Our Friend Craig

I have a soft spot for Craigslist.

I know there are folks who never use it, believing it's full of scams and danger. And maybe it is. You have to be careful with anything.  But we’ve bought and sold things via Craigslist for years without encountering anything worse than idiots who say they are going to come see something you have for sale and then not showing up.

My favorite of these was the woman who made a specific appointment, didn’t show, and when I emailed to make sure she had not been run over by a truck, she said she forgot. So then I wanted her to be run over by a truck. (I'm not really a very nice person.) But only a small truck.

Craigslist is of course my weekly source for yard sale ads. In southern California I didn’t need to pay much attention to ads. The place is so densely populated and there were so many sales I could just go out and cruise, looking for signs. Not so here in Oregon, so Craigslist tells me where the sales are, I put the addresses in my GPS, and off we go. No wasted gas, no wasted time—which is the really important part, since you want to get to sales as quickly as you can before someone else runs off with the bargains that should have been yours.

We have found some good stuff the past couple of Fridays. I didn’t bother to take pictures of the practical stuff—a citrus zester, four Dansk linen placemats, a box of kosher salt—and while I'm excited about the top quality wood and canvas market umbrella, it’s out on the lower deck and it's raining, so you’ll just have to imagine it. Then imagine it with a $15 price tag. And it wasn’t even much hassle to get home. The house up the street that’s been on the market had an estate sale this weekend, and we just carried the umbrella and the quite heavy stand home. Half a block, downhill, made it. Whew!

This is probably the most ridiculous thing I bought. It was fifty cents, it's vintage.

It's in two pieces, and covers a booze bottle. I hope to resell it to some poodle collector. (They will have to supply their own booze, I'm keeping my triple sec.) How much do you want to bet it was a hostess gift at a bridge club fifty years ago?

I adore this Steinbach music box, even though it doesn’t seem to play its tune any more. 

Woodcutter elves! Playing a zither and doing that foot-slapping dance! Who cares if it plays? (Though if anyone could tell me how to fix it, I’d be happy to try.)

Probably my favorite driveway find from last week was this great rusted metal piece. 

It's a wind chime, but designed in a way that it doesn’t ring very loudly.

And it's all thanks to Craigslist. But that’s not the main reason I'm currently filled with Craigslist appreciation. This is.

Yes, we have a new family member, and found her on Craigslist! We adopted her from a busy family with working parents who found they had underestimated the amount of work she would be. She’s been spending long days in a crate with a short break for lunch and potty, and while I know they miss her, I also know we can give her a lot more attention and exercise. At the moment she and Zoë are asleep beside my chair, having been to the dog park for an hour this morning, followed by several romps out in the yard.

Looks like we’re going to change her name from Lucy to Fannie (for my husband’s Great Aunt Fannie). Fannie Lucille, to honor her first family. She is a basset/black lab mix, five months old. Zoë is a bit disconcerted but coping. We were more concerned about Millie since she’s still pretty small, and I have to admit the dogs have been chasing her. But don’t start feeling sorry for Millie. She can elude those galumphing dogs at will, and when they can’t keep up with her she circles back around to give them another chance. With, I regret to inform you, a very smug expression on her little kitty face.

Part of me is sorry we didn’t get to experience Fannie at this age.

On the other hand, she’s now crate trained, housebreaking is well started, and she’s pretty well socialized with kids and crowds (they were taking her to their son’s football games). 

But there’s another reason that as soon as I saw her picture I was sure she should be ours. If you’ve read any of my mystery series set in mythical Willow Falls (Sleeping Dogs Lie; In Dogs We Trust; The Dog Prince…and a fourth title coming out soon!) you’ll remember that one of the characters is Jack, a black lab/basset mix. Who I created in honor of a stray dog I met years ago and was not able to rescue, and I've regretted it ever since. And now, along comes Fannie.

Sometimes we do get second chances.