LIONS AND VOLCANOES, CON BRIO

I bought a volcano today.

I know, that sounds like I fell for one of those “we have a bridge we’d like to sell you” scams. But no. My volcano came from a sale where a cute little girl was waving a “Yard Sale Here!” sign around to get folks to pull over. How could I resist. Nor could I resist my volcano.
It's a lamp, with a flickering red LED light in the top, and the little plastic bubble thingies erupt out of the mouth of the volcano. Unfortunately not a terribly active volcano. The lava bubbles come up in a sporadic, desultory manner. And it needs some fresh batteries. But it will be fun on some children’s librarian’s desk.

And I get to claim I bought a volcano.

Speaking of librarians’ desks, this bubble lamp I bought a few months ago has been a huge hit.
The angel fish just hangs out at the bottom, while the others race up and down, but the children’s librarian who won it tells everyone it's getting a spa treatment or taking a nap.

I started off at a neighborhood sale in a townhome community. Only a few sales and most were way overpriced. I asked at one how much they wanted for a glass terrarium. “Three dollars,” said the elderly mother in a raspy smoker’s voice. “Five dollars,” said her middle aged daughter at the same time, pitching her voice somewhat louder. She went on to tell me about which very exclusive store in Newport Beach it had come from. It might well have been worth five bucks to someone (though not to me), but I just smiled and bit my tongue and did not say, this is not an exclusive store, this is a garage.

These kids were having a good time trying on hats.

Smart kids too—they were buying hats at the sale where stuff was a quarter, not five bucks.

Not long after this I met up with my friend Linda, who was out garaging for the first time since having knee surgery. She’s doing great, and we talked so long that another shopper assumed we lived there and started asking us prices. Then another lady walked by with her dog.
This is Brio. She’s a Bearded Collie. Beardie owners are always impressed when you know what kind of dog it is. Brio is twelve, a former agility champ, a therapy dog, and a dedicated avocado thief. In fact she had some green stuff on her face that we thought was avocado, but turned out to be a leaf. Brio is moving to Texas soon. Lucky Texas!

Also met Dante, a chocolate lab. He’s having his first birthday next week.

I spent a whopping three bucks today. Besides the volcano, I got a CD for the hubs
and a cute snowman candle holder for a colleague who loves snowmen

and a Lego calendar thingie to give away.
Linda got the deal of the day though, and she didn’t even see it. I spotted it sitting on a couch. A little negotiating on price and it was hers.
She’s an elementary school music teacher and has all the kids do the lion dance in January. They will be thrilled to have a real lion-dance mask thingie. And I'm sure the lion is glad to have a good home.