DANCING ON SATURDAY

The lady at the bagel place handed me my change, and something didn’t look quite right about it. I'd given her a fiver, and she gave me back four ones and some change. That’s about how much I think a bagel and cream cheese should cost—but not how much it does cost! I told her she’d given me too much back and gave her two of the ones. “I don’t know what I was thinking about,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re thinking you want me to buy a whole new wardrobe at yard sales this morning,” I told her, and she laughed and said I probably could.

Those extra two bucks would almost have covered my expenses this Saturday. Another day of minimal purchases, but a way fun outing nonetheless. Ummm, mostly fun. I managed to drop my bagel (cream cheese side down, of course) onto the front of my shirt not once but twice as I drove along. I was wearing my Queen of Fifty Cents shirt, the one with the big Q on the back that I picked up a few weeks ago. I think the cream cheese will come out, but if it doesn’t—well, the shirt cost fifty cents, so no biggie.

Saw several of the regulars. Carol, the white haired grandmother who buys toys for her grandkids and stuff for her son’s classroom (he teaches grade school in LA), was at the first sale I stopped at—and several others as well. The paper mache artist (don’t know her name) was there with her mom. Her mother always stays in the car but participates in whatever conversation is going on by calling out the window. She says I look exactly like her friend Alice, and since she can never remember my name (perfectly fair since I can't remember hers!) I've suggested she call me Not-Alice.

Part of the fun on Saturday morning is that you never know what you’ll encounter. Okay, that’s true of every day! My second or third stop wasn’t a huge sale, but everything was neatly marked with prices (unusual around here, usually you have to ask). I told the lady and her daughter I could see they had worked really hard to prepare. The mom laughed and agreed, then mentioned that their sale this time wasn’t just to clear out clutter, but to help pay for a dress for her daughter to wear in Irish dance competitions. “She’s getting pretty good, but I had no idea how expensive this was going to turn out to be,” she told me ruefully. I love Irish dancing (well, who doesn’t) so I asked the girl, Maggie, if she would dance for me. She demurred for a moment but her mom encouraged her, so she stood up straight and launched into a wonderful step dance. She was just delightful, and when she finished and I had applauded, I asked if she could do it again while I filmed her. I gave them my blog calling card and said I'd love to show Maggie dancing. So off she went again. I chimed in with a little mouth music and we were all grinning like fools when she finished. When I edited the film, I followed the real performance with a slow motion version. Here is my film Maggie Dances.

Now, a morning with a sweet girl dancing for you is wonderful enough, but at one of the last sales I met this lady.

She was having a great time playing her finger cymbals, and told me she’s started taking belly dance lessons and absolutely loves it. Yes, she can make that coin belt jingle! I pulled out the camera and snapped her picture, and she said oh, I should have been wearing my red hat. So I grabbed it off the table where it was for sale, and we shot again.
I mentioned meeting Maggie earlier and she said she had really wanted to do Irish dance, but there were no classes nearby, so she tried belly dance. Looks like it was meant to be.

My $3.25 this Saturday went for mostly practical stuff, like a bottle of dish detergent!
This vintage tablecloth is pretty stained, but hopefully the oxy cleaner stuff will work its magic once more.

I bought these mini-bundt pans to use with my latest cookbook.
I think I wrote about it before. Because I found a digital scale for fifty cents a while back, I got interested in cooking by weighing the ingredients instead of measuring, which led me to a book called Ratio by Michael Ruhlman. The beauty of this system is that you can make any amount, so I thought I'd try some small batches of cake batter in this pan. Though we do our best, sometimes it's hard for two people to eat an entire cake before it's past its prime (she wrote, as she took the last bite of slightly stale almond meringue cake from several days ago). My husband brought home three baskets of strawberries from the farmer’s market yesterday, which is going to inspire me to try these pans.

Found a couple of the tennis visors I like to wear in the car.
And finally, in the entertainment department, I picked up a copy of The Princess Bride, which I've always intended to read. Love the movie and have been told the book is way better (as they generally are).

Favorite overheard conversation of the day:

Mid-thirties guy to his wife or maybe sister as they sat in the garage, minding the sale: “Do you remember Mark Bindler from high school?”
She: “Maybe.”
He: “He’s a plumber now.”
She: “What did he look like?”
He: “Dark and handsome.”
She (enthusiastically): “Oh yeah, I remember him.”