Weather Abides

The weather forecast all week has called for rain on Friday and thunderstorms on Saturday. No biggie to most of you, but in Southern California most folks do not take weather in their stride. I was sure anyone thinking about having a sale this weekend would convince themselves to wait a week or so.

Last night it poured as ordered. So far today we’ve had nothing but sunshine and fluffy white clouds. Okay, there’s a chilly wind blowing, but wind is something everyone’s used to here.

I had errands to run (had to get that quarter of a tank of gas that $20 buys right now) so I headed out, though a bit later than usual. I did give Craigslist a quick check before I left, and there was one ad posted early in the week about a neighborhood sale. Yeah, right, my sarcastic self muttered. But sarcasm was not enough to quell hope, so I drove by that neighborhood and sure enough there were a few sales.

I’ve got to try to remember which realtor scheduled this thing. When it eventually comes time to sell our house, we could do worse than work with someone who seems to be able to control the weather.

Going to yard sales is an especially frugal hobby this time of year. Last week I spent a dime, this week it was a dollar. Check out these great vintage paperbacks. Two of them include two books: The Secret of Zi(how does the alien get his cape to float like that?) plus Beyond the Vanishing Point (“Out of infinite smallness grew a gigantic peril”); and One Against Herculumplus Secret of the Lost Race. An Andre Norton I don’t think I’ve ever read—woohoo!This Heinlein doesn’t ring any bells either.And Earth Abides…didn’t they make a movie of this several years ago? I dimly remember an Australian movie with the same themes, but it had a different title. However, I did find this gem on YouTube—a school project that some kids did to promote the book. (Keep going past the initial voiceover, which is a bit hard to understand.)

As a writer, what I’m really jealous of is the blurb on the back cover—from Carl Sandburg, no less. Sheesh!

 

While I was perusing the boxes of books, one of the ladies having the sale noticed my car sitting by the driveway. “A convertible with the top down!” she exclaimed, walking over to look at it. “Somebody is really a free spirit.”

“Um, that would be me,” I said.