Cats in the Antiques Business

Sam, Rambo Steve and Peel agreed to (sort of) an on-the-job interview and photo shoot at their place of business, Installations Antiques in the Heights, Houston, Texas.

It has never occurred to these three feline workers that they are not the sole owners of the business. They are intimately involved in the day-to-day operations of Installations, though each may at times take on a purrrsona of aloofness. Sam is the most congenial of the three, greeting customers and loving to pose for photos. Rambo Steve was really too busy keeping an eye on the customers and taking a lunch break to pose. Ms. Peel, a professional model (see a sample of her work below,) was not available for photos (plus I don't think I could afford her fee!)

It's worth a visit to Installations Antiques just to meet these cats. They have marvelous taste in antiques, ranging from European primitives to American mid-twentieth-century modern and can advise you on the best chairs or tables in the house.

Sam, behind (well, on top of) the counter.

Rambo Steve: "Sir, the cat box is straight ahead."

Sam: "The antiques business is a purrrfect fit, given my talent set."

Peel, Posing in an ad for Installations Antiques

The above advertisement was used with permission from Becki van der Oord of Installations Antiques.
Peel's Photo by Becki van der Oord



Don't you think Peel looks like Puff on my magnet above?

This is the second in a series of stories about animals in the retail business. (see the first installment.)

Remembrance: 7 July, 2005

Fallen Flowers

In London, three years ago today, 7 July, 2005, four suicide bombers changed the world's image of the terrorist. For the first time he was home grown. He could be your neighbor, your child's teacher, your father, your son, your husband, taking what was not his to take.

Rather than speaking the names of the terrorists today, let's remember those who were going about life as usual when their lives ended: Click here to see the faces and names of the 52 known victims of the 4 bombings that morning in London.

My condolences to you, the families and friends, go out today. I cannot imagine the depth of your pain and grief and how your lives have been changed forever.

From Sap to Scrap Bucket

Installations Antiques, Houston, Old Canadian Sap Buckets

Click to Enlarge

This weekend, Tall Husband and I could not resist bringing home one of these old Canadian sap buckets to use as a wastepaper basket at The Bunny Bungalow. They still have their original patina and the faint fragrance of maple sap. Perfect next to my Stickley fallfront desk!

U.S. Independence Day

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERICA

The original engrossed copy of the signed Declaration on display at the National Archives in Washington, DC.

On this day, we, the citizens of the United States of America, celebrate our independence from Great Britain. Our independence was secured for us by a handful of progressive thinkers, defenders and lovers of freedom.

Interesting Links

Learn interesting facts about the document itself and read an annotated text of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Learn about other countries that declared independence. Review the history of our flag.

Nesting With Freud

An Abandoned Nest, Taken from a Holly Bush

Faux Eggs Under a Glass Cloche

Faux Nest With Porcelain Chicken Eggs

Why are birds' nests and eggs so appealing? The owner of The Antiquarium, a purveyor of antique prints here in Houston, was telling me that prints of eggs and nests are quite popular and that he sells as many of these prints to men as he does to women. Though he loves these representations of nature himself, he could not fathom the reason for the attraction.

Perhaps eggs and nests are metaphors for a hopeful future or remind us of an idealized home, a place where our needs and even whims are fulfilled.

We all know why we love mushrooms and any representation of same. But we will not speak of that Freudian obsession here. Sometimes a mushroom is not just a mushroom.

Blooms Around The Bunny Bungalow

Pink Ivy Geranium

Jasmine in a Vintage Milk Bottle

Azaleas

Daylily

White Hydrangea

Tall Husband's Red Hibiscus

White Geraniums

Morning Glory

At the bungalow, we love to bring flowers in from the garden and put them in antiques vases, vintage milk bottles or even old olive oil bottles. Garden sounds so formal, yet at the bungalow nothing is. There are just old fashion flowers that have found their way to a wooden fence, an old well filled with dirt, or a rusting old gate.

“Suite Française,” a Novel

“Suite Française,” by Irène Némirovsky; translated by Sandra Smith

Irène Némirovsky was born in Kiev in 1903 and immigrated to France to escape the Russian Revolution. She was a successful writer in France before the Nazis invaded. She died in Auschwitz on August 17, 1942.

“Suite Française,” by Irène Némirovsky is a historical novel written as the author, a Russian Jew, is in the midst of the Nazi invasion of Paris and the subsequent Nazi occupation of France. That Némirovsky wrote at all, with the struggle to stay alive in order to save her husband and small daughters, is remarkable; that her writing is exceptional is a miracle.

“Suite Française” is two novellas, depicting life in France from June 4, 1940 as the Nazis invade Paris, to July 1, 1941 when they pull out of France to join in the invasion of Russia. The first novella “Storm in June,” opens with the thunderous sounds of the German Army advancing on a sleeping Paris. Némirovsky’s characters exhibit a range of human reactions to the catastrophe of war, some doing what they deem necessary to preserve a privileged life and some merely trying to stay alive as they react to the invasion.

The second novella, “Dolce,” takes place in a Nazi occupied French village, with only women, children and old men remaining. The French have lost the war, but the war continues in the form of internalized struggle. The villagers struggle to find some normalcy with the enemy billeted in their very homes. There is, on the surface, collaboration but with an undercurrent of resistance and real acts of heroism and honor carried out by some individuals. In occupied France, whether in Paris or a provincial village, Némirovsky’s characters show us that not all occupying troops were monsters and not all Frenchmen were honorable.

The most poignant part of this book is the story of how it came to be a book. Before Némirovsky was arrested July 13, 1942 by the French police who were enforcing Nazi race laws, she gave a suitcase to her two small daughters, which they took with them into hiding. The suitcase contained a leather-bound notebook in which Némirovsky had written what would become “Suite Française.” Denise, her eldest daughter, saved the notebook for fifty-six years before reading it. She had been fearful that reading, what she thought was a journal, would bring back horrific memories of a childhood in hiding and the death of her parents in concentration camps.

After reading her mother’s book, Denise had it published in France, sixty-two years after her mother had left it with her. “Suite Française” was awarded the French Prix Renaudot for 2004. This was the first time the prize has been awarded posthumously.