Chickenminnie’s Weblog

The Professor has flown to San Antonio, Texas for a few days of R & R with his sister and I have been having a good time playing bachelorette. Since I have always really enjoyed living alone it’s like a nice little mini vacation for me, and I don’t even have to leave home. I get to spread my reading materials all over the couch and hog the remote so I can od on Home & Garden Television and the Food Network. Bachelorette week invariably means great shopping, eating cereal over the sink and spending quality time with my chick. Funny note: I just looked up bachelorette in my thesaurus and one of the substitutions was spinster. Maybe I should quit while I’m ahead.

Anyway, Ken views my little vacations from him with a mixture of amusement  and consternation because he knows I don’t bother to cook for myself. Before he left this time he made some chili and put it in individual containers for me. After showing me where they were located in the refrigerator he looked at me and said, “You’re going to eat cereal over the sink, aren’t you?” He knows me well; which is one of the great things about living with him and why it’s always okay when the mini-vacation is over.

Sal’s Boutique as my friend Maryann affectionately calls the Salvation Army Store, is a blessing for thrifty clothing lovers like myself (my daughter prefers the term cheapass). As a regular customer I have managed to amass a huge cashmere collection, some fabulous sweaters and a few big name jackets, not to mention a fair amount of art pottery. Sure, you have to put up with some fairly colorful people, and it usually doesn’t smell too great in there, but that’s part of the adventure. And where else can you get an Armani jacket for seven dollars? Sal’s satisfies the “champagne taste” textile junkie in me while catering to my beer pocketbook.

Years of working in the sewing business gave me an appreciation for good clothing and fabrics, so even if I don’t buy an item there is still a chance I can experience the thrill of happening upon a couture Chanel jacket, a vintage silk cheongsam or a retro Harris Tweed suit. Sal’s is also a good place to find the occasional EBay resale item; I once paid five bucks for a silk Japanese Hapi coat which sold on EBay for seventy two dollars.

The conservationist in me appreciates the recycling aspect of my Sal’s habit.  When I get tired of a piece of clothing it goes back to the donation bin (or one of my sisters) and I get to buy more.  If I itemized on my tax return I could even write off the donations…how great is that?

March is the most wretched month. It’s long, devoid of three day weekends, and seems to sport the worst weather of any other month in the calendar. People are always crabby in March because they are sick of the cold, tired of being cooped up in the house and in desperate need of some sunlight.

Like everyone else I’m officially sick of winter, and the fact that garden catalogs have been arriving in my mailbox in great numbers since the day after Christmas is not helpful. Those of us in Zone 5 have a long way to go before planting time and even though I am a planner, the garden catalog people should not send me anything until mid March. It’s just a big fat tease and kind of mean.

About the only good thing that happens in March is my birthday. I’m going to be forty seven and realized that the old term “pushing fifty” pretty much applies now, though I will admit it’s kind of fun to say it. I have never been particularly hung up on how old I am, and I have a hard time understanding people who actually lie about it. Somehow having to remember a fake age seems like too much of a waste of energy.

The silk market bag is coming along, but I need to purchase a set of double pointed needles in order to do the decreases on the bottom; a circular needle is just not going to work. I am also working on a baby sweater which is almost instant gratification and a good thing to do between big projects.