Oldies But Goodies

Old Central Press building, on 11th and R Streets

I worked at Central Press for 15 years. It was my first big-time job as a typesetter in the publishing industry. Our original location was nearer the outskirts of Sacramento, in a building that now houses a casket maker. The brick building above was centrally located in the city, halfway between downtown and Cal Central Press, which was our "mother" company.

If you walked down the sidewalk to the left, just past our building, there was an old, small house where Mr. Weird lived. All the windows were boarded up. His ancient green station wagon was always parked in the driveway. The house was strange enough, but Mr. Weird was a cross-dresser. Some days he'd be out hoeing weeds dressed as a guy. Well, pretty much a guy, he did wear pedal pushers but he didn't have boobs on. When he went out, though, he wore a tight sweater and a straight skirt and those nylon stockings with the seam down the back. What made him weird is that he was a very homely man and an even homelier woman. He looked sorta like Richard Nixon except he was squattier and had broader shoulders. He always had a 5 o'clock shadow. And his clothes were really about 15 years out of style. He was a caricature of a cross-dresser.

Occasionally a pedestrian would come running into our office in a fright. "Call the police!!!" he'd say. He had just been walking down the sidewalk, noticed the strange house, and while he was looking at it Mr. Weird came charging out carrying a Samurai sword and chased him halfway down the street. We'd say, "Yeah, that's okay, he does it all the time."

Just across the street (and the railroad tracks) from our building was the Fox & Goose.

View of old Central Press building from the porch of Fox and Goose.

Fox & Goose is Sacramento's (supposedly) authentic English pub. I couldn't verify that because I've never been to England. Central Press went out of business many years ago, but Fox & Goose is still thriving.

F&G's delivery van.

This past weekend I met a friend there for breakfast. I'm not going to tell you who, for reasons that will be explained later. And besides it sounds mysterious.

I hadn't been to Fox & Goose for 20 years. When I worked at Central Press, the railroad tracks down the middle of R Street were actually being used by trains. Now the street is smooth, with genuine fake railroad tracks. There are nice bronze statues of a fox and a goose outside the pub. My friend took my picture with the goose.

Goose and Jan

I took her picture with the fox. I could have called it Two Foxes. But I'm not going to show it to you.

Is this an authentic English pub?

Inside Fox & Goose

It doesn't look much different than Gold Rush-era buildings to me, but what do I know? It has a wooden floor and lots of beer posters and memorabilia.

This note from the menu might interest my readers from England.

Our table was right in front of the dart board. Happily, no one was playing.

I had a great time talking with my friend, who I hadn't seen in quite a while. She had a story she was dying to tell, but didn't want her co-workers to hear. I'll tell you that tomorrow.

Anne's Hay

This year, for the first time in maybe 3 years, it didn't rain on the hay as soon as it was cut. We had nice, clear days and the hay was marvelous when it was baled. My horses, Blue Top and Dusty, are in a smallish pasture that has green grass this time of year and I feed them a little bit of hay each day, too.

They love Anne Tudesko's grass hay. It looks and smells wonderful. It must taste wonderful, too.

I don't feed the horses much because both are rather rotund right now. Usually I keep a bale outside their pen, just out of reach, and give them a small amount twice a day. That's not working with Anne's hay. The horses spend a lot of time standing at the fence, trying to reach the bale.

Please note the sagging fence and the scratches on Dusty's neck. Also the face that asks, "Is it dinner time yet?"

Lizard Bath

My yard is full of bluebelly lizards. Some people call them fence lizards. They are friendly little critters, and very nosy. The ones in my yard are not very wild.

Yesterday I found Stubby Tail, who hangs around the back steps, lying on its back on the sidewalk. It looked quite dead. I was on my way to collect eggs and made a mental note to bury the lizard when I was finished.

But when I got my trowel the lizard had moved. It was upright and breathing, but not moving. I had no trouble picking it up with my hands. (Except that it feels kinda creepy to do that.) I have a nice little terrarium, so I found it and put some sand in the bottom, put it half on a heating pad, and put the lizard inside.

Then I went on the internet to find out what to do with an ailing lizard.

First, it said, don't put it on sand. Lizards might ingest the sand and become constipated. It recommended putting the lizard on paper towels. So I picked it up again and laid paper towels over the sand. Next the internet information said there were three things that are most likely to lay a lizard low (aside from being stepped on): compaction, being egg-bound, or shedding its skin. Sometimes lizards get parasites that affect their brains, but this isn't as common.

The lizard docs recommend rehydrating a lizard right away. The way to do this is to put it in warm water, give it a bath. Because Stubby Tail would occasionally flop onto its back, I was afraid it might drown, and then I'd have to figure out lizard CPR. So I used a wash cloth in the bottom of a bowl, which gave it something to hang onto. The lizard loved its bath. Who would have ever thought that? I massaged it with a damp Q-Tip. No egg. No poop. Oh well. I couldn't see its eyes, though, so thought maybe it was shedding.

Today the lizard is staying mostly upright. I gave it another bath and left the bowl in the sunshine coming through the kitchen window. I put a couple of bugs in the terrarium, but I don't think it can see them. It does have one eye open now. Hopefully by tomorrow it will be feeling good and I can put it back outside. I'm not too keen on having lizards in the house.

Eclipse?

I'm sure there will be countless wonderful pictures of yesterday's eclipse on blogs today. Not on this one. There are pictures, but they are not wonderful. I just didn't care enough to get in my car (as my son did) and travel a couple hundred miles to be in a prime viewing location. I mean, these things happen all the time don't they? If something out of the ordinary happens, like the moon gets permanently stuck in front of the sun or something, that might be fun.

I did go outside with my camera, though, because that's what you do.

I didn't have a special thing to view the sun, so I just watched the reflection in my iPhone. I didn't even need an app for that.

I had let the pigeons out for a bit and they posed for a picture. This is just as the eclipse is beginning. I had no filter, I just pointed at the sun and shot. On "Auto."

This is when I found out my camera has a handy feature. See the purple reflection near the middle of the picture? In all of my pictures there is a reflection that shows how the sun actually looks. Too cool.

This reflection is even more interesting. Must be some kind of scientific information.

The pigeons had gone back to their pen by then. It was just dark enough to trigger their "get home" button, I guess. It didn't seem dark to me.

Thirty percent of the sun is plenty. You always hear about how eclipses affect animals, so I watch the animals closely. Dusty didn't even notice, he just kept eating. And Dusty notices everything, that's why he has bug eyes.

Blue Top and That Goat were also unaffected.

Here's the sun at its eclipsiest, complete with instructional reflection.

I think it's interesting that the sun has little devil horns poking out the top, and it looks like ears on the sides. Hmmm.

Craft Project

My assignment: turn two bowling pins into gifts for people who are retiring from a bowling team.

This project was for my friend Sherry, a former workmate from the Office of Education. The pins didn't look like this when Sherry brought them. They were beat up, well-used. It took 3 coats of gesso to get them to this stage.

Disclaimer: I do watercolors, and I haven't even done much of that in recent years (like 15). I have a stockpile of acrylic paints but do not claim to know how to use them. I have a huge assortment of colored pencils I'd used on gourds. This was a challenging project for me.

When Sherry gave me a list of what should go on the pins, I felt like I'd gotten in over my head. A map of Colombia, a marriage, a travel trailer, a golfer, ice fishermen, a slot machine, bingo. Eeeeek!

I started on the first pin with colored pencils, the same as I would use them on gourds. That didn't work very well. The gourd surface seemed similar to the gesso surface, but colored pencil didn't hold very well on gesso. I decided against acrylics because I'd have to use a brush and my hands aren't as steady as they once were. (Not that I've ever been very good with a brush.)

So I went to Michael's (a craft store) and came back with an assortment of Sharpie pens. Some were the regular ones and some were oil-based paint Sharpies. The oil-based ones worked best.

Anyway, this is how the pins ended up.

Certainly NOT fine art. The style is cartoony, but Sherry was happy with them and I learned a lot. Bob says he hopes I learned to say "no" when someone asks me to do an art project. He got tired of my shrieking when something didn't work. I AM a linear thinker, and can only work on one thing at a time. I didn't do anything else until these were finished.

Now I have to get outside and clean chicken pens.

Overachiever

What's this mass of purple beauty?

It's the little clematis on the chain archway.

It has been taking its job seriously this year.

My Cousin Q

I was just rewatching Star Trek TNG, the first episode. It's about Farpoint and John de Lancie plays that annoying alien Q. There was something about him that I found very familiar. His eyes and his mouth reminded me of someone I know.

John de Lancie

My cousin Ken

Guess which one this is.....

Mystery mouth 1

Mystery mouth 2

Mystery mouth 3

They have the same face shape and hair line, too. And they both wiggle the corners of their mouth the same way when they talk. Ken is probably taller. He knows more about trains. John is probably wealthier and more famous. Ken is more huggable.