SALESMEN, TALKERS & PRIZES

Mikey the insurance guy who is moving to Hawaii had another sale today. I rarely stop at places where they keep having sales, but it looked like different merchandise on the driveway, so I pulled over. They greeted me like a long lost cousin. “Every time I move something,” Mikey told me, “I find fifteen more things we need to get rid of. I can't believe we have so much stuff.” (He didn’t actually say stuff, but this is a family blog.) His personality had not changed an iota from two weeks ago, and he was still working the crowd, trying to sell stuff whether you wanted it or not. I saw some vintage books I had passed on before and asked the price. “Books are free now,” he said, then gave me a hard time when I didn’t take them all. I asked his wife how she put up with him and they both laughed. “He’s worn me down,” she said.

I ended up taking three books
and was about to walk away when I glanced one more time over the stuff on the driveway. There were two little vintage rockers that I had asked about. Something made me go back to them, and I ended up buying this little sweetie.
Five bucks, and Mikey delivered it to the back seat of my car. It used to belong to Mrs. Mikey’s aunt, then to her sister. I'm now an honorary member of the family because I have the family rocker.

At my next stop, a row of child sized net tutus were hanging up across the garage doorway. I figured the resident child had outgrown them. A young guy in his twenties greeted me, and I gestured and remarked that he had outgrown all his tutus. The young woman with him was amused. But it turns out they make them. Don’t think I ever met a tutu maker before.

Down the road I pulled up at a sale that had quite a bit of furniture (though none of it to my taste or what I need). But I complimented the nice landscaping in the yard, and that was all it took. The guy started talking and I thought I'd never get away. What would you like to know about him? I'm sure I can tell you everything. This was his son’s house; he and his wife have sold their big house and moved into a condo and there is no driveway at the condo to hold a sale so they brought everything over here to sell. Those oak shelves used to hold his collection of bible materials, he has a degree in bible studies, but when they downsized he kept a few volumes and donated the rest to one of the local Christian schools. He liked being able to share them with lots of other people. That other section of the shelves, the part behind the glass doors where it lights up, that’s where he used to keep the London bobby’s helmet he was given by a visiting policeman when he and his family went to New York for the memorial services on September 11, 2002, since he and his two sons are all police officers. And on it went. He was a very nice man, but I wanted to get back in my car and head for the next sale. I kept ooching slowly down the sidewalk and he kept following and talking. He finally paused to breathe and I warmly wished him good luck with his sale and escaped.

Met a few dogs today. This red-haired Golden was intent on the cat.
This is all of Hannah that was allowed to attend their sale.
And here is one of the smallest and dumbest pooches I've ever met.
Can't remember his name. He’s a Yorkie, and I mean no disrespect to the breed, but this poor little guy couldn’t figure out how to walk out of his pen when the door was opened. I picked him up to try to get a better picture. This was as good as it got.
I spent $11.25 today; nearly half of it went to Mikey for the rocker. My next buy was this hat, which will go to a children’s librarian.
Edward is glad it is leaving the house on Monday. He is not at all sure it is his style. It came from a sale that had tons of decorative items with palm tree motifs. Very Tommy Bahama. I said something about it, and the woman said yeah, after she lost her house she just couldn’t look at all the stuff she had decorated with, so she’s going to start over. Turns out she lost her house to foreclosure. “I was really stupid,” she admitted. “It was so easy to keep refinancing. If I wanted to do something big, like I added a swimming pool just before it all crashed, I'd call the bank and tell the loan officer I wanted another twenty five thousand and she’d say come in and sign the papers on Tuesday.”

I can't tell you how glad I am that we’ve always been careful, frugal types.

Her story was echoed later in the morning by another woman, only this one was trying to guilt trip everyone shopping at her sale. She kept saying she was homeless, though she is staying with someone in a probably million dollar home in Huntington Beach. I'm sorry for her troubles, but there’s homeless and there’s homeless. I did buy a couple of items (without being guilted into paying more than I wanted) which will be prizes in our reading program.

The little cat is cast iron and quite heavy. I'm debating whether to take the hearts out of the frame and make them into pins to wear.


This cross stitch will also be a prize. The lady who made it said she’s done so much embroidery that she can't get her relatives to take any more. This piece won 3rd place at the Orange County Fair one year.

I'm not sure if I'll keep this plate or give it away. It may go with my acorn collection.

I really like this mirror, but it too will be a prize. (Are you wishing by now that you worked with me and could be in our reading program?)
I'm keeping this bowl though.
I broke my cute purple polka-dotted bowl a few weeks ago, so I needed a replacement for my breakfast oatmeal. I've been making do with another that’s not quite big enough. This one will be fine until I find something more exciting. An oatmeal bowl was the one thing I really hoped I'd find today, and the fact that it cost a quarter was the icing on the cake.

I was thinking of covering the black shade on last week’s lamp with fabric, but this paper-covered shade turned up today. I like it.
Makes for a taller lamp, but that’s okay.

My last stop netted this CD.
I didn’t find the sale with this Craigslist ad: “We have lots of collectibles, guitars, amps, vacuums, car bumpers and much much more.” Too bad. I've never seen collectible car bumpers before.

Let me leave you with one last picture. I think it falls into the “worth a thousand words” category!