Woody & My IBF

 
Thanks to Ron the Hun, I am extraordinarily incapacitated, at least as far as getting up and sitting down in any reasonable amount of time goes. He has decided I need to come in an extra session a week. Back to exercising 'til I puke (really). Too bad that after all that work I'm still 51. I was hoping for 33, making my almost-real imaginary boyfriend more appropriate. Anyhow, I have committed to myself that I'll get out of my cozy house and actually do things on occasion. Okay, on more than one occasion. So I keep a pad of paper that is my master list of stuff to do and the dates they're on. I cut the details out of the newspaper, and slip them under the top page of my pad. I had several to do this weekend, but I missed one, and the other is in Ohio which is just fine with Woody, but at the moment Woody won't and I don't want to just go in my pickup. So all that's left is the Interweave Bead Fest with 110 vendors. I thought I would go and see exactly why people bead. This is a three day event with instructional sessions and a bunch of other things. I don't get it. But a lot of people do. All the statistics I can find group beads with jewelry making, but that whole shebang is worth about 2.3 billion dollars in sales (2010). If you pay $5 for a bead (I'm taking a wild guess at that), then that's a whole heck of a lot of beads. 14.7 million households engage in this stuff. And don't get me started on Pandora beads, you know the ones that you pay $50 a pop for to put on your niece's bracelet, like charm bracelets were to us.

So I headed down the road and realized I really needed to go check for double plate silver for my step-mother. She turned 70 in February and I didn't get her anything because she sent an email out to everyone that we should do "whenever" gifts so she won't lose what she had bought. This happened after they missed my son's eighteenth birthday, mine by over a month (when I brought it up in some sort of other conversation), and my sister's by who knows how much (she's not speaking to me at the moment). I have a feeling she didn't like it when I just sent a card. So. She sent an email blast that she is looking for a mismatched set of plate for her redundant home. I thought it would be fun to collect the stuff but I really had a hard time because all the action is in sterling because it's all being melted down due to the price of silver. Last weekend, BFF and I went to the can't fail, sells everything places in Adamstown PA. She needed to find a chest of drawers that had to be 33" wide, max, and that is very hard to find indeed. Found a great one at a great price and had the truck to take it home. Too bad it was 1 inch too big. She knew where the silver guy was in the warren of booths but he had gone home with an impacted tooth. Couldn't find the schnitzel either. Had weisswurst and sauerkraut with brown bread at the brewery.


Anyway, given that the little antique mall in the town a few (okay more than a few) towns from me is on the way to the Bead Thing, I figured I'd stop and see if the silver guy that I had gotten a tip about didn't have an impacted tooth. Truth be told, I didn't really feel like going to the Bead Thing. Stopped at antique mall. Big sign "Barbeque Chicken Today". I looove these amateur deals that happen on the weekend, usually put on by the Lions or something. I also like pancake breakfasts at fire stations. It was a good omen. Walked in. Twenty feet ahead was Ali Baba's silver vault! I asked about the plate. You mean bits and pieces? I did. There were drawers and drawers and drawers of every kind of flatware you can imagine, arranged by age. The range of patterns is incredible. I didn't know what to pile my picks in, so the lady gave me a nice big tray. This is Rosie. I found oyster forks. I found ice tea spoons. Butter spreaders. Fish knives. Grapefruit (I think) knives. Those goofy perforated spoon cages for loose tea. Salt spoons. And of course plain old knives, forks, teaspoons and soup spoons (both broth and cream). I selected about 50 pounds (I think that's pretty close because a box of paper about the size of my pile weighs 35 pounds) of stuff including serving pieces. Bought the tray too. I had become rather fond of it. My step-mother puts her silver in the dishwasher. Um, dishwasher detergent is full of abrasives (used to be sand). That's how it gets the gunk off your dishes. Every time she washes her silver another half gram goes down the drain. I told her that I didn't think that was a very good idea. The next time I saw her she proudly chirped that now all her friends put their silver in the dishwasher. Note to self: figure out how to install reclamation devices so I can sell the orphaned silver.

Went to find chicken. Amish! Amish food is yummy. I bought a "dinner" consisting of a leg of chicken, chips, an oatmeal whoopie pie and a Diet Pepsi. The little sister was in charge of putting it in a bag. She looked like Lila Rae in a black dress. I would have loved to have a picture, but it is against the Amish beliefs (pride in oneself over God). Best chicken (non-fried category) I ever had. I ate it in my truck in the parking lot. The whoopie pie was in a festive scrap of purple saran wrap. Just like two wonderful oatmeal cookies with frosting in between. I'm not sure what's in the frosting to keep it together, but I would otherwise guess it is 99 percent confectioners sugar.

Went to check out the other five antique places within half a mile. No chest of drawers. Took pictures of two possibles but now that I look at them again, I don't think they are even a good stand in. Picked through lots of junk. A case of old tools on the third floor of a messy house. Scissors! Great big honkin' scissors! Be still my heart. The hitched a ride home with me. Five o'clock. Well, at least there is Bead Fest Philadelphia in August. That one has 160 vendors. God bless my imaginary boyfriend for not sending me to rehab for my scissors addiction.