Nannie's Horses

I engaged in something that I rarely do yesterday.

It's something most people do every day.

Walt does a lot of it.

I did some housecleaning...and it about did me in.

See, we are having this little gathering here on Saturday.  Tomorrow Walt and I are celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary (where did the time go?) and the kids decided they wanted to have a party.

 

But where?  These days when we get together socially, it's at Atria because it's easier for my mother, but that wasn't going to work for this party.  But my mother doesn't do well in restaurants...well, she's OK, but she's uncomfortable...so they decided we would get together here and that Tom and Ned would cook dinner for us.

It's just a small group, just the family.  Walt and me; Ned and Marta; Tom, Laurel and the girls, my mother and Walt's brother and his wife.  Then Ned said he didn't believe in keeping secrets so he let us know that Jeri and Phil are going to fly out and be here too.  And because she's family as well, Charlotte is coming.

(This is a huge deal because Brianna and Lacie have never been inside this house and I'm having grandma performance anxiety.)

It's not that these people have never been inside my house and don't know that I am a terrible housekeeper, though since Walt has been doing so much housekeeping, he house is better than it has been in a long time.  Ned, bless him, said he would come over today and help clean up.  But I've always said I would have to clean for two days to get the house to a point where I could apologize for how messy it is.

A HUGE part of cleaning up is dusting the etageres.  These are two glass and brass shelving units that Gilbert bought shortly before he died.  I was so proud of those things and I felt so strongly that I wanted to take care of them for him after he died.  So they stand in the dining part of our living room and they hold all of the tsatskes that either we have collected on our travels or that people have given to us.  To dust it all takes 45-60 minutes, so it doesn't get done that often, but really needed it now.  When it's finished, the room doesn't look different at all, but I feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment to know that everything is dusted and on dusted glass shelves.

I set up a speaker so I could listen to my Amazon book and then I brought in my little desk fan because it was warm.  Even with that, I had sweat pouring off of me as I worked on the shelves.  

I had to do things in small increments because my back starts to give out after awhile.  Even sitting in a chair as much as I could while I cleaned still ended up with my having to take a break every now and then.

As I cleaned I was thinking about having the girls here and what a temptation all these cute little things on these open shelves would be for them.  I have thought about this before.  How to "baby proof" the etageres so I wouldn't have to worry about them.

Then I thought back to my paternal grandmother and the times we spent at her house (very, very often).  She had a little shelf on which she kept a collection of miniature horses.  They weren't necessarily fancy or expensive...I seem to recall a couple of them were even made of plastic.  But they were very special to her (and it bothers me that when she finally moved out of her apartment they just disappeared...I never got the chance to ask for them).  But the rule was "look, but don't touch."

I was a horse crazed kid and I would spend a lot of time sitting on the floor looking at those horses and imagining playing with them, my grandmother yelling at me if I tried to touch them.  She was so afraid I'd break them.  To this day, I am sorry that I never had the chance to play with them.

And as I dusted all this stuff on the etagere I thought about the girls being drawn to it and wanting to investigate and realized that there is nothing on those shelves that is so special that I would be upset if it got broken, and what fun it would be to share those little animals and figures with them.  So I'm not worrying about it.  If they want to play with anything on those shelves, I will smile and be happy that they are getting to do what I always wanted to do and never could.

I didn't get a lot more done than just the etagere, but I did get that much done but it feels as if I cleaned house all day.  And I don't have to do it again for a long time....

Now I just have to worry about the dogs who use the house for their bathroom, and what to do about puddle pads, and whether or not our dogs will get along with the dog Tom and Laurel are bringing with them.

Oh What the Heck

Let's finish this tsatske project and be done with it. Here are the last two shelves.

It's actually one long shelf and here is the left end of it.

The little bell on the left was given to us by Suzanne, a woman from Switzerland who stayed with us for awhile. She was amazing. She wanted to buy a car and rode one of our bikes from Davis to the far side of Sacramento to car-shop, and then had us drive her back to pick it up the next day. I believe Jeri visited her in Switzerland that year.

Next to the bell is a thing that looks like a hockey puck. That was a gift of appreciation given to all of us on her committee from Joan Sallee to thank us for working on her campaign for School Board.

There is a jester ceramic mask-ish thing that I bought as my souvenir of New Orleans when we went with the jazz choir to be a chaparone. Next to that is my prized "cuteware" box, by Davis artist Heidi Bekebrede. I got that at one of Walt's office White Elephant games at a Christmas party. I couldn't believe someone wanted to get rid of it.

Behind the cuteware you can make out a silver statue of a horse pulling a wagon load of hay. That also came from Suzanne in Switzerland.

To the right of the wagon is a little vase that I bought on an Apache reservation we were driving through. We stopped to look at all the vendor stands and I stood there waiting for Walt to go back and get money. I still remember the stoney face of the woman and how she never even looked at me during that awkward period.

The two copper things, a tiny teapot and a little vase-like thing, came from a guy from Chile who stayed here. I'm not sure about the two glass things (one a vase, one a glass). I think they both came from Cousin Nora in Ireland, but I'm not sure. The dark statue on the left was a gift from Walt's mother after she had visited Thailand. The two beeer steins were from another of her trips, this one to Germany.

This is the other half of the shelf. There are two plain ol' plastic water bottles, one from Weathervane Playhouse in Ohio, where Jeri worked summer stock for a couple of years, the other from Kilbarri park in Australia, where I visited with Peggy. The last bottle was from our friend Eric's wedding to his wife Nan. Behind that is a square thingie which, I believe, came from Chile, though I could be mistaken about that.

The photo frame shows pictures from Walt's surprise 50th birthday party.

To the right of that is a Mexican chocolate stirrer, which a guy from Mexico (from the town where XX beer is made) brought. To the right of that is a glass from New Orleans, which held my Hurricane (drink).

The cool mask is something Paul made. It was a school project and it fit his head. Doesn't come close to slipping on my big head.

The candle in front has no significance, other than I put it on the table as a decoration one Christmas and somehow it just never got packed away again.

And there you have it...all the stuff on our glass etageres and the stories behind them. If we ever get to all the rest of the junk around here and puttin them back in their place again, I will do another record.

Time for Another Shelf

Cookie baking has slowed down. I only made one batch today...couldn't get through the Christmas season without a bit of ginger, so I made some ginger snaps. I also filled up several small containers to give to people. I dropped one off at a neighbor's door (haven't heard from them), took some to my friend Joan and to "Jessica Moms Brown," who read I didn't know what I was going to do with all these cookies and kindly volunteered to take some off my hands! Two friends also stopped by and picked up cookies. Ned's sister-in-law picked up a big batch for her and her family and took a smaller package to her mother.

Finally, Ned stopped by and I sent him home with a container of cookies as well.

So this was a third cookie-centered day and when contemplating what to write tonight, I decided it was time to go back to the etagere shelves and write about another shelf. Believe it or not there is a bit of rhyme and/or reason to the placements of things on this shelf.

This is the left side:

The shelf starts off in Ireland. There is a tall candle in the back which Walt's mother brought back for us. It represents Ireland's millennium. In front of that is a brown cup with four handles. I remember Walt's sister brought it to us from Ireland many, many years ago. In front of that is a shamrock in a frame. I bought that in Castlebar on our first trip to Ireland when we stayed in the tiny town of Mayo Abby. Castlebar, with a population of about 13,000, was the "big city" nearby.

Then you see the pitcher and the white bowl. Those are both Beleek pottery. Walt's mother's cousin Nora, who died this year, gave them to me on one of our trips to stay with her. Both had broken pieces, I believe, and I glued them together again. They are so delicate.

There is a ceramic mushroom made from the mud from, I think, Alaska. I'm not 100% certain that it was Alaska, but I think it was, when we visited Mike and Char when they were living there. To the right of the mushroom is a statue of an otter, which my friend Phil gave to me in the days when we were speaking to each other. I like it because it was one of only a very few things he ever gave me...also because otters are cute!

Behind the otter is a big round ceramic bird. I'm not sure what kind of a bird it is, but it was given to me by a guy from Chili, as was the tiny green marble penguin in the front of the shelf.

I can't remember where I got the parrot on the tree, but have a feeling it came from Brasil.

The big black wooden statue in the back came from one of the kids--I think it was Paul, but I could be wrong. It's the Maltese Falcon.

The other half of the shelf is this:

I'm not 100% certain where some of these things came from. There is the Maltese Falcon again in front of which is an owl on a slab of polished rock, which came from Brasil. I love the little collection of birds in eggs, which also came from Brasil, I think (but I could be wrong). The grey bird behind those was from one of our Japanese girls and the big owl in the back came from Chili. The toucan also came from Chili, I think. These were all gifts from our foreign students, but we had so many from So. America it's difficult to keep track of which visitor brought which gift.

Next is the sea life collection. In front of the toucan is a beautiful glass whale that I bought on the Big Island in Hawaii. It was made from black sand. We had just been to South Point beach with Marta's mother and step-father and watched a mother and baby whale cavorting off shore and I wanted a statue to remember that event. In front of that is a tiny pelican which I bought in Australia after we had watched the feeding of a bunch of pelicans in Kilbarri Park.

There is a panda that I bought at the San Diego zoo after seeing Hua Mei, the young panda whom I had been watching on "panda cam" ever since she was born. Next to her is a whale netsuke box I bought on Friday Island in Puget Sound after my friend Diane and I had nearly drowned on a whale watching boat. The top part of the whale comes off and there is a teeny tiny statue of Jonah inside.

Next to the netsuke box is a wooden dolphin mother and baby which Peggy bought for me in the small town of Denham, after we had been to Monkey Mia to see the wild dolphins swim in to get their fishy treats.

Behind that is a touristy thing that I bought at Hillary's Marina outside of Perth. It is in the shape of Australia and is filled with flowers of Australia. I had actually bought it for a friend, but liked it so much I kept it for myself.

Behind that are a canned wombat and a canned kangaroo which Peggy sent me for Christmas, two years in a row.

And there you have it -- another etagere shelf revealed!

In Lieu of an Entry

I got all wrapped up in a book today (Michael Connelly's "Chasing the Dime") and didn't do anything but sit and read until I'd finished it.

So this seems as good a time as any to do another etagere shelf. Or shelves this time, since I'm choosing a few of the small shelves, which are easy (and short!) to describe.

This is actually our "Chieko shelf." Chieko was an exchange student who came from Japan for 3 weeks around Christmas time in 1981, and then came back the next 3 Christmases. She always sent something if she wasn't going to be here. Going through putting away stuff today, I discovered, what I had forgotten, that there is a whole set of small dishes that match that big dish behind the doll, but they are in a cupboard. And I just love the little figurines on the right side. I don't think the one in front is supposed to represent Santa, but I always put him in front at Christmas because he looks like Santa.

The Lamplighters once participated in an International Gilbert & Sullivan festival in Buxton, England. We went along (and took my mother). These were souvenirs that I picked up on the trip -- the souvenir plate, and cups with the pictures of (left to right): Arthur Sullivan, Willliam S. Gilbert, and Richard D'Oyly Carte, the guy who kept them from killing each other during their long collaboration.

It seems logical, then, to move on to "The Gilbert Shelf."

This shelf isn't entirely dedicated to my friend Gilbert. The two cups were 2 other cups I picked up in Buxton, one with a figure of KoKo from The Mikado and one of Jack Point in Yeomen of the Guard, the two roles for which Gilbert was best known. I don't remember why I have the martini glasses or the seashell, but the clay figure on the left was something that Paul made at the Art Center, here in town, when he went to visit the teacher of the ceramics class. She fired it for him and he was supposed to paint it, but he died before he could do it.

The fan in the back was a fan that Gilbert used during a production of The Mikado. It is really starting to fall apart now.

The Monkey is a little statue that I gave to Gilbert...I think (though I'm not sure) after the first show we wrote together, Major General Hospital, was such a success.

As for the batons, the wooden one in front, on that little raised platform, was said to have been used by Arthur Sullivan once. You can see where a plaque had once been mounted in the front. Someone gave it to Gilbert as a gift one time and I took it after he died. The white baton in back was Gilbert's own baton, which was used to conduct the orchestra at Gilbert's memorial service, and then given to me by Alan Harvey, who was the conductor for that service.

And finally a kinda-sorta second Gilbert shelf.

In 1915, after the opening of the Panama Canal, San Francisco held a huge world's fair, the Panama Pacific Exposition, which I believe lasted for a year. They filled in a lot of San Francisco Bay and built a lot of huge buildings for various expositions. One of the buildings which was the most beloved was the Palace of Fine Arts which, because everyone loved it so much, was allowed to remain standing after the other fair buildings were demolished and the land used to build houses on. But after more than 50 years, the building, which had only been planned to last a year, was falling apart and a wealthy philanthropist (are there "poor philanthropists"?) paid to have the thing rebuilt. They took the building down to the ground and built it up again, trying to match as carefully as possible, the original building.

The Panama Pacific Exposition had been one of Gilbert's passions and when they were tearing the old building apart, he picked up a couple of chunks of it in the rubble. The piece standing up is from the face of one of the figures standing at the top. I'm not sure where the other piece came from. He also had the stereopticon viewer and a bunch of slides from the fair. I chose to put the slide with the picture of the Palace of Fine Arts in it.

The Palace of Fine Arts in all its restored glory

As for the gavel in the middle, that has nothing to do with either Gilbert or the Fair, it belonged to my godmother's brother, who was some relative of my father's family--a cousin or something. He was Assistant Deputy Attorney of San Francisco, but died before I was born, so I never met him. However, the gavel was presented to him by Lodge #3 of the San Francisco Elks Club. I don't know the date. I guess that came from my father's stuff after he died.

Tsatskes and then some

After reading my entry yesterday, Lisa wrote that I should explain what is on all of those shelves.

Well, that is overkill, to say the least, but I have long thought that I should have a record somewhere of what is what and why I have it, so perhaps over the coming weeks I can make that record here, a shelf at a time. Perhaps one a week or so. So let's start with the middle shelf on the left. This is the left side of it:

OK. Lets start with the back. There is a glass dome jar which Walt's mother once bought for him so he could put his father's (or maybe grandfather's?) watch in it. He never did and I had a little kangaroo left over from the souvenirs I brought back from Australia, so the kangaroo now lives in the dome jar.

Next to that is a ceramic Santa. It's a Christmas ornament which Walt's mother gave to us in 1985 (the date is printed on it). Santa has a camera around his neck and a boombox up to his ear. I also presume that the Beefeater is from England, and something else Walt's mother gave us after one of her trips. The two bottles next to him are sand art from Brasil. I think that Ned brought one home from his year there and a Brasilian guest brought the other. Or perhaps guests brought both. Pretty amazing stuff, anyway.

In the middle on the left is a little figure of the entrance to Hampton Court, Henry VIII's former home. I bought that when we visited Hampton Court with my CompuServe friends. Next to that is a blue hippo that I bought at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. And then there is a set of salt and pepper shakers that I bought in England somewhere. Sadly, I can't use them for their original purpose because one is cracked at the top.

To the right of the shakers is my little Viking that I bought in York. I saw it the first time we were there but didn't buy it and always regretted it, so when we went back the second time I remembered where the shop was and found it still on the some shelf and bought it. You can see it better in the next picture. Next to him is a Chinese Santa which Walt's mother brought back from a trip to China.

In the front, on the left, is a model of the York Minster, which I also bought in York because I wanted to remember the glorious evening we spent listening to the choir rehearse Christmas music.

Next to that is a little thing that I think someone gave me...it represents all the people who have lived with us.

Then there is a little Taj Majal which Walt's mother brought to us from India, followed by a tiny little black bull on a ribbon, which was attached to some bottle of beer that one of our foreign guests brought. I think it was someone from Chile. and finally there is a little adobe church which I think also came from one of the guests, thought I'm not sure about that.

The right side of that shelf is here:

You can see the sand art better, and also get a look at the Viking and Chinese Santa. The boy at the back was a gift from my friend Pat. It is a music box and plays "The Happy Wanderer." I don't remember where that white shell-like thing with my name on it came from, but since it has my name on it, it made the cut.

In front on the left is one of those Pueblo story teller figures. I bought that somewhere, but I don't remember where--I always wanted one because it reminded me of me, always covered with children. They are usually quite expensive, but this one was reasonably priced, so I was happy to buy it.

Next to her is a decorated glass votive candle holder filled with two Wisconsin cheesehead erasers. Don't ask me why!

And finally there is my favorite thing on my shelf, a delicate little unicorn figurine that broke once. Jeri painstakingly put it back together again. I love it because of the care that she put into getting it as right as she could

So there you have it. Shelf 1. I will do more later, but not right away. As you can see, my tsatskes are all cheap trinkets, but they have meaning to me.

This doesn't take much explanation.
They are papier mâché figurines which my friend Olivia
brought back from Mexico for me.
They have their own shelf.