photo of a table lamp with no shade. The pedestal has 4 brass pillars with a colored sheath around the center portion, clear glass panels on all 4 sides and in the center a candelabra feature with candles of 3 different lengths.

I found the coolest set of table lamps at the thrift store! I actually found them a couple weeks ago and really debated about whether or not to buy them. I went back to them a couple times, picked them up, put them down, walked away, came back. I finally told myself I should leave them because I didn't really have a spot to put them.

But I kept thinking obsessing about them so I when I went to the thrift store the next week I told myself if they were still there then it was kismet. And they were! They were only $5 each and they both work! I need to find some new bulbs for the candles and the light switch stem and cord on one of the lamps is sketchy looking so I will replace those.

The lamp is so cool - you have the option of having both candles and upper light on or you can have one or the other. There is a label on one of the lamps that says "Don Ward." I can't find out anything about him but his lamps are all over eBay, Etsy and other second hand sale sites although most of what I can find look slightly different from mine.

Oh, I also need lamp shades. They didn't come with any and none of the ones at the thrift store were going to work, for various reasons. I went to a second thrift store and still didn't find any so I'm on a quest to find some. I've got other thrift stores and retail stores that are not Target/WalMart/Amazon to check out still.

I was really adventerous with my perfumes the week before but not so much this week. The only one that I tried out was Desert Thunderstorm from Solstice Scents. Desert Sage, Pinyon Pine & Resin, Petrichor, Sweetgrass, Creosote Bush, Sand, Ponderosa Pine and Smoke are the main notes and it is a member of the herbal/woody/aquatic family. I'm much more into the gourmand scents but this one was OK. I love the way creosote and petrichor smell - I think I would have liked this scent better if it was more of those and less of the others.

🍒 It's cherry season and I'm enjoying the heck out of it. Last week at the market I was tempted by Skylar Rae cherries. I'd never heard of this variety before but they were selling themselves really hard - there was a whole tempting write up on their packaging. Oh my gosh, they were SO GOOD. They are a surprise spontaneous cross between Sweetheart and Rainier cherries. I went back yesterday hoping to get some more but the store had almost no cherries left and no Skylar Raes at all. I was so disappointed!

I did get some regular old sweet red cherries that were on special for the purposes of making Cherry Bounce. I first heard about this from a 2013 blog post from The Outlander Kitchen. Have you read The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon? There's a scene in one of the books where kids on a farm get into a vat of Cherry Bounce, which is basically whiskey, sugar and cherries. On the blog they held The Great Cherry Bounce Experiment where people commented on their bounce-making ventures. It made for some fun reading! The blog, by the way, still exists, but it's changed over the years and the Bounce pages are only available on the Wayback Machine.

The first time I ever made Bounce I went with their suggestions, which was to use a, shall we say, not very refined liquor (which was in keeping with the story from the Outlander book). I chose an American Rye Whiskey that claimed it was "feisty" and yes, it was! The next time I made Bounce I made one batch with brandy (Korbel) and one with whiskey (Clan MacGregor, which was decidely less feisty). They both came out really good but I liked the brandy one better so this year it's going to be just brandy (Korbel again) although I'm going to make one batch plain and one batch spiced. Should be ready in a few months - I'll keep you all updated!

Listening

Some podcasts I listened to this week:

A cool tune the YouTube algorithm threw at me. Not new, but new to me.

Reading

I'm still working on House of Frost and Feathers: A Folkloric Fantasy by Lauren Wiesebron. I'm just a little over halfway through it. I have another book waiting for me once I'm done, the follow up to We'll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida which is called We'll Prescribe You Another Cat.

Watching

I came across a really interesting video on the history of the people living on the Orkney Islands, What They Never Tell You About the Orcadians. It was a fascinating history that I was not aware of.

This was a cool look at What Scientists Found About Audiobooks. I did not know until watching this that your brain makes a spatial map when you read which helps with the memory retention.

Over on Nebula, Sarah Davis Baker has a second episode in her Half Remembered series. This one is called An Abundance of Cats and Sarah is trying to track down a children's story. She discusses gist and verbatim memory and this is the first time I've heard of those concepts.

Link Lagniappe

When I first started using Zonelets I had Disqus set up as a commenting system but it looked obnoxiously ugly and I ditched it. Some people are happy to not have blog interaction but I'd love to hear from you if you have any thoughts you want to share! You can respond through my guestbook or email. If you found this link on Discord or the 32-Bit Cafe Discourse, you can message me there or leave a message on my Neocities profile page.