Garage Sales - Week 7 - 2011
Friday morning and I've hit the Mennonite Thrift Shop - a few small treasures and then I discover a huge church pew, curved, perhaps 8 feet in length, $75.00.
I want it, it's a bargain, it won't be here long, but try as I might I can't find a place for it in my head. Not the living room, the office, the kitchen, the bedroom, it will have to stay.
It's perfect, 8 feet in width, curved, it's exactly what I wasn't looking for it. I exercise some great restraint and leave it.
***
Saturday morning and I'm up - as always - far too early, there's an early sale down in Hillhurst, then a parade in Kensington. And driving down 20th Avenue, early, I'm the only one, clouds and street grey with impending rain, what do I see but a Superhero, sparkly cape and tight lycra leggins, perhaps 15, 16 years old, jogging down the street.
An omen, but I'm not sure what for.
The first sale in Hillhurst, there's a small group of dealers waiting for it to open. It's now past 8:00 and one of the dealers has been persistently calling the host of the garage sale for the past 10 minutes, eager to get in and then on with business. It's beginning to sprinkle rain.
I decide not to wait. Whoever is holding the sale won't be in a good temper when they wake up and have to answer the phone to be told they're late for their own garage sale.
Kensington, and by now it's pouring, and I drive about the neighborhood but there's only one garage sale, all the wares covered in plastic tarps. A wireless phone, soaking wet, 25 cents. "25 Cents? Does it work?" I ask and the organizers laugh from the relatively dry safety of their porch.
There will be no sales in Kensington today, there are no garages, only front lawns, and with the rain they'll cancel, and the rain - abundant, heavy, has me thinking of calling it an early day as well. But I persist - the greatest treasures will be had if only because nobody will be out searching....
9:00 and I'm at the St. Edmund's sale, plastic tarps, cold trailers and church cellars, nothing.
From here on to Tuscany - a neighborhood I'd usually give a miss to, but they have garages and so fewer of their sales will be cancelled.
And in Tuscany business is flourishing, there are loads of cars on the street, people driving, my windows keep fogging up and I roll them down to drive by slowly and see what treasures are on offer.
Exactly what I would have guessed. Last years catalog treasures, Chintz & Co, the "Out of Fashion" decor items, one person - from the abundance of cards and cheap new stationary - used to run a gift shop (there must be great money in gift shops if they can afford to live in Tuscany), nothing, 1 dozen, 2 dozen sales, not a single thing.
Eventually I find a Bass Guitar, Fender, in case with cable for amp, asking $50.00, I offer $40.00.
And that's the day.
Returning home, close to 12:00 and I've held my pee all morning - dancing on the street, pinching it in the car, the net haul for the 6:00 AM morning wake up 3 plant pots (I need dirt) and a bass guitar for the boy.
Next week, now, next week there will be something...
- Details
- Category: Miscellany
Listening to music
I'm listening to old music and making lists - hearing all sorts of songs I once loved at once and writing them down so I can find them later.
I wake up. I've left the list in the dream, can only remember Sting's "Dream of the Blue Turtles", I spend the next 30 minutes reliving it on YouTube.
- Details
- Category: Dreams
Aaron Ristau
Exactly why I collect junk for re-purposing. After visiting his site I'm actually fearful that I might never throw anything away again...
Except, of course, that he actually gets around to re-purposing and selling it.
Some wonderfully simple and elaborate computer mice and other household necessities at the gallery/shop below...
Link: Aaron Ristau
- Details
- Category: Link of the day
Two things you must see...
The bosses nephew, he's obsessed, he's told me this story a hundred times and it's every time as funny as the first. They definitely made an impression.
"Oh my God you would not believe it...the little children are crying, the old people are..." and he's explaining about the time he and his girlfriend were at the Calgary Zoo and the chimpanzees began having sex.
'then 5 monkeys come out and the female monkey, she knows.... Oh my God, you have to call the zoo and find out when they are going to have sex again and go down to see....I have seen Giraffes fucking and Elephants fucking on the National Geographic channel on TV, but I never see nothing like this...."
I'm curious, not to see the chimps fucking (the thought of discreetly interrogating the wardens to find the best time to visit is surreal, to say the least), but what it is that has so shocked him.
He finishes: "Two things you must see before you die. The monkeys fucking at the Zoo and the donkey show in Tijuana. They have special donkeys...."
- Details
- Category: Conversations
Page 761 of 997