Many, many years ago.

I joined the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity my first week at Texas Tech University. For those of you not familiar, Texas Tech is in Lubbock Texas. About 250 miles from water, trees, green grass, a Bennigan’s…….anything really. It’s an island surrounded by flat barren dry Texas landscape.

For some unknown reason, I was handed the reigns of organizing the chapter’s annual drunken booze-fest in the middle of a West Texas field…..that the brothers lovingly called “Creek Bed”. It was a 2 hour drive through the West Texas dust until “The 7 Sentinels” (they were trees. The only 7 trees for miles) and then a turn down another road of nothingness, untill you see an even smaller dirt road. At the end of the last dirt road/cattle path was it…Creek Bed. The perfect place to drink, pee, possibly puke, eventually pass out, and wake up in the desert. What joy.

My bestest friend at the time was my fraternity brother Lenny. If I was 19, Lenny must have been 21. Lenny was always much older than me. He was (and still is) a portly, lockjawed man-child who was always fortunate enough to be my “Lucy”….and I, his willing “Ethel”. We both shared an affinity for Polo oxfords with madras ties, J.D. Salinger novels, all things British, and the pink and green bullion crested navy blue blazers that active fraternity brothers had the privilege of wearing.

Here we are in 1988 with a some not too cute sorority girls, and the aforementioned blazers.

“Wouldn’t it be fun to have an Upscale Tailgate?” To this day, I still think it was all Lenny’s idea.” We could do the whole shin-dig out of the back of Siegelbaum.” Siegelbaum was the name Lenny had given to his navy blue Saab hatchback.

Our total budget was $100. It doesn’t sound like much now……and I assure you, it wasn’t very much in 1988 either.

We had to be clever….and clever we were.

The 2 of us, armed with our parent’s “In Case of Emergency Only” college credit cards, hit Service Merchandise, J.C. Penny’s and Sears for assorted silver-plate serving pieces and even a huge pressed glass punchbowl. The highlight of the quest was when Lenny found a 2 foot tall champagne bucket with handles at an outlet store. It looked just like a polo trophy. This was to be our center piece. Every serving piece box was carefully kept in the original store bag with a meticulously taped-on reciept…they would all be cleaned, repackaged and returned to the stores the Monday after the party. I “borrowed” 100 white linen napkins from my campus job in the faculty club. A candelabra, we absolutely had to have a candelabra…..and Lenny knew of one with 4 arms that we could use for the evening.

It was all coming together nicely.

All $100 we spent at the best grocery store in Lubbock. There were only 3 at the time.

That night, when everyone arrived convoy-style at the end of the dirt road, in the creek bed, Lenny and I were standing there waiting in our pink and green bullion crested navy blue blazers with our “upscale tailgate”.

A cassette of violin music wafted through Siegelbaum’s speakers.

Everything spread out perfectly on “rented” silver serving platers under that 4-armed candelabra in the back of a Saab. There was a small spiral cut ham, baby Swiss slices, Hawaiian rolls, and spicy grain mustard for making finger sandwiches. There were butter crackers for my famous 7 layer dip. We had home-made Quiche Loraine, and I think a handful of boiled shrimp. (Maybe 20 total) For sweets, there was a box of delicate little Danish shortbread cookies. The centerpiece was the trophy-shaped champagne bucket overflowing with carrots and celery like an edible bouquet of cru de te.

The only drink we offered was our “Upscale Tailgate” punch. The recipe came straight from a 1962 copy of the Ladies’ Home Journal. (This was before the internet) We served it in those tiny little glass punch cups with the handles that are too small for a grown man’s fingers to slip through. I still remember it as just a mound of sweet, green foam. Ingredients as follows – 2 cans of pineapple juice, 1 pint of lime sherbet, and 2 liters of Ginger ale. That’s all.

No vodka.

No rum.

No Everclear.

No fun …… for a group of wanting-to-binge-drink-’till-everybody-puked college kids. It never occurred to us that a few dozen fraternity boys, and their assorted girlfriends, didn’t want un-alchohol laden lime-sherbet punch…..or finger sandwiches……or quiche Loraine…… or even cru de te. They were expecting a keg at the end of that long, long drive. That $100 they alloted us would have covered the cost of a keg with some to spare for red Solo cups.

Nobody was amused.

We had neglected to mention that it was a B.Y.O.B. party and it was too late for anyone to drive back 2 plus hours to a liquor store, or even Taco Bell.

Lenny and I single-handedly managed to ruin the tradition of “Creek Bed” party.

As far as I know, this was the last time the party was ever attempted.

A few months later at our annual formal banquet, while everyone else in attendance was enjoying a fine steak dinner, Lenny and I were served cold, uncooked hot dogs on stale buns.

Payback, I assumed.

The joke was on all of them…….

because my date that night was a vegetarian.

and Lenny? He happens to like cold, uncooked hotdogs.

I wrote about the symbolism in them last year. It’s very beautiful if you care to read about it here.

OK, the prices are through the roof for an authentic, vintage one.

Of course, I thought, “I can do that”…..Well, not weave one……YET.

But I can certainly age one.

I started with a couple of coil baskets from import stores. I pick them up all the time for about 5 to 15 dollars. I found a few online places that have the same baskets El Paso Imports Co and El Paso Saddle Blanket . Just as cheap. I’m guessing that El Paso Texas is the place to buy cheap baskets.

I used 2 different colored stains. Gunstock (how could I not use a color called Gunstock?) and Jacobean (we used it on the wood headboard wall in the master bedroom). The first is light and the second is dark, y’all can use what ever combo you have in your garage too.

With rubber gloves and a clean rag, I start by giving the whole basket a coat of Gunstock stain being sure to rub deep into the groves.

these new baskets are extremely dry and soak up the stain in no time.

They already look better.

All the “cream” color is now a warm ”khaki”.

After the first stain is dry - I waited about 5 hours…so they were mostly dry – I gave a light skimming of the darker Jacobean stain.

I really just skimmed the surface, making some areas a little darker, and leaving the crevices light.

This will create some highs and lows in the basket color and make it look like it was genuinely used.

Here are my finished baskets with the dark smudged areas. I made the edges just slightly darker than the surfaces.

Now, I really let them dry this time…a couple of days….before using them.

Then we can “pepper” them back into our house where they are useful.

Full of bandanas in the bedroom…

…holding the remotes in the den…..

…..and some aloe in the breakfast room.

Yepp, we were thinking the same thing,

Way, More, Much, Better.

Restoration Hardware Architect’s Boom Sconce. Modeled after a vintage lamp from the an architect’s 1940s studio.

Pine, pine, pine……SCORE!!!!

Got one, a medium one. They come in 3 sizes, the largest of which is just plain enormous. It stretches out to more than 8 feet.

If we had a loft, I’d be all over that one….but (big sigh) we don’t; we live in a normal sized ranch house.

So, medium size will work.

When we first moved in to the Cavender house, I hung this Glass Globe Pendant from West Elm over our dining table.

Not a bad pendant…After all, there was a boob-light there when we moved in, So this was a Huge improvement.

But we are ready now for an update.

I cut off the plug and hardwired this new lamp (it’s a plug-in fixture for some reason) by running the power line in the attic from the old pendant across the ceiling and down the wall slightly….Now it will hang from the side wall, but still be controlled with the light switch and dimmer.

Gays and their dimmer switches, we do enjoy the ability to create mood lighting. It’s just so much more flattering. 3 years ago there was 1 solitary dimmer in the whole house. But we have solved that crisis now.

Because I’m pretty sure that someone (possibly me) will someday want a pendant back in this spot, I used a junction box to cover my connections instead of running a new wire from the switch.

Then I squared off my ceiling hole and attached a new patch piece of drywall to hide my destruction.

I have posted about my skills at patching drywall several times already, y’all can read up on that here.

I have to really scrutinize the ceiling to see where it used to be.

Yeah, I’m that good.

Just take a gander at our improved breakfast room now…..

I’ll bet you are wondering if we hit our heads on it.

And No, we don’t. It’s positioned just perfectly so that we can manuever right around it without even thinking to duck….and it still lands in just the right spot over the table.

I know that Edison bulbs are quickly racing out of style in favor of those curly blue-light-casting ugly things……….but I don’t care.

Pretty sure that I will never tire of these exposed light bulbs.

Better not anyway, they are all over the house…….

with dimmers.

He was the “Interior-Decorator” gay on the all too short-lived Bravo series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Recently, Thom documented a complete reno of a Finger Lake house in his newest book American Beauty.

The house is just as you would expect it to be…stunning. And perfect.

Maybe, ……a bit too perfect.

His new house looks like it could be on any suburban street.

I remember his former lake house as being more cozy. And just, well, more “Lake House-Y”.

See for yourselves.

Beautiful, am I right?

There is some internet debate as to weather this is Thom’s actual house, or a house he designed for a client.

Either way, doesn’t matter much to me,

I like it better.

My softer-than-should-be midsection will attest to that.

What if…… a burger joint and a taco stand had a child? Hmmmm?

Well wonder no further my friend.

I present to you ….Burguesa Burger in Oak Cliff.

For a couple of years now, Burguesa Burger has serviced North Oak Cliff with the perfect mix of dirt-cheap Mexican food and American hamburgers.

Just don’t call it ”fusion“, it’s not that fussy.

They offer breakfast burritos, “made-in-front-of-you” churros, Mexican cane sugar soda pops, fiery spicy french fries, cold beer, real ice cream milkshakes with a mini doughnut skewered on the straw…..

Aaaaaannnnndddddd, (wait for it) ……………………the most amazing hamburger ever……

La Monumental

No, you’re not misreading……Bean covered Tostada, Ham, Cheese, all Beef Patty, Cheese, all Beef Patty….(is all that even possible?)

I know, I had to read it twice too.

If there were a burger equivalent to a Luchador…this would be it.

A little Mexican, a little cheezy, a little mysterious (someone please tell me what that special creamy sauce is)…and entirely entertaining.

Or make your own burger. Just name your toppings:

                                                  Avocado – they got that

                                                  Ham – they got that

                                                  Fried Egg…….yeah, they got that too.

What are you waiting for?

Get your buns to 710 Ft Worth Ave and try one for yourselves.

…and don’t forget the side spicy fries. Yes, spicy…don’t be a pansy.

Trust me, they might change your life.

But in this case, I’m just gunna start with our new cactus/agave/drought tolerant filled flower beds…

BA-BAM

Jamie wanted me to be sure to point out that the “We” in these stories of the flower beds is 90% him.

Although, I did Art Direct.

After removing all the heinous Indian Hawthorn….

and making a list of the plants that we would like to try planting.

We cruised down to the Dallas Farmer’s Market and bought a few.

We found an old Hippie to help us with our “zero-scaping”. That means that we want to plant it then forget it.

Perfect.

Jamie lay everything out before digging any holes.

Then planted away….Tall things in the back…at least, things that we expect to get taller.

Pretty groovy, right?

We wanted it to look a “desert-y”, but it was a little too “desert-y”.

Maybe some color…and no color is better than orange….and a little red and yellow.

Much better…..How could we not plant a flower called “Indian Blanket”? They grow along the road sides here in Texas.

Here are a few close-ups of the cactus-y bounty.

This is just a start, we plan on continuing to add new cactus as we collect them.

One more time..here’s the bed in front of the porch.

I can hardly wait for everything to get bigger.

Ohhh, and Jamie still has plans to add pea gravel with a layer of weed-blocking newspaper.

We’ll keep y’all posted.

]]> http://thecavenderdiary.com/2013/05/09/finally-finished-those-flower-beds/feed/ 8 chznone Flower Beds on the Right Side of the House full of Plants Front Flower Beds on the Left Side of the House Square Flower Bed Full of Zennias Front of House with New Flower Beds Hippie at the Farmers Market Adding the Plants to the Bed All the Greenery Added to the Bed All the Greenery Added to the Bed 2 Zennias Coreopsis Salsa Indian Blanket Agave Americana Veriegata Paddle Cactus Bottle Brush Agave Azul Creeping Rosemary Bunny Ear Cactus Agave Raggae Time Flower Bed on Right Side with Porch http://thecavenderdiary.com/2013/05/06/break-on-through-to-the-other-side/ http://thecavenderdiary.com/2013/05/06/break-on-through-to-the-other-side/#comments Mon, 06 May 2013 13:53:22 +0000 James http://thecavenderdiary.com/?p=6146 ]]> Other side of the flower beds, that is.

Seems like months ago that we posted about revamping our front flower beds. And we are still on the job.

We tore through the much more established (possibly a sort of Holly?) bushes in front of our front porch this past weekend.

See?

Took Jamie most of the morning to reach this point.

He actually found a handful of interesting treasures digging in that bed. Rocks we would expect, …..but coral?…and a beautiful hunk of quartz. The glass was a nice surprise as well. The plastic, chess-man sized, St. Joseph he found right after we moved in while planting one of those Red Yuccas that we left in place. Apparently people – Catholics – bury him upside down in the yard to conjure good luck selling a house.

Catholic VooDoo? Never heard that before.

We made yet another trip to Custom Stone for yet another carload of Arizona Buckskin Ledgestone.

After dryfitting all the stones, Jamie adhered them together with Outdoor Construction Adhesive.

Yes, it works.

35 extremely heavy bags of topsoil later …..

…we were left with this completely untouched planting bed for our creating. Because this side is in front of the porch, and we will see it everyday, we wanted it to be the more decorative side. Just filled to the brim with cacti, succulents, and agave.

And rocks. BIG rocks.

We found the biggest ones that we could lift together without straining our aging backs.

Again to Custom Stone for “boulders”.

Since there are very few plants….the rocks are my favorite part. They are there for the geckos to warm their fat little bellies on…..

……and the snakes to hide under. We kept unveiling little brown garden snakes with our bush removal…and I had to quickly scoop them up and shift them to the other flower bed. Jamie isn’t too thrilled with them. But I quickly reminded him that they eat all the other creepy-crawlies that we don’t want in our gardens.

But I digress.

We are pretty excited to show y’all the finished beds.

…..and we will soon.

Promise

You should.

Fab is Everyday Design for the masses. And who among us couldn’t use some new design in our lives.

Fashion, Gifts, Jewelry, Home, Food, Vintage and even Art.

Speaking of Art. Currently Fab.com is offering vintage magazine covers from the 1920′s as color canvas prints.

How great would these fun vintage graphics look in a boy’s room, man cave, or family room?

These 18 X 24 inch prints would be perfect in groups of 4.

My favorite?

That’s easy…the Outdoor Life with the cowboy.

But y’all already knew that…didn’t you?

Check them out, Fab sales only last a few days….and this one is ticking away.

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher by Timothy Egan, Amazon has it here.

I think I have established what a fan of Edward Curtis I am by now. I have always associated with obsessive compulsives, more than you good people know.

We have one of his 7 foot portraits hanging in our den.

If you are like me, and you enjoy holding a physical book in your hand, buy it.

If E-books are your thing, (not judging), download it….upload it….whatever it is that you people do to read a book now.

If you liked this post, check out these as well…..

Edward Curtis Portrait free for the taking

Chief Sitting Bear in Our Den

Peter and Joe were headed to Texas for a few days and wanted some advice for places not to be missed. Of course, your Cavender boys had a few suggestions……

Included in the email were a handful of pictures of their Seattle living room. All the usual things that we love ……globes, Pendleton, postcards, vintage books, framed Indians, a velum suitcase absolutely covered in vintage hotel stickers…my head is spinning just writing about it. But our favorite element by far was the fireplace artwork…

Take a gander…

Yeah the suitcase, and books, and even the tractor seat intrigued us, but we really caught us by the throat was the white-on-black art piece. How clever is that?

We asked how they did it…….

Peter writes,

I moved into a contemporary condo that is Triple B – Beige Builder Basic. Like most other renters, I am not allowed to make any permanent changes to the décor of my apartment. Although I love the look of chalkboard paint, I cannot repaint any of my walls due to strict tenant guidelines.

SOLUTION

I used roofing paper, thumbtacks, sidewalk chalk and hairspray to personalize my fireplace with a temporary chalk art solution.

STEPS

I cut the paper to size and wrapped my fireplace walls to create a canvas that was both blank and black. Like non-adhesive wallpaper, I tacked the roofing paper above the mantel, taking additional care to secure the corners with extra thumbtacks.

Once I had my writing surface, I chose my content. Joe and I moved to Seattle because he works for NBC and took a new position with the Seattle affiliate. The move happened very quickly – so quickly that we pretty much moved with nothing but clothes. In truth, we own a condo in Minneapolis (where we are from), and with no time to sell it, we decided to rent it furnished. As such, we literally left all decor and furniture behind.

As we drove our loaded Honda to the Puget Sound through Mt. Rushmore, Cody and Yellowstone, we blasted “Go West!” (Both the Village People and Pet Shop Boys version). Hence, the textual choice on our wall.

I chose the words to the song “Go West” as text – with some personal twists on the lyrics. While you could trace ledger lines with a pencil, I chose to write freeform, holding a yardstick as my guide.

As a final step, I sprayed the entire surface down with aerosol hairspray to prevent smudging. You can specifically buy fixative art spray, but as an art student, I always used hairspray as a money-saving substitute. Plus, it’s also good for rooms with poor ventilation. Before using either, spray a test area to make sure there isn’t any discoloration.

TIPS

Handle with care:

Most roofing paper is asphalt based, so it may scuff your walls. As you hang the paper, be precise so you don’t smudge the surrounding surface. For any accidental marks, soapy water and elbow grease should do the job.

Slow down:

Unlike a traditional chalkboard, tar paper is not forgiving; in other words, you probably won’t be able to erase any mistakes. Write carefully so you don’t have to start over and rehang your paper due to a typo.

This flower is both annual and perennial:

Originally, I intended to replace the black paper and redo the text periodically. I was skeptical about how long the thumbtacks would stick and the chalk would hold up. Two years later, however, the fireplace looks just as it did when the project was completed. While I’ve kept my original installation, some seasonal suggestions would be to display your favorite yuletide lyrics as holiday décor, or incorporate a poem or greeting for a themed party.”