NHTSA Be Darned, He's Driving this Way in the Name of Science!

While cleaning the boys' room, I found on their bookshelf this teacher's manual for a science text, circa 1968, with my aunt's maiden name neatly printed inside the front cover. (She recently retired from a successful decades-long career.)

The red text at the top of the page for the teacher reads, "Discuss various ways that people in this picture are aware that they are moving -- bumps, stops, and starts, sudden throws forward when car stops, etc. How does this compare to the movement of the earth?"

Where to begin? Nobody's wearing seatbelts and when Dad stops the station wagon, what fun Junior and Fido have rolling around unrestrained in the trunk! Then we have Dick and Jane laughing whilst being thrown forward against the seats, and the only no-funnick in the crowd appears to be Mother, who seems to have a problem being hurled toward that metal dashboard. Yikes.

This is in no small way why cleaning takes ages around here.

The Finished Bathroom Shelf Project

Done. The smaller shelf fit right on the commode, no nails needed. For those curious about the knickknacks, everything on the top shelf is an Avon bottle, acquired at the local Catholic church's $1-a-bag sale, the mama cat and kittens are possibly from the '50s, and the rose is probably not vintage at all. The statues on the bottom are '70s-era Russ-Berrie statues with these captions, left to right: "Wow! Have I Got the Hots for You!" * "World's Best Mother" * "Happy Birthday" * "When You Hurt I Hurt Too."

Retro bathroom cabinet find!

One of my neighbors must have been redoing a 40-year-old bathroom because they put these sweet avocado green cabinets out on the curb. I swear I've seen a vintage ad for these: "space-age plastic with gilded accents!"

Anyway, they're grubby and covered in melting frost, but once they're thoroughly clean they will look great in my vintage bathroom.

Fridge FAIL and fun ephemera find

I attended the midnight showing of Cars 2 and found it to be an amazing movie with a lot of emotional pull, despite what some critics may say. Look for an in-depth review soon.

Still pumped full of adrenaline and running on two hours' of sleep after delivering my papers, I waited at my late grandpa's old house for the delivery of a refrigerator my parents ordered. They will move into the house in another four years when they can retire. It was about 70 degrees and the house is on the top of a hill overlooking the Ohio River valley, so a cool breeze drifted through the house while baby Ben and I napped on an air mattress. It was truly a perfect way to spend the afternoon and catch up on some sleep.

The poor fridge guys; this was not their day. My grandpa custom-built the arch entryways in the house, and while they always reminded me of the Ukrainian churches he and my grandma loved, they're narrow. The refrigerator was not, as it was the Cadillac Escalade of fridges and we never had something that big when there were six of us under one roof! We had to call my mom and tell her she'd have to pick another fridge, and as if on cue, a torrential downpour began and the guys had to slowly shuffle the fridge back to their truck.

It wasn't a wasted day, however, as I poked around the basement and found stuff my grandpa had tucked away, including some awesome old automotive pamphlets and *squee* the shop manual for their old Chevy Citation, may it rest in peace wherever it is. I carry its keys around for no apparent reason; I just really loved that car when I was a kid.

Vintage Glassware Cheers!

You may have seen this news article, in which the Associated Press tested drinking glasses emblazoned with licensed characters for lead and cadmium content. Wisely, the AP not only examined brand-spanking-new drinking glass sets, but decades-old cartoon character glassware from thrift stores and yard sales, thus proving any problems didn't develop overnight.

I'll let you read the article for yourself, but suffice it to say, the results proved a fair amount of both metals used in the enamel designs can actually leach out and be absorbed into one's skin, and that decades of dishwashing break down the designs, thus enabling more heavy metals to escape. (A true fan of kitschy glassware knows not to dull vintage drinking glasses by putting them in the dishwasher, anyway.)

Lesson learned? Save these for the collectible shelf or at least only for adult use, and keep your mouth above the emblazoned design when you drink out of them. I've got to question the bit in the article about the dangers of a six-year-old ingesting lead from a circa-1983 Return of the Jedi glass. Considering what those suckers go for on eBay and how hard they are to find nowadays, if I was lucky enough to find one I sure as heck wouldn't hand it to one of my kids to break! I don't even trust my kids with dollar-store glassware, let alone the true vintage stuff.

Nothing would make me toss my vintage glass collection, ever. (See gratuitous photo.) A few I've had for years, others I picked up for a dime or a nickel at yard sales. I have a fond childhood memory of this Pac-Man glass (seen in the front of the photo) I've had since about 1982. I'd trace a path through the condensation on the glass with my tongue until I'd made it through Pac-Man's maze...waitaminnit! Oh crud.

Cheers, albeit very careful ones, to my fellow vintage glassware fans!

Expiration dates are only a suggestion, aren't they?

So I'm having dinner at my grandparents' house this evening, just baby Ben and me since John and Larry are away with my folks visiting my sister in Texas until next weekend, when I realize the newly-opened bottle of blue cheese salad dressing is really, really out-of-this-world GOOD. So good that I must get the brand name and try to locate more of this stuff. Instead I flip the bottle over to reveal: "EXP 04 96"

*LIKEWHOA* This stuff would've been old before I graduated high school, and I'm 32! What were you doing in 1996?

And what would you, as a presumably rational adult or teen, have done? Graciously pointed out its age? Said nothing to your host, but "accidentally" poured it down the drain when no one was looking? Or thought to yourself, "it's d#mn good, expiration dates be d#mned!" and finished your salad? Suffice it to say, I threw practicality (and likely sanity, as well) by the wayside and went with the last option. Although I seriously think the stuff improved with age, if I succumb to expired-food-bourne-illness overnight I insist on having "But that salad dressing didn't taste fourteen years old" inscribed on my gravestone. Then again, if I didn't get sick by now it's probably just proof that I'm extremely bad#ss (but not so bad#ss that I feel okay leaving mild swears uncensored) and I'm immune to wussy things like "slightly" vintage dairy-based salad dressings.

In my grandparents' defense, they don't make a habit of eating old food. I suspect they bought this long ago for dinner guests only since I don't think either of them even like blue cheese dressing and then they just forgot how long it was sitting in their basement pantry.

A fun historical footnote: in 2001 I brought my then-boyfriend to their house for a summer picnic, he asked if they had beer and they, being non-drinkers, suddenly remembered they might have a few cans lurking in the basement. Boyfriend, a big fan of all things beer, was handed a can and remarked that he hadn't realized the brewery had brought back the original beer can design. He tasted the beer and realized they hadn't; it was just really, really old. We quietly poured the last few cans of the stuff out in the sink. :) Boyfriend survived and we just celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary.

Was there any point to this blog entry? Probably not -- attribute it to delusions induced by old salad dressing. X)