HUSBANDS AND DOGS AND DEALS

I had a surprise companion for garaging this week—my husband! In years past we always went out together on Saturday, but getting up early is way harder for him than for me. (Are all couples composed of one morning person and one night person?) Over time we’ve developed other routines. Nowadays he gets up after I leave and does the grocery run to the farmer’s market and Trader Joe’s. I hit the regular grocery store on my way home, so by noon on Saturday those errands are finished.

But this week he set the clock, got up early with no fuss, and even fixed us a great breakfast. It was fun to have him along, and I was extra glad he came because of one of our finds—didn’t have to wonder if he’d like it or would be asking me, “Where do you plan to put it?”

It started out as a doggy morning. First stop we met this cute Buster:

Don't you want a face like that hanging out at your house? Got into a movie conversation at this sale—seems we’ve all been on a documentary kick with our Netflix viewing. We recommended Man on Wire and Abel Raises Cain to them, and their recent fave was one called Coma.

The next place had a little yap dog yapping at us through the back yard gate. I noticed they were selling a magazine on bulldogs and commented that that was no bulldog back there. The lady promptly went in and got Bailey!
She said everyone always thinks Bailey is a boy (not!) and her friend helping with the sale said, “Well, yeah, ‘cause she’s so ugly.” “She is not!” I returned, and told Bailey not to listen to her. Somehow we got to talking about dogs shedding fur; her owner said that Bailey’s coat must have at least 10 layers, each one a different color. I asked if she’d ever used the Furminator tool and she started to laugh. “Oh yes,” she said. “The back yard looks like a fur bomb hit it when I use that.”

We continued on our way, and as we turned into the next tract on my list I commented to my husband that this was the first time I'd ever turned here. I've been garaging over 7 years in this area and had never seen a sale in this spot. Turned out to be 4 sales on the same block, and number three held the jackpot. As we walked up I noticed a pretty nice set of patio furniture—wicker settee, two chairs, glass topped table—and we both liked the look of them, but I said they would likely be pretty spendy. So as we were looking at the other odds and ends for sale, and I casually asked how much the furniture was.

“Ten bucks,” the guy said.

Picture me checking my ears, since I couldn’t believe I'd heard him right. “Um, did you say ten bucks?” That’s right, he said. Two seconds later Steven was sitting in one of the chairs and I was trying out the settee. Our eyes met for a brief moment. I pulled out my billfold and handed over two fives. Deal! Or I guess I should say, steal!

Of course then we had to figure out how to get them home. We loaded one chair in the back seat of my convertible and promised to be back for the rest asap. Made a few more stops on the way home (the folks at the next sale were suitable impressed when they commented on our chair and we told them what we'd paid for the set). When we got back to the house we tried putting the chair in the back of Steven’s Civic; didn’t go all the way in but with the hatch left open it would work. We caravanned back to the rest of our furniture, loaded the chair and table in his car and the settee in mine (yes, I did look like the Beverly Hillbillies, all I lacked was some banjo music playing) and headed home again. The cushions are a bit faded, but I can make slipcovers for them. We feel very posh sitting out there now; feel like we need to invite people over for margaritas.
We spent $21.25, and of course half of that was the patio furniture. The rest went for:

Two CDs

Four DVDs

A puppet for a door prize

Seeds—I'm hoping my cats will go for this grass and leave my ornamental grasses alone.

A dozen candles for the lanterns in the yard

Van Gogh notecards

Four nice kitchen towels.
I'm rather bemused by the tags on the beige ones. Thank heavens they were carefully woven.

And a cookbook. This was only a quarter, and I figure at that price I can cut out the few recipes I want to keep and let the rest of the book go. I bought the seed packets at my last stop. This lady’s mother has Alzheimer’s and keeps buying seeds at Walmart that she can't use, and forgets and buys more in a few days. She does the same things with cards, which was the other thing for sale. We talked for a while about aging parents and failing memories and hard times—she also was laid off her job recently. I mentioned that I've always found something good comes out of our bad times. She grinned and told me that once before she’d been laid off, and finally found a new job. The first day she was being introduced to people, and one of the guys recognized her from high school, and they ended up getting married. Just shows ya!