Toad in the Hole
April 10, 2006
Feel-Good Post
It's raining again.
I'm cruising the pix for a dry place again, and as a bonus found one that features even worse housekeeping than mine. (If Joe didn't do the laundry and dishes and vacuuming and kitchen floorwashing we'd drown in filth. I do clean the bathroom and dust and chase cobwebs and like that. Sometimes.)
The ephedra I put up a few days ago was on the road from Bodie State Park. Bodie is a ghost town east of the Sierra peaks, in the sagebrush desert, an old mining town. We went there looking for sage grouse (and saw them) and poked around for several hours after. The park folks just fenced off most of the interiors of the buildings there and let the dust settle, which I rather liked.
I was wondering why people had tossed coins, a mint candy, and a lighter on this bed:
And then I realized it was probably to watch the dust puffs.
The kitchen was the most heartening.
Don't miss the Tom & Jerry punchbowl -- either somebody was celebrating Christmas before throwing in the towel and leaving, or they found the bowl useful in some other way. Oh, and the bottle capper, which suggests home brewing.
The wallpaper sags interestingly. Or maybe I'm just empathetic, and hopeful that saggy = interesting.
Enamelware with squiggles! One of my favorite things. I wonder if the householders took the oven door with them or used the stove without it before they left. Or if someone has it hanging on their wall as a piece of Nostalgic Art.
There were parts of houses we could walk around in -- this is the same house as the kitchen and I think the bedroom too.
The linoleum pattern is very similar to the one in my best friend's parents' kitchen, in the 1950s.
And there was this rather Craftsmanesque wallpaper pattern, especially the whoozits border on top:
So now I have something to aspire to. Sorry, Mom.
Comments
Boy, it's been a long time since I visited Bodie. I like your pictures...makes me feel better about what I found under my daughter's bed that other day...or not.
Posted by: Hick at April 14, 2006 03:34 PM
My rule for this stuff is: Don't worry until it starts moving under its own power.
Donald A. Wollheim (late publisher of DAW Books) wrote something called "The Rag Thing" under his pseudonym David Grinnell, in the early '50s. It's one of those horror stories based on Something You've Always Suspected. It informs my feelings about housekeeping to this day.
Glad you liked the pix!
Posted by: Ron at April 14, 2006 05:59 PM
