Toyland from Yesterday

A feature I always enjoyed at Las Fuentes was a display case where residents could share collections gathered over a lifetime. Items dating from the one-room schoolhouse ... old Christmas tree ornaments ... needlework projects ... classic dinnerware. Wonderful stuff. At Mom's new digs, there is a similar showcase. Currently, the subject is toys, most of them from the world before modern plastics.

Brightly painted sheet metal objects...

... including one of those tops that you spun by pumping a spindle up and down.

Two kinds of jacks; the upper sort were a bit light weight and scattered too far apart; the heavier kind (lower) spread nicely when thrown.

A truck and horse-drawn fire engine of heavy cast metal -- older than I am, though not the tank! Note the little wind-up vehicle.

Military items from different ages...


...more sheet metal work, though that truck looks to be plastic, as are the Pluto dogs.

FYI: Since I am currently without PhotoShop, I am not able to cut the size of my pictures down to 60-70K to load into the blog, using iPhoto. I haven't been too satisfied with the low-res pictures produced by my Canon, so I decided to try low-res (480 x 640) on the old Sony, which is only a 2.1 megapixel camera. As I suspected, the Sony does a much better job than my fancy 6 megapixel camera.

Grandchildren!

A week ago, my daughter and her daughter came down for an overnight. I got to see Gdaughter's snazzy new nighty; I'd call it the cat's pajamas, except that it isn't PJs.

The real cat kept his distance from both the Gdaughter, her cat's pajamas and her shoes. That's odd -- usually he smooches shoes.
The next morning the 5-year-old's presence spread throughout the house. Stuffed animals on the futon...

...and the ice cream carton collection, out of its box...

...quickly taking up even more space as it is scattered.

The visit was called short -- time to repack the cartons.

But the little one took time to draw the head of her absolutely most favorite of all animals -- a horse. And taped it to one of the doors, of course, since the fridge is already occupied.

Here's another view of the drawing. She recently spelled her first word the other day -- P-N-Y, pony. I'm sure that H-R-S-E will be next.

Here she is, dressed up to go back to the high country, complete with another stuffed bear and the horsie.

Postscript: a few days later, I was taking pictures in the living room. Max cat spotted the box of ice cream cartons. Ah, a box. Just the thing for a cat to get cozy in. Result: the carton mess was quickly back.

In Which I Commit the Great Shopping Sin

That's right, I went shopping at the WallyMart today. Now, I do have a problem with WalMart, mind you. But it's not the usual complaint (wages, Chinese imports, etc.) No, it's the fact that I can't get out of the dang place without dropping at least a C-note. So much for everyday low prices!

While the amount of Stuff can be overwhelming, especially as we approach the Xmas gifting extravaganza, I felt it my duty as an American to do a walk-through today.

Besides, how can a non-driving sort come by copies of mail box keys, a CO alarm (recommended by my plumbing/furnace man), cardboard cookies, my first El Cheapo cell phone (recommended by my favorite aged-in-grade techie Bad Boy), obscure vitamins, grapefruit and a t-shirt with a dragon on it -- all at one place?

Of course, I had to look at the toy Stuff. Not done-up, Xmas-style like you'd find at many stores, but with bikes hanging from the warehouse ceiling...

...boxed barbies...

...and a belly-baring Bratz doll on plain wire rack shelves.

Next to all the toys, the battery concession. Logical.

On to the adult toys. Games. Flat panel TVs. Too bad WalMart doesn't do that zillion-screen TV display thing that so mesmerizes me over at Sears!

A splendid assortment of fabrics for those who sew special Stuff for Christmas. Tho I was a bit taken aback by the Disney (huh?) sewing machine below. It must have built-in designs or some such. By the way, I have found that WalMart carries almost as many fabrics as the JoAnn superstore nearby.

And, of course, there's the Pink and Lavender for little Princesses department. My daughter has warned me about the rampant pink and purple problem! Ugh.

My cynical self says that the complaints about low wages and chintzy benefits at WalMart really took off after the boys from Arkansas decided to tackle the supermarket biz. Why? Because that's the one segment of retail in which the unions have been strong and wages reasonably good. Plenty of room there for the old price squeeze! My cynical self also faults critics for not admitting that in general, retail wages and benefits have always been lousy--long before old Sam Walton had his great idea of a superstore for the small towns of America.

The food selection is pretty good with certain exceptions. Note that there is no cheese packaged in Black -- the standard wrap for decently, bitingly sharp cheddar (the only kind that's worth taking space in my fridge.) Good booze to go with cheese and crackers, tho.

For the record, a look at the exchanges counter. I'm sure that it will look a lot different after Dec. 25!

And here's my basket ready for check out. Yep, way over that $100 minimum I mentioned at the beginning!