Shade and Shoe Goo

Sometimes you’re out thrifting, and you find something that tells you “This is what you got out of bed for today!”

Like a market umbrella for the table on your deck. Which I have been looking for for YEARS. If you’ve ever bought one of these puppies in a store, you know they fall into the category of Not Cheap. Even the cheap ones are Not Cheap. And if you see one at a yard sale and ask the price, you’re always told it’s not for sale. Harumph. This is nearly always true of hand trucks too. People use them to move the big stuff out of the garage, then leave them sitting there and spend all morning telling eager buyers it’s not for sale.

Anyway, back to umbrellas. Saw one at a sale on Friday and knew it was for sale, because the sign said so. However, it was part of a set with a table and some chairs. I’m not in the market for table and chairs right now, and the $175 price tag was way too high to buy them all and just keep the umbrella. Lots of times people are reluctant to break up sets of things, but it never hurts to ask, so I inquired if the guy might sell the umbrella separately. He allowed as how he might. I asked for a price. He thought for a second, then said, “How about five bucks?”

How about giving me a heart attack from joy? Sheesh. But I’ve bought pigs in pokes before and been sorry. The umbrella was closed up, so I had him crank it open to check it out. No holes, looked pretty good. Then he showed me how it tilts to different angles. “Okay,” I said, “I can’t get a fiver out fast enough.” He laughed and loaded the umbrella in the back seat of the convertible. Then I said I’d better go check out the sale a couple of doors down from his. “Yeah, they’ve got better stuff than we do,” he told me. Went and looked. Mostly kid toys. On my way back to my car I told him, “They just have more stuff, but it’s no better than yours!”

All the way home I pictured myself popping that umbrella down the hole in the middle of the outdoor table. Only to receive a reality check when I arrived. The table on our deck has NO hole in the center. That’s when I remembered we sold the table with the umbrella hole before we moved up here. Oops. But not to worry. We picked up some U-shaped pipe clamps and will be attaching the umbrella to the deck railing soon. At which point I can take a picture for you. Meanwhile I can enjoy the facts that the clamps cost less than the umbrella (it always makes me wild to find some fabbo bargain and then have to spent three times as much to make it usable) AND that the clamps were manufactured in Peculiar, MO. So I have Peculiar clamps!

On Saturday we had to be out and about early, because we went up to Portland for garaging. The Laurelhurst neighborhood up there has an annual sale day. A few weeks ago my SIL Linda got lost on her way to a meeting, and when telling a colleague where she had been driving around, she was told that this was Laurelhurst and that they had a wonderful neighborhood sale in September each year. So she told me to keep an eye out for it, and I even put a reminder on my calendar to do so. Then last week, when the hubster and I were at a neighborhood sale here in Salem, one of the ladies mentioned that she used to live in Laurelhurst and their sale was next week. NOT in September! I did a little Internet searching when I got home and found that June was correct. Linda and I figure that we were supposed to go to this sale, since our hearing about it depended on her getting lost (which doesn’t happen very often) and my chatting up the one woman in Salem who used to live up there. It set us up to expect we’d find something absolutely amazing, which I would say probably turned out to be the neighborhood itself. Beautiful old houses, mature landscaping, and gigantic trees that arched up and met in the middle over the streets.

My big score of the day was a pretty nice set of fireplace tools.

Linda seemed happiest with her bundle of three vintage Pierre Cardin pillowcases. They were from the sale where the lady told us that coming in was free, but we had to buy something in order to be able to leave. She had a twinkle in her eye when she said it, so I figured even if we didn’t find anything we’d be able to avoid ugly headlines along the lines of

Old Lady Knocked Down at Yard Sale by Retired Librarian.

But Linda’s purchase of three cases got us all out scot free. Whew.

This houndy fellow was the only dog picture I got

but we also met Sophie the labradoodle and Lola the Springer spaniel. Right after we left Lola, the next little girl we encountered was also named Lola. They were close to the same age. Classrooms will probably be filled with Lolas in a few more years.

Besides the umbrella and the fireplace tools, I came home with two tins of Victorian tinsel, originally from the gift shop at the Bush House

 

a cute little tin, which will probably end up holding vitamins

three little spice jars

some sturdy cloth napkins

a Misto sprayer

a book of poetry

and a MCM serving piece.

Oh yeah, and a partial tube of Shoe Goo. We’ve got a couple of pairs that need some fixing up. I saw some last week and didn’t buy it, and kicked myself all week about it. So the the thrifting gods were kind enough to give me a second chance. Shoe Goo and a five dollar deck umbrella…hooray for the thrifting gods!