My trip to Springfield was successful on Saturday! It did end up taking most of the day, but I got home with a floor lamp, three lime houndstooth napkins, an orange pitcher for Tracy, and the credenza, which turned out to be in very good shape (other than missing handles for the accordian-style doors, and generally smelling of smoke and needing a cleaning). Plus, it was originally marked at $250, and I got it for $150, so that was a nice bargain (especially since I had to drive all the way down there).
I haven’t been to Springfield very often, although it is the third largest city in Missouri and just north of Branson (major tour bus destination of the US). It is a different world down there, for sure, especially coming from Columbia. McCain/Palin signs were still waving in the wind. Stores everywhere have obvious references to Christianity in the signs (something I deplore… and I actively avoid businesses like that if I can). And, in the antique malls, I was surprised to see a lot more Mammy dolls than I usually see at the ones along I-70 (a lot more… as in, I have seen a couple here and there, but I saw dozens of them in Springfield), and I even saw one of those lawn jockeys painted with blackface. I’ve seen lawn jockeys painted to be white, but I think that was the first time I’d actually seen a blackface lawn jockey. It was very weird.
On the other hand, one of the antique malls that I visited in Springfield had some amazing 1960s-1970s furniture, including several living room sets in prisitine condition. They were all priced pretty high, though. The vendor knew the value, at least in terms of Ebay. But the vendor also really knew how to stage a booth- they were decked out with barkcloth curtains and shag rugs and looked fabulous. Yet I didn’t see anything I wanted! I liked looking at those booths, though. (Sometimes I think it would be fun to get a booth and collect stuff to sell in it or on Etsy, but I don’t have a business-oriented mind, or maybe it’s a business-oriented temperament. I like to buy what I like for myself, without worry as to whether I’ll make my money back in resale someday. I’m too impulsive.)
Tracy had already pulled apart my television equipment when I got home, much to my chagrin. She wanted to repaint the little entertainment center/bench thing because she’s taking it to KC, while I am planning to use the credenza as a stand for the television. Apparently, I am genetically predispositioned to create chaos of entertainment systems with multiple components and speakers and wires running everywhere, though, so that made taking everything apart problematic to the non-techie-minded. I’m sure Tracy thought it would be a cinch to pull it all out of the cabinet, but by the time she realized that it was madness, she was in too deep. She did manage to extract the cabinet and leave the rest of the mess all over the living room, so I got to fix it all on Sunday evening.
The credenza is full of drawers, and it’s not a valuable piece of furniture, so I am thinking of putting some holes into the back of it so that I can put all the entertainment center components inside and make it look clean. But I haven’t fully committed to making those destructive changes yet, so I used the lime houndstooth napkins to protect the top from the television and components. Even though they are all stacked on top, they look pretty nice. I will wait awhile, and get some other stuff done, before I really consider ripping it up to make an entertainment center out of it.
On Sunday, I invited my Chinese friend from the International Center and four of her friends and coworkers/classmates (she is a graduate student and works in a lab with other Chinese students) to come up to my parents’ house for a barbecue. I figured it was the kind of American cultural tradition that should be experienced by international visitors, even though we ate inside instead of outside (where we would be continually bothered by cats, dogs, and bugs). We had hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, chips, cole slaw, and root beer floats for dessert, and of course I brought Tofurky Kielbasa (which are great on the grill). The Chinese students were very excited about all of the different kinds of food, especially the ice cream floats. We walked around my parents’ woods and the garden and the barn, and they were very interested in everything. It was a nice time.
The rest of the weekend and all last night, I worked on photos from my long-ago California trip. I am doing a presentation of them (well, really just a slideshow) at my photo club tonight. I’ve been planning this for more than a year, and of course I left a lot of it until the last minute. I still haven’t made a DVD to play tonight, though I plan to take multiple copies and even my entire laptop to ensure its playability. I am actually not done with the photos from that trip, but I think this is as close to completion that I will get for many more months. I have a lot of photo work in the next few weeks, and I fear that I will have to spend a good part of the early summer working on photos constantly.
But I can feel that I have a little bit of closure on this nearly 14-month photo project, and I am excited that I will get to show off some of my best work at photo club. We do monthly contests, but I don’t always manage to get something good for those, and we don’t really have a chance to show off our own work otherwise.
I can also use the slideshow software to make a copy to put on YouTube, so I may try to do that and link it here so you can see the fruits of my intensive labors.
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