This is a still from a Zoom chat I had earlier this morning. I rearranged my home office over the holidays, and it’s looking pretty sharp!
Category: It Happened to Me
I, of course, went with the goat.
Here’s the video — you’ll need to turn up your sound:
If you’re in Tampa, you can experience the goat, along with some really good coffee in a pleasant outdoor space, at the Seminole Heights branch of Spaddy’s Coffee.
We don’t have any photos of us showing up to the wrong house,
but we pretty much looked like this.
We started off our New Year’s Eve at the wrong house.
We meant to go to our friend Shelley’s house for her New Year’s Eve party. It’s a meaningful spot for us, because when we started dating eleven years ago, Anitra took me to the same party, and we looked like this:
Click the photo to read the original blog post.
With the pandemic and other parties, it had been a while since we’d been to Shelley’s, and I led us to the wrong house — one that was two doors west of Shelley’s. We rang the doorbell, and an unfamiliar face answered.
“Hello!,” said the gentleman at the door. He was maybe about my age, maybe a little older, with glasses and close-cropped hair and a goatee. He looked like he could’ve been one of Shelley’s friends whom I didn’t know, and I instinctively walked in.
As soon as we were completely inside the house, we knew we were in the wrong place. We’d walked into a smaller gathering, made up of the couple who owned the house, and another couple who were visiting. They’d been sitting in their living room, and from the looks of it, they were having a nice conversation over what looked like a bottle of Lagavulin. Nice.
We all had a good laugh as we introduced each other and shook hands. Anitra and I were about to leave when I had an idea.
“Hey,” taking a quick guess as to their preferred era of rock music. “Have you ever heard AC/DC on accordion?”
They hadn’t — at least until last night.
Categories
2022 in 12 pictures
Categories
Christmas Eve dinner 2022
I know that the word “liver” strikes ice-cold fear in the hearts of many, but we love organ meats in this household. We had some amazing liver from the small farm-raised cows at Riverbend Ranch seasoned with their Cracker Cow Burger Blend, garlic pepper green beans and mushrooms, and mashed sweet potato with home-grown herbs. A great Christmas Eve dinner!
It’s probably my favorite impulse purchase this month, and I got it at Arts Market on Danforth.
Small Business Saturday (which took place yesterday) is an excellent opportunity to check out local places that I don’t usually go to, or places that I’d been meaning to go to for some time. Tiger Dust, which has been in Seminole Heights for several months, falls into the latter category.
Tiger Dust calls itself a wunderkammer, a German term meaning “wonder room” or “room of wonders.” There’s a similar term, kunstkammer, which literally means “art room” but it often interpreted in English as “cabinet of curiosities.” This is from a time when “cabinet” was used more often to refer to a room than furniture for storing things (our modern usage of the word is a sort of downsizing).
If you’re looking for a gift for an unconventional friend, Tiger Dust just might fit the bill.
Need an interesting taxidermy piece? Tiger Dust has ’em in spades.
Kitschy art? Oh yeah.
Housewarming present for a friend whose wardrobe is entirely black? They’ve got ’em.
Need the complete works of Anton LaVey or Aleister Crowley? Do what thou wilt.
I almost bought the tiger kite pictured above. I may yet return to complete the purchase. I did buy a skull ring, because it’s a key part of the accordion rock and roll lifestyle.
Tiger Dust is located at 4222 North Florida Avenue, a couple of blocks north of M.L.K. Boulevard. Their hours are listed online as 12 noon to 7:00 p.m. daily, but the sign on their door might be a little more accurate — it says they’re open noon-ish to 7-ish.
Want to know more about Tiger Dust? Check these out:
- Tiger Dust’s website, tigerdust.party — they’re the first people I know who use the .party domain
- Creative Loafing: Tiger Dust, a new pinball arcade and gift shop, celebrates grand opening in Seminole Heights this weekend (March 15, 2022)
- Only In Your State: The Oddities Shop In Florida Brings Wonderfully Eclectic Items In One Space
- Bay News 9: Oddities galore at this creepy book shop in Seminole Heights
- That’s So Tampa: Tiger Dust brings a pinball arcade to Seminole Heights