Links To Erie Artifacts at Christies Auction

Following are some links to the Erie Artifacts I've found on the Christies Auction.

Lot 286

Lot 289

Lot 294

Lot 299

Lot 301

Lot 305

Lot 310

Lot 321

Lot 324

Lot 332

Lot 345

Lot 352

Lot 364

Lot 367

Lot 381

Lot 388

Lot 392

Lot 395

Lot 398

Lot 402

Lot 409

Lot 414

Lot 416

Lot 421

My 2005 Most Embarrassing Moment

My most embarrassing moment of 2005 came while I was in Disney World with my husband. I saw the race car ride and wanted to go on it. My husband didn't want to go on it because it was in the kids section. But I went on the ride in Disneyland in California and they went pretty fast, I recalled.

We stood in line in the very hot sun for 45 minutes to an hour waiting to get our turn. We could hear the car's engines and they sounded pretty fast. I saw other adults in line. I did notice as we got closer and could see the cars that there were some pretty small kids in them on their own as they pulled out of the loading area.

Then it was our turn, thank goodness, because I was so sweaty and the thought of the breeze blowing through my hair.....

The girl told me "no bumping or crashing into the other cars." OK, I won't. Then I stepped on the gas. My husband was getting loaded into another car behind me. I'm stepping hard on the gas and it just wasn't going more than about 1 mile per hour. Darn it, my car is broken! I noticed there was a rail that the car was following. What the heck was this? You mean that was it? I looked around and saw the other cars were making lots of noise but not going anywhere, either. How in the heck would you bump into another car anyway going this slow, was she making a joke? I felt so stupid going around the track at 1 mile per hour. I felt even more embarrassed that I convinced my husband to go, too. He was behind me in a car.

As we pulled up to dismount from our cars I sheepishly tried not to make eye contact with the adults in line which were there to go with their children. I can only imagine how my husband felt like going around that track at 1 mph. I apologized to him for wasting an hour and making him ride in a "toy" car and he was a good sport but I fear I'll get the "remember that time in Disney World .....

Thirty Days of Christmas Plus

We may not be unique but in our house there is at least 7 days of birthday, 3 days of anniversary and sometimes more than thirty days of Christmas. The 7 days of Linda starts about 3 days before my birthday and ends about 3 days after. Because it isn't always convenient to go out to dinner on my actual birthday we start ahead. My husband sometimes buys a present that I may need earlier than my birthday and gives it to me ahead so I can have it to wear on my birthday. Then, of course, you still feel like it is your birthday a day or two after and should treat yourself. And so it goes with anniversaries.

Come Christmas, it doesn't seem like 12 days of Christmas is enough. And now with Amazon.com being one of our favorite shopping places there is a need for extra days. This year some of the presents I wanted that are only available to us online are back ordered and I won't get them until the last days of January or the first part of February. That's OK. It makes the season last longer. With our tradition, there is not much time that we aren't celebrating something.

So Merry, So Bright

The new antibiotic kicked in on Christmas Eve day and I only had a few bad hours and it has gotten better since. Today I barely have any pain at all. Phew!!! That was one long painful stretch. I'm back to almost normal and feeling great.

I got to spend Christmas Day with my wonderful in-laws. I read the horrors of in-laws from some of the other bloggers and that is a shame. I got lucky.

Now I'm playing with my new cell phone. It has everything and I've learned to use just about everything (camera, video, voice recording, voice recognition, flash, alarm, notebook, speakerphone, etc) except answering the phone while I'm driving in the dark. I couldn't get it out of my purse in a timely manner and I couldn't figure out the buttons in the dark so I waited until I got to my destination and answered the call in person (I guess you'd call that "old-time technology"). This one is so different than my last one but I'm so impressed with it. My last one was an LG and I couldn't call from my house. I couldn't get enough signal. With my new Motorola 815 and still with the same Verizon service contract, I get a great signal in my house, so it has to be the quality of the phone.

I also got a wireless lazer mouse that even magnifies. I can't believe we didn't get one sooner. You don't realize you are behind the times until you upgrade and see the difference.

Who Determines "rare"?

I just finished my last Amoxicillin antibiotic. Monday I was given a prescription for a different one to start. The dentist assured me that what is happening to me from these dental implants is rare.

So now I have gone through Doxycylcine and Amoxicillian and I'm here reading the warnings about this new one, Clindamycin HCL. In a nutshell it says it should only be used for serious bacterial infections because it can sometimes cause a severe (rarely fatal) intestinal condition (pseudomembranous colitis) due to a resistant bacteria. The snag for me is the words "rarely fatal". How rare is rare? It was rare that I'm having this problem in the first place.

I'm still in a lot of pain and I need this to stop as I don't have many pain pills left and was told that is all I'd get. I'm hesitant that the problem is infection as there isn't swelling anymore. But I'll try it because you really can't function when your face is throbbing.

Monday

I returned to the dentist today. I had the stitches taken out and I was put on my 3rd antibiotic. The swelling is down but the throbbing pain still comes and goes. The pain pills don't give me a whole lot of relief. I'm still hopefull this will work as I don't want all this to be for nothing.

I Want To Smile

I always took good care of my teeth and went to the dentist regularly but I must have weak teeth. This past week has been a blur of pain and sleep. What started about 2 months ago as a good-tooth-gone-bad has turned into my own little horror story.

• The tooth holding a bridge broke and I was left with no molars on the lower side. I had the option of a partial plate or a couple of dental implants. I decided to go with the dental implants as I know I couldn't handle having a partial. Problem is you have to wait for the bone to heal after the tooth is pulled. It takes a couple of months. So I didn't go to anything social in fear I may smile and expose this gap.
  

• So the area healed and I had the implants done. I couldn't believe how easy it was. It was easier than having a root canal. I was smiling when my husband picked me up at the dentist office. (You have to wait for 3 to 4 months after the posts are put in before they put teeth on the posts as it takes time for the bone to grow around the implant posts. That's a long time but I figured it would be worth it.)

• The next day my face swelled on one side to the size of a small orange. Then it started to turn black and blue and I looked like I had been beat up. Before the surgery they have you take an antibiotic and non-steroid anti-inflammatory pain reliever the day before and the following days. The pain had gotten intense by the 3rd day so I called the dentist office and they prescribed me a stronger pain killer.

• 3 days later I called the dentist again because the pain was getting worse and I was walking around like a zombie. The whole side of my face was throbbing. My dentist wasn't in and another one told me to just keep taking the pain killer and they'd get me in on Monday. Monday finally came (it was 7 days after the surgery) and my dentist finally saw my bruising. The swelling was better but I was still in a lot of pain. He prescribed me a different, stronger antibiotic and some more pain killers but told me not to take them as soon as the pain was tolerable as they are addicting. They make me nauseas, I doubt I'd get addicted to that.

• He told me that much swelling, bruising and pain is rare (I guess I'm special). And if this antibiotic doesn't work they may have to take the dental implants out. Great.

• So now I'm on the second day after the new antibiotic. I still have intense pain when the pills wear off. But I went through the whole night last night without getting up to have to take a pain pill. That's improvement. There were a few hours this afternoon that I felt good enough to go out. I felt very sleepy and a bit shaky but my husband drove.

• Tonight I can touch the side of my cheek without it hurting too much. I think it's going to be OK. I had to laugh a bit about how I didn't want to go out in public with my missing teeth a few months ago and how I didn't want to talk or smile in public. Heck, that was nothing. Now I go out with a puffy, black and blue jaw on top of missing teeth and would think I looked great if I only had a few missing teeth.
  

antique photo

Photo. I see some wheels of some kind of ice wagon? or early auto? behind the horse-drawn wagon.

Woman in gazebo.

Some kind of large advertising characters being unloaded?

Continuing from yesterday...link to yesterday

I think this photo is at a dock, perhaps one of Erie's? I see what looks like masts or cranes to off-load goods. On the left side of the photo is a life preserver (white with a cross on it). There seems to be broken ice and some open water in the middle of the picture. There are tufts of steam from something that could be a train engine or tractor behind the railing or fence in the background. I see what looks like very large tents in the field in the background. On the dock there seems to be some large wooden "caricatures" hanging from a framework (I highlighted these). It looks like a woman with a scarf and bow tied on her head and then I see what looks like a pirates head. (My imagination is going wild here.) I'm beginning to think a circus or carnival was coming to town. In the winter?

Behind The Mantle Christmas Card and Pic

This is a Christmas card we found behind the mantle of our old house when we look the mantle off the wall to refinish it. Inside the card was a very small picture. I don't know what the scene is or if it is local. I enlarged the photo 400 percent and saw that in the bandstand was a women with a large hat. There appears to be an officer of some sort (police, navy etc.) walking near the wagon and in the distance are lots of people dressed up in suits and top hats leaning over a railing. In the wagon, the person appears to be a woman with a bustle and large hat. It appears something important was going on in this picture. This is a very early photo. Does anyone recognize the setting? Inside the card that the picture was found was the name LORNE LANE CASKEY, but not signed.

My husband thinks the picture is of a race track. There is a white two-rail fence that looks like it surrounds an infield. I'll try to post the enlarged picture on my website tomorrow and leave a link to it. I wonder if Erie had a race track back in the 1890's (my estimate of the picture).

Dashing Through The Snow, No Way

• I won't drive my Geo out on the roads when there is snow. I got stuck out in the middle of Peach street a couple of years ago at the left turn signal light to go to Walmart. It is on an uphill slant and there I was, spinning my tires trying to get through the intersection when it just wouldn't get traction. I had cars honking, the light had turned, it was a nightmare.

• It was my car I kept from California, and it still runs well. It gets about 200 miles put on it a year, pretty much summer miles. I only drive it on Sundays, ha. Actually, I only drive it when I go to the dentist or doctor or if there is really something I want at the store that can't wait. Otherwise, my husband drives me around in his car. He likes driving. It works out well as he grew up here in Erie and knows how to drive in this snow. I'm like an old dog trying to learn new tricks. I learned to drive in the Central Valley fog and I can drive in the fog without blinking an eye but I'm terrified of snow and ice.

Where Are My Birds?

• When the weather turned really cold last week and my pesky chipmunk didn't show up for a few days, I thought it was safe to start feeding the birds the "good stuff" without Mr. Chippy stealing it all.

• So with full feeders I waited for the birds to come. Several days went by and not a bird. I don't know where these northern winter birds went...farther south? They are normally feeding at my feeders every winter. I usually have Cardinals, Bluejays, finches and a Downy Woodpecker that eats the suet. Do they know something we don't?

• We had a couple of warmer days and out popped the chipmunk stealing the seed again, but no birds.
  

• I'm still waiting for the birds.