee and good conversation. ©
A video of
this year’s top twenty entries can be found here.
That's very nice of you to attend to your husband's grave site like that. So many are forgotten...
ReplyDeleteGone but not forgotten. The gravestone was important to my husband.
ReplyDeleteI need to have a flu shot but I've already had two of the shingle shots. I'm bored with " Dancing of the Stars " I'm tired of the judges.I liked the idea of Art but even better was to go and have coffee and pie. Now that means enjoyment to me. See ya Jean.
ReplyDeleteCruisin Paul
I had my shingles shots a few years ago but the doctor tells me they've been updated and I need them again.
DeleteI'm not warming up to the new cast of Dancing of the Stars this year. But I multi-task so much mostly I just hear the music and don't watch the screen.
You'd fit right in at the Guy Land Cafeteria. Lots of older guys hang out there and they have lots of pies to choose from.
I didn't know about the Yellow Dog 2-spouted object!! Or the website to identify unknown objects - will check that out.
ReplyDeleteI agree the internet has its uses!! ~ Libby
I wish I knew the name of the website she went to to pass it on but she had their app on her phone. Very cool. We were in an antique shop and tried it out several times and it was always very fast to ID stuff.
DeleteThat two spouted kettle I would never have guessed. Thanks for reminding me. Think I will get a flu shot this year. I never do but think I may have been dodging the bullet for too long.
ReplyDeleteElectric lighting made yellow dogs obsolete. My husband carried a photo of that piece around for two years and showed it to many people and no one knew. Some guessed a railroad flair.
DeleteI have to go back for the shingles shot. They ran out and won't get them back in until January.
You were on your way to a Romance Writers Convention?? I want to know THAT story, lol!
ReplyDeleteI should write about that 10 year long chapter of my life sometime. The thumbnail version is I published a subscription romance book review newsletter (bimonthly, 24 pages long) that was made up of all reader's reviews, not professionals. Authors started kissing up to us and would send us advanced copies of books. The convention was 2-3 days of workshops for want-be-romance-writers which I was back in those days and another day for fans to get autographs. Fabio was hot back then and was there in person. I gave Don my autograph book to take around (stand in line with a couple thousand fans) while I went to a couple of workshops. He loved it. He proofread the newsletter and knew a lot about the various writers.
DeleteI love this! Such an interesting life you've had and have!
DeleteIt certainly has been hard to explain over the years. :)
DeleteYou continue to do so much! And I learn something every blog you write! Who knew about yellow dogs.
ReplyDeleteWhy are they usually OUT of Shingrix? My Dr wouldn’t give out flu shot until after Oct first. So I’ll be doing that upon my return to reality
I don't know why they were out. The guy next to me while waiting for our flu shots said he got his shingles shot a few days ago so they just ran out. My doctor's office didn't have them either. This is an updated mix, I'm told, and even though I'd already had one a few years ago, my doctor wanted me to have the new one. This new one is supposed to hurt for four days!
DeleteLOTS of mild side effects according to CDC. And it's a two shot series. I'm getting my flu shot tomorrow then next week will search for Shingrix.
DeleteGood. Everyone needs to get a flu shot!
DeleteArt show sounds interesting. Not too impressed with tee shirts hanging on clothes lines either. How about diapers hanging on the line as I had in AZ?
ReplyDeleteNever would have guessed the use of yellow dog. Caused me to think of old carbide lights we had that miners used.
One of our older bloggers, Rain, writes romance novels set in the Southwest. She lives in Oregon.
I had the new shingles months ago and didn’t experience it as much different than other shot.
That's good to hear about the shingles shot. A couple of people at the pharmacy who give them said people have been calling afterward and asking if that's normal to hurt so bad 3-4 days later.
DeleteThose tee shirts on a clothe line are even less impressive if it's been done before in the form of diapers on a line.
I have one of those old carbide lights. My grandfather was a coal miner. I have one of the candlestick holders, too, that they spiked into the wall of the coal.
One of my dearest friends--passed away about 7 years ago--was a romance writer for Harlequin. She went to a lot of the RW Conventions. She lived in Florida and set a few of her books in her home state.
ReplyDeleteGoogle Image Search is usually pretty good at finding stuff like your yellow dog. And as far as the blue paint being called Salty Dog--that term is nautical slang for a veteran sailor. Makes sense to me!
See, that's what I love about blogging. Someone always has a logical answer for things I want to know. Salty Dog will no longer keep me up at night. It does make sense now. Thanks also for reminding me about Google image search. I'm going to write that down before I forget again.
DeleteI need to inquire about the shingles shot. When I asked my pharmacist a couple years later whether a booster was required, he said no. Has it turned into a series now? Given the cost, I'd prefer for one to do the trick, but given the nature of the affliction, I'd sure be happy to pay whatever it takes to avoid it.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know about the yellow dog, but you've brought back memories of the smudge pots that were used in ye olde days to mark highway construction zones. Do you remember them? They were round, about the size of a big grapefruit, and they burned diesel (I presume). They put off a lot of smoke as well as flame.
As for those salty dogs -- yep. Actually, one of my favorite summertime drinks is a salty dog (grapefruit juice, vodka, and of course salt), and one of my favorite old songs is "Salty Dog Blues".
According to my doctor last week the Shingles shots have been updated and even though I had one before, he recommends getting the new series, didn't ask why. I would imagine you're going to be charged the same whether you get it in two doses or one and safer that way.
DeleteI do remember the highway smudge pots. They used something similar on railroad lines. The yellow dogs had to withstand a drop of 25 feet and not catch on fire but their history is rooted in the old whale oil lamps that were made of tin. I have some of those and I love them but so few people appreciate them anymore which might not be true along the coasts where you live.
Now that I know where the term 'salty dog' comes from I really warming up to the color. It's so cool to learn new things, isn't it.