Give the Buried Flower a Dream

Thanks for that image, Robert Frost from “To the Thawing Wind” which is an appropriate poem for here in breezy CO. Especially in the spring when it blows a lot during the Chinook winds. Here are a couple of pictures of my unburied flowers that sprung up after last week’s snowstorm:

These are my miniature iris and they aren’t even four inches tall, but are very irisy! And of course, the old reliable:

I don’t think that I’ve ever planted croci, so these must be 30 plus years old and they come up every year like clockwork. It’s sort of strange that my hyacinths aren’t up yet since they usually bloom with the crocuses. There are daffodil buds all over, so it’s probably going to get cold and snow again because that’s what happens to them every year.

As far as our latest finds go, we didn’t shop last week because Kathy and family took a quick trip to Las Vegas and I wimped out with the cold and snow. So, sorry for the slightly stale finds, but bad is bad no matter when we saw them.

Let’s start out with maybe the worst picture I have on tap:

Hard to miss the strangest thing on the shelf, but none of it is good. We still aren’t exactly sure what the black and white thing is supposed to be—but maybe a plague-mask gnome? Hopefully someone didn’t make this in honor of our recent epidemic, but we were baffled why this even exists. Nothing funny or attractive about it, especially not at $5. The amateur ceramic project to the left is so earnest and wholesome in comparison that I can hardly complain about it. And that big white glass pineapple is just weird. I would be tempted to paint a face on it because it is such a void. Blank slates are so tempting.

These poor things might be in need of therapy; maybe they caught sight of the shelf above:

Owls frequently look startled to us, and these two appear positively shell-shocked. It’s so bad the the poor little one has lost his left eye. Pitiful purple guy looks frozen in place which is weird for a predator. However, you all have seen what’s on the shelves at our thrift stores, so maybe this look isn’t so surprising. Maybe I should grab a photo of us after seeing a particularly atrocious clown; our own expressions might be just a little too familiar (WTH did we just see?).

Wow, I would have loved to see the dining room these were part of:

Grandma must have really liked salmon pink, which looks pretty dusty now. The carving is pretty clunky, and six or eight chairs around a huge table would be quite a sight. Then, you really have to consider the wallpaper, curtains, and there probably was a chair rail, too. Add in the china cabinet full of pink dishes, and the tablecloth, and I feel sure that we have been in this dining room at some point. It would be a quite costly to recreate the set as each chair is marked $20 or $30—I can’t quite read the tag. We didn’t see the table, but I have to confess that we didn’t look too hard.

While talking about dining rooms, these next two things seem appropriate:

We just love the covers of this particular cooking pamphlet series. The pictures are absolutely disgusting, and this one isn’t any different. Tasty is just laughable as a descriptor!! Everyone loves their appetizers on toothpicks stuck into a fresh purple–pink brain, although this one is probably just a bit too smooth to be convincing. Thank goodness for the olives because there isn’t another thing I would eat off of this display! Yum, yum, bring on dinner, please!

And for dessert:

At least it doesn’t say tasty on this one. The yellow coconut things in the center look like something a cat might hork up. I guess there isn’t too much you can do to fudge, although these samples don’t look particularly alluring. I was looking at the upper left corner and I’m wondering if those are fondant produce, or real fruit and veggies. Either way, why are there two balls of dirt on the front edge? I cannot believe the artistic choices made by the photographers.

It’s so strange seeing vacation tchotchkes never used:

When I was in Great Britain in the 1980s on vacation, I saw these kinds of plasticized coasters and placemats in a number of places. I thought they were pretty cool, but didn’t spring for a set. I found a set of placemats (famous London buildings) much later in a thrift store and bought them instead. This set was just sitting there, but the scenes are much too grand for my house. It’s funny how things look “right” in one place and very obviously “wrong” in a different situation. These would probably work in a museum, or old home on antique side table. Modern casual decorating is just a bridge too far.

Finally, something good:

We love looking at old china, and this caught Kathy’s eye right away. We think it’s supposed to look like a pretty napkin folded on your plate—a very different design. I can’t remember if it had a mark, but the flowers are dainty, and the “woven” area above the napkin is well done. ( Kathy here: It did have a mark and was much older than it looked. It was a Victorian mark so the plate is well over 100 years old! ) This would make for an interesting plate to serve cookies or candy from, just none of the 250 types from the recipe pamphlet above.

Thanks for reading, and we’ll have an Easter post for you next week. Hope you all are seeing some pretty flowers while you’re out and about. It gives us hope that spring will be here soon.