The Rest of X-Mas

I ran out of X-mas crap to post. There was a weird knit hanging door knocker--or belt?--that I wanted to feature, but I can't find it.
But never fear, my mother has been busy buying up more crap. The most recent purchase was some rusty patio furniture from Out of the Closet thrift store. *sigh*. I will save that for later.
Here is a random hodge-podge of stuff I photographed today.

As I was sitting down to Christmas Eve lunch, I saw this in the corner.
Me: "Mom, why is there a shoe tree in the corner of our dining room?"
Mom: "That's a shoe tree?"
Me: "Yeah. What did you think it was?"
Mom: "I was going to put plants on it."

These are random coasters with beads around the edges. I guess they're not that bad, all things considered. One of these days, I'll do a series of all the ugly trivets my mom has bought from thrift stores.

This is the newest random stacked sculpture my mom has constructed out of a side table, a planter, a glass dish, and a vase.

So hideous. I think it's the Virgin Mary. Why does her head look huge and her neck look like it's about to snap in two?

Fresh from the Army and still in its ghetto packaging (packing tape and saran wrap), a salt and pepper shaker. My mom collects these like she collects trivets.

You may recognize the doily from previous pictures. I don't know what the glass thing is, but I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be filled with marbles and rotting orchids.

Last one. Can someone please explain what the saying on the frame means? "We can expect nothing more than that which we believe possible." Wuh?

My husband and sister think I'm being too mean to my mom and that I should take this blog down. I'm going to think about it. In the meantime, I want to take a moment to say that my mom does sometimes score decent purchases. She bought Lucy a floral party dress and a pair of winter boots from the Army recently. Granted, we live in Los Angeles, so I don't know when Lucy would need winter boots, but the party dress she can wear for Easter. My mom is crazy but she is also hilarious.

Happy Holidays!

On the Fourth Day of Xmas

My mother gave to me:

Santa and Mrs. Claus cupcake toppers
Six miniature hats and scarves
Two tragic ornaments
And a hairy golden bell with a plastic misteltoe toupee

* the picture is of my mom back in Korea when she was about twenty years old. The picture is wallet size, which gives you some sense of how tiny these cupcake toppers are. Also, they keep toppling over, which drives me crazy. Santa always ends up lying on his stomach.

On the Third Day of Xmas

My mother gave to me:

Six miniature hats and scarves (ok, I know I should have waited until the 6th day of Xmas, but this was too good to save)
Two tragic ornaments
And a hairy golden bell with a plastic mistletoe toupee

* These miniature hats and scarves came in their original packaging (c 1980), but with no figurines included. So I searched around the house for someone in need of winter clothing:

And they fit perfectly!

On the Second Day of Xmas

My mother gave to me:

Two tragic ornaments

And a hairy golden bell with a plastic mistletoe toupee

12 Days of Christmas Shit My Mom Buys

My friend Jake suggested that in honor of Christmas, I devote my blog to "12 Days of Christmas Shit My Mom Buys." I thought this was a great idea, as Christmas crap is always in season at the Army.

My mom gave me all her tree ornaments and decorations last year, much of which had been collected painstakingly, year after year, from the Army.

So, for the First Day of Christmas, my mother gave to me:

A hairy golden bell with a plastic mistle-toe toupee.

Jesus Loves You

This is part of my mother's extensive collection of Jesus paraphernalia. I can't remember what the caption says--maybe Jesus Christ is risen? or Jesus Christ is King? He sits on my mother's desk, next to the monkey candlestick. 

Strawberry Hick

Sorry for the delay in posting. My mom is in Korea for the next two weeks, so I plan to do some recon at her house and should have some more good shit to post. But for now, here's a gift she bought for my daughter Lucy when she was first born. It came without tags, so I assume it came from the Army.

According to the care label, this seems to be a promotional item from Del Monte and is part of their "Country Yumkin" line. This is Country Strawberry, and he's wearing a cowboy hat and has a snaggle tooth and googly eyes. He scares the shit out of me, partly because I think he looks like a decapitated head. He doesn't seem to bother Lucy, though.

A Tale of Two Crock Pots

My mother is a Crock Pot fanatic. I don't really understand why, since she rarely makes anything in them--no pot roasts, no braises, no stews. The only time she ever used a Crock Pot while I was growing up was to boil Chinese herbs, which she would then force feed us. It was not a good memory. Anyway, over the years, she has collected so many Crock Pots from the Army that she's taken to giving them away to my sister and me. She gave me the Crock Pot above sometime last year. It's the "Crock Watcher" model, and I would date it to around 1975, based on the brown and orange color scheme. A  few months ago, she decided I could use an upgrade. Et voila:

I've been upgraded from a 1975 Crock Pot to, whaddaya think? a 1985 model? 1990?

More plant stands

These end tables showed up at my mom's house this weekend. There are four of them arranged in rows of two. My mom is using them as plant stands. It's a little bizarre, since they're just kinda hanging out in the middle of the living room, but my mom wanted her plants to get sun from the skylight above. All fine. I mean, the tables are ugly, but whatever. Then I took a closer look...

...and yes, that is a ball taped to the frame. It snapped off, but the previous owner kindly reattached it using packing tape. This makes the monkey candlestick look like a work of art.

Judge Sonia

The latest gift from my mother, purchased from the used book section of a thrift store. My mother is a big believer in self-help books. In college, I would get care packages filled with ramen, bottles of Centrum, and books like "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus." I've only read the back cover of Judge Judy's book, but I already know my favorite of her "ten hard and true lessons for happiness" is Lesson  #4:  "Denial is a river in Egypt." True dat.

Is that a Renoir?

Do you ever wonder who buys bad reproductions of famous artworks for their houses? That would be my mother. In contrast to the Last Supper she has hanging in her bedroom, this Renoir actually has a decent wooden frame (though it's still gilt). The real painting hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The fake painting hangs in Sonia's Gallery of Bad Taste in Los Angeles, CA.

Funeral parlor

I think my mom actually purchased this from Wertz Brothers, but it's still heinous. This is in the living room. My mom can't pass up anything that is marble/granite or gilt. I don't even know where to begin when it comes to the chairs. They look like office chairs for munchkins. The doily under the vase is from the Army. My mom loves anything handmade/crocheted/knit. In the background, you can see the handmade cozy my mom made for our piano. The piano bench also has its own cozy.

Merry X-Mas

This lovely "vignette" sits in the corner of the living room. What is it? you ask. Well, let me start from the bottom. Here, we have a metal Christmas tree stand with one broken leg. It can no longer support an actual tree, so someone donated it to the Salvation Army. Where my mother bought it and decided to turn it into a plant stand. How? Well, she put a metal platter on top of the stand (provenance unknown), then placed an enormous ceramic pot on top of the platter (again, provenance unknown, but I suspect it's from Ktown). As a crowning touch, she placed a round cutting board (provenance: Salvation Army) on the very top. I have no idea why she wanted to cover the pot. Maybe because she wanted to put an actual potted plant on the tippy top? In any case, my mother has many of such bizarre structures all over her house.

e is for eccentric

My mother uses this as her gym bag. As you can see, it is monogrammed with the letter "e." My mother's name is Sonia. There is no "e" in her name, as far as I can tell. Her last name is Lee. So maybe the "e" is referring to Sonia LEE? Or maybe the "e" stands for "excellent" or "energetic" or "ArE you fucking kidding mE?"

Monkey Candlestick

I believe this is a monkey climbing a candlestick. And no, your eyes do not deceive you. The monkey's head broke off and someone super-glued it back on. Then that person realized that he had a broken piece of shit and donated it to the Salvation Army, where my mother purchased it. It now resides on her desk.

Cherubic Clock

I knew it was a bad sign when my mom called to ask if I had any extra batteries because she wanted to "check if something worked." She wouldn't tell me what that "something" was. Well, here it is. There are so many things wrong with this clock, but at least it does tell time.

The Last Supper

This lovely piece hangs in my mother's bedroom. The frame is made of gold spray-painted plastic. Now I haven't seen the original painting, but I think it's fair to say that the apostles aren't supposed to look like airbrushed cartoons. I was once watching "My Name is Earl," and this EXACT SAME PAINTING (plastic frame and all) was hanging in a white trash trailer. Awesome.

Happy Birthday Joey

My mom is an almost-70 year old Korean woman with an addiction to the Salvation Army (the "Army") and other thrift stores. She likes to buy used Crock Pots, dishes, swimsuits (she swims at the YMCA daily), clothes, furniture, trivets, linens, and baby clothes. She sent two daughters to private high school and college and now lives in a nice house in Brentwood, so clearly her frugality has paid off. Still, she buys all kinds of crap she doesn't need. This blog is meant to record her random-ass purchases.

Exhibit #1 is a recent purchase. In case you can't read the print, the mug says, "Happy 60th Birthday, Joey. With love from your whole family. Oct 2005." I asked my mom who Joey was, just to fuck with her. She  giggled. My husband said, "That sucks that Joey gave away this birthday mug from his family." I answered, "He probably gave the mug away because he DIED and they carted away all his possessions to the Army."