The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

I am still in Michigan, soon to be driving to Colorado with my mother. We have gotten her moved into her new house and it has me thinking of endings and beginnings, and that no matter how situations change, you will still experience many of the same things you always have. That is a comforting thought; you can still laugh or find amusement even when your life is pure chaos. That realization came to me while burning old papers at my parent’s house and noticing that their burn barrel:

is really another entry into Faces in Places which I seem to find at the oddest times. This old burn barrel was almost terrifying when the papers were burning—he rather looked like a creature from Hell. He’s kind of jolly now, and I found myself laughing while I took this picture. I wished that I could take him with me, but that would be impossible, so the picture will suffice.

Another thing that doesn’t seem to change is our lack of appreciation for Raggedy Ann and Andy:

They are innocuous, but we have never said, “Oh what a darling Raggedy Ann/Andy. I must buy them!” and I’m pretty sure we never will. Maybe if all the Andies are gone, the Anns cannot be far behind?

Oh dear God, why won’t these things go away?

This is a particularly unfortunate example of those cheap dollies with the crochet outfits. It’s not the freckles that bother me; I rather like freckles. I do think the poor dear would look better in an outfit more in tune with her coloring—maybe a yellow, green, or white. Someone certainly needs to pay attention to what that doll is trying to do. Is she trying to use mind-control on a shopper? Does she need clean underwear? Or maybe, she should just drink decaf coffee, not use cocaine, or consume less sugar. I do think that she is way too scary for a child to own. Hopefully, she can find her way into some Halloween decoration plastic tub to be dragged out yearly to startle the unwary.

You do know that without bad crochet, we would only be able to write a post every other week!

This picture comes to us from a faithful reader, Queli, who has sent us crochet pictures before. Just like The Golden Girls, what would make anyone think that the world needs the Central Perk couch in crochet form? Or, a crochet coffee cup? I don’t think that it, in any way, provides a homage to the series. “Well, you know Kathy, I’m such a huge Friends fan that I just HAD to crochet the couch from the show” said no one ever! This kind of looks like someone trying to cash in about 20 years too late, and in a very weird way. Are we sad or relieved that there aren’t any crochet figures to sit on the couch? Thanks, Queli, for sharing your head-scratching find!

This post is brought to you by the number 4:

I imagine this is for some kid’s fourth birthday, but what if it weren’t? Is there someone out there who just loves the number four and collects versions? Where do you buy such things—or do you have to make them yourself? So many questions, and no answers. If it is for a child’s birthday, grey fake fur is a strange choice of fabric as are the sparklies. Maybe it has a friend, and it’s really for a 40th birthday, to show that you’re still fabulous, darling.

Boy, people had plenty of spare time to get creative with masks during the lockdown:

This has to be for a costume, don’t you think? I can’t imagine, and I do have quite an imagination, wearing this grocery shopping back when you had to wear a mask. Unless … you wanted to look outrageous—which you would. Maybe belly dancers had to wear masks to perform, and this is what they came up with to be part of a costume. I can’t help thinking that the fringe would tickle, which might cause laughing or coughing. Either of those would be counter productive to the reason of wearing a mask, so that makes this even stranger. Gosh, it would sure give your doctor or nurse costume some pizzazz; I’m sorry I didn’t see it sooner. Anyway, we goggled at it for several minutes like we do when we see something especially unusual that we can’t figure out.

Unsurprisingly, we spent a bit of time examining this fan:

At first, we thought it was just cheap plastic, but the decorations were actually very nice. After looking at it a bit, we wondered if it was strange fabric, but Kathy finally decided that it was made somehow from animal bones, or something like that sliced very thin. It was so very odd, and didn’t really scream any special style, but didn’t look chintzy. I just Googled “fans made from bone” and these pictures popped up. I had no idea that was a thing and several of them are described as antique. I’m including a link to a page about the history of fans, which was interesting and had such pretty pictures. Kathy here: My conclusion was actually horn, but close enough.

Finally, although this post wasn’t really too horrible (just horrible enough?):

I thought we could end with some sweet china plates with Springish decorations. Kathy adores violets, so of course the bigger plate caught her eye. Then we saw the cute little snack plate and searched unsuccessfully for its cup. What a sweet little dish to set out for your card club ladies to nosh off of. There were scads of dishes that day and lots of them had cute designs just like these. Thankfully, they were gone the next week so we didn’t have to rescue them!

Stay tuned for next week for the Easter post. We have bunnies galore, plus some pals. I’m so excited to get back home and am ready for some thrift store shopping with my friend!