Some Days You Get Rusty Bottle Caps

So today Kate and I went searching for rusty washers in the gutters around Liberty Street and Third Street, but first we stopped in to look for glass skull beads in Julie Knabb's bead gallery (textures@bellsouth.net) .  Julie's place is down the alley between 6th and Vine Restaurant  and my friend Millicent's Urban Artware, so going into her place is like finding a wonderful secret hideout.  Julie spoke so enthusiastically about her current work and said that somewhere in her stash she might be able to find some little hands and feet for dolls.  Good to know!  And her beaded Yoruba armchair is to die for.  Millicent in Urban Artware was busy setting up the SEED display (I really need to ask her about SEED sometime soon; my information on SEED is a little fuzzy).  She liked Kate's "This is What a Feminist Looks Like" tee-shirt.  There's a wonderful harpy in Urban Artware with a pottery face and textile body. 

Not a single rusty washer did we see, anywhere, in any gutter.
By that time we were hot and thirsty and drove over to Third Street to Krankie's Coffee for something cold.  Krankie's seemed full of professors from Wake Forest, so I challenged Kate to look around and see if she could tell the philosophy professors from the physics profs.  We both agreed that while a math professor gives off a definite vibe, it's harder to tell the difference between philosophy and English. As an English teacher I can assert that I give off a most obvious English teacher aura.
I was disappointed that we hadn't found any washers--but lo and behold, the gravel parking lot of Krankie's proved to be a veritable treasure trove of rusty bottle caps!  I even took a photo of Kate pointing at one.  Krankie's was displaying some of the work of tattooer Matt Hoyme.  If I liked the thought of tattoos affixed to my flesh, I might have been interested in calling him up.  He does beautiful carp.

The day's take:  7 rusty bottle caps, a grotty railroad spike, the pleasure of Kate's company, seeing some fun art, and meeting Julie Knabb and acquiring 10 of her glass skull beads.  We'd have searched for more bottle caps if it hadn't been so ferociously hot.  That part of town--down on the traintracks near Krankie's off Third Street--was almost surreally deserted.

So!  The Rust Gods weren't generous with washers, but we got a fair collection of bottle caps.  I'm satisfied.