Mint juleps and making a rusty refrigerator respectable.

As we all know, Saturday was Derby Day. Now, we are not Southerners and Lord knows we are not up on our horse racing.

But for some reason, it has always been our tradition to celebrate Derby Day. Could it be...

I mean is it...

do you think...
Yes! The Chief makes a mean mint julep!!


He uses Tennessee bourbon, not Kentucky, which seems inappropriate. But it's g.o.o.d. :)

Thanks to the hot weather (not obtaining today, no, not at all) the previous week, we had plenty of mint, not pictured here.

In fact, I forgot to record this auspicious day at all until I was suspiciously auspicious myself, if you know what I mean. Not that I could have said that. At the time. It's a fabulous libation, I tell you!

And much appreciated after the day I had had, which involved an hour plus drive each way, pounding, repetitive Irish music, and intense sitting around on my part, punctuated by frantic bobby-pinning, safety-pinning, and shoe tying. Feis day in Step-Dancing Land, otherwise known as Celtic purgatory.So you see how important that glass is? (Alas, we don't have the requisite silver cups. You can tell we are not comme il faut. Not even a flower-bedecked straw hat in sight...)

On to more mundane activities.

On Sunday, we found a replacement for the outside fridge that died. (Its death was unnoticed by us. It seems that the cold of the garage was chilling our food. One warmish day I couldn't help but notice that although the motor was running, the contents were...warmish. Hmmm....)Craigslist seemed only to offer $100 models at the cheapest, so when the Chief found one for $40 in someone else's garage, he pounced.

You know us. We just have to do things cheap. And, that's okay. There is no point spending money on stuff that is going to be in the garage -- and you know it's not a CAR in there I'm talking about, anyway.I told you before, your standards are higher than mine.

It was not super clean. It was rusty. But it worked. The lady took $25 (really, she should have paid us to take it, but we needed it and she had it -- so the free market ordains).

Also, the handles were on the wrong side.
Do you know what I mean? Study the above diagram of the garage of death carefully (see there on the left, down the stairs from the mudroom?) and then check that picture.

Every single day of my life (or the life of one of my slaves*cough*kids) was going to be a little worse off for having to open this fridge on the wrong side. As I've said before, I'm all about efficiency. My middle name is Conserving Steps. Names are.

So instead I made one hour out of his life quite a bit worse -- he had to change the handles!

Not easy. Much cursing and throwing of broken tools. Some going to the hardware store for replacement bits.
But he did it! He's a good guy!


Meanwhile I scrubbed.

And I spray painted with a can of paint I just happened to have lying around! And now I have a BIG, clean, conveniently opening fridge! (I hope the rust doesn't come back, but if it does I will sand, spray with primer, which I didn't have on hand, and spray again.)