That is Priceless by Steve Melcher for August 11, 2021

The fashion business did not turn out to be as glamorous as Vanessa had hoped.

“Damn squirrels are in the attic again.”

That night, Catherine Moore would finally work up the courage to tell her husband, Clement, that there were reindeer on their roof. The poem her fantasies inspired would eventually pay for her treatments.

The upstairs neighbor’s kid was playing his music again in the middle of the night, not letting decent hard working people get any rest.

“Jesus, is that you? If it is, knock twice.”

She’s a woman who’s living on dreams; / always stifling frustrated screams. / At heart she’s a temptress. / In life — just a sempstress. / Life is coming apart at the seams.

“Beam me up, Scottie. The only decent thing on the menu is fish ‘n chips, and the politicians are loonier than the Kardashians.”

Dawn finally gets a reply to “Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me.”

Charity earns a meagre living by stitching poetic homilies of her own devising into needlework samplers. Tonight she battles a case of writer’s block, struggling to find a rhyme for “fornicate.”

Déjà vu, this has happened before! / She will leave here, but not through the door. / If Samantha is right, / soon a bright beam of light / will compel her to float off the floor. /// Though the ceiling is solid, she’ll rise / and pass through it into murky skies. / She’ll arrive in a place / with a strange dwarf-like race, / and Samantha will doubt her own eyes. /// In vague memories creatures surround her, / What is now called “a Fourth Close Encounter.” / She’ll be gone for a while, / then returned with a smile. / (As a part of their probes these “men” mount her.)

“The good part about my failing eyesight is that I can’t see the cobwebs on the ceiling anymore.”

“Oh drat ! The electricity’s been cut off agian.”

“YES! YES! YES!, I’M COMING!!”

She’s bored !/ It’s been several months since she “scored”. She’s accustomed to being adored/ yet she finds herself being ignored/ like a Mongol who misses his horde/ like a duelist who misses his sword/ an aristocrat driving a Ford/ like a toreador being gored.. further boredom she cannot afford./ She’s an apple that needs to be “cored”. /Soon she’ll welcome the mailman aboard…

Isaac Singer’s wife working out the final details for a “sewing tool.”

She’s looking up something.

oh! men with sisters dear

oh! men with mothers and wives

it is not linen you’re wearing out

but human creatures’ lives

thomas hood

Not a bed idea.

Of the painting Redgraves. No relation to the acting Redgraves.

Why does that woman upstairs ALWAYS put her rocking chair on the creakiest floor board?

“Geez! The newly weds are at it again, that’s the third time this morning.” “Doesn’t that guy have a job?”

Here’s a somewhat sappy commentary on this painting that nevertheless does contain some interesting points. Basically, he says that the painting could be read as social criticism in it’s day but probably wasn’t.

https://byronsmuse.wordpress.com/2018/03/19/richard-redgrave-the-sempstress/

Her father captured Lynn considering an offer to play the lead in The Happy Hooker. After much consideration (time enough for her father to finish the painting anyway), Lynn said YES.

The inspiration for……… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n99iNW9595o&ab_channel=RodSterling

Mirrors on the ceiling

Pink champaign on ice

We are all just visitors here of our own device

The room seems different without a man in it!

Most people would complain about the upstairs neighbors going at it at 2:30 in the morning. Barbara parlayed the events into a series of successful Harlequin novels.

“Oh Lord, please give me the f-ing patience to finish mending these f-ing pants for my fat, philandering, f-ing husband who’s too cheap to buy a new pair!”

The mailman’s a young alpha male/ who somehow seems never to fail/ and he gives her the shivers/ for he always delivers/ (though sometimes it’s only the mail..

The idea at times seems appealing/ but a mirror affixed to the ceiling/ entirely depends/ on the state of your friends/ for it really is very revealing.

…nothing to see here anymore.

The Sempstress: 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_Redgrave_-_The_Sempstress.jpg 

has info and links that point to more info about this roughly jumbo envelope size painting.

Again, a larger strip image is shown by (⌘- or Ctrl-) clicking the image at 

http://thatispriceless.blogspot.com/2021/08/masterpiece-2768.html 

So far, 2 works by this artist have been used here. 

https://www.gocomics.com/that-is-priceless/2021/08/09?comments=visible 

has the prior (the blog entry, pointed to by my comment there, has an already published comment that points to the artist info that I used to point to here).

“You kids settle down right now! Don’t make me come up there!”

“Why can’t I wear white after Labor Day?”

She was always a bit technologically challenged. She still doesn’t understand what they mean by If you don’t know the answer, look it up.

Damn! Has it already been a week since I locked him up in the attic? I’m sure I need to go find more “hired help” now …

Sure… rent out your spare room, they said! You could use the extra cash, they said… Don’t these people ever take their shoes off??? :>)

“Our new apartment has a clogging problem.” GEICO commercial

When the sempstress attempted to wheedle / her young client, the new parish beadle, / into paying her more / to repair what he wore, / she discovered she can’t thread that needle.