Pass the Fancy Feast Casserole, Please!

I hope everyone has a wonderful, relaxing, fun, bountiful, serene, memorable, star-studded, exhilarating, calorie-laden, fulfilling, nap-inducing, splendidly Happy Thanksgiving featuring all of the food that you like.


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American Suburban

Cast an eyeball at that crazy kitchen countertop. Doesn't it send you into orbit? Isn't it the most? Well, it probably was in 1960. This chrome-banded countertop was paired with the de rigueur pine cabinets in a house I saw Sunday afternoon. Morris & I enjoyed another afternoon of free entertainment exploring some of the open houses in town, and I wanted to share a few Sunday photos.

I also want to say Happy Anniversary to my pal Scott in Texas! He will quietly celebrate 7 years of sobriety today, and start working on his eighth year of living in gratitude & wonder. He's an artist with considerable talent, and you can see some of his work by clicking here. Thanks for being there, Scott!

Sunday was a beautiful autumn day, and I took the picture below outside the library that's around the corner from my home. A cold front came through with high winds Tuesday night, so a lot of the colorful leaves have been stripped off the trees, so I'm glad that Morris & I took advantage of the lovely day Sunday. We looked through ten homes in four hours!

Before we get to the few pictures I took while fake-househunting, let me tell you about Weird Pizza Night. On Mondays, I usually go to a meeting that I helped Jiffy start in Carytown, which is a stretch about a mile long of shops & restaurants in town. After the meeting, the two of us went to Mary Angela's, a casual little place that serves some of the best pizza in Richmond.

We were seated in a booth toward the back of the restaurant, and we noticed that we kept getting occasional but pervasive whiffs of something quite unpleasant - not a good thing in a dining establishment. It was the unmistakeable smell of good old-fashioned B.O.

And it was really, really strong. My first reaction was that of most people: OMG, is it ME? But Jiffy assured me that it wasn't, because she had just sat in a small meeting room with me for an hour. Through careful analysis, we came to the uneasy realization that it was one of the two servers. Ew! More evidence proved that it was both of the servers on duty that night. Ewwwww!

We were so happy when our pungent pizza arrived to fragrance our table. The pie had been baked on the surface of the sun, whisked to our table, and I (unaware) immediately scorched the roof of my mouth on the first bite. I hate burning my mouth, but in this case it did distract me somewhat from the wafting body odor of passing waitresses. Jiffy found another distraction...

I had noticed that whomever was seated in the booth behind us seemed restless. There was a rhythmic jostling I could feel at my back, because all the booths were attached, tabletops & seats, in a long line down the wall. I could also detect a heated discussion from the next booth, although I could only hear one side of the conversation. Soon, Jiffy was looking over my shoulder with a curious expression.

There seemed to be a pesky bit of crust stuck in my mouth, and as I worried it with my tongue, Jiffy whispered that the lone diner behind us was having an argument with her magazine. The page featured a full-face shot of some blond celebrity, and our neighbor was jabbing at the photo vehemently - that was the movement I sensed. It was a two-way conversation in our neighbor's head, however, because there would be pauses in her discourse as she listened to her glossy adversary.

By now I came to the sad conclusion that this was no wayward pizza crust in my mouth. The roof of my mouth was sloughing off and tickling my tongue. This made me as nauseated as the circulating body odor. We asked for a box for the remaining pizza, and made our way to the cash register. I fought Jiffy for the check & won, and she asked how much she should leave for the tip. "Three dollars and a bar of soap," I said, sotto voce.

But not softly enough. The woman at the register looked at our ticket to see who had served us. I felt bad initially, but decided that a manager would want to know about a situation like that before they start losing business. I'd rather put up with a burned mouth or a nutty patron at the adjacent table than a server with horrible body odor. And you know how it is if you've ever found a tick crawling on you? You itch all over. I kept having a sense-memory of body odor even when I got out into the fresh air.

Okay, the picture up there is of the Murder House that Morris & I toured Sunday. I don't think anything bad really happened in this particular house, but when a house is devoid of furniture, you seem to notice every stain in the carpet. This home is in an established, upscale neighborhood, and was surely a showplace of modern living...in 1960, the last time the house saw improvements. There were four bedrooms, two with horribly stained & burnt carpeting, all for less than $400k. Plus, the mod kitchen with original fixtures & appliances. The little Air-Wick in the sunroom was no match for the strong mold scent that fogged the windows.

This has been my week for strange smells.

Also, you cannot imagine from the picture how steep that driveway is. I thought I was going to have to crawl up it on my hands and knees. It must have been a barrel of laughs last winter when sheets of ice & snow lingered for weeks on end. The entire lot was on a hillside, and I expected to see Heidi & Peter herding goats through the yard.

Here's a view of the split-foyer staircase from the living room of the Murder House. The killer must have really gone to town in here, because the carpet had to be replaced.

Next up are two bathrooms in a fabulous 1960 oversized brick tri-level. This place was top-notch all the way, with big rooms and custom details. Each bathroom had deluxe built-in features.

I love the tissue dispenser in the next one. The sink appears to be an original American-Standard Dresslyn Lavatory. All of the American-Standard bathroom sinks from the era have a "-lyn" suffix; Dresslyn, Gracelyn, Circlyn, Ovalyn, Spacelyn, Lauralyn, Ledgelyn. Toilets were named Carlyle, Luxor, Cadet, Glenwall and Norwall. Have you named your sink & toilet?

The next picture from the same tri-level shows the master bath, which was small but efficient. I nearly fainted with excitement when I opened a hatch near the floor and discovered a bathroom scale. The whirl-out toothbrush holder in the wall took me near the edge, too. I don't know whether the corner sink has a Lyn name, but I'm sure it didn't come with the undersink cabinet.

Morris & I had a grand day out. We saw some very interesting homes, ranging from 1939 to brand new. I love seeing the way households have changed through the years. For example, in the early to mid-part of the last century, homes were usually compartmentalized, with specific functions for each room. Later homes had more of an open flow, sometimes to the extreme when we got into the Great Room era where everything happened in one big, happy room and you wouldn't have been surprised to see a urinal hanging off the wall beside the fireplace.

We'll close the shop today with a picture from my mom's kitchen. Here's my dad's glowing birthday cake, so bright it took two of us to blow out the candles. In the background is Mom's stove, one of the appliances she mentions waxing as part of her housecleaning regimen. American Suburban, circa 1965.

Scenes from Hither & Yon

It's November already! The month of giving thanks and incinerating turkeys. The 11th month, when at some point we say "Oh, Crap! It's almost Christmas!" I'm trying to coordinate an office move, so I haven't been writing much on here lately. I've had a few photo-snapping adventures, though, and I wanted to post some pictures today.

The top picture was taken at an open house one Sunday. I'd noticed that an old house on Riverside Drive was up for sale, so I called Jean and we took a tour. This picture was taken in a sunroom off the master bedroom, and I liked the view of the trees. Three walls of windows looked out toward similar views, and it would be the perfect room for curling up with a good book. I got a bunch of other cool shots at the house that I may post later.

This past Saturday I was invited to a pig roast on the Northern Neck, about two hours from Richmond on a peninsula between the Potomac & Rappahannock Rivers on Chesapeake Bay. Morris & I traveled together. Outside Irvington we spotted this giant corkscrew at the entrance to White Fences Vineyard. When I was drinking, gin was my preferred poison, but I would make do with wine on Sundays if my bottle was empty. It would have taken a bottle this big to handle my alcohol addiction!

Morris & I stopped by the Tides Inn to walk around the grounds & poke through the gift shop. The picture below shows a sailboat on Carter's Creek taken from the lawn at the inn. It was a brisk & sunny fall day, and we were looking forward to the pig roast.

As we drove up Route 200, through the pleasant town of Kilmarnock and toward the bridge over the Rappahannock, we saw an old church on a small hill in the country. Morattico Baptist Church was founded in 1778, and the current church was erected in 1856. There were many interesting markers in the surrounding graveyard.

In short time we were at Cheryl & Jan's campground. The pig was on the roaster, being tended by their neighbor, Phil, who knows all about smoking a pig. We spent the day there, enjoying the company of friends and campground neighbors. I was impressed with the casual atmosphere and genuine friendliness of the folks who stopped by. The campground is a seasonal resort where people set up permanent campsites, so all the residents zip around on golf carts and wave, or stop to chat. Everyone had a splendid time, and the food was wonderful. Not a good event for vegetarians, however.

A couple weeks prior, when Jean & I went to the open house on Riverside Drive, we drove along the James River...
...and then continued on through old Bon Air, which was a Victorian-era resort outside Richmond. Now, Bon Air is a Richmond suburb, but many old homes still reflect a time when this area offered a respite from the sooty summer air of the 19th Century industrial city. One item you may find interesting: Polk Street in Bon Air was named after a local pharmacist who founded a pet care product company as the result of creating treatments for his favorite hunting dog. His dog's name was Sergeant.

The remaining pictures are just random shots taken around town and beyond. It's fun to get out of the house with my camera to see what I can find. The weather has been comfortable, after a summer of wilting heat, and I enjoy exploring.

Some of you may remember the pictures I posted from Goochland's Field Day of the Past back in September. One of the event organizers saw the photos on this blog, and asked whether I would be interested in photographing their event next year. He said they liked my pictures better then the ones they got from the company they hired. Isn't that a hoot? All I've got is a cheap point-n-shoot digital camera and an untrained eye.

The 3rd Generation Barber & Beauty Salon on East Grace Street.

A window display right next door to the 3rd Generation Barber & Beauty Salon.

A Richmond landmark, still working faithfully since the 1960's.

The Scott House bathed in the early morning sunlight one Sunday on my way to Perly's for breakfast.

A lakeside stroll in Forest Hill Park.

Oregon Hill, with downtown beyond. Oregon Hill sits on a bluff overlooking the James River, off-camera to the right.

The last picture was taken in Amsterdam last December. It reminds me that days are getting shorter. I rather like the feeling of cozy warmth when I'm indoors with hot coffee and a book, in the glow of lamplight as the autumn night presses against the windows.