Bliss St. and Indigo Heirlooms

D, my friend, is afraid of squirrels. I love D. She is funny, even when she doesn’t mean to be.

NY is not the place to be afraid of squirrels. They are all over the place. She avoids parks. Rarely goes near them and never when she has been drinking. It was on one of those occasions that the conversation came up. We had been out to dinner. Had a few glasses of port and was walking through the neighborhood. Her fear of squirrels came up. I know some people with odd phobias. Feathers of instance. There is a person I know that is scared of feathers. A male bartender that is afraid of butterflies. Phobias don’t have to make sense. The reaction is real enough.

So when D told me she was afraid of squirrels. It seemed reasonable enough. To many NYers. Pigeons are rats with wings and squirrels are rats with bushy tails. When I asked her why, I’m not sure what I expected. but I didn’t expect this.

“A Squirrel tried to kidnap me.”

What???? Of course I hadn’t had that much to drink. D repeated and added to her previous statement.

“When I was a baby a squirrel tried to kidnap me.”

I must have looked doubting because she explained it was true. Her father told her so. She was out with her mother and father, sleeping in her baby carriage when a squirrel tried to take her away. No type of  “well maybe the squirrel…” had any effect on her.  Her father told her and that was it. A reasonable woman in a medical profession decided that squirrels freak her out because of a story her father told her as a child. The story doesn’t freak her out. The truth to her is a squirrel did try to take her away.

So is it wrong that I want to get her this for Father’s day?

If I have to ask it probably is. But I can’t help it every time I see a squirrel I think of D.

I’m just happy that D phobia of squirrels is very mild and she just gets a little *insert bad pun here*.

(more…)

New York schools are closed today. We are expecting 18in of snow. Will we get it? Probably not. A week ago when DC got hit they said we would get 6-12in. how much did we get? zero. I should take this one more serious. Yesterday my postman said he wouldn’t pick up – snow day.

But of course I didn’t. I decided like any good NY to do all my errands before the snow got deep.

I walked to the bank, CLOSED – Snow day. In fact everything was closed except food places. That was the first time since 1996 that NY partly shut down because of snow. It was the first time I can remember it shutting BEFORE a blizzard.

Snow just getting started

These were taken early in the day.

Update : It snowed all day and all night. NY was open for business and back to school the next morning.

Coolest thing? the photos you see above were taken with my phone and cropped down to less than half their original size.

Uncool – my guy says I don’t need a camera with a phone like that. So much for my valentine day gift.

As passionate as a Van Gogh Sunflowers these 1-in (2.4cm) earrings really stand out. Two shades of yellow and white rhinestones make this pair of 1930 screw backs shine. What a wonderful way to frame your face!

This pendant has a lot of detail in the enamel coloring. Notice the bluing of the fin to make to look like it is in motion, the stripping of the scales and the touches of red one of the hardest colors to enamel. Each well of brass is filled separately. This is a fish with personality

There is an air hole in the bottom (so it doesn’t explode in the kiln shows in picture), a small chip on the fin (see pic three) and separation that happened during firing(also in pic three). None of this takes away from the artistry of the piece.

Size: Just over 1 1/2in by 1 3/8in
Material: Brass, enamel(glass)
Circa: 1970′s