Thursday, September 01, 2011

Thursday-7:15am

Just to prove to you...
by no means are all the sunrises strikingly beautiful up here--LOL!
We've had some very dark, grey, rainy days...and nights.
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Miss Karma--unable to resist her bed in a new spot (under the desk).
Well, Leah was working on Wednesday night. (At her job they trade off and about once every four months she has to work some really crazy hours--I think she went to work about 6:30pm and Dagan thought she was working till 3-4am.) So, Dagan stopped by after work with some milk and other things Leah had picked up for me and stuffed in the cloth Target bags...like this roll of small trash bags. If Karma can't manage to lay right on top of something...
...she does her best to lay claim, regardless. Which is why I can't resist tossing things on the floor to see what she'll do--LOL! (Tori, she's laying with an arm slung over the roll--stayed there and caught a couple winks while I was putting things away.)
As you know, my hours have been flipped. I had been up since 8pm the night before...was getting tired in the afternoon...but thought that maybe if I could just stay awake until Dagan dropped off the stuff that then I'd be closer to being back on days, right? So, I took a shower to wake myself up and was still doing okay while Dagan was here.
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He was telling me about Protandum...some herbal pills that he and Leah are going to take for three months to see if they work to make you feel better. They asked me to try them, too, so when the order arrives...we three will be guinea pigs. Something about free radicals and such...of which, I know less than nothing. I'm game, though. I would be a really good guinea pig, right? If I can feel obviously better...well, I'd be totally sold!!
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Anyways, Dagan and I discussed having a Sacred Circle next week. We haven't had one for months and months! And then the following week we could maybe make it the night to put all the shelves in the bookcases. My paper shelves I'm going to order should be here by that time, too. And then in three weeks I would go over to their place on Wednesdays for a while to help Leah get the office organized where we have all the etsy stuff. (Their roommate kind of took over up there...left and didn't take all his stuff out of that room so Dagan is going to call him.)
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Dagan left about 6:30pm...but I didn't get to bed until 11:30 last night!! Yes! I slept during the night last night and happily greeted another grey dawn this morning from the fresh side of the day! And what, you may ask, could possibly have pushed me to stay awake for 27 hours???.....
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I discovered old fountain pens and ink bottles in the bottom of one of the Target bags!!!!!
Three old Parkers...
...the very tail end of this bottle of Parker Super Chrome turquoise blue ink (cool color!)...
...and the bottom of a bottle of Super Quink washable black ink (the bottle looks cobalt blue?)...
...and a dark red swirled Waterman...with the original box.
Nothing had been cleaned...everything was messy with ink...so, of course, I couldn't resist diving into the cleaning! I wanted to see if they could be cleaned up decently...if any of them worked...if they wrote...and if they did, how did they perform?
Sleep??
Forget it!
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Hours later...
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Well, the Waterman writes very dry and scratchy and skips a lot. Might be corroded from ink sitting in it?
To my surprise, two of the Parkers seemed to have some kind of a pump to fill them. This dark one with the sparkly lines around it...well, the pump action didn't suck up ink at all.
This grey and gold one...won't even stay together. Apparently the seal doesn't work anymore on the pumping action piece.
This last black Parker had a squeeze bladder fill cartridge that still worked...and it wrote! Very bold, thick, wet line. Since I like a fine line it really did feel like a marker to me. Like a regular Sharpie--LOL! But it works!!
These must have belonged to Leah's Mom...or maybe they were even her Dad's? (He's been gone for many years.) I'll find out eventually. ;)
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But even cleaning four pens couldn't keep me up for five hours, right?
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Well, messing around with old pens got me wanting to take out my older fountain pen stash that I just ran across when I was cleaning my desk. Now that I have the syringe from Goulet Pens I can actually refill regular cartridges of any size and shape with whatever bottled ink I choose, right? Well, some of these just didn't work the best...and with some of them I didn't want to use the last of their cartridges...
...but last night I decided to go for it. I loaded them each with an appropriate cartridge and played around a bit. Now that is what took up the rest of the time. LOL! ;)
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Oh--top to bottom: a Rotring Core, my Waterman Rhapsody, a no name red and a no name green metal, creepy spongy sticky red fat no name pen, copper Cross, a black and a red Shaeffer calligraphy pen.
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And you thought the only ones I had were in my wooden pen box--LOL! ;)
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Anyways, I see the sun is trying to peek through the clouds at the moment. It's already 75 degrees, 84% humidity, and Karma is sawing logs on the porch. So glad to have a working AC in this apartment. Thrilled to be on days today. (Hope it sticks for a while.) Am close to the end of my first private, personal, diary-type journal (Levenger-not good for fountain pens) and will be able to begin my new, glorious, FP friendly, forest green Exacompta very soon!! And fall is around the corner! (My very favorite time of year!) Ahhh!
Life is good.
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Thank you, Leah, for thinking of me!!
You knew old pens and inks would bring boundless joy to your goofy MIL!! ;)
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Happy almost the weekend. :):)
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"Something precious is lost if we rush headlong into the details of life without pausing for a moment to pay homage to the mystery of life and the gift of another day."
Kent Nerburn

18 comments:

Dee Ready said...

A lovely, peaceful posting. It reminds me of that "Alice in Wonderland" quote: "The time has come," the walrus said, "to talk of many things: Of shoes and ships - and sealing wax - of cabbages and kings"

I think you could give such an interesting lecture/homily/vignette about pens and inks and sunrises and cats and family.

Thank you, Rita, for commenting on my posting today. As I remember this, Mom gave the sidewalk photographer her address there in Parsons and he mailed the photographs to her once he'd had them developed. And yes, most cities had sidewalk photographs at a time when few people had cameras.

Desiree said...

I am visiting from Dee's blog. You came highly recommended (& I see you are a regular visitor to her blog, too)...anyway, I loved your post today. I am planning to visit again, but time is rather pressured right now, so I'd prefer to keep you bookmarked for the moment, rather than join up as a follower.

You have an intriguing handwriting and, like my husband, a love of fountain pens :) Miss Karma is obviously a thoroughly contented and pampered kitty! Her markings are so unusual! She's beautiful!

AliceKay said...

Well, I kinda knew you must get some rather dark, grey, rainy "sunrises" up there, but I much prefer the colors. :)

It's cute how Karma will go to anything that might be on the floor. So curious.

Lots more pens and inks. I wouldn't know what to do with them all. :p

It was very dismal here early this morning, and it looked like it would pour down rain for awhile, but then the sun came out. It's nice and sunny and getting very warm out there now. I hope you're having a good Thursday.

Queenie Jeannie said...

I'm so glad to hear you're back on days!! Sounds like you had quite a bit of fun playing with your pens. Sounds like me with stamps, lol!!!

Rita said...

Dee--Thanks so much!
I suppose if the photographers hand delivered them to the address they would have a pretty good chance of getting paid, but they were taking a chance that's for sure. Cameras were so expensive that most people couldn't take their own pics back then. Think of how times have so drastically changed over the years! I just love my digital camera. No comparison to the black box camera I had when I was a kid. :)

Desiree--So glad you stopped by. I know about time constraints. I haven't had the chance yet to check out the blogs that Dee mentioned. I will come and visit yours, for sure!! Your husband sounds like a smart man of good taste--LOL! ;)

AliceKay--Ya! These blah, grey sunrises are not worth camera time--LOL!
I'm sure eventually I'll see which pens I use the most and which ones I don't. The ones I don't will be cleaned. dried, and stored. I only used to have maybe half a dozen inked at a time--LOL! As long as I am in the "ink drop" where I get samples every month...I've been using my fountain pens a lot! Especially now that I found good paper and a good journal, too! Whoohoo! ;)

Jeannie--LOL! Yup! Art stuff, craft supplies, and pens & inks & papers.....ahhhh! :):)

Deanna said...

When I saw the old pens I thought... "those aren't going to work..." I have fountain pens from both my dad and Jim's and neither work. The bladders are rotten. But by dingo, they belonged to our dads, so we keep them!

So did all of the pen playing flip you back around??

Later!

Deanna

Rita said...

Deanna--I have an old one, too, that had a bladder in it--uses a lever on the side to fill--but the bladder totally disintegrated. I will keep it. Just because it reminds me of when I used to watch in awe while my dad filled the pen from the ink bottle. ;)

Leah said...

These pens and ink from my recolection were my mother's. Though since I haven't seen any of them since I was a much younger child(under 14), when both my parents were alive, I honestly am not sure, though my father didn't seem like much of a pen guy and I remember my mother buying him an expensive pen here and there for him to use. I'm pretty sure the old pens and ink were hers.

I remember playing with them as a child, I cleaned them best I knew how and tried to get them to work, but failed, I didn't have a clue how to use them, just thought they were cool. So, I would use them as dip pens, and dip the nib in ink and write, then dip and write, etc. Was tedious, so I think I only did it once, after being so frustrated trying to get it to work the right way.

I know there was another one, we didn't find it, so maybe that one is my grandparents. That one had some sort of bladder inside and a lever on the side to suck in the ink, but I could never get that one to work either.

Very cool pens, and since I never write anymore, I only type, I'm happy to send them to you for love and use in their old age. ;)

Thank you kindly,
Leah

Rita said...

OMG! Dipping a fountain pen! No that wouldn't work very well, but it was inventive--LOL! Well, two of them worked and I might be able to clean out the Waterman even better next time so that it might flow a little better. If I can get it working decent--who knows--you might want to try it on for size? ;)
Thanks so much!

Toriz said...

LOL @ Karma... Megan used to do that kind of thing. And things would disappear from where I left them (especially things that rolled) and be found several feet away with a cat laying on them, playing with them, or chewing on them. ;)

Hope those pills turn out to be as good as they sound, and that sacred circle can happen. :)

Good luck sorting the office out. Maybe once you've done that though you can finally get sorted to do the selling part of the shop?

It's like Christmas at your place right now with all those pens and stuff! ;)

Rita said...

Tori--I had one cat who stole anything small and either dropped them in the toilet or buried them in her catbox! And another one who used to pull electric plugs out of the wall and all the pegs off my bulletin board!

Well, I started the Protandem pills today and Dagan and Leah started yesterday. time will tell. They'll either do something noticeable or they won't.

Yes, we have't been doing anything new with the shop since last year!! About time.

These were fun...and then I got your box, too!!! :):)

Toriz said...

And I thought we had naughty cats... LOL!

Intense Guy said...

I'm glad you have such a fixation on fine writing instruments. Imagine what it would be like if your fixation was something else? Say inflating helium ballons (or beathing the gas so your voice is squeeky)?

I hope you enjoy being a guinea pig... some of them live very nice lives indeed.

I saw this ad in a magazine.. I don't know if they are on the up and up - but want to pass it along for you to eyeball.

http://trpcompany.com/fibromyalgia-relief.html

Rita said...

Iggy--Yes, I could have worse or weirder fixations. I could collect my toe nail clippings or have 35 cats, I suppose--LOL!

I think I live a very nice life as a guinea pig. ;)

I checked out the link. The pills have belladonna in them. Hummmm...tempting, but I think I'll pass--ROFL!

Intense Guy said...

Toenail clippings!!! Hey I could do that!!!

And yikes... Belladonna? thats poisonous isn't it? No fair saying your aches go away if your dead! Sorry.. I didn't intend for you to poison yourself. :(

Rita said...

Iggy--I know! I was a little surprised to see that listed as an ingredient--ROFL!! Forget your pain and troubles...LOL!

Serena Lewis said...

I had to giggle at Karma catching a few winks with her leg placed protectively over the roll of trash bags while you packed things away.

27 hours??!!! I'd be dead on my feet! lol

A pity most of the pens wouldn't write but I'm sure you enjoyed the process nonetheless. That Parker squeeze bladder fountain pen brought back memories. My Dad gave me the one he had and I loved it! I can't remember what happened to it but I do recall it used to write a little thick for my liking.

Goodness, you certainly have quite an assortment of pens there!

Rita said...

Serena--Karma looked like a kid sleeping with their teddy bear or something--LOL!
Ha! I was dead on my feet! ;)
I was surprised the bladder was still pliable and that the pen worked. Lays down a thick line, tho. Not my fav. Won't get a lot of use. Oh well. :)