Some cool private label rights images:
egg ornaments.
Image by Fuschia Foot
I got these eggs out of a house back in 2003. Here’s the original blog post from June 28th, 2003, talking about the house these came from:
The most hilarious thing to ever happen to me occured yesterday.
Adam’s dad, as I may have mentioned, is a private detective. He also does other things aside from watch people–such as, watch houses. He was hired to watch a house on the north side. An 86-year-old woman had lived there up until her death. She left no heirs, and the bank doesn’t want anyone tampering with it while it’s being sold. She deemed all of her valuables to be auctioned off and her house sold, the proceeds going to a cat charity.
Before it could even be considered sellable, they had to clean it out. Apparently, this woman was a total packrat–she merely had tunnels to walk through her house because stuff was piled up so high. The bank sent someone through earlier this week to weed out any valuables they could auction off. They left behind everything else that wasn’t really worth too much to them.
So, Adam’s dad was given the keys to check in on the house–and permission that if he sees anything in the house that he wants, he can simply take it. The bank is through with it, and they’re sending a cleanup guy through to literally sweep everything into a pile and haul it all out to a dumpster.
Adam and I *jumped* at this chance to explore someone’s house and dig through old stuff. He wasn’t really into this until he met me, but now he’s caught the bug. We went through the house on Thursday evening with his dad to simply scope it out. There was a first floor, an attic, and a basement. I thought the woman had been dead some time, but she apparently just lived that way–the kitchen was pretty gross, and she had a major mouse infestation. Every surface was covered with mouse droppings. I think the sense of adventure toned down the gross factor, because it never even phased me.
We vowed to go back Friday and clean out the house of everything we wanted. Adam and I went there early Friday morning with my parent’s big van–I actually drove it on the expressway, which was pretty interesting. Nothing bad happened. We sorted through a bunch of cool stuff in the attic. Adam’s dad was out for money… he said to pick up anything you could sell on EBay and then take whatever we wanted. Well, I wanted everything! When I see something interesting that’s old and unique, I want it for myself. Why would I want to make some huge profit?
I found an old box full of old medicine bottles with hand-made labels like "Dose-1 teaspoon" and a bunch of old makeup from the 30s and 40s that still had stuff inside. Beauty cream called "chatterbox", old lipsticks, everything. I got a whole stack of Life magazines from ’46-’48 in mint condition. Those are things I want to *keep*. Adam found tampons that were REALLY old, which I found interesting and decided to keep also. When I was going through a drawer, I found these itsy bitsy cardboard boxes… I couldn’t think of what they were. They said "prophylactics" but it just wasn’t clicking. So I say to Adam, "What’s a prohylactic?" and he goes "Rachel. It’s a condom."
I tossed the box away from me instantly and started laughing. They were really old condoms, probably from the 60s. I took a little box that was still shrink-wrapped. They were little individual cardboard boxes with three condoms apiece, and the package said "meant only to prevent disease". Lovely. Anyway… so the basic theme is, if it’s everyday interesting, I enjoy it. Adam and I went to an antiques mall on Monday, and I commented that when I have my own house, I want it to be like stepping back in time–a functioning museum that you can actually touch. After all of my finds yesterday, I said we should have a special half bath set aside with all the "correct" things in it from the period, including the tampons and the condoms. 
)
On to the funniest, most embarassing moment of my life (thus far). Adam and I were on the back porch. There was a cute tiny dresser covered with some pieces of countertop. We decided we liked the dresser, so we took all the pieces of countertop off of it. I decided I would be the one to empty out the drawers. At one point the drawers were filled with pieces of paper but are now shredded to confetti by miscellaneous rodents. I was just dumping out the paper onto the ground.
The first drawer went okay. The second drawer was the doozy. Adam was standing right behind me as I tipped the drawer and shook out the paper. The next thing we knew, we were listening to the most horrible sound. Kind of like a cat meowing, but in horrible, utter pain, and a moan… it was just disgusting. It freaked me out, so I simply dropped the drawer. My plan was to then turn and leave the room, quickly, and head to the front of the house.
Adam had other plans.
He took off running with the most comically terrifed expression I have ever seen. However, instead of simply sprinting out of the room, he took me with him. As he turned to leave, he grabbed my arm. I was running along to keep up with him, but he has really long legs and mine just don’t compare. Not only this, but I couldn’t get any traction on the linoleum floor, and my gym shoes simply slid across the surface as I was dragged.
I kept yelling, "Adam, slow down! Let go! I’m falling!" But he wouldn’t listen. He whipped me around the corner into the kitchen, and that’s where I fell. I’m lucky that I didn’t crack my head on somethig–the kitchen has all metal cabinets, plus a coffee table piled with stuff including glass and ceramics (this woman was a ceramics maker… her basement is filled with ceramic molds, but nobody wants them, so they’re all getting demolished). I managed to land on the icky floor between the cabinet and the coffee table. Then it occured to me that my bare ass was sitting on the floor.
My pants had ripped in the fall. But not just ANY rip… not even a SEAM rip. My pants had ripped from the waistband to my thigh right square in the center of my left ass cheek. I was wearing a thong and now showing my ass to everyone. LOVELY. I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe. When I showed Adam, he laughed like I’ve never heard him laugh before. He gave me about five paper towels and I held them over the ridiculous tear. Then I realized I had put my old twin-sized sheets in the big van, so Adam retrieved the bag. I didn’t want to wear a white Twister sheet or a flannel sheet, so I selected a purple sheet with white clouds to tie around my waist, jeans and all. It was quite a sight.
But the funniest thing is (and this is where everyone laughs the hardest, where the "punchline" is)….
It was a fitted sheet. I was walking around like a ridiculous moron in a fitted sheet. Ugh. Anyway… Adam and I ventured down the side of the house, only to hear the horrible noise again, so we took off running. Turns out it was Eric, Adam’s brother, freaking us out. It wasn’t him originally, so we still were afraid of the noise and never went back to the room.
Adam went back there today. He was brave and inspected the drawer again. Turns out the noise was a little cylindrical voicebox… the kind when you turn it upside down, it makes a noise. Apparently, this was a sick cow moo. Ugh. But at least I’m not wearing the fitted sheet anymore.
The Flying Dog Brewery
Image by Bernt Rostad
The tasting room at the Flying Dog Brewery has a bar, with most of the Flying Dog beers on tap. The walls are decorated with their beer labels, framed in glass.
Currently, the brewery is closed to public tours but I was very fortunate in getting in touch with the right people at the brewery. Letting them know we came all the way from Norway, they promptly invited us to a private tour of the brewery. And what a tour we got!
egg ornaments.
Image by Fuschia Foot
I got these eggs out of a house back in 2003. Here’s the original blog post from June 28th, 2003, talking about the house these came from:
The most hilarious thing to ever happen to me occured yesterday.
Adam’s dad, as I may have mentioned, is a private detective. He also does other things aside from watch people–such as, watch houses. He was hired to watch a house on the north side. An 86-year-old woman had lived there up until her death. She left no heirs, and the bank doesn’t want anyone tampering with it while it’s being sold. She deemed all of her valuables to be auctioned off and her house sold, the proceeds going to a cat charity.
Before it could even be considered sellable, they had to clean it out. Apparently, this woman was a total packrat–she merely had tunnels to walk through her house because stuff was piled up so high. The bank sent someone through earlier this week to weed out any valuables they could auction off. They left behind everything else that wasn’t really worth too much to them.
So, Adam’s dad was given the keys to check in on the house–and permission that if he sees anything in the house that he wants, he can simply take it. The bank is through with it, and they’re sending a cleanup guy through to literally sweep everything into a pile and haul it all out to a dumpster.
Adam and I *jumped* at this chance to explore someone’s house and dig through old stuff. He wasn’t really into this until he met me, but now he’s caught the bug. We went through the house on Thursday evening with his dad to simply scope it out. There was a first floor, an attic, and a basement. I thought the woman had been dead some time, but she apparently just lived that way–the kitchen was pretty gross, and she had a major mouse infestation. Every surface was covered with mouse droppings. I think the sense of adventure toned down the gross factor, because it never even phased me.
We vowed to go back Friday and clean out the house of everything we wanted. Adam and I went there early Friday morning with my parent’s big van–I actually drove it on the expressway, which was pretty interesting. Nothing bad happened. We sorted through a bunch of cool stuff in the attic. Adam’s dad was out for money… he said to pick up anything you could sell on EBay and then take whatever we wanted. Well, I wanted everything! When I see something interesting that’s old and unique, I want it for myself. Why would I want to make some huge profit?
I found an old box full of old medicine bottles with hand-made labels like "Dose-1 teaspoon" and a bunch of old makeup from the 30s and 40s that still had stuff inside. Beauty cream called "chatterbox", old lipsticks, everything. I got a whole stack of Life magazines from ’46-’48 in mint condition. Those are things I want to *keep*. Adam found tampons that were REALLY old, which I found interesting and decided to keep also. When I was going through a drawer, I found these itsy bitsy cardboard boxes… I couldn’t think of what they were. They said "prophylactics" but it just wasn’t clicking. So I say to Adam, "What’s a prohylactic?" and he goes "Rachel. It’s a condom."
I tossed the box away from me instantly and started laughing. They were really old condoms, probably from the 60s. I took a little box that was still shrink-wrapped. They were little individual cardboard boxes with three condoms apiece, and the package said "meant only to prevent disease". Lovely. Anyway… so the basic theme is, if it’s everyday interesting, I enjoy it. Adam and I went to an antiques mall on Monday, and I commented that when I have my own house, I want it to be like stepping back in time–a functioning museum that you can actually touch. After all of my finds yesterday, I said we should have a special half bath set aside with all the "correct" things in it from the period, including the tampons and the condoms. )
On to the funniest, most embarassing moment of my life (thus far). Adam and I were on the back porch. There was a cute tiny dresser covered with some pieces of countertop. We decided we liked the dresser, so we took all the pieces of countertop off of it. I decided I would be the one to empty out the drawers. At one point the drawers were filled with pieces of paper but are now shredded to confetti by miscellaneous rodents. I was just dumping out the paper onto the ground.
The first drawer went okay. The second drawer was the doozy. Adam was standing right behind me as I tipped the drawer and shook out the paper. The next thing we knew, we were listening to the most horrible sound. Kind of like a cat meowing, but in horrible, utter pain, and a moan… it was just disgusting. It freaked me out, so I simply dropped the drawer. My plan was to then turn and leave the room, quickly, and head to the front of the house.
Adam had other plans.
He took off running with the most comically terrifed expression I have ever seen. However, instead of simply sprinting out of the room, he took me with him. As he turned to leave, he grabbed my arm. I was running along to keep up with him, but he has really long legs and mine just don’t compare. Not only this, but I couldn’t get any traction on the linoleum floor, and my gym shoes simply slid across the surface as I was dragged.
I kept yelling, "Adam, slow down! Let go! I’m falling!" But he wouldn’t listen. He whipped me around the corner into the kitchen, and that’s where I fell. I’m lucky that I didn’t crack my head on somethig–the kitchen has all metal cabinets, plus a coffee table piled with stuff including glass and ceramics (this woman was a ceramics maker… her basement is filled with ceramic molds, but nobody wants them, so they’re all getting demolished). I managed to land on the icky floor between the cabinet and the coffee table. Then it occured to me that my bare ass was sitting on the floor.
My pants had ripped in the fall. But not just ANY rip… not even a SEAM rip. My pants had ripped from the waistband to my thigh right square in the center of my left ass cheek. I was wearing a thong and now showing my ass to everyone. LOVELY. I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe. When I showed Adam, he laughed like I’ve never heard him laugh before. He gave me about five paper towels and I held them over the ridiculous tear. Then I realized I had put my old twin-sized sheets in the big van, so Adam retrieved the bag. I didn’t want to wear a white Twister sheet or a flannel sheet, so I selected a purple sheet with white clouds to tie around my waist, jeans and all. It was quite a sight.
But the funniest thing is (and this is where everyone laughs the hardest, where the "punchline" is)….
It was a fitted sheet. I was walking around like a ridiculous moron in a fitted sheet. Ugh. Anyway… Adam and I ventured down the side of the house, only to hear the horrible noise again, so we took off running. Turns out it was Eric, Adam’s brother, freaking us out. It wasn’t him originally, so we still were afraid of the noise and never went back to the room.
Adam went back there today. He was brave and inspected the drawer again. Turns out the noise was a little cylindrical voicebox… the kind when you turn it upside down, it makes a noise. Apparently, this was a sick cow moo. Ugh. But at least I’m not wearing the fitted sheet anymore.
