Dispatch from Kalamazoo. . .and a new collection

Ok, I am very worried.  The piper comes calling on March 24 (one week from Monday) and The Mount has only raised about 544,000.  That means they have a long way to go.

They’ve been getting a lot of press but has any of it been national?  CBS Sunday Morning?  The Today Show?  Come on folks, we need some major exposure. 

Thanks to my typewriter collecting friend, Monda (any news on the Corsair?), I have taken the plunge and started collecting tin toy typewriters.  I got my first one before I left town and am watching another one ebay that Monda tipped me off to.  It ends Monday, when I’ll be on the train, but hey, if it’s meant to be, it will happen.  I’ll bid before I leave.  You can see my first one here.

I lean toward the more graphically interesting types that also happen to be cheap.  I’ve noticed that there’s precious little info about collecting toy typewriters on the net. Maybe if I get more into it, I’ll write some.

Kalamazoo has two antique malls/stores within walking distance of the hotel.  Before we started work on Friday, I purchased:

Three Little Pigs Golden Book from 50’s–it was cheap and I’m a haphazard LGB collector (is it less than 3 dollars, is it vintage? Sure, I’ll take it. What the heck.)

A Wade china sheep for one of my shabby chic printer’s tray collages. 

A $3 ziploc bag of various passementerie remnants, also for my collages.

A tiny 1953 book on Staffordshire animals that I may give to my friend Steve because, for some reason, it made me think of him.

One dozen dappled blue and gray robin’s eggs (also for the collages and whatever else I think of).

A tin box with an elf.  Not sure what I’m going to do with it but it called to me.

Worked all day today on the 2008 Rural Sites Resource Development Retreat this July,  then ate like a queen, in true Writing Project tradition at a local nouvelle cuisine restaurant called Sprout. In the last two days I have had butternut squash THREE TIMES.  Heaven! Tomorrow, we work from eight till twelve, when most people are leaving.  I have to leave Monday because that’s when I can make the Chicago train.  I have work to occupy me most of that time though. 

One week till spring break. The family and I lucked into a timeshare in Eureka Springs (thank you, Uncle John!) where we (I) plan to read, watch a lot of movies, and prowl around Eureka, maybe even Branson or Berryville for day trips. Basically the goal is to get away and do nothing (though if I could make it to a few antique malls, solo, that would be fine too). Appropos for this week are some big fat books I got for my birthday, the new translation of War and Peace and Hermione Lee’s recent biography of Edith Wharton.

I’ll keep you posted–

If you have any spare change or connections with national tv, consider using it to Save the Mount! 

Bye y’all,

SV