Bastille Day, 2011

Today is Bastille Day, July 14th, the day of the French revolution and my wife's birthday. This is her present, a new custom built bookcase to house her hardcover and paperback collection. Of late, she's been buying books from the Apple store and putting them on her I-pad, but what we had in this second bedroom was still insufficient to store the earlier collection.

Enter One Grumpy Elf, the DBA (doing business as) for our friend Peter Elliott. We met Peter through friends Dick and June, who had him build custom bookcases for them at the Evergreen Way neighborhood. Peter built us a nice storage chest and a hall table inside the front door. When we moved, we brought the chest along. Later, we added two bedside tables ($150 each) and then a headboard for the queen sized bed in the second bedroom. The headboard is actually from one of the original kitchen doors at the new house, which we scrapped but gave to Peter. Peter builds things out of louvered doors, which he finds wherever people are upgrading closet doors that were more popular in the 1970's, 80's, and 90's. We like the fact he recycles, and between our two condos we have six items now. The bookcase, with four shelves up instead of the traditional three, cost me $225 plus tax. That's with a generous discount for returning (and returning, AND RETURNING) customers. Peter - once again a great piece and just what we wanted.

Ripley also had a busy day, going to the vet for his six month blood test following his heart worm treatment last December. We're proud to say our boy passed his 4DX test with flying colors. Pictures are on his Face Book page, under Ripley Wild. He's pictured here on that bed, and in the picture you can see the former swinging door from the kitchen, and the bedside tables. Rip is generally not allowed in the guest room, so this is a rare picture for his album.

For her birthday, Elizabeth got this neat piece of furniture (OK, so I'm no romantic) and a gift certificate for a pedicure. Ripley got his toenails done too, at the veterinarian. The only difference.......the vet doesn't speak Vietnamese, but then again the nail technician doesn't speak beagle.