rojo zappatos

Do you have any sayings or inside jokes with your friends that have been around for so long that you don't even remember exactly how they came into being?

These are my new red shoes -
felted ballet flats with bows.
I love red shoes;
they make me really happy.


Every time i put on red shoes i exclaim Rojo Zappatos! in a rather loud manner.
Why? you ask.
Great question.


Here's what i remember:
- it was the mid/late 90's
- i was visiting Rea in Arizona
- we had gone to see a huge fountain in the middle of a pond or lake, someplace around Phoenix, i think
- there was a really ugly black duck
- we ended up at the playground, laughing hysterically, calling out  rojo zappatos while swinging

I seem to think we saw someone wearing red shoes.
How did that turn into us screaming rojo zappatos on the swings?
I have no idea anymore.

When i put on these great new shoes the other day i was upset that i couldn't remember the whole story of the rojo zappatos.
 Dang my aging brain! 
Dang getting older! 
Dang, dang, DANG!

But then i realized that the details of the story aren't nearly as important as the fact that rojo zappatos still make me smile, thinking of my BFF.
What makes you smile?

we're all good here

Hey Winter -
  I have the picture of a single snowflake that i've been trying to shoot.

 Thanks very much for your help.
You can go now.
Spring can take it from here.
No, really.
Go.

tie me up pretty

I was recently part of a bulk wholesale buy on ribbons and acquired quite a few ribbons of various sizes, colors, patterns and types.

That picture really needs a size reference, doesn't it?

Here is my jazz-loving Pillsbury Doughboy attempting to walk through the ribbon pile.













So many, many, many ribbons.
sigh...

Anyhoo, the deal on these ribbons was really awesome, but i needed to buy more than i can personally use to get the best price, so i have ...ahem.. several to share. All the ribbons are precut in one yard lengths and i am gonna sell them 3 for $1 at my GIANT CRAFT YARD SALE next month. So if anyone out there in the Nikiverse would like some ribbons, just let me know in the comments or via email.

more info about the YARD SALE to come

this is me right now

Blog updating will commence... ummmm... shortly.

Meet Papi

Oh how i love housesitting, especially borrowing other people's pets for a little while.
The newest addition to my temporary menagerie is a black labrador retriever named Papi.
Well, he's mostly a black lab -about 75%- with a little something mixed in there, resulting in white toes on his hind paws and a fabulous white blaze on his chest. As a puppy his tremendously large and floppy ears -which he has grown into nicely - looked like they'd flap right off of his head like a butterfly or papillion in French, hence Papi.
Here are a few of Papi's usual attitudes:

I don't know what we're doing, but you have a cookie in your hand so i will play along.






Hi there! Wanna give me a cookie?







Was that the sound of someone opening the cookie jar?

When not eating cookies,
thinking about cookies,
asking for cookies
or going outside simply to convince you to give him a cookie, Papi enjoys playing tug of war and napping in a wing back chair.


Thoroughly an indoor dog  [when i took him out for a walk in the snow he was so, so, so excited to put on the leash and ran right out of the house directly to the car, assuming we were going for a ride; he stopped at every car along the street and looked at me like, Is this the car we're going in?], he does still have some genetic memory of being a retriever.

Look what i killed  for you!

Super excited to meet new people, Papi will spend 10 minutes ripping the stuffing out of a toy and then proudly present the eviscerated remains to said new person.


Papi's daddy, who was in Florida, is an antiques dealer and it shows in the house:

the hallway is better decorated and lit than some museum, the guest room is nicer and more beautiful than most hotels, the dog eats out of cut crystal bowls, the oven is used to store fabulous copper cookware (found out after preheating it to 450 degrees) and many items, like this rug, have tags on them like you could just buy them right there and then.
The bed in the guestroom is a one-of-a-kind daybed/chaise that is beautiful and comfortable; however, fitting a full grown lab and a not-insubstantial Niki onto a twin mattress was interesting, but after some accidental clawing, cold toes and issues about who was sleeping on which side (i don't sleep well unless i am on the right) we figured out that with an extra blanket and proper preparation it was indeed possible.

Such a pretty bed.

Unique. Classy. Lovely. Small.

The dog steals covers.

i wonder about the people around me

I have been housesitting and needed to run home last night to pick up some more clothes as it looks like i might get snowed in here. Plus, with the weather the way it is supposed to be, the home owner both probably can't fly in tomorrow and frankly doesn't want to leave Florida.
Driving back with a load of laundry (ahhhhh... free washer/dryer; yet another housesitting perk) i turned onto the main road between Catonsville and Arbutus behind a big red pick-up truck. The road is 25 mph, but no one and i mean no one drives 25 on it; even coasting you go quite a bit faster than that as it is a big downhill.
Imagine my surprise when the pick-up immediately lays on his brakes.
 WHAT?
We are going under the speed limit.
UNDER 25 MPH, PEOPLE!
Drifting in first gear you go faster than 25.
He is on the brakes all the way down the hill, keeping our speed around a break neck 20-ish.
I realized as i tried not to accidentally rear end him that there was a ladder sticking out of the bed of the truck. Okay, maybe it isn't secured really well and he is just being careful.
Then as we take some curves at an astounding 15 mph -did i mention that this is the main road into Arbutus?; the line of cars behind me was impressive - i noticed the glint of metal in the bed by the ladder.
What is that?
It was a red drum set.
Not drums sitting in the back of the truck, whole sections of a drum kit unsecured in the pick-up with a ladder. Cymbals were on their stands, drums were exposed to the elements - it was CHAOS. A  jillion years ago (the early/mid 90's), i roadied for my friend Ron, tearing down, packing and securing his kit.
What in the world was this guy thinking? 
I would never, ever, ever put a drum into a vehicle without a case; heck i don't even like soft-side cases because they don't seem protective enough.
At least the mystery of his ridiculous speed was solved. I guess if i had a drum kit and a ladder in a pick-up i'd try to drive as slowly as possible.
Wait... where could this guy be going?
What kind of situation calls for you putting your assembled drum kit into a pick-up, uncovered, with a ladder on a Saturday night?
Was he rushing to a party emergency? His friend's party planner had messed up the crepe paper streamers and the band was stuck in traffic?
Or was it a nightclub emergency? The lighting rig at the club his friend owns was malfunctioning and the out-of-town band's drums had been damaged by the baggage handlers?
Had he spotted the DrumMan signal shining on a conveniently passing cloud?
The more i thought about it the better the story got in my head. I could easily follow him - we were already headed in the same direction - and see what was what.
But then he turned down a seriously creepy side road that leads nowhere and i decided that maybe, maybe i didn't want to know the story after all .