Oh Dear....

It's one of those times I'm speechless. I haven't had a laugh like this in a long time....

check it out

One In, One Out

We've been doing a bit of spring cleaning around Chez Vel-DuRay, and I have reduced the hostessing inventory quite a bit. Nothing drastic, darlings - I'm still perfectly capable of throwing a wedding and wake consecutively, and don't you forget it - but there's just so many lazy susans, chafing dishes, and chip 'n dips one needs. I can now move freely about the basement, and that's a good thing.

But as luck would have it, I ventured down to Tacoma today, and found some really lovely things: A stunning table lamp, a wooden serving tray with built-in coffee warmer, and this:



Yes, I know it looks like a tiny flying saucer landed on the kitchen counter, but its really an electric skillet! And not just any electric skillet, but a Cory Party Chef! Yes, that's right - A PARTY CHEF!!!!



I went directly home, and whipped up a heaping batch of Hamburger Helper (not knowing if it worked or not, I didn't want to risk anything expensive - after all, aren't we are in a depression or something?) but it turned out flawlessly. Or at least as flawlessly as Hamburger Helper can ever turn out.

But in my strict new regime of one-in/one-out, something had to go. I already had a Farberware electric skillet, which is an excellent piece of kitchenware, but I need two electric skillets like I need another hole in my head. So it is gone: Sent to the blind, who are always coming through here asking for something.

It feels good to be a minimalist - or as much of a minimalist as someone who owns a champagne fountain and two mannequins can be - and I'm sure there is someone out there who will enjoy a Farberware electric skillet as much as I will enjoy a party chef.

Big doings at The Major Concern....

We're moving offices!!!! Just within the building, of course, and as you can well imagine, anything that involves rearranging furniture is just dandy with me, but not everyone in our unit is as enchanted as I by the prospect.

But one thing that I've learned in life is that things change. And one thing I've learned from working for the city is that you gotta get a gimmick. I've got mine. Which one do you think I am?

Something Stupid....

I updated the website tonight, with more current pictures of Chez Vel-DuRay and now it's time to unwind. What better way than with Mike Douglas and Patty Duke?

Before there was Oprah, before there was Phil Donahue, there was Mike Douglas. My Mom loved this show, but I mostly remember the flower. It was a graphical element (if that's what the kids are calling it these days) that was everywhere in the late '60's, but especially on the Mike Douglas Show.

Even Omaha got in the act: The Brandeis store at Crossroads (THE mall - literally - in Omaha in the late 60's) used that flower graphic in their logo. They also had a huge atrium/fountain thing in the middle of their store that was ages beyond anything Omaha could cope with stylistically, but I digress.

Anyway, here's Mike and Patty and the flower logo. Take a deep breath, relax, and enjoy something stupid.

Some Lovely New Things and Some Old Friends...

Here are some lovely new pieces I purchased recently, to compliment the new sofa....

A lovely new boomerang coffee table! (Although I'm still wondering if a round one might be better. And I agree that that ashtray is entirely too big for that table. I'm embarrassed, but you know my policy is to bare my soul to you, warts and all.)


Some festive new artwork and companion lamp!



And the return of the Giraffe Lamp. The trouble with a Giraffe Lamp is that it's so tall, so it doesn't work with all arrangements, but it looks nice on this low table (which is NOT a coffee table, so don't even go there. I would never use a coffee table as a side table. Do you think I was born in a barn?)



Here's a close-up of the giraffes. Aren't they festive?

I know I'm supposed to stick to Furnishings and China....

But this interview with Michelle Obama is just too infused with Good Taste to pass up. She truly is the new Jackie. I really wish that some of the old guard (I'm talking about you, Hillary) would do the gracious thing and step out of the way, lest we get McCain, who is just an older Reagan (and you know how I feel about Reagan: He restores my faith in God, because that would mean that there's a hell, and Reagan surely belongs in hell.)

Anyway, Enjoy darlings! Due to popular demand there are more sofa pictures coming soon!

If it's Sunday Night....

It must be time for another Scopitone Classic! Enjoy Frank Jr and his bevy of beauties while they give their own unique twist to this Cole Porter classic!

Slumming in the Southwest

Life at The Major Concern is an ever-changing kaleidescope of districts and neighborhoods: Due to some staff shortages, I am now handling - besides my regular district - a small enclave of something called "unincorporated King County" that includes all the parts of the Seattle metro that none of the surrounding communities want to take. Thus, I am now the temporary electrical handmaiden of the somewhat notorious "White Center" neighborhood (which used to be a lot of fun before the thrift shops closed) as well as parts of something called "Boulevard Park", which sounds glamorous, but decidedly isn't.

True, it's work: And it's populated with honest, salt-of-the-earth, blue-collar folk, but how boring is that? What I mean to say is that it lacks pizzazz. It's certainly no Georgetown, and it's nothing like Columbia City. Hell, it's not even Beacon Hill. But they ask little of me, so it doesn't interfere with my duties in the tonier neighborhoods. Noblesse Oblige, darlings, Noblesse Oblige. Which just goes to prove what kind of person I am: I'll gladly "go south of Roxbury", when duty calls.

That sounds dirty, doesn't it?

A Picture from the Archives......

This is one of the problematic things about having a surviving parent who has lived in the same house since 1962. You find things like this.



If, like all normal people, this leaves you mystified, I offer you the electrifying performance below as an example of why we were all assembled in those matching outfits from Sears (Please note: the choir below is NOT a choir I was involved in. Indeed, this performance occurred a good twenty years or so after I first donned the polyester and rayon of the craft, but you'd be surprised how these things all blend into each other after just a few moments. The performance below is apparently from a competition called "Celebration Iowa!", which sounds like something that I would have participated in at one time. Mercifully, I had discovered marijuana by high school, so all of that's a blur to me now.

NOTE: If you click on this link, you must watch all three minutes and twenty-six seconds of it. If you quit before it's done, your email address will automatically be added to over 3000 penis enlargement and work-from-home mailing lists originating daily from a subsidiary of Halliburton based in Angola. That's how the arts are being funded in the public schools now, as part of the 2001 Patriot Act.

Winging back to you.....

Darlings, even as you read this, I have probably arrived back from My Little Trip, and I must say it went well overall: I still hate flying (not the flying part, actually, but the airport part. I hates me the airports, and the moronic charade of "security", which just serves to Keep The Fear Alive) but the hotels were nice, the trains were lovely, and Cole is as handsome as ever.

In a nutshell, I flew to Chicago, spent the night at the Drake, and took the Zephyr to Omaha. Spent a week and a half in Council Bluffs with Mother Vel-DuRay, where we accomplished all sorts of things, and then Zephyred to Reno. I remembered again why I don't like Reno, and got back on the train for San Francisco, where I checked into the Sir Francis Drake, and spent two days upgrading software (I always upgrade software in San Francisco. That's the kind of person I am) and now I am trying the new Virgin American Airelines service back to Seattle, just in time to see off The Colonel, who is attending to urgent business in Florida for the next two weeks.

So tomorrow I return to The Major Concern, where all sorts of people have undoubtedly had all sorts of electrical problems while I have been gone, but that too will pass.

I bought some lovely new things in Council Bluffs, and will have some lovely new pictures soon. Keep refreshing your browser.

UPDATE: Virgin America has restored my faith in flying. Just dreamy, and well worth a jaunt while the prices are in their introductory phase. But I still hate the airports.