Tag Archives: maine

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A pool table tune up.

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The husband came in the house the other day complaining his pool table felt was loose. You know, the extra expensive, special order, professional grade imported fabric he just had to have when we bought the table. Fearing this would be the usual Casa River nightmare… I was pleasantly surprised when after one call to the store of purchase the owner’s son was here to fix the problem the next afternoon. For free.

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Free is always my favorite word and to be honest I never even knew pool tables needed tune ups but apparently it’s quite common.

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And it isn’t a quick fix by any means.

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Rails must be removed, fabric must be loosened and peeled off the slate. The wax seal must be checked and smoothed.

And then tugging begins.

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Which of course the husband had to be in on.

Men. You do love a good tug.

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After a solid two hours of pulling and tugging and securing on this side, and then pulling and tugging and securing on that side, only to repeat the pulling, tugging and securing on the first side etc etc until I would have heaved the whole table out the door, it was done.

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Rails were replaced, stray threads were trimmed, felt was cleaned and no bill was presented. When I asked the young man how long the warranty on the table lasted… he floored me by saying forever. Granted the fabric will only have so many stretches in it, and because ours is thinner than normal felt it won’t last as long… but as far as normal maintenance goes we’re golden.

This happens so infrequently I was at a loss how to respond. So I pressed a big old tip into his hand to show our appreciation.

🙂

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Treasure.. part 3.

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The husband bought another vintage cocktail recipe book, though to my knowledge he’s never mixed a cocktail in his life.

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He knew it was old because it said so right in the title.

🥴

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Mixed drinks are no mystery to me, but whatever.

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Pinch bottle and spot bottle? Now I know what my mother was talking about when she said she added a pinch of this and a pinch of that.

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Those are some pretty potent potables, and I definitely could have used the income tax cocktail during my 8 hour conversation with the IRS last month.

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And look, they even have vintage snack recipes. Though no crudite …. sorry Mehmet.

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Husband’s other little treasure was this promotional package of Squirt. Can’t say I ever drank it, but I’m thinking it’s citrusy.

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False advertising.

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Since his lordship destroyed his last scratching post it was time to purchase a new one.

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Thank goodness it came with instructions. I’m sure I would have had no idea where to put the screw otherwise.

Sigh.

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This was the picture on the box. A happy cat totally focused on exercising his claws.

In my world? Not so much.

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Oh, Lord Dudley Mountcatten ran right for it when I placed it on the floor. He sniffed it, rubbed against it and laid down in front of it. What he didn’t do was scratch it.

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Even after I purchased and sprayed it liberally with awesome stuff.

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Though his eyes did look a trifle dilated…

😉

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And now, the treasure.

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You knew the husband wouldn’t come home empty handed from all those antique stores we visited, right?

It was a banner day for ephemera and since the market is pretty much dead right now, these little gems were only a few dollars for the batch.

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An old Maine prohibition postcard.

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It’s takes 160,000 children to keep me in gin? Thank you boys and girls. River appreciates all your hard work.

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Continuing in the alcohol vein… vintage beer coasters for the man cave.

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So many brews I’ve never even heard of.

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1939 World’s Fair. Very collectible.

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Trade cards. These used to go for $20+ each.

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And because I still haven’t found any crates to house them, another old vinyl record.

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More antiquing in the Mid Coast.

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Too many antique stores, too little time. Not to mention money.

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Mantiques? That sounded like trouble…. and as soon as we walked through the door of the large converted barn I feared my checkbook might not survive.

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1939 Rockola Art Deco juke box with unusual pop up speaker? Fabulous! The husband drooled on behalf of the man cave, but I broke his heart and refused to fork over $9,995.00.

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You know it’s not your every day thrift store when you see things like this.

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Embalming pump? That’s a coffee table piece sure to spark scintillating conversations.

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Any ideas what that is…?

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Apparently pumps of all sorts are popular.

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I got a huge kick out of the price tag description on this item.

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Lock the kids in the sweat box. That’ll keep ‘em quiet.

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If a naked blonde doesn’t encourage Junior to save his pennies, nothing will.

Three full floors of amazing items later we almost made it out the door without purchasing anything and then…

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The husband fell in love.

A long conversation with the owner followed. Photos of the Barn Mahal were shared, placement of the item was discussed. Meanwhile, I sought the price tag…

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And while slightly less painful than the first jukebox, it was still a tad more than I planned on spending that day.

Husband eyes were flashing that “I have to own it!” look and yours truly had to do some quick thinking.

A jukebox.

From 1946?

It only played 78’s!

Perry Como, Doris Day, Mitch Miller, Bing Crosby? Not man cave music. Nope. Not even close.

Phew! That was close.

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Because nothing ever goes smoothly when my husband is involved.

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With the hope that it will rain on our property sometime in this decade, my husband purchased gutters for our baby barn/shed and I attempted to help with the installation.

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Since the project was my husband’s idea and he was in charge of purchasing supplies, this meant 3 forty minute round trips to Lowes and half the day wasted because he thinks making a list is a waste of time.

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Did he buy the right size screws?

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He did not.

Did he buy the correct downspout brackets?

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He did not.

Did he buy a new section of downspout because the piece he had leftover from a previous project was too short?

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I think you know the answer to that.

🥴

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Food porn and silliness.

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There’s good news coming ‘round the bend.

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It’s a raspberry type of thin mint without the mint. Sign me up!

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We stopped into an uninteresting restaurant the other day because we were in an area we didn’t know. The atmosphere was lackluster, the meal uninspired… but the fresh seafood chowder with crab, shrimp and haddock? Perfection! I’d go back just for that.

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And I have to admit the restroom sign made me grin.

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I think that’s an advertising bridge too far.

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Of course.

Because when I’m craving comfort food… kale, quinoa and soybean ice cream really hit the spot.

Not!

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Antiquing in the Mid Coast region.

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Not finding any vintage beer or whisky crates on our shopping trip to the lakes region, we headed to the mid coast for a different batch of stores.

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We hit the Wiscasset antique mall first. This is my favorite place to shop for treasure. Three floors, numerous dealers and a whole lot of everything under the sun.

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They had boxes galore. Biscuits, seafood, soda pop, ammunition, fruit… everything but what I was looking for.

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Classic!

The next store we tried had a vintage husband attitude corrector…

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As well as a disturbingly large dwarf face.

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Another box, but still not alcohol related.

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This?

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I have absolutely no explanation for.

😳

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