(no subject)

Dad gave me The Pencil Sharpener for Christmas.
The beast in question

It had belonged to an architect Dad knew, who collected all sorts of odds and ends and gadgets in his office, and died of Alzheimer's Disease when I was a kid. Six months or so after he died, his widow called Dad and said "I found the pencil sharpener." So Dad ended up with it. I fell in love with it too, and so my sister and I decided that by way of inheritance, she would get the enormous china serving platter with the seashells painted on it (came out of the wall of a house Dad had worked on) and I would get the pencil sharpener. Mom and Dad are still using the platter for Thanksgiving turkeys, but Dad said he had owned the pencil sharpener for long enough and gave it to me. So now I've got it, and most of the dovetailed wooden box it came in (half of one side of the box is missing). All of its blades (the one in the machine and the three extras) need sharpening. I guess I should figure out who can do that, because I could, but I wouldn't do it well.

Once I get the blades sharpened, I'm tempted to run out and buy a box of pencils just for the pleasure of sharpening them.