Stripped Down

Remember that teak table I bought and then was stuck with for a while? I finally sold it! Thank God. I ended up just selling it for what I paid and I am totally fine with that. My strategy worked, I think. I had it posted for $160 in LA and got an interested buyer who drove down to check it out. It's not a short drive so I knew she was interested and likely thought the $160 wasn't a bad price. Really I just wanted to get rid of the damn thing. When she started the hem-and-haw list of reasons why she didn't know if she REALLY wanted it (usual CL bargaining crap) I just flat-out told her I was mostly interested in getting the $100 back that I paid. Sealed the deal. The Husband said I wasn't much of a bargainer but I wanted done with that table. Unscathed.

On to the chair.

I ripped it apart this past weekend - this is what it looks like in the garage right now:

And the cool thing is when I took off the bottom - I found this!

Kroehler. Which Google tells me is/was(?) a Chicago-based furniture company. Seems like a decently made chair for a $25 CL find. The original upholstery had to go though. And I was right on the money with the date of manufacture. I figured it could be the 60s but felt more like 70s and it's from the first half of 1970.

The other random crap I found in the chair was a pen cap, piece of a child's plastic toy, drugs (a blue pill of some sort - looked like an antibiotic or something), a piece of a paper back book page too small to identify the origin, paper clips, crumbs, but no money! What the hell. Aren't you supposed to find change in couches and chairs? I just find old drugs in my chairs, apparently.

Get In My Belly

I eat meat about once or twice a week depending on if I have to buy lunch of if I've been good about planning (generally, the non-meat options at work are "blah" so I just opt for whatever looks decent and reasonably healthy). This evening was one of those eating meat at home days for me. Last Friday I scored 69 cents a pound family pack of drumsticks and another pack of thighs at Henry's. I saw those thighs and immediately thought - nothing dirty, stop it - I thought "Country Captain!" It was one of those 72-hours-only deals and you know my ass was up early to capitalize on it. And California olive oil and $2.99 lb raw almonds. It was a weird combination of stuff sitting in my cart.

So, the Country Caption. The Husband had seen an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay and the Lee brothers. Flay had challenged them to a throwdown of Country Captain which apparently is a dish known fairly well in the South. I had bought Huz the Lee Brothers cookbook from his Amazon wish list and the funny thing is I didn't even know what recipe was the throwdown, but when I paged through the book, I dog-eared it as one I was going to make because it sounded scrumptious and didn't have any exotic, regional ingredients. Longest sentence ever. Anyway.

Here is it stewing in my Paula Dean Dutch oven. Which is a decent piece of cookware, I must say. It is another Walmart purchase for like $40-ish or something. Might have been $50, I can't remember anymore. Either way, it rocks - the whole on the stove-top-into-the-oven versatility of it is entirely worth the somewhat high price tag (which is still low for a cast iron dutch oven).

The dish consists of carrots, yellow bell peppers, sweet onions, currants, crushed tomatoes, chicken thighs (skin still on, but excess trimmed), and various spices like curry, garam masala, and some others.

Sitting on a bed of rice with toasted almonds, parsley, and... bacon! Yes, bacon on top. I had already started chowing down when I realized that I wanted to take a picture of the dang thing for the blog. That's how good it is - it'll steal your brain and you'll forget about everything except eating your Country Captain.

Thank God I ran 7 miles this morning to make up for that chicken and bacon fat! ;)

Wednesday Willy Nilly

Haaay everybody!

That just reminded me of Bruce from Family Guy. Man, does that guy crack me up. "Oooh Nooo!"

Anyway.

It's feeling very Wednesday today. The good thing is that the weather has retreated from Mother Effing Hot all the way down to cool and drizzly again. Weirdest July ever in San Diego. The unfortunate part of this cooling is that southern Californians actually drive worse with slight drizzle in July than pouring rain in March. It seems to throw off their equilibrium. If it's drizzling in the summer I can expect my 30 mile commute to be an hour, minimum. So that's been fun. Throw in the Del Mar races and a stick shift car and you get Chacha talking herself down from screaming angry raged profanities.

Louie, the Great Christener of Chairs and Potted Plants, was snipped on Monday. I felt kinda bad but it had to be done. Now he's sporting the cone.

The day after the surgery he wasn't too mobile with it on. Day 3, he's charging around, slamming into the corners of walls, bumping it on stairs, etc. While I'm glad it's not depressing him, it's sort of unnerving to be worrying about what type of destruction he might be causing with it. He seems to be very nonchalant about it's presence. Doesn't even care when we put it on. Which makes me wonder how day 4 through 14 are going to go.

There was a lot of coaxing to pee the first evening. Granted, he didn't drink or eat much after the Huz picked him up from the vet, but he didn't pee for like 6 hours and we were starting to worry. After about the 6th attmpt of parading him outside, asking him to "potty" to no avail, out of nowhere with no fanfare, picked up his leg and peed. And peed. And then peed. And then I grew two new white hairs on my head waiting for him to empty his bladder. I guess the 27th time we asked him to potty finally clicked in his still slightly drugged-up doggy head.

Oh, and the other earth shattering news I have for you (no, Husband did not find a job - I'll save you the question - even part-time employers like Lowes and HD are not responding), is I finally started taking apart the old chair:

I'm about 40% through stripping it down. Sometime in 2015 I expect to have the afters for you. Really, it's probably a couple weeks out before it gets done. I am taking pictures at eat step to remember how it was assembled. I still have no clue what year the chair is from or what company made it. I'm pretty confident it's from the 70s or maybe even the 60s based on the fabric print and the mid-century styling. Once I remove the fabric I have to sand down and refinish the wood pieces because they are dinged up. I suppose I could leave them but they are kind of in rough shape and hopefully it'll be quick since they're isn't much of it. Then apply new batting, sew piping, cover buttons, staple it all down, etc, etc, etc. No wonder if costs and arm and a leg to pay someone to do it - all the labor!

I'll keep you posted on the progress or lack thereof.

Double Rainbow All The Way

Ok, folks, I'm a day late but it was termite tenting weekend and my life was a bit upside down for several days!

Anyway, the winner is:

Number 5, Foxy, who came over from Tooje's.

"Whoa. So intense, whoa. Starting to look like a triple rainbow. What does it all mean?"

Anybody watch that ridiculousness? The dude must have been high. Crying about a double rainbow.

Here, in case you haven't. Then the autotune spoof which is funny.

Manila Rope Monkey Fist Giveaway

How's everyone doing? I'm doing a giveaway of something I made with some rope, glue, rocks, and elbow grease. I won't be offended if you think it looks like a giant turd and decide not to comment.

Anyway.

I saw this post and my little crafty DIY heart skipped a few beats. I have seen a couple of them in Grace's fab beach house a few towns south of my humble abode and wanted one or two or seventeen of my own. The idea of saving some moola and making them myself was most excellent.

Really, the project cost me nothing. I have a Home Depot gift card from my Amex points so I used some of it to get some 3/4" manila rope. Except I got all worried that I would screw it up and asked him to give me 18 feet of rope. I really only need the 12 feet the instructions noted, if not less. Here is the big guy:

I hated the idea of wasting 6+ feet of manila rope so I made a little guy:

I am giving him away. If you want him, leave me a comment before Friday, July 9th, 11:59pm, Pacific Time. I will pick one at random (provided a get more than one comment!) using that random number chooser website everyone else uses the following Monday. Though I could just write a Java program to do it and might even be faster than looking up the website because I am a super-dork. Make sure that you have an email address linked to your profile or leave me your email address in the body so I can get your shipping address. Also, I will only ship to US and Canada because I am paying it out-of-pocket and you have heard me bitch about the moola. I can't afford to send this thing to Siberia. So. US and Canada only, pleeze. Muchas gracias.