Mysteries solved

OK, so the new blog name, 12 0 13, is a play on my first name. 12 = R, 0 = O, 13 = B

12 0 13 = R O B Am I the only one who thinks these numbers look like the letters in my name?

The artwork I referenced in a past posting and in the comments section for a few posts is still not installed properly, but I'm willing to share it. It's a 100 year old stained glass window from a church in North Dakota. The church was demolished about a decade ago and the son of the demolisher smartly snapped up 4 of these 8'5" x 3' windows. Several years ago, he sold them to a wonderful antique store in Kalama, WA (about 45 miles from our home in Oregon). Colleeen and I have been admiring the two that were left in the shop for a couple of years now. There was aSt. Cecilia, patron saint of ecclesiastical music, and the Virgin Mary. We always liked St. Cecilia better, partly because it was displayed nicely, and because it was in perfect shape. It was also more than double the price of Mary.

A few weeks ago, Colleen mentioned how she'd REALLY like to visit that shop again (for the third time in less than 2 years) to see if they still had St. Cecilia. We got there on a weekday, while still on our sabbatical, and were excited to see both the windows still present. We asked Don and Robert, the shop owners to slide Mary over to the window so we could see the glass colors. It was then that we fell in love with the Mary window, even more than the St. Cecilia window. We asked Don if the price was firm, and he said no. After talking it over among ourselves, we offered 63.3% of the asking price, and he accepted!

They drove it down the following Sunday for free and we now are trying to decide where to display it. The pictures show it leaning against our front window. It worked well there, because it got natural light during the day, and then at night passerbys were able to see the beauty of it when we had lights on inside. But, there's usuall a couch there. So, we moved it to a blank wall to the left of a big fireplace and lit it with a floodlight from behind. It's very nice there at night, we get no benefit of it during the day. Oh well, it' a great problem to have.

We love thinking of passing this down through the generations. It has a few imperfections, but we don't mind them at all, knowing this window turned 100 this year. I'm not sure why the John Lewis family didn't ask to keep the window, but if John Lewis died 100+ years ago, perhaps his family doesn't even know about it anymore. I think if for some reason the Lewis family found out we had their window, I'd sell it to them for 1/2 of what we paid.

That reminds me of something else. The house where my grandfather spent his summers (at an aunt's place) in Dorchester, MA in the 1920s is a gorgeous mansion. I have a picture of it blanketed in snow from that time. I wrote to the address a few years ago telling them I had this picture and would send it along if they were interested. I got no response. I can only imagine that it was split into many apartments and who ever received my letter was not interested in the history of the place. I may try again. When we were in our old house, built in 1928, I would have been thrilled to have a picture of it in its original condition. Heck, I even love looking at the pictures of our current house that I took when we were monitoring the home inspection -- the bare back yard, the monochrome walls, how they had furniture arranged. It makes me feel good about what we've done in the two years we've been here.