The Fine Art Of Decorating With Booze


It’s good to have friends.

It’s good to be up for doing something that your friend, who may or may not be a bit of a decorating nut, wants to do.

It’s good to keep an open mind while doing that which your friend, who is on to a good idea even if it is a bit whacked, decides that she needs help doing.

So with the foregoing in mind, here’s what my friend and I did.

• • •

We went to the region’s largest liquor store [an acre+] and we window-shopped for bottles of booze that would look good in my friend’s house on a silver tray placed on a dark wooden table, by the brick fireplace in the living room, with the walls painted dark barn red.

Keep in mind that even though we were in the store for an hour, we did not buy any liquor.  Instead, we picked up pretty bottles of booze*, put them in our cart, and then occasionally stopped to create a pretend display of the various bottles so that we could see how they looked grouped together.

• • •

From the above experience I can confirm for you that if you are in a liquor store and want the employee’s to pay attention to you, do what we did.  They were attentive to our every move;  asking us frequently if we needed some help.  Eyeballing us like we were inept shoplifters in training.

Not that I blame the employees: who in their right mind goes window shopping for booze?  Answer: two middle-aged woman with a penchant for decorating and the desire to make things look hospitable.

Who else would?

Screen Shot 2014-01-13 at 1.12.03 PM

{ source }

* In case you were wondering, pretty bottles included:

The Saga Of My Search For Incandescent Lightbulbs

True confessions time.  I’m an incandescent lightbulb hoarder.  I lurve normal lightbulbs.  Soft white glow.  Roundish with an Edison base.  Retro.

Judge me IF you must.

• • •

Here is part of my incandescent lightbulb collection.

Here is part of my incandescent lightbulb collection.

 

• • •

So during these waning days of incandescent lightbulb availability, off I go to buy 25 Watt lightbulbs to replace the ones in the outdoor light fixture that provides light onto our deck.  

As you can imagine, they were almost impossible to find.  And when, after searching through 3 stores, I did find them at The Home Depot, I had to use the do-it-yourself checkout station… which didn’t work.

The screen was FROZEN.

• • •

It was at this point in my search for incandescent lightbulbs that I became the pawn of the woman responsible for the do-it-yourself checkout area.  And things became a bit difficult.

First, she didn’t believe that my screen wouldn’t work, so she tried seven times to make it go.  At this she failed.

Then when it was clear to her that my screen was, indeed, frozen,  she decided to ring up my purchase of $8.91 at her central register and have me hand her my $10.00 bill.  At this point in the transaction my frozen-screened do-it-yourself checkout station was to give me my change.

This would have been a great idea IF she had correctly entered $10.00 into her register, BUT she didn’t.

• • •

{ source }

{ source }

 

• • •

No, she put into her central register that I had handed her a $1000.00 bill– and suddenly my frozen-screened do-it-yourself checkout station started spewing out $20.00 bills at a speed and in a way comparable to a figure skater doing triple lutzes.

Pushing me aside, The Home Depot employee made a dash for the cash coming out of my frozen-screened do-it-yourself checkout station.  She was in a panic.  A minute or two later when she had all the cash in her hand she was so flustered that she couldn’t figure out how to continue with my transaction.

And I was in NO MOOD to leave the store without my $1.09 change.

• • •

So I waited, with a line of customers behind me, until The Home Depot employee regained her composure.  Then, using a magic key that she had on a cord around her neck, she unlocked the entire bottom section of my frozen-screened do-it-yourself checkout station and counted out my change from the big till in there.

Consequently, a mere ten minutes after stepping up to the do-it-yourself checkout station, The Home Depot employee handed me a bag filled with what might be the most difficult to find– and to pay for– 25 Watt lightbulbs in the world.

THE END.  

[Hello FTC!  Please note that I’m explaining my point-of-view about things and my experiences while buying such things.  There was no monetary &/or other compensation involved whatsoever.  I know that you’re a wise & wonderful governmental department so you probably already knew that, right?  Just wanted to be clear.]  

Shopping For Make-Up: Plain Jane Vs. The Kabuki Woman

I’m not a fan of make-up.  I think that the stuff is overrated, but I bow to social custom and use a little of it*.

I believe that for me THE NATURAL LOOK IS ALWAYS BEST**.

Combine the foregoing with the fact that when provoked I will say what I’m really thinking— and you get the following conversation between me, Plain Jane, and the sales associate, Kabuki Woman, at the Bobbi Brown counter in Nordstrom***.

~ • ~ 

Plain Jane: (approaching the make-up counter)  Hi!

Kabuki Woman: (looking blankly at me)  Yes.

Plain Jane: (continuing on, ignoring her disinterested tone of voice)  Yes, hello.  I need to get some Bobbi Brown eye shadow.  Would you be able to help me please?

Kabuki Woman: (sighing at the injustice of having to wait on me)  Yes.

Plain Jane: (fully aware that I am staring at this woman’s ghostly white face + overdone eye make-up, but unable to look away)  Ah, yes.  I need Sable & Ivory, please.  I looked them up online before I came in and I think that those would be the most neutral colors for me.  What do you think?  

Kabuki Woman: (glaring at me with loathing while making a dismissive gesture with her hand)  They’ll be fine… on YOU.

Plain Jane: (hearing my mother’s voice in my head say: “young lady, you go upstairs right now and wash that stuff off your face so that we can see how pretty you really are”)  And I need a lip liner pencil.  I wear Clinique Spicy Honey Almost Lipstick and I want the pencil to blend with my lips and be natural.

Kabuki Woman: (fixating on me with a fiery hot hatred, snarling her overly pigmented red lips)  You’re supposed to see the lip liner when you wear it. You can look at these here.  All of them are neutrals.  Just pick one.  They’ll all work.

Plain Jane: (getting steamed, wondering why I hadn’t gone to Sephora where the nice gay man with too much eyeliner had helped me just a week ago)  Well, I think it should be a little bit better than: IT’LL WORK.  Which one do I use?

Kabuki Woman: (starting to look a bit red underneath her ghostly white face)  ANY… OF… THEM…

Plain Jane: (saying what I had been thinking the whole time)  Look, I HATE MAKE-UP AND SHOPPING FOR IT IS WHY.  I just want someone else to figure it out for me.  SO WHICH ONE DO I BUY?  I want to look natural.

Kabuki Woman: (shocked into actually doing something)  Use this one, Bobbi Brown Brownie Pink.

Plain Jane: (making a mental note to join a convent where no one expects women to wear make-up so that I never have to suffer through this again)  Thank you.

Kabuki Woman: (tottering away from me as fast as possible on her slutty high heels without so much as a thank you or a goodbye)  You can pay over there.

~ THE END ~

~ • ~ 

*Interesting.  “Would We Feel Better Without Makeup? One Woman’s Modesty Experiment”

**Adorable.  Sloth Gets Her Makeup Done Before The ‘Today’ Show (PHOTO)

 ***Useful.  Bobbi Brown Website

 

If Shakespeare Had A Coffee Maker, I Know Which One It Would Be

Last week I learned that I write like William Shakespeare.  I determined this amazing truth when I submitted my Bad Coffee On A Monday Morning post to the I Write Like Analyzer.

Surely, thou gleeking half-faced hedge-pig doth jest.

This revelation surprised me.  I won’t lie.  But being the pragmatic soul that I am, I decided to go about my day as if nothing unique had happened.

What say ye, my spleeny beetle-headed varlot?

So, as planned, I went shopping for a new coffee maker.  And taking heed of all the features and brands that you, my gentle readers, told me to pay attention to, I bought a Cuisinart® Extreme Brew 12-Cup Programmable Coffeemaker.

Forsooth, ’tis better looking & more useful than a churlish hasty-witted ratsbane!

After one week of use, I’m going to say that we like it.  The machine fits on our counter.  It is easy to fill and program.  It makes hot coffee in a reasonable amount of time.  The carafe is sturdy and ergonomically balanced so that pouring hot coffee from it is easy.  All the pieces are dishwasher safe.  And, the price was right.

Which, as any pribbling tickle-brained clack-dish knows, is a good thing.

[Please note, I created all my insults for this post using this wonderful resource: Shakespeare Insult Kit.]

[Hello FTC!  So once again we meet, my wayward pox-marked malt-worm good friend.  As usual, this product review is only my opinion about my experiences.  I’ve received no money or other compensation for it.  Are we good, FTC?]