Our Mad Cup Of Tea

“Love goes toward love.” – William Shakespeare

Without looking it up, what represents the 19th year of marriage, you know, like paper for the first anniversary, silver for the 25th and gold for the 50th? I didn’t know either until I Googled it and discovered the answer is bronze.

Officially Groom and I entered the Bronze Age of our wedded bliss on, and I love this date, 8-9-10 at 11:12:13 am. Alignment!

I suppose this means we’ve matured since our Stone Age courtship when Groom (who was still Boyfriend at the time), conked me over the head with his club and dragged me back to his cave.

“A woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart.” – William Shakespeare

Speaking of alignment, I find it curiouser and curiouser that Groom and I are transitioning into metalsmithing during our bronze year, don’t you?

A couple of weeks ago I posted a photo of a daisy and a rose that had fused together and I mentioned that it represented Groom and me. The tree is this week’s romantic symbol of our fusion, but upon further reflection, the vine seems awfully clingy and is it really good for the tree? Hmmm. I’ll ponder that a bit more.

In the meantime, having just returned from a week in Spokane and Coeur d’Alene and immediately preparing for our upcoming show in Sun River, we were hesitant to make any more out of town plans to celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary and Groom’s birthday during our brief few days at the homestead.

The idea of sequestering ourselves for a couple of snuggling days sounded like bliss to us, so it was a bit of a surprise to answer the phone and hear King Z0L0 on the other end of the line throwing a monkey wrench into our low key weekend plans.

For you new readers, King Z0L0 is a friend of ours who mistook my handwriting of the current year, 2010, for Z0l0 and it’s what we’ve called him ever since.

He informed us that the Oregon Shakespearean Festival in Ashland was having their first costume warehouse sale in, gulp, seven years. Ooooh my. I love costumes and am thankful that our Holiday Market in Eugene is an ideal place to play dress up. Instantly, all sorts of fanciful images danced through my head like finding a Victorian bustle skirt or a stunning 1920’s style dress. Stretching things even further, what if Groom could finally find a tony top hat or a dapper jacket that fits?

In a flash, we contacted my parents who live in the area, Goat Mama and Papa (friends of ours in the Rogue Valley who are raising two kids) and the housesitter: Every one was game.

Up at 4am on Saturday, King Z0L0 arrived an hour later and we were on the road by 5:15am. Exactly three hours later, we were in Ashland waiting in line. The sale was advertised to begin at 9am so we had 45 minutes to wait. People were friendly and the time passed quickly.

Let me say that this week’s photo selections have more to do with illustrating the surreal sale than for pure artistic merit. I will narrate and you will click on each one for better detailing. To return to the blog, simply hit the back button.

While I held our place in line (and yes, by the time we got there, the line was already around the block) Groom took a few photos of the items up for sale. You’ll notice tables of hats and accessories and racks and racks of hanging costumes.

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.” – William Shakespeare

Oh boy. After the fact, friends and family asked how the sale went. The word “sale” does not suffice. Event or experience or maelstrom carries a more accurate tone. Tempest, whirlwind, uproar, madness…

I’m not saying we’ll ever do it again, BUT, if we did, we’d devise a much better method. We made the mistake of being polite, of thinking we could shop the racks and if we came to an item we were interested in, we could then pull it down for a closer look.

Ha! When the gates finally opened, there was a mad dash and the tables of hats and accessories were ravished before we even got in. The crowd from behind pushed forward and in a matter of a minutes everything was claimed. Except for the button jackets, but I’ll get back to that.

It was as if locusts had descended and ate everything in their path. People simply grabbed armloads at a time, not bothering to look through anything until everyone was in separate corners, hoarding and protecting. I think I might have even heard some people growling and witnessed gnashing of teeth.

The official hours were from 9am until 3pm, but the reality was that it began at 9am and ended at 9:19. It went from chaotic and crazy, frenzied and frantic, to calm in under twenty minutes. The tenth photo, the one that deceptively looks like a crowd shot is actually the line. In case you dozed off there, the few people that fit into our camera’s frame is a partial rendering of the looooooong line we had to stand in to pay and make our escape. It snaked back and forth, zig-zagging and curving what felt like forever.

We drove three hours, missed a Saturday Market sales day, stood in the pre-line for 45 minutes and stood in the post-line (in the hot sun, without water), for one hour and forty minutes for 19 minutes of madness. We had nothing better to do than to make friends with those waiting in line near us and discovered folks came from Portland, Northern California and San Francisco just to attend this sale.

You can read a newpaper article about it and see a photo of Groom (and a little bit of my hair) if you want to by following this link. DailyTidings

Yep, that’s me trying on the red corsety thing. In the next photo, do you notice the guy buried underneath the pile? From the little girl’s angle, I wonder if she’s wondering why the clothes are moving.

If you’re looking at the photos chronologically, next up is King Zolo posing with one of the undesirables, the button jackets. If you scroll back up to the 11th picture, one of the after shots where the racks of clothes are empty, you’ll observe the button jackets hanging there in the shame of their rejection.

“Parting is such sweet sorrow.” – William Shakespeare

Alas, poor Yorick, it was finally time to say goodbye to newly minted friends. Parched and overheated, we ate a relaxing lunch upstairs at Alex’s Plaza Restaurant overlooking the Lithia Artisan's Market. After meandering a bit through the handmade marketplace and some downtown shops, we promenaded through Lithia Park and told King Z0L0 everyone who comes to Ashland must partake of Lithia water. He took a sip and promptly spit out the sulfur tasting liquid and although he groused about it the remainder of the weekend, he admitted he couldn’t wait to spring it on some other unsuspecting tourist.

We encountered a deer that allowed Groom to get quite close before it dashed off into the underbrush. Apparently the deer could not read that it wasn’t allowed in the park.

Leaving Ashland and heading toward the other end of the valley, we visited with my parents for a couple of hours, Dad giving King Z0L0 a tour of his extensive telephone and train collection.

After that it was a charming meal with friends at the Bella Union in Jacksonville, sitting outside beneath the vast shade of a 90-year old astounding wisteria and toasting Groom’s birthday. Oh why did we leave our cameras back at the hotel? Darn and blast!

The next morning, Sunday, we met back up again and followed sage recommendations to have a leisurely breakfast at our new favorite restaurant, the Taprock in Grants Pass overlooking the river. From there we went antiquing, always on the search for cool items to retrofit into our bricolage jewelry designs.

On the drive home to Eugene, King Z0L0 decided to stop at the Seven Feathers Casino and won some greenbacks at blackjack, a fun way to end the weekend. He dropped us off back at our cave.

Groom, I just want to publicly say thank you for the last nineteen years and

“My heart is ever at your service.” – William Shakespeare

Never approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back, or a fool from any side.

- Jewish proverb

Oregon has many interesting places to lay one’s head. There’s a bed and breakfast in the trees called Out’n’About Treesort near Cave Junction, the historic lodge at Crater Lake (which has bragging rights as the deepest lake in the United States and is considered a natural wonder), the writerly-themed Sylvia Beach Hotel at the coast, the purportedly haunted Heathman Hotel in Portland or a Tudor style Inn near the Shakespearean Festival in Ashland. But there’s no place quite like Goat Mama and Papa’s.

To recapra (ha ha, Capra means goat in Latin), our friends in the Rogue Valley have rescued two baby goats that live part time in their house (the other part in their customized garage-stable or sizable yard). Of course, a couple years have passed since the adoption and those darling kids are now full grown behemoths, no longer wearing leopard print customized diapers, having been somewhat house broken.

I say somewhat, because the parents still have to be cautious, making sure the girls’ horns don’t puncture the artwork on the wall while playing on the back of the couch, they don’t nibble poisonous plants or eat the kitchen sink.

I just had a thought (surprise!). If Capra means goat in Latin, is a Capricorn a mix between a goat and a unicorn?

I’m not sure what a “spiritual enticement” is, but we saw this sign while visiting Grants Pants over the weekend. We had our own woo-woo moment the first morning we woke up at our friend’s house. While I fumbled with the coffee pot, Groom suddenly pointed to the reflection on Goat Mama’s cupboard.

As plain as you can see, there was a cross shimmering on their newly installed cabinet. I lunged for the camera as Groom waved his hands about trying to figure what in tarnation was casting the shadow. It was a comical scene, me snapping away as a pre-caffeinated hubby did his best to find the originator. Along with the garlic braids, we felt very safe from Vampire attacks, and, Blessed.

Follow me while I jump ahead a few days…

On Sunday evening, after taking down the booth and loading the van when Art In Bloom had finally closed, we walked back into our friend’s house. All the lights were off and it was unusually quiet. Uh-oh…

Phew! Everything was “normal.” They were all curled up on the couch together, cuddling and cudding. There’s nothing quite like the sight of two full grown goats ruminating (chewing their regurgitated food) on the couch while watching television. I take that back, one of the goats was on the couch while the other was stretched out in the recliner, each with an adoring parent petting or combing the pampered lassies.

With five cats and two goats, it’s a common occurrence, although a tad unsettling, to find any one of them on our air mattress, or perhaps discover a “present” they’ve left behind. Creatures of habit, these cloven hoofed beasties require all manner of food and snackies practically around the clock.

In addition to the fresh hay in a manger, the grass in the back forty, and what else can be rooted, foraged and cleverly grasped, Goat Mama provides them with various and assorted treats. They are ga-ga for the almond butter she slathers on her index finger and bravely inserts into their mouths. Baby is gentle, while Honey Bunches of Goats prefers a bite of dactyl to go with her nut spread. Ouch!

They are cuckoo for dried oats served in silver bowls, mushed bananas to the point of liquification, pumpkin innards, and special organic alfalfa hors d’oeuvres. To say these goats are spoiled, well, that would simply be stating the obvious.

Raised in the country, Goat Mama had horses, donkeys, dogs, cats, guinea pigs, and skunks as playmates. Well, the skunks were actually squatters, making their presence odiferously apparent, but the point is she grew up around a variety of animals and is more comfortable around them than the two-legged kind.

She has her own language and patter and can be overheard clucking, bleating, purring, barking or growling. Goat Mama has amazing animal intelligence and can nurture any species. They instinctively know this and untold numbers of wounded critters have managed to find their way to her house so she will take care of them.

As a two-legged varmint myself, I don’t fascinate her the way I would if I had tusks, talons, beaks, wings, fur, feathers, tails or paws. I do have whiskers, but that’s a personal issue that requires tweezers and a magnification mirror.

It was a precious gift to spend Mother’s Day with my folks, see old friends, try new restaurants, and go treasure antiquing. We found some very cool vintage pieces to retrofit into our new line of necklaces, and while we’re on the momentary topic of neck girdles, we successfully sold more, breaking another record, so we’re doing the happy dance about that!

In the aftermath of relishing our visit, I am also glad to be back in our own house, sleeping in our own bed, snuggling with our own cat. As the enduring wisdom of Dorothy rings true, “There’s no place like home.”