Deer

This critter was outside my bedroom window where I was staying last week when I was dealing with that kidney stone. She's probably wondering who's doing all that screaming!

Stoned

I made it back this evening from my trip. Would have been much better had it not been for a kidney stone attack that lasted five days. We had a ten hour drive on the first day and a little over an hour into it the pain started. Two hours later the pain was so unbearable all I wanted to do was die. It finally subsided, but came and went during the next few days. Finally, on Saturday evening, the stone came out. The passing of the stone really isn't a big deal, but when it travels from the kidney to the bladder, the pain is horrific!


My kidney stone with a dime for comparison
This is the fourth kidney stone I've had in the past fifteen years. I always know the symptoms so the last three I've not gone to the doctor. I'll take this one in tomorrow to make sure it's composed of calcium and nothing to worry about.

They say kidney stone pain is comparable to labor pains. In any event, I gave birth to a five millimeter jagged stone! I've decided to name him Joseph Alexander.


Joseph Alexander

Radioactive Red

Have to go out of town for a bit. Here is a dish picture to get you through the next few days...

Vintage Fiesta in red

William Schallert

Imagine being an actor and having a resume that includes:

ER, Rosanne, Melrose Place, Coach, Murphy Brown, Quantum Leap, War and Remembrance, St. Elsewhere, Simon & Simon, Hotel, North and South, Magnum PI, The Waltons, Little House on the Prairie, One Day at a Time, Maude, Barnaby Jones, Gunsmoke, Ironside, The Six Million Dollar Man, Marcus Welby, Get Smart, The Partridge Family, Bewitched, The Wild Wild West, Star Trek, The Patty Duke Show, The Lucy Show, Lassie, Bonanza, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Andy Griffith Show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Untouchables, The Donna Reed Show, and Leave it to Beaver.

William Schallert doesn't have to imagine because he's done it! His acting career spans seven decades and he is still going. Last week he appeared in Desperate Housewives in a guest starring role as a worker in the local newspaper. He was seen briefly in last night's episode as well. He has earned the title as The Hardest Working Man in Television.


Schallert with Nicollette Sheridan in Desperate Housewives (2009)


Schallert with Leonard Nimoy in Star Trek (1967)


As Martin Lane from The Patty Duke Show (1963)

LINK: William Schallert on IMDb

Sunday dish

Right: the regular Fiesta sugar bowl in red. Book value, $50.00.
Left: the rarer Fiesta covered onion soup. Book value, $650.00.

More Tulips. More Ewww

3-piece

Acrylic on Canvas, 3 pieces
Each panel: 11" by 14"

Goodbye, Ron

Ron Silver (July 2, 1946 – March 15, 2009)

Actor. (I'll always remember him from Veronica's Closet.)


LINKS:
Ron Silver on wiki
Ron Silver on IMDb

Sunday dish

I picked up a #1 Fiesta nested bowl lid on eBay for $295.00. I generally don't buy high priced items on eBay, but the book value for this lid is $800.00 or more, depending on the book. If and when the prices of Fiesta go back up, I will have saved some money on this and may turn it around for a profit.


Fiesta #1 nested bowl and lid in light green.


Bowl and lid with some stick handled friends.

Ewww...

eBay rant

Today I had to leave negative feedback for a seller. Once the auction in question ended, I paid within several minutes. Twenty-nine days later I still don't have the merchandise. This is the fourth time this has happened to me in the past two months, and I've never had to deal with this before. Eleven years and over three thousand transactions and not one problem with the seller shipping my purchases until recently.

The good part is if the auction is paid with PayPal, they will refund the money within a few days if the seller doesn't respond to a complaint or if the seller fails to prove he shipped the goods.

Another sign of spring

Japanese Magnolia

Springtime

Tulips finally making an appearance.

Sunday dish

Trellis teapot in a light yellow glaze. Trellis was one of the first lines of dinnerware created by Frederick Rhead for Homer Laughlin. It predates Fiesta by about seven years. The teapot is the most difficult item to find. In thirty years of collecting, I've only seen three.

This one is in desperate need of a peroxide bath to remove almost eighty years of grease and grime that has built up in the glaze's crazing. It should clean up nicely.

In the background is a pair of Old Roman shape plates. Old Roman was another Rhead shape designed shortly after Trellis.

Classy lady

Overheard in Kmart today:

These GODDAMN kids gotta have every GODDAMN thing in every GODDAMN store!!

Wonder why she didn't leave her goddamn kids at home.

Nuts

We have three pecan trees beside the house and I am so ready to cut them down. Every spring the ground is littered with thousands of these pecans. That really isn't a big deal, though. The problem is the chipmunks that like to pick these up and bring them into the house!

They get in through any opening no matter how small. A week ago I pulled an old rug that I'd rolled up and put under the spare bed. When I unrolled it, there were dozens of pecans that had been placed for storage. Last night I folded some old curtains and put them on the floor to give to goodwill. This morning when I was boxing things up, the pecans shown fell out.

The chipmunks aren't living in the house, getting into any food or the garbage, nor are they using the bathroom inside. They simply view the house as a storage facility!

Olivia Newton-John in Huntsville

We went to see Olivia Newton-John perform at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville last night. About 2,000 people came out of the cold to watch her. At approximately an hour and forty minutes, this was the shortest concert I've been to. I guess its a matter of quality v/s quantity as it was pretty good. Here are a few shots I took...




Let's Get Physical!
At the mid-point, she sang a few songs from Sordid Lives. They showed clips from the show as she sang. One of the songs featured clips of Bitsy and Glyndora. There was nothing at all sexual about the clips, but they did show the two women in affectionate, yet innocent, situations. It was just too much for the couple next to me. After sitting though the entire song, they huffed and puffed a little and got up and left. More than likely a pair of intolerant evangelicals who were secretly aroused by the imagery! I was happy they left. There was more leg room for me!


Songs from Grease.

One of the highlights of the night: Hopelessly Devoted To You

More Grease
The last song of the evening: I Honestly Love You. She dedicated this to her husband.


Say goodnight!

Rare sight

Here's what we woke up to in Alabama this morning. I've lived in the south for almost fourteen years and this is only the third time I've seen snow. I don't miss it.

Sunday dish

Ivory Fiesta. In the center is a decorated 13" chop plate with decals and elaborate gold stampings and trim. Colonial couple decals such as these were popular in the late 1940s. From left to right: 8" vase, sweets compote, regular creamer, covered mustard, demitasse cup and saucer, covered coffeepot.