The Handicapped Frog & the Broken Pitcher

Pickings looked pretty darned slim on Friday, with only one estate sale listed in Salem. Well, there was another sale but since all they had were Hot Wheels, we had no trouble skipping it. 

But then it turned out that KK had to go to Portland to return a loaner car (hers went in for an oil change and they found a leak in the water pump, to the tune of over $800…Merry Christmas, KK!) so I turned up a few more estate sales in the big city. Turned out that big city sales are pretty much like our local ones, with the same mix of stuff and prices. But it was fun to have an excuse to drive around in handsome old neighborhoods we don’t normally see.

Looking was pretty much all I did; I spent a total of four bucks. I was bemused at the local sale by the four-poster bed sitting across the room from a large bathtub. Evidently this was the master bedroom.

Not how I would arrange my own house, but hey, I'm not planning to live there. I was empty handed when I left the place, but as I emerged I spied a fun piece of garden art – a metal frog made from two shovels and some rebar.

He was marked $5, which would have been fine if he weren’t half blind.

I offered them two bucks, they said yes, and now I own a one-eyed yard frog. Millie of course had to check him out.

Thoroughly.

The frog has temporarily gone home with KK. Since she is an artist she has an arsenal of paints, and is going to try to create a passable replacement eye, maybe from a Ping-Pong ball. I can hardly wait to see what she comes up with.

Her reward is the pair of Keen boiled wool slippers that I got at one of the Portland sales, that turned out to be just a leeeetle bit too small. Her feet are a leeeetle bit smaller than mine, so she gets them. Along with the pair of Josef Seibel short boots and the bright yellow rain boots from the same sale, where shoes were a buck a pair. I really wanted those yellow boots, sigh. Oh well, that’s what I get for having such nice big feet!

So – two bucks for the frog, one for the Keens. The last dollar? Spent that on a lovely little glass pitcher that was heavily covered with dirt, down in the basement of an old Craftsman house. I noticed it was signed on the bottom so I handed over that dollar.

And wouldn’t you know the dirt was covering up cracks! I was really batting a thousand that day, right?

A one-eyed frog, too-small shoes, and a cracked pitcher. Determined to make at least a little lemonade from my lemons, I got out the jar of Museum Gel and added the little pitcher to the glass collection on the window ledge.

Where no one can see the cracks. We’ll just let it be our little secret, okay?