Deseret Industries

When I lived in Springfield, MO I used to go to the 'antique' stores all the time. A lot of it was junk, but it was still very interesting junk. One of my particular favorites stores was an old three story brick building. It had lamp post and street signs, carousel horses and giant plaster gargoyles and griffins. I can't imagine there is a huge market for these items, but I loved walking along the hardwood floors fantasying about living on the top, sun-filled open room with a griffin in the corner. Now of course, a place like that would cost a nice million in a gentrified downtown area.

Here in Salt Lake I don't find many stores like that, but they do have the great D.I. where though it may not be eccentric junk, it's very functional. And as I am trying to stay as transitional as possible, a lot of my household belongings are being acquired there.

Last week I was able to take a large desk and tiny table home from the office. At D.I. I was able to find the perfect cheap seating to go with the table and desk. I mean PERFECT fit for each at a total of $15.

AND I was able to get a few great books too! Malcollm Gladwell's Blink that I've wanted to read but after my disappointment in Freakenomics refused to pay full price for. $1. Drucker (whom I love) Post-Capitalist Society. $1. The New Encyclopedia of the Great Composers and their Music. $1! (yeah, okay, that one they probably should have paid me to take it, but I'm pretty excited about reading it...)

$18 dollars for three exciting books and two chairs to sit and read them in.

I bet if they did have a griffin for sale it would be $10 and I would buy it too.

Periodicals

I have mid-terms this week. (yes, but I'm blogging instead) I find when I am stressed, my relief is buying a book or magazine. Doesn't really make sense that if I'm stressed about reading one thing I want to read something else, but that's just how my pressure valve works.

And the pressure has been mounting in me even worse than normal as I put a cease on my book and magazine buying the moment I put in my two week notice at F.I. I couldn't justify spending money on non-essentials as long as I didn't have a job and had to embrace the idea of the public library.

Last weekend I finally caved. I'm well employed. I've been a good girl in my spending (well, there was the whole Pennywhistle incident...) and it's time to lift the magazine ban with a quick trip to B & N on the way to the gym.

I purchased.

But here is the funny thing about buying a magazine in UT. The demographics, and thus the magazine readership, is somewhat different than back East.

My top tier magazine choices are: The Economist, Inc., Harpers, Hobby Farms
Second tier: Entrepreneurship, The Atlantic, Fast Company, Success, The New Yorker
Third: Eating Well, Yoga Journal, Writers Digest, Scientific America
Fourth: Anything that might catch my fancy...

In the East, my top two tiers are readily accessible, eye level, in the Current Events section. You know, with magazines like Time and Newsweek. Here in Utah, I had to walk up and down the magazine racks, searching for them. I finally found them on the very bottom row, two shelves deep. (Meanwhile, I did find an ENTIRE section devoted to crafts and scrapbooking.)

Everyday I keep finding new things that remind me I'm not in the East anymore. But I guess trading easy access to literary diversity and global knowledge is worth the benefits of affordability, easy commuting, warm winters and friendship.

And yes. I could subscribe and it would be less expensive. But I like going to the bookstore, buying it, and bringing it home.

Little Pennywhistle

We had a rough weekend last weekend. Little Pennywhistle, who seems to get more blog time than Maltie, and whose name is just Pennywhistle but somehow I always call her Little Pennywhistle, had to take a few trips to the Pet ER.

Thursday evening I came home to a little 'treat' on the living room floor. I wasn't too concerned as it happens on occasion. However, Friday I came home to multiple piles of 'treats'. I was starting to get a little concerned. Several hours later, and halfway into a Lost catch up episode, and after having noticed that it was 55 degrees in the apartment and that the furnace had stopped working, Pennywhistle started emesising and howling in pain. It was 10:30 on a Friday night (um, yeah, I have a REALLY exciting social life), new to the area and not knowing any vets, I was a little frantic.

I finally found an emergency clinic. I stayed until about 12:30 while they did a few xrays on her and then they kept her over night.

The next day I collected her about 1:30 in the afternoon. She seemed worse than the night before. Wobbly and weak and hair all matted. Maltie went on the attack the minute we came home. Animals are not kind in the face of illness.

For the next 12 hours I worried and fretted. Come bedtime, I couldn't sleep and would get up at the smallest sound to see if she was still okay. The 3:00 a.m. check and it was 50 degrees in the apartment and she was huddled up on a box along an outside wall. I put a towel over her hoping to help her keep warm. 8:00 a.m. I brought her back to the ER again.

Having grown up on a farm, I have a great love and respect for animals, but I also don't believe in spending large sums of money on pets. animals are animals. humans are humans. All weekend long I was contemplating what my price threshold was and what illness I was willing to treat and which I were not.

The second check-in the vet sat with me and asked, "is there a possibility she could have eaten a foreign object?" A possibility? Oh, it's a certainty. I am always having to pull plastic and string from her mouth. I try to hide these non edibles but she hunts them out! They did an ultrasound and knew that it was something lodged in her stomach. He didn't ask, so much as told me, they were prepping for surgery. So I guess I was glad that I didn't have much choice in saying "yes" or "no" to the procedure.

She was able to come home Monday evening. Almost a week later, after hand feeding her yogurt and wet cat food and struggling to shove antibiotics into her, she is starting to put a little weight back on. She's not as wobbly and can now jump into my bed, but can't yet make her higher perches. Maltie has stopped hissing at her. And my landlord did get the furnace back on so the apartment is now warm again.

The one 'good' thing that came out of the weekend was that I was able to get completely current on Lost as we head into the final season.