Finding Ephemera, and Joy In the Morning?

November 14, 2016Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

butts_dispensary

I have been trolling about online for 19th century ads for patent medicine and other assorted ephemera as well as car ads for vintage Toyotas, and I might consider some 1970s era ads for hygiene products and/or clothing (because that shit is hilarious) and various other weird things to transform into wall art for my house.

It’s my house. I’m the only one who lives there. So my décor is entirely up to me. If I wanted to paint every wall in the house hot pink that is my prerogative. I haven’t done that, mostly because a.) I don’t have time, and b.) hot pink would look weird on paneling. This being said, eclectic is the only word I have to describe what I want. If I like it, it goes up.

68toyotacoronacoupe (but they didn’t synchronize reverse until the 2000’s)

There might be some that think I am being heartless or a bit callous in the transitions I’m making in my life. The precious only male child is more than a little incensed that I have had the truck detailed (and that I am letting a friend in need borrow the truck for awhile) yet he never claimed that he wanted it or cared what I did with it before. I know everyone handles grief differently, but why he would want me to let the truck sit in the garage and rot (and reek of old cigarettes and various food wrappers) is beyond me.

The difficult thing is that I have been waiting for years to be able to “get on with my life-” to be able to go have a good time if I feel like it, and to participate at church and in other activities. No, it’s not about partying like a rock star (way too old) or anything debauched, just being able to do what I want, when I want, within reason. I feel sort of bad because Mom and Dad both think that because I live back in town and I live alone that I am going to want to spend all my time away from work with them. The idea here is not to ignore them, but I do have people I want to be around, and things I would like to do that don’t involve them.

activities

It has felt good to be able to go have dinner with a friend, to go out to malls and such, or to sit and watch old Journey concerts on You Tube. And I am not going to feign being the “grieving widow” because I’m not feeling it. I spent too many years dealing with Jerry and his tirades and demands. I am prone to depression, and if I really wanted to fall into that mess I probably could, but I’ve spent too much time there already. Life is short, and I’ve already wasted enough of it being used and worn out and depressed.

And to be frank about it, 12 years of involuntary chastity was not exactly what I signed up for either. I am certainly not easy or a slut (otherwise, I don’t see going 12 years without, married or not) but should the right opportunity (and I emphasize the word right) arise to remedy that situation, I am not going to refuse. I am a free woman now.

The Times, They are Weird, and Payback, the Ineffable Bitch

February 19, 2016Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

Conservatives Gather Near Washington DC for CPAC 2015 (February 27, 2015)

Donald Trump speaks at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center at National Harbor MD on February 27, 2015. (Photo by Jeff Malet)

Ok, I will say it. I’ve not been as wound up about a presidential election since I was an 11 year old kid passing out flyers and knocking on doors for the Reagan campaign in 1980. The last two election cycles (really, the last four, if you count G.W. Bush) I’ve sort of held my nose and voted for the Republican front runner not necessarily because he was the best choice there could possibly be, but because the Democrat running against him was a certifiable nut job or a flat out socialist/communist/leftist kook. I’ll take a Mitt Romney- a moderate at best- over Barack Obama (in fact, I’d take my dead Husky -Sheena, as she had more sense and would do less damage in her current state of decomposition) any day of the week, but Romney was certainly no Ronald Reagan.

offended yoda

At first I saw and heard Donald Trump and thought, “Ross Perot 2.0,” but I’m not thinking that so much anymore. The Donald gets things done. Better yet, he makes sense. This could get interesting. I might actually enjoy voting for this guy. I might actually be downright gleeful to see him win.

There are some good arguments against Trump. He is vulgar. He is brash. He has been on both sides of the political fence over the years. He is in your face. He is NOT the epitome of diplomacy and graciousness that was Ronald Reagan. But these aren’t Reagan’s times. We as a country, and a society have devolved much since then. If nothing else, Trump speaks to What’s Happening Now, and like sane and rightfully pissed off Americans everywhere, just having someone address what’s wrong and how it can be right again, is a breath of fresh air.

hobo died

Establishment suits like Cruz (who has the same nebulous eligibility issues as good old Barry O) or Rubio are just Democrat (socialist) lite and will continue on treading the “hold your nose,” lukewarm waters of appeasement like the entire GOP has during the entire illegitimate Obama presidency. I, for one, want the anti-Obama. Someone who won’t be lukewarm, and who refuses to feed alligators.

burger_king_obama

Trump’s vulgarity is mild compared to the greater vulgarity to which he stands in opposition. He’s voicing all those politically correct truths that nobody dares bring up- the issue of immigration from terrorist harboring countries, illegal immigration, welfare dependency, the unfair taxation of working people to subsidize programs and people who taxpayers strongly oppose, and the unholy disaster that is Obamacare. Trump not only identifies the elephants in the room, he exposes the “Emperor” wannabe’s total lack of clothing, substance and morals. I am thoroughly enjoying that.

All of the things I listed above are far more vulgar than Trump calling Obama a pussy, or Trump referring to Hillary Clinton as evil. Obama is a pussy, and Hillary most certainly is evil, but that’s beside the point. I don’t like to engage in ad hom attacks, but I agree Obama is a pussy (and if you’re telling the truth, and backing it up with facts, then it ceases to be an ad hom attack) because he is not man enough to flat out tell the truth and tell the world he is a globalist, communist MUSLIM who is perpetrating jihad right along with his terrorist buddies. Hillary is evil because she is behind the very things that Obama also supports, which is especially heinous. A woman being a cheerleader for the legality of late term abortions up until the due date of the child, (?) which to me says she is right up there on the evil scale with the biblical account of pagans sacrificing their offspring to good ol’ Molech. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose- the more things change, the more they stay the same. Baby killing is nothing new, but it’s still evil no matter how you try to rationalize it.

joan

I dare to hope that the abomination of Obama will end some day. Maybe Hillary will go to jail for her treachery and fraud as well.

And I haven’t even started on the mysterious (yet oddly convenient for Obama and evil crew) death of a Supreme Court justice…

Fascinatingly Horrible, a Painful and Awe-Inspiring Truth, and a Silent Witness

May 21, 2015Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I’ve often wondered when it comes to abandoned cars- why this particular dying place?

I find entropy fascinatingly horrible. Part of me doesn’t want to watch the process of death, decomposition and/or decay, but at times I am almost compelled to do so, because there’s also a strange and captivating beauty in it.

Perhaps my fascination with old and decomposing things lies in the knowledge that somewhere, in a better time, those things were once new and whole.

I could get lost in a place like this. Intentionally.

I don’t like what this world has turned into, at least culturally, and the turning began years-decades, actually- before I was born. Not all change is bad of course, but the moral and cultural disintegration of society is definitely a negative change as far as I’m concerned. I’ve said it before: Orwell’s 1984 was meant to serve as a warning, not an instruction manual. I think Orwell would be spinning in his grave if he could see just how eerily true his observations have become.

All the freaking time. Just look up at all the traffic cameras.

I do appreciate many technological advancements- in fact I would probably been long dead without a fair number of mid-20th century medical advances. Most likely I’d never lived beyond infancy, for good or for ill. And being the third (unwanted female to boot) of three, they’d probably never even bothered spending the scratch on the post mortem pic.

Once you’ve had three kids, don’t they all sort of look alike?

Anyone old enough to have ever had to mess with a broken cassette tape or who has been stranded miles away from a phone gets what I’m saying about technology. If we could have the technology without the dumb shit, and without the social and moral atrophy that seems to come along with it, perhaps utopia could be achieved!

I am not nearly that naïve. (Back to Orwell and Animal Farm and the time honored truth that some pigs are more equal than others.)

Of course, we all know that there is no such thing as a perfect world. In fact, I honestly believe in the devolution of humanity.

If only people knew… the VW “Thing” was a thinly disguised Kübelwagen.

And the whole Volkswagen concept was brewed up by Adolf Hitler.

I’ve commented many times on the strange beauty of abandoned machinery, and also of the concept that there might really be literal deus ex machina or real “gods in the machines.”

I can only imagine the silent witness written in cold, dead steel, and what does it have to say?

Sort of like a post mortem for an old, old VW Transporter.

The reality of the Transporters was (and is) that these are pretty much only meant to be owned and operated by technicians capable of repairing them.

Prayers for the Pragmatic, Endless Winter, and Axioms of the Streetwise

March 5, 2014Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I have a few new words of wisdom for my adult son (the Precious Only Male Child.) I thought they were so good, I just had to share.

The path to perdition is paved by the prick. So stop thinking with yours and start using the big head up top.

Good places to meet intelligent women: Church. The Library. The “Y.”

Bad places to meet women: Bars that play country music. Any establishment where the center of attraction is a vertical pole, and patrons are encouraged to deposit dollar bills in G-strings. Any establishment that plays The Village People, the clientele is all male, and they’re all wearing leather.

Steve-o knows better than to join the sausage fest, and I don’t see him as the featured dance partner at the Blue Oyster, so he doesn’t really need a warning about the guys in the tight leather pants and stiletto heels. He does need a warning regarding avoiding women of loose morals and open legs as it were. It’s lovely that your girlfriend (or tonight’s bed partner) is willing to show you a good time. It’s not so lovely that she’s probably been providing the same services for every other male under the age of 25- in a three county area.

If this van’s a rockin’, someone’s sharing an STD or two…

I still remember the movie we got to see in health class back in 1982. It was called “VD is Nothing to Clap About.” It was narrated by of all people- Dick Cavett. It included some most unforgettable cartoons of cartoon hippies giving some cartoon VW Transporter suspensions a real workout. It was the summer of love indeed- or at least the film offered the imagination some gratuitous behind-the-Transporter-door cartoon sex. Even though this film was mandatory in health class, it was blow-snot-out-your nose hilarious. I still remember the cautions given about sleeping around and getting the clap, or syphilis, or crabs. I’d really, really like to know if anyone has uploaded a copy of that film. I would love, love, love to have the link to it should anyone have thought to preserve such a meaningful piece of 1960’s ephemera.

Apparently the clap, syphilis and crabs were the only STDs that were known to science in 1968, which is when that most comprehensive educational film was produced. Today’s STDs are a lot more deadly and usually a lot more permanent than just a case of the crabs or even a dose of the clap, but hey, it was 1968- when the air was dirty but sex was (relatively) clean. Today’s dating scene provides a wide and varied STD smorgasbord. Your stripper ho was great for a night, but herpes is forever.

Even Dad had to weigh in on Steve-o’s last skank du jour. I was surprised to get such a pithy insight from Dad, as he is usually very conservative when discussing potentially off-color subject material, but he is becoming a bit more brash in his older age. He speaks the truth though:

You know what a skank and a rooster have in common?

A rooster says “cock-a-doodle-doo.” The common street skank says, “Any cock will do.”

Ewww.

I don’t think this winter will ever end.

I think we finally have started a path toward the Central Ohio season of Snowbooger Grey. At least on my car.

I can’t recall a winter here that seems to linger on so long, or that has been quite as cold.. The snow started in November and hasn’t really gone away for more than a few days or so since. That’s unusual for this area. It’s usually just overcast, moderately cold (but not below freezing) and raining this time of year, until about the end of May.

Al Gore can bite me sideways with the man-made global warming tripe. The weather cycle has turned back to “mostly cold.” In 20 years it will turn back to “mostly hot.” Whoop de doo. We humans are pretty damned arrogant- and just plain silly- if we think a little bit of car exhaust and a few cow farts are going to turn the tundra into a tropical paradise.

Dear Lord, keep Your arm around my shoulder and Your hand over my mouth.

While You’re at it, take away Obama’s phone and pen and put him in a rubber room for the duration.

All joking aside- sometimes that’s all that keeps me from strangling the daylights out of those who richly deserve it.

I know I shouldn’t be such a wisenheimer on Ash Wednesday, when I’m supposed to be contemplating my own mortality. I have thought of a few things that Steve-o might want to share after I commence to take the Dirt Nap at my funeral before he has me taxidermied and turned into a coffee table.

Don’t look at it as if I’m dead. I’ve just been returned to the Master Craftsman for extensive cleaning and repair.

If you present my stiff carcass in an itchy pink nightie and bad makeup for viewing in an open casket so Mom’s friends can file by and exclaim, “She looks soooo gooood!” I will haunt you forever.

Pop Tarts, Mountain Dew and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos do not comprise a balanced diet.

Techno music is appropriate for porn movie sound tracks. If you want to listen to some good music, download the collection on my SD card in my phone to your computer.

It Came From Planet Zit, Victorian Quack Cures, and It’s Frozen

January 23, 2014Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

It has taken on a life of its own…

Thankfully this face crater is not on my face. I have enough problems. Unfortunately it’s on the POMC’s face, which really sucks for him. Nasty. The worst part of it is that if the antibiotics don’t kill it off he might have to go to a plastic surgeon and have it cut out. Joy and rapture- and this for a guy who almost lost it over a simple blood draw. I had my quarterly required blood draw yesterday. Big deal. I really don’t even notice it, but then the phlebotomists at the lab draw blood all day long. It’s simply what they do, and they’re good at it. The POMC, on the other hand, I hate to see what kind of anguish he might experience over a minor surgery that will (while still being minor) have a bit more to it than a simple blood draw.

I had to have a funky growth taken off the side of my head about 15 years ago. I was worried about losing hair over it, but they didn’t even shave that section of my head. The actual surgery was about five minutes, and it wasn’t that bad except for the surgeon was a little rough with the Lidocaine. Getting to surgery was the problem. I was scheduled for 7:30 AM, but didn’t get taken in until almost 2:30 PM. The guy who was scheduled for surgery right before me picked a really inconvenient time to Bite the Big One- as in, he commenced to take the Dirt Nap while he was on the operating table getting an ingrown toenail or something cut out.

Eventually, the Morgue Cart comes for us all.

So I had to wait around while they brought the code team in to try to get him jumpstarted. That was an effort in futility. Once they were satisfied that the guy was completely dead, and there was no revival going to happen, then I had to wait for the medical examiner’s team to come in and take notes and clean up and do the paperwork necessary to send the poor dude down to the morgue. Then the cleaning crew had to come in and hose everything down so it would smell nice and disinfectant-y, presumably in the hope that maybe I wouldn’t get too freaked that some guy just died in there while getting a minor surgical procedure on somewhat of the same scale of what I was having.

Yeah, the scent of shit-and-piss hosed down with disinfectant spray and Clorox doesn’t remind me of my own mortality and impending death. Not at all. ‘Kay… What made the whole experience even more fun is that the surgeon was a big burly guy with a very German name and a rather morbid sense of humor.

I was rather pissed by the time they were finally getting me rolled in to surgery. I had spent most of the day starving, sifting through stacks of distressed, inane and aged periodicals, and enduring such drivel on TV as Montel and other various daytime “Who Be My Baby Daddy” sorts of shows. Even so, in spite of my angst, curiosity got the best of me, and I asked some of the nurses and orderlies what sort of disaster went down, and why it was cause for my very minor surgery to be so delayed. They were more than happy to give me the low down on why my surgery was delayed for seven hours.

I also had to find it funny when the surgeon comes loping in the operating room, syringe full of Lidocaine, saying, “Hey don’t die on me here- that’s what happened to the last guy. It’s bad for business.” At least the surgery was quick, and he didn’t do any damage to the facial nerve the growth was right on top of. I can still eat without drooling and can enunciate when I speak, (these are good things.) Also a good thing, according to the path lab, the growth was benign. It never came back.

Getting a new driver’s license and a registration renewal at the BMV is faster than processing a dead dude to go to the morgue, apparently. Shit happens. Sometimes the timing just sucks.

The BMV: Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here!

Of course the weather here in beautiful Central Ohio is absolutely frozen- right now it’s 9º. Of course when it is that cold here, that cold is always accompanied by gale force winds that make it feel like it’s 20° below. Just walking out to the car is being outside too much in this weather.

I wish there actually were something like this device, and that it actually worked.

There is something a bit creepy about wearing batteries on your head. There is also something a bit creepy about having a constant, splitting headache that feels like someone is trying to break out my hard palate from the inside with a crowbar, and to take the same crowbar and poke my right eye clean out of the socket from the inside too.

I’d duct tape some nine-volts to my noggin if that would make this shit go away, damn tootin’.

Unfortunately I think it’s just another reaction to stress and the stupidity that surrounds me.

I don’t think this would do much of anything.

I wish this one would work, but we all know better than that.

Party Like It’s 1895, Late Winter Apathy, and More Victorian Death

March 4, 2013Tonya Lanthron 1 Comment

Dead? Nah, it’s just early March in Central Ohio.

Early March in Ohio is about the same as late February. It’s cold. It’s windy. There is at least one form of precipitation happening at any given time. The season of Snowbooger Grey lingers on. Sometimes it lingers on until May.

So I figure I’ll go back to some of my favorite art (yes, photography is an art) and dig into some postmortem scans. I don’t know why I find 100 + year old pictures of dead people fascinating, except maybe to underscore that death is a constant and to remember that one’s time above ground is short, unless of course, you’re at the BMV.

“Lifetone” Embalming Fluid- for keeping stiffs fresher longer!

Someday, if I am ever free to determine my own décor, without having to worry about things getting ruined, broken or permeated with cigarette stink and dust, I would furnish my entire house in bizarre ephemera and trinkets that have a macabre twist- like the kinds of stuff featured on the show Oddities. The only problem with that (other than Jerry is as messy and destructive as a horde of hogs, so valuables have to be kept out of his reach) is that stuff is generally expensive if you don’t procure it in strange places like yard sales and flea markets and such.

I probably should go with Jerry more often when he goes to estate sales and yard sales and auctions but I really don’t have the attention span. I’m looking for completely different stuff than he is. He generally looks for redneck crap (lawn mowers, tools, beer-related ephemera, camping and fishing stuff, and occasionally firearms) to resell, while I look for the cool antique conversational items that are a bit harder to find.

For a generation of people who were prone to maudlin sentiment, I find it interesting that some Victorian era greeting cards were just plain emotionless. Maybe it’s like today, where you save the formal cards for obscure relatives and business connections with whom you wish to remain cordial, but not necessarily friendly.

Translation: I like you less than Neal Schon, but more than the Quaker Oat Box Guy.

The nice thing about this card is that I could pretty much say that about anyone who hasn’t gone out of his or her way to piss me off. I could design my own Victorian cards.

This is nice and neutral, but it begs the question:

Upon which list do you appear?

I’ve never really been the greeting card type. I like cards if they’re funny, and if they are relevant to the one getting the card. I don’t do maudlin sentiment well though, and I tend to be a bit of a wise ass if given the opportunity.

If they can walk on two legs, then they can carry AR15s. Just sayin’.

It’s bad that I’m this bored. However, it’s good that I am entertaining myself in a quasi-constructive way. The guys I work with really don’t like it when I put their faces on fat bikers, hippos, or even bimbos with really big boobs in bikinis. The bad thing is with the rise of both the easily concealed digital camera and WalMart, there is no end to just plain awful pics.

Some fashion statements are better left unsaid.

Tonight I have to drop Jezebel off to be spayed and declawed. I am always somewhat ambivalent about declawing cats, but Jezebel has a rather destructive habit of scratching on the door frames instead of the scratching post (F.B. also has claws, but she’s older, very sedate, lets me clip her claws, and actually uses the post.) Jezebel also gets caught in the curtains and on the furniture, and even though she will take medication without going spaz, she will not allow me to clip her claws. Isabel was a curtain climber when she was little as well as she had a rather disturbing habit of climbing people so she could ride around on your shoulder. Fanny almost destroyed one end of a chair arm, and almost gave me a really nasty cat bite when I tried to trim her claws, before she was old enough to be declawed. Cat bites are serious business. The only thing worse than being bitten by a house cat is being bitten by an AIDS or hepatitis infected human. Cats have bacteria in their saliva that can literally infect your blood and eat your flesh.

Jezebel won’t be contributing to the feral cat overpopulation issue.

Some cats can learn to use the post and/or deal with having their claws clipped. I have had a few cats who I didn’t need to declaw, and I don’t do it capriciously, because I know it’s not a fun surgery. But if a cat is strictly indoors, and it’s an issue of declawing vs. the cat being homeless, I’ll go with declawing. I know. Mean cat mom, I know, but it would be more cruel for Jerry to catch her going to town on a door frame and drop kick her across the house. When he’s five sheets to the wind I wouldn’t put anything past his drunk ass. The plus side to declawing, if there is one, is that our vet is a very good surgeon and she has always done a fantastic job on declaws. I still hate doing it.

Creepy. Not a good retouch job on the eyes at all.

Of course, I don’t even care for open casket funerals. The idea of old-hen relatives of the deceased filing by the coffin and making commentary is rather distasteful to me. I still remember my relatives’ commentary when Aunt Ellen died. “Doesn’t Ellen look lovely?”

Ellen did NOT look lovely. She looked pretty damned dead. She was so orange she looked like she passed out at the Oompa Loompa Prom. And she had to be dead to be wearing all that day-glo orange lipstick. She was a Pentecostal, which means she wasn’t allowed to wear makeup, but she did have to wear dresses when in public.

When I die, I hope Steve-o honors my wishes and has me cremated, but he has the same sick sense of humor I do. He will probably have me taxidermied and use me for a coffee table.

More Fun With Obscure Old Things, Virtual Road Trip, and Winter Funk Comes Early

January 9, 2013Tonya Lanthron 3 Comments

At least I can keep my sunburst plate (the top one) and save $8 as opposed to getting the new plate which I think is rather busy for a license plate.

Usually I don’t get to the really despondent depths of the Winter Funk until the butt-end of February, when my birthday rolls around, bringing with it the ominous and expensive task of going to the BMV to pay for yet another registration sticker for yet another year.. This year that task is doubly odious because I have to renew my driver’s license as well as my car registration, so I can’t just do it online. Joy and rapture. A new pic of me- four years older, that is guaranteed to be bad enough that it should either appear in “Busted” magazine, or have “Correctional Institute Inmate” underneath it. As far as “Busted” magazine, it’s a guilty pleasure of mine to gawk at the mug shots, laugh at the bizarre names (there is actually a guy in one of them whose name is “Sequin”) and examine them to see if anyone I know is in there. At least as far as I know I’m not going to get stuck with the fugly new license plate. I don’t care for that design, and it really doesn’t go very well with my Hello Kitty license plate frames.

This goes better with the old sunburst plate anyway.

Anyway, I am trying to head off the despair and gloom at the pass. I am making it a point to go to at least one Bible study class (at church, among other live humans) a week, which I’ve not been doing since last October and it shows. I am not the best Christian example in the world by a long shot, but I have an even harder go of things when I neglect Bible study with other people. Yes, I read and study on my own, but the only observations I see are my own and too much navel-gazing is not a good thing. Even though I crave solitude like a junkie craves a fix, I still need to hear the opinions and observations of others- particularly from those with different viewpoints than mine- from time to time.

More importantly, I have to remember that there is life beyond the mundane, and I have been very neglectful of the spiritual as of late.

I couldn’t be terribly interesting to watch.

Anyway, I have found some more fascinating ephemera from the early-to-mid 20th century that piqued my interest:

Toilet water cures baldness. Who’d have thought?

Men generally are less vain than women. Though comfortable, I can’t bring myself to wear Velcro tennis shoes in public. However, some men have a rather twisted sense of vanity and of utility:

What they’re not telling you is the recliner on the boat is nicer than the one in the house.

I have also discovered that the redneck love of bacon is not a recent discovery. Even in the late 19th century a national love affair with pork products was obvious.

The United States of Pork!

To quote the French: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!

At least back in the day – before Oklahoma was a state, obviously, you got the cool little diagram with all the piggies on it to take home.

While I’m in the road tripping mood, it’s interesting to see how people other than Midwesterners look at the US. I know foreigners probably view the great vast flatness of the Midwest with trepidation (we’re not dangerous, usually, just boring.) There are flush toilets in the South now- even in West Virginia, although West Virginia is technically not part of the South. The reason why West Virginia is West Virginia is that they decided to stay in the Union instead of becoming part of the Confederacy along with the rest of Virginia. Southern Ohio isn’t part of the South either, but try telling them that. Especially that guy in Greene County who has the barn with the huge rebel flag on the roof that’s glaringly visible from I-71 northbound. Never mind that he’s 35 miles north of the Ohio River (and therefore the Mason-Dixon Line.) I guess if the South rises again it might have to redefine its geographical boundaries.

A West Virginia view on what’s what and who’s who in the US. Or maybe a Nebraskan’s?

I still think it would be interesting to take an English speaking foreigner (and yes, I am thinking of Karl Pilkington and the Idiot Abroad series) into the depths of fly-over country. Use Central Ohio as the epicenter, and the only rule for the itinerary being that the destination has to be within 500 miles of the I-70 I-71 split in the middle of Columbus. I could have a lot of fun with that. Visit the Midwest, New England and a good portion of the South that nobody ever bothers to see. I mean, since when has anyone said much about tourism in Cincinnati (which actually is a very cool historical destination) or Detroit, which you can skip entirely, unless you’re into armed robbery and gang rape, with the exception of the Henry Ford Museum (which is technically in Dearborn) and even then, leave your valuables in Columbus. The Ford Museum is worth the drive and even worth the risk to one’s person in getting there. Otherwise I would pretty much give the entire state of Michigan a pass.

This is the Reagan Limo. I took this pic the last time I was at the Ford Museum- back in 2007.

Of course I have not (yet) made it to what might well be the holy grail of museums- the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. I’ve never been to Philadelphia. I can only hope it’s not as bad as Detroit. I simply have to get a.) enough scratch to make the trip, and b.) I have to plan the logistics so that I can stay overnight somewhere because it’s a 12 hour drive each way.

Nothing says cool like old preserved medical anomalies.

I Don’t Seek Approval, Party Like It’s 1899, and Things that Don’t Suck

January 3, 2013Tonya Lanthron 3 Comments

I usually don’t succumb to the lure of corny party kitsch, but the light up necklace was cute.

I’ve said before I don’t deal much in the currency of optimism, so I don’t see this year being much of an improvement over last. In fact, I started today out rather depressed. Today’s been one of those days where I’m actually trolling for things to cheer me up a bit. I’m actively fighting against the urge to just concede to the Dark Funk and give up. I guess the fact that I’m fighting the temptation to just give into hopelessness is either a good sign, or it’s just an unwillingness to face the reality that my life is pretty much hopeless.

The best way to give myself a reality check, I’ve discovered is to make three lists- Things that Suck that I Can’t Change, Things that Suck that I Can Change, and Things that Don’t Suck.

Things that Suck that I Can’t Change:

Obama. ‘Nuff said.

Personal poverty/ not being financially independent

Being stuck in Ohio, especially in the winter

Health issues* (can mitigate but not eliminate- bad heredity and effects from past diseases/injuries suck)

Jerry – especially when he gets into his “bitch about everything and blame everything on me” mode

Things that Suck that I Can (*theoretically anyway) Change

My own reaction to things that suck

My neglect of friends that I should make an effort to see and communicate with more often

I already turn off the “mainstream” TV news (can’t handle the constant Obama worship) and I already avoid following garbage on TV such as anything Honey Boo Boo or the Kardashians are doing. Admittedly I probably get into true crime shows (TruTV, Discovery ID, etc.) and the Military Channel way too much. I should probably cut down on “World’s Dumbest” and “1000 Ways to Die” and get back into reading a lot more than I do now (although I read a lot by any standard) and maybe get into something a bit more uplifting than unsolved murders, people earning their Darwin Awards, and 20th century history. I mean, how much is left unturned regarding WWII and Adolf Hitler?

Things that Don’t Suck

God

The dogs and cats

The vacuum cleaner when it gets clogged up with Tipsy McNumbNuts’ cigarette pack cellophanes (the irony of which is that it sucks when the vacuum cleaner doesn’t…)

There is no vacuum cleaner made that I don’t have to unclog, tear apart and otherwise rework every time I use the damned thing.

Somehow the deer in the headlights look is a little too typical for me.

Now that I’ve determined that God and the dogs and cats don’t suck, then it should probably follow that I should spend my time in the company of Entities that Don’t Suck as much as I can.

Since for now I do appear to be vertical and sucking up valuable oxygen, let’s be creative and try to enjoy it!

I rather enjoy Victorian ephemera- especially patent medicines and other creepy stuff from that era. I’m surprised anyone survived being treated with the stuff they used as medicine back then, since most of it included either alcohol or opium or various poisons like arsenic, but even today there’s some pretty questionable stuff being used as medicine.

Imagine the same scenario today, only the rednecks have chainsaws, and the little girl has a bottle of moonshine.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

That’s actually one of the few French phrases I remember from high school French class (Why in the hell did I take French? Did I think I was going to be deported to Quebec?) and it means, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Yes, they do, and not always in a good way.

I didn’t think Harry Potter had to worry about VD. Or was that “mugworts?” That sounds like VD anyway. Something like that.

I’m thinking “Bad Hump” would be a better name for a VD cure-all. “Take this stuff for last week’s bad hump.” Or you could just leave it to Dr. Butts:

I want to be cured via the US Postal Service. By Dr. Butts. Yeah.

It’s really kind of scary considering that there really were no cures for VD in Victorian times, and if you got the syph or the clap it could kill you. Sort of like AIDS today, and heaven only knows whatever other deadly STDs are lurking out there that nobody knows about yet. Forced chastity might bite in a lot of ways, but I’m old enough to know that 1.) no man is worth a deadly disease, and 2.) there are such things as “meat substitutes” if you get my drift. The advantage of the “meat substitute” is you don’t have to fix it dinner or unclog its cigarette pack cellophanes from the vacuum cleaner. I only wish I’d figured that out 20 years ago. Just don’t run out of batteries.

Piles: Old time word for “hemorrhoid” – just an FYI

Why is it that back in the day being German cast some sort of legitimacy upon medical quackery? And I find it hard to believe that a medical doctor would spend most of his life on a hemorrhoid cure, but then everyone needs a purpose. I’ve still not figured out exactly why I’m still sucking up valuable oxygen, so I’m the last one to talk.

The 20th century wasn’t much better, but at least you could get a good night’s rest, forget about your hemorrhoids AND forget about your pathetic lack of self-esteem!

Victorian Ephemera and Other Morbid and Melancholy Forays

June 7, 2012Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

Lactated Food sounds pretty gross, but it’s simply an early form of baby formula made from powdered lactose (milk sugar) and various grains. Infant mortality was about 25% in Victorian times for a number of reasons, many of which are preventable today. If a mother wasn’t able to adequately breast feed her child this was one of the alternatives. If you’ve ever tried a taste of modern baby formula, or even smelled the stuff, it couldn’t taste much worse. Today’s baby formulas are majorly nasty tasting, but if you don’t know any better and that’s all you get, well that’s all you get. Unfortunately Lactated Food, while it may have served as a emergency baby formula, it couldn’t do much to prevent the epidemics or correct the sanitation issues of that era which likely caused most of the infant mortality.

The Victorians are especially known for their sense of drama in matters involving death. Death was not something that was shoved off into hospitals and nursing homes, far away from the rhythm of daily life. Death was part of daily life. The guy who built your furniture was the same guy who built your coffin. They also called it a coffin, not a “casket,” or “receptacle for remains.” Mortality wasn’t something reserved for the catastrophically injured, terminally ill, or the aged who are normally shoved off into some sort of facility for months or years before they die- mortality was an equal opportunity proposition. Death usually wasn’t a lingering thing back then. One day you might be doing your daily business and the next you could just plain drop dead. I think that’s the reason why there were so many post-mortems taken. You didn’t have a chance to have so and so’s pic taken when he/she was alive, so now you have to do it before he/she starts to rot.

Was it winter? Did they put her out on the porch to chill until the photographer could make it? ‘Cause she looks pretty well preserved for being dead over a week.

I don’t know why I find post-mortem photography to be fascinating. It’s creepy to take pics of dead people and even creepier to gawk at them, but I guess it’s more morbid curiosity. The Victorians raised post-mortem photography to a high science, even developing a sort of guitar stand for the dead so they could be maneuvered into a more lifelike pose:

Now I can explain Keith Richards.

Should I have had the misfortune to have been born in Victorian times, I likely would not have survived much more than a day or two- I was born with pneumonia and had to spend a week in the hospital from the beginning. Sickly infants were the first to go. The Victorian world made 1000 Ways to Die appear comparatively tame. If the contagions and bad nutrition and having to wander around in horse shit didn’t kill you, the odds of death by accident or misadventure were pretty good too.

I still admire the artwork of the Victorian era though. The drawings are stunning and ornate. The clothing, while beautiful, would have had to have been something wicked to clean and maintain, and I don’t see how any of that stuff, especially corsets, could have been comfortable. I balk at underwire bras and pantyhose.

I have no idea how these poor women could breathe- but they were probably already rail-thin from always having Montezuma’s Revenge.

Another hallmark of the Victorian era was maudlin sentiment, which was sort of understandable when you didn’t know from one day to the next who would be alive and who would be dead. The next birthday you remember might be the last, so yuk it up good. The cards- and I admit I don’t spend much time or money on paper cards these days- are awesome. Even the ads are so much more artistic than the ones we are treated to today:

Of course the stuff in the ad probably had lead and arsenic and heroin and cocaine in it, but what a pretty ad!

Patent medicines- basically anything someone could put in a bottle or a tin and market creatively- intrigue me also. A lot of that stuff proved to be more deadly than anything. I have to wonder how many people died because the “cure” was worse than the disease.

This looks like someone’s acid trip- and it might just be acid- but if it does something about my lumbago, I might just try it!

I like the little demon drilling on the top of the dude’s head (center frame on the left.) That’s a nice touch.

Trolling for Ephemera, Space and Time, and Other Things I Don’t Understand

April 6, 2011Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

I found a wonderful new place to troll for old pics and related ephemera- believe it or not, the Library of Congress’ website is a vast treasure trove of scanned digital images of cool old stuff (most of it is OK to save or print, as most of it is public domain.) I have merely skimmed the surface of this treasure trove.

It only reminds me of how I should get busy with the scanner myself while Dad still remembers who some of the people are in all those piles and piles of pictures my grandma hoarded over the years. She had literally tons of pictures in her stash of stuff. Grandma never threw anything away. Some of those pics go back to the late 19th century, most of them are family members, and I would love to have scans of them, especially if I can find out who they are. It doesn’t help that my scanner is ancient and slow (that doesn’t help my motivation factor at all) and that I would probably have to take a few stacks home here and there and spend some late nights scanning them, uploading them to Shutterfly, and then going through the Shutterfly albums with Dad so he can identify as many of them as possible for me.

Perhaps I can do some of this on my next vacation, if Jerry doesn’t find me “better” things to do.

I’ve learned long ago that if I want an actual vacation, I need to take it by myself. Otherwise I simply become Jerry’s personal gofer for the duration, and I end up looking forward to going back to work so I can get some rest.

I volunteered myself to take Mom and Dad down to North Carolina for my niece’s half-sister’s graduation. I know that sounds complicated but it’s not terribly difficult. She and my niece have the same father (my sister’s ex-husband) but they have different mothers. Technically I would assume this would mean she’s not really related to me in any way, but my sister is still close with her ex’s kids. I don’t know her terribly well but any excuse for a road trip in early June is an excuse for a road trip. I can put up with Mom as long as Dad is with her to keep her somewhat under control. Besides, I really don’t want them: 1. driving down there in either one of their elderly, high-mileage vans, or 2. making that long of a road trip through mostly boonies by themselves. My car gets far better gas mileage, and it’s a 2010 with 11K on it versus either of their 1998 vans, one has 180K and the other over 200K. Dad’s van would be particularly fun on a long trip because the fuel sender doesn’t work. It’s nice to know how much gasoline you have left from time to time when the nearest gas station is sixty miles out or more. Granted, anything made by humans or machines can fail at any time, but failure is less likely in a newer vehicle, and even if there is a failure it is less likely to be a catastrophic one.

I also know how to use the GPS function on my phone. Yay!

One thing I’ve not been able to get a good understanding on is the one thing on a car that seems to wear faster than anything- the tires. It amazes me that “run flat” tires aren’t standard equipment, given how often tires go flat and fail at the most inopportune times. I wish I could afford run flat tires, and that’s probably why they aren’t standard equipment. I’ve been stranded by having flat tires and not being able to remove the lugs so I could install the spare. Now I have a breaker bar so if the lugs are properly torqued (and they better be, because I make them note the torque specs on the RO when I get my tires rotated or any other time the wheels are taken off) I should be able to change it out. I should check to see if I have one of those damned donut things as a factory spare, and if I do, I should go trolling for a full-size wheel and tire. I did that when I had my Corolla- after, of course, I had a blowout and had to drive forty miles on a damned donut- after I paid a tow company $75 to change the tire because somebody at the shop overtorqued my lug nuts and I couldn’t get the tire off. The poor tow driver must have been at least 300# and he was jumping on the dinky little wrench that came from the factory tool kit (this was also before I got my breaker bar) to break the lugs loose. That wrench was bent at almost a right angle by the time the dude got through with it.

I learned my lesson well from that. Any tech who overtorques my lug nuts because he just grabs the impact and goes at it (too lazy to use a torque wrench on the proper setting) will be a very sorry puppy should I find out about it the hard way.

There are certain modern innovations I can’t function without, but I still have a fascination for history. It’s interesting to observe, but perhaps it wouldn’t have been so fascinating up close and personal. I know bathing wasn’t incredibly popular back in the day, there was a lot of communicable disease, and no indoor plumbing. No wonder people died young, and of things that would be preventable today.

As I was trolling through pages of old Civil War pictures- mostly of people whose identities have been forgotten, I came across two pictures that haunted me a little bit.

This was a mother’s picture of her son taken long before he died in battle at age 18. I can’t imagine the heartbreak. The irony is that death in battle is probably one of the most preventable causes of death- but it’s still happening today. There are still soldiers dying in battle today. There are still mothers whose sons aren’t coming home.

And a little girl whose father never came home…

Intellectually, I understand that there is such a concept of “just war,” and that there are times where the only morally correct thing to do is to fight for one’s country. Emotionally, I have a lot harder time with that concept. I’m thankful that Dad got out of having to go to Vietnam at the 11th hour (a long story, but one reason why I should be thankful for my sadistic oldest sister- she was the reason he got exempted from service) and I am grateful that barring any unforseen apocalypse, Steve-o will likely not serve in the military. I don’t think as things are now that he could get an exemption for the nerve injury in his hand even if he would try (again) to enlist.

I have nothing but respect for military Veterans. I don’t know if I would have the psychological strength to do what people in the armed forces do every day. I highly doubt it, even if I had been physically sound enough to serve. My leaky heart valves pretty much nixed my chances for any type of military service. So I am, like every other common American citizen, beholden to those who were willing, and who were put in the position to make the ultimate sacrifice.

I do certainly hope that the quality of military chow has improved since this pic was taken:

That kitchen set up looks like Montezuma’s Revenge just waiting to happen.

ELYSIANHUNTER, ALWAYS INCITEFUL:

Because comedy is the flipside of tragedy

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