I’m hardly what anyone would call fashion savvy these days. When I was young and thin? Sure. But now, since I’m… curvy, voluptuous, fluffy, …. not, Maine has had her way with me and my wardrobe mainly consists of jeans and boots for winter, tee shirts and sandals for summer. The older I get the more I dress for comfort, but that hasn’t stopped me from glancing at the occasional clothing site from time to time.
It’s hard to believe these are the most loved styles, but what do I know? I’m from Maine where dressing up consists of ironing your flannel.
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This looks a bit too much like a lampshade for my taste, but okay.
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The next time I’m feeling the urge to step out with Budweiser Clydesdale feathered fetlocks… these will be my go to jeans.
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A modern spin on the classic black cocktail dress. For those nights you feel like channeling both Mrs. Maisel and a Brontosaurus.
I like new tech. My husband? Not so much. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that my husband uses his cell phone as … don’t faint… an actual phone. You know, to speak with people like we did in the old days before texting was invented and we didn’t have to.
His phone was old. Moldy green cheese old. It was an iPhone 4 he bought in 2010… we’re talking the tech equivalent of a dinosaur fossil. It didn’t matter that it couldn’t be updated, that the battery had to be charged every few hours, that the home button stuck more often than not or that the display was blurry and dark. He liked it because he was used to it and fears new technology in general. No matter how many times times I encouraged him to trade it, he refused.
Until last week when we got a letter from Verizon Wireless saying they’ll be switching to a 5G network on December 31rst and my husband’s beloved antiquated phone will cease to exist. Kaput. Dead. Bye bye. Needless to say the other half wasn’t pleased and railed against the injustice of obsolete tech for hours on end.
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Cool typewriter aside, Verizon was doing just that, so I dragged my sputtering husband to the Verizon store the next day to upgrade his phone before the rush caused a stock shortage. And believe me, he sputtered. He sputtered on the drive there, he sputtered to the other customers, he sputtered to the sales associate, he sputtered to the check out girl and he sputtered on the drive home. Why he was sputtering when we managed to snag a great deal I’m sure I don’t know. The man just likes to sputter.
His old iPhone was worth exactly nothing, but they gave him a $700 credit, with which he bought the new iPhone 13 …. price tag $800. $100 for a new phone? Sweet! And because the deal was so good? I traded in my XR on the 13 Pro Max and only paid $200 for a $1,300 phone. Even sweeter! And just when I thought it couldn’t get any better? I learned our bill will be $24 less a month.
Score!
Does the husband like his new phone? After an hour of very patient instruction from yours truly, he wouldn’t give me the satisfaction… but I think he loves it. And I hope that’s true, because Lord knows he’ll probably keep it until 2034.
In Facebook’s ongoing quest to entice me to buy something, I give you this week’s selections.
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I’ve been known to have a random cocktail from time to time. On special occasions. Like Tuesdays. But what I won’t be having again is Absinthe. It’s never been my liquor of choice but a few years ago on a bar crawl vacation in Vermont, we stumbled into a prohibition style den of iniquity pub. Do I remember the name of the establishment or the town in which it resided? No. Because after the devil bartender served me 3 pretty green but oh so deadly Absinthe concoctions I was lucky to remember my own name. Nice try Facebook, but I’ll pass.
Remember how a few of the past product recommendations reminded me of things found in a sado-masochist’s closet… even though they weren’t?
Well, this week it’s a little harder to find the innocent reason for your purchase. Try mountain climbing in this…
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And finally there’s something really ridiculous that proves Facebook isn’t paying close enough attention. We have a man cave… with a full bar.
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A bounce house Irish pub would just be a squirrel attracting redundancy.
You know there’s only one answer to the question, “ what do you want to do to celebrate?”
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Antiquing of course.
This time around it was the semi famous, at least in Maine… Elmers Barn. A ramshackle place that looks small from the front but feels like it’s 10 football fields deep once you’re inside.
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In other words, husband heaven.
And because technically it was a barn at one time….
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This lovely fellow greeted us upon arrival.
My husband turned 75 that day and to be honest, for the last few years he’s been feeling his age. The combination of a global plague, retirement, health issues, multiple deaths of friends and family, and the general weariness of aches and pains that are more prevalent when you spend considerable time on this side of the dirt have finally caught up to him. This winter the twinkle in his eye has faded and there’s not much spring in his step. Once the weather turns and he’s able to soak up some sun and fresh air I’m sure he’ll perk back up… but for now all I could offer was a day sifting and sorting through piles ofuseless crap untold treasure and a promise he could buy whatever he wanted without nary an eye roll from me.
Oh, the sacrifices I make for love.
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This was one of the first things we saw when we walked in and I fervently hoped he wouldn’t want to buy it. Dolls in general creep me out, but dolls with dead eyes who look ready to consume your soul in one easy gulp?
No. Thank. You.
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Needless to say we spent hours in this store and saw our share of strange things. Vintage snow sled with training wheels?
Check!
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Taxidermy with stylish chapeaux?
Check!
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I lost the husband in the aptly named ‘tool room’ for a long period of time, but surprisingly after spending half the day in a creaky old barn that promised 3 floors of odd and unusual…. there were very few items that could be described as either. Quite disappointing, that.
And though I fully expected to strain my eyes in a valiant attempt to stop them rolling… my beloved only made one small five dollar purchase that day.
Shopping trips with girlfriends are always fun. We shop, we laugh, we drink, we shop, we laugh, we post pictures of stupid things we see on social media.
Like this sign I saw at the Salvation Army thrift store.
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Um…. it’s a thrift store.
Isn’t everything unwanted?
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Pinkfang. Because nothing says Easter like a row of razor sharp shark teeth.
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This. In case your toilet bowl needs to see a little more action.
Moving on, I saw the next horror at T.J.Max.
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Giant wicker pineapples. (There’s a woman walking by on the top left for scale.) And if the mere existence of these things isn’t stupid enough?
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Because you know someone, somewhere had to do it for there be a prohibitive sign.
After the visiting the first Duluth Trading Post to open in the state of Maine a while back, I admit I wasn’t impressed. Turns out I am even less impressed with their product descriptions online.
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Even if true, that’s lazy marketing.
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Tactical soap? It must be going to war with your armpits…
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One roll of toilet paper in a box does not a kit make.
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That’s a bridge too far. Bitchin’ is about the only thing I do well these days.
In my continuing attempt to bring you all the weirdest products and gift ideas on the planet … may I introduce the raindrop cake?
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Imagine serving that at your next dinner party.
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My mind is apparently a very dark place, because when I first saw this picture? I didn’t think mountain climbing.
Nope. Not even close.
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I’ll say this just once. If you’re buying me a birthday gift? A Christmas gift? Or worse yet a wedding anniversary gift? It had better not be a box of vegetables.
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And if you do, this product might be coming your way shortly after.
My husband has a weakness for health food stores. Does he eat healthy? Not unless I force him, but he loves to stroll the weird item laden aisles all the same.
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Whipped cream or whipped rice? That’s a no brainer for me, but I suppose someone might buy that sorry excuse of a substitute.
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I really wanted to buy this bizarre looking fruit… But the husband balked at the price. Good grief, it’s named after a hand.
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If that isn’t worth a little extra scratch I don’t know what is.
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He’ll bitch about high prices but then go get a ridiculously small container of freshly churned peanut butter. Probably because he knows I won’t eat it.
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Worst waste of money that day? This cleverly marketed bag of dried fruit. I love kiwi, so I bought it.
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They weren’t lying, it’s ugly. And completely unpeeled. Who the hell wants to eat that!
After a verrrrry long day at the antique mall from Hell my husband came home with relatively little in the way of treasure.
I was all for buying an antique wall phone to hang in the man cave and a vintage steamer trunk to use as a coffee table, but no. He wanted none of that.
His final purchases?
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An old wooden egg crate. Do we have egg laying chickens? No.
Moving on…
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The seven pieces of ephemera it took him two and a half hours to find.
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Did we need this classically decorated snake oil salesman’s card that claims to cure cholera?
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I think not, but we own it anyway.
Since my barn phone and steamer trunk were vetoed, I only came home with a handful of vinyl.
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Though one of my selections has a specific purpose.
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My husband went to Woodstock. The largest, greatest rock and roll event in history… he was there on day one.
For about half an hour. He walked around, didn’t like what he saw, and left. (If I had known this before we got married, it would have been a deal breaker.)
So because he turned his back on that once in a lifetime experience …. and kept me in that often cold and dark chicken barn antique mall all damned day…. I bought the original Woodstock album and will force him to listen to it. Over and over again, while I slaughter him in Scrabble.
Onward… through the never ending stalls of useless crap timeless treasure we went.
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Box of 1950’s risqué playing cards?
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Check! There were two.
Vintage hi fi speakers?
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Check! Two as well.
Absurd 6 legged patriotic corner table?
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Yup. That was there as well.
Because I don’t spend nearly as much time examining the junk unique items on sale as the husband, I’m always far ahead of him in the store. So when I see an area I think might be trouble?
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Like an entire room of rust…
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I try to steer him clear. But this time he surprised me and passed by the tool stall of horrors with nary a glance. We were halfway through the store by this time and I was lulled into a false sense of security that we would exit before dark.
And then….
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He found a pile. Actually he found pile upon piles of ephemera. For the uninitiated pickers among us, an explanation.
Ephemera – items of collectible memorabilia, typically written or printed ones, that were originally expected to have only short-term usefulness or popularity.
There were boxes stacked on boxes, files stuffed in drawers and a floor to ceiling shelf full of ABSOLUTELY nothing worth a damn. But this didn’t deter my husband, oh no. The more he looked and found nothing? The more he was sure there was something. He just knew an undiscovered copy of the constitution or Abraham Lincoln’s handwritten will was waiting to be unearthed .
I walked the entire mall three times, sat down and blogged for half an hour, chatted with other customers and read two old Life magazines. He still wasn’t done.
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I found old shoes that made my bunion hurt just looking at them.
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And World War II German mountain trooper boots I wouldn’t want to hike the Alps in…. but still, the husband wasn’t through.
After 2 hours and 38 minutes…. ( That’s how long he stood there sorting and sifting through stinky brittle old scraps of paper. Yes. I timed it. ) I pulled him away and gave him an ultimatum. He could finish browsing the store before it closed or I was taking the car and leaving him there.
Since it was a 65 mile walk home? He deserted his giant pile of vintage grocery store lists and life insurance policies and resumed browsing.
To be continued….
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Where there's only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
River's world..... 