Vintage Find

Yesterday was the greatest day! I was at the stamp store in Issaquah (finishing off the last of my work resource budget) and next door there was a vintage clothing store that had a bunch of racks out front. I was browsing through the racks out front and found an awesome jacket! It is going to be my new theater jacket. The dear husband and I just picked up From the Earth to the Moon so I've been admiring some of the better bits of fashion mixed in with the 60s. The inside of the store was filled with even more treasures, shoes, purses, costumes, mens and womens clothing...I had to reign myself in to the one impulse buy. Plus my great new find had the price cut in half! Such a great shopping day!


Here's the label from the inside, it's hard to tell but the red says 1964! How cool is that!



It needs a little work, I need to replace a button and the white trim is actually two pieces, so I need to sew the ends back together. But even I can handle simple sewing like this.

When we see Spamalot on Saturday I'm going to be styling! If you're interesting in going vintage hunting yourself the store is:

Doubletake
1175 NW Gilman Blvd #B6
Issaquah 98027
425-392-4908

Finished!

I wish I was talking about the dear husband's sock. But I still haven't confronted those dropped stitches...

But, at 8:21pm I finished Alan Greenspan's autobiography The Age of Turbulence. It was a long read, clocking in at 505 pages and about three weeks of reading. Which is a long time for me! As a librarian and bibliophile I tend to inhale a typical adult novel in a day. This was not the typical adult novel.

I paced myself at two chapters at a time, primarily because at that point my brain would start to feel overloaded. But I'm glad I read it in its entirety. So much of what is affecting America now- Social Security, Education, Energy Consumption (ahem Oil) to name a few - have a history that goes back much farther than my generations apathetic lack of interest.

Greenspan started with his birth and went from there, and I have to admit that it was fascinating reading about major events in history from the economic point of view. Gen X'ers and younger have never faced anything close to the hardships that older generations have. I have more sympathy for older people who gripe about my overly-privileged and indulged contemporaries that have no concept of enduring any real hardships. We don't!

I will confess that the economic analysis had a tendency to go over my head - I was an English major for a reason! (Hence the two chapter limit). But I still feel that I took away a hefty understanding of America's economic cycles. Hopefully my econ major brother will get around to reading it and can explain some of the finer points.

I would strongly recommend this to anyone who has a modicum of interest in the future. Greenspan has some interesting ideas (which irksomely enough mimic my husband's ideas most of the time, only the DH told them to me first!) about all those hot topics listed above and then some.

A hearty thanks goes out to my DH who got an abridged recap of what I'd read each night, and had great conversations with me about what we have done, should have done, and what we could do better. Especially if we add a $3 tax to each gallon of gas :)

Next up: Under the Black Flag. Nonfiction about pirates! Yarg!

GIANT Robots and Jungles

IMAX is awesome. No, really. If you've never seen a feature film at the new theater, you should! We went with friends last night and caught the last show of Transformers.

Now, if you read back in my blog, I wrote about seeing this moving in all it's beautiful glory on the 4th of July. After some debate we concluded that the 4 story Optimus we saw was about right on the lovely 6 story tall and 85 feet wide IMAX screen. As we were walking to catch the bus back I kept expecting to see something transform, and be "more than meets the eye"... I know we saw this movie in theater's twice, but I'll be picking it up the day it comes out on DVD.

Speaking of movies on DVD, if you haven't picked up a copy of Disney's The Jungle Book you should! It was just a fun as I remembered and the special features are good. My brother came over and we had a nice night watching Jungle Book and Tarzan. I would have recommended the Wild, but I lent that out to a friend. Next week he's coming over when Meet the Robinson's comes out, but I'll save that for another post.

That Damn Sock!

I finished the dear husband's first sock with no problem at all. I started the second, and made the mistake of taking it to a meeting. I was a little too focused on the meeting, and well, I had to rip it out and start again. So, I've knitted the same 4 inches for the second time and a friend comes over to stitch n' bitch, and what happens? About 10 stitches from being at a stopping point I drop a stitch, and in my attempt to fix that I managed to drop another. So, I've put it aside for the last several weeks because I'm afraid that I will end up having to rip it out and knit this second sock for the THIRD DAMN TIME! Apparently, I am not ready to do socks and have a conversation at the same time. I can only watch television. I have been busy reading Greenspan's biography, so once that's done (only 2 chapters to go!) I will be facing my fear - and tackling that sock. The DH better wear these...

Such Spoiled Kitties!

As you can see, the old tree was in desperate need of replacement.

The entire cat tree arrived in one box (free shipping!) and is completely modular. If we get bored with the set up, we can take it apart. I can order replacement parts a la carte and as we need them.

Jack is curious about what we're doing, and is it for him.

The completed Cat Hotel!

Jack makes himself at home.

Ok, I have been shamed into blogging. I've been meaning too...really...but here is the long await cat tree review.

It is....amazing! It assembled quickly and I really like the fact that there are NO nails or screws. When they do destroy pieces, I can replace individual components, plus all the hammocks can go in the wash and are vacuuming much better than their old tree. It took the furry babies about a week to get used to it. I was greatly amused watching them pivot their little heads around trying to figure out how to get up and down. But they have the hang of it now and spend a lot of time on the cozy nooks and cubby holes. They are also do a hefty bit of scratching which my sofa appreciates. I'm only catching 2 of them (Kitten and Tigger) still working on the sofa and if you know the rest of my cats, that's pretty good! I've been amazed that even though the hammock and condos are only held up by velcro, it can hold my two fatties cozied up together. All in all, I would highly recommend this product to other cat families out there.