Best Boy

We had to say goodbye to our wonderful Edward this week. It was very hard.

He went in for a minor procedure that required anesthesia. Our vet called in the early afternoon to say he was having a hard time waking up and to pick him up a little later than arranged. When we got there, he still couldn’t walk. She had done an EKG and an x-ray, and it appeared that one of the drugs was probably the culprit. So she recommended we take him to the emergency clinic where they could administer an antidote and get him back on his feet.

However, the emergency vet discovered that unbeknownst to any of us, he had a tumor on his spleen, and that it had started bleeding. His morning procedure didn’t cause it, just coincidental. She said that there was a chance that the bleeding would start to clot and the blood be reabsorbed, so we settled in to be with him and wait.

Unfortunately that best-case-scenario did not happen. After about 7 hours we had to let him go, before his deteriorating situation caused him too much distress.

Edward was a very special dog. As much as I love them all, he was that dog that you get once in a lifetime, if you’re lucky. 

From the day we brought him home, he was simply and purely a good boy. Housebroken at 9 weeks, easy to train, no serious issues. He was the last of nine puppies, 

and the folks we got him from said he was very shy and would hide when people came to choose a puppy. But I know he wasn’t hiding, he was just waiting for us.

He was the perfect little brother for our dog Lizzie, never taking her assertive ways amiss. I had to laugh at the description in my journal of her teaching him that all the toys in the house were hers. 

Once he was showing the proper respect, she let him have his own nylabones and rope toys. 

Ironically, we lost her in exactly the same way, a tumor on her spleen.

Edward was the perfect big brother for our Zoë. When we were somewhat past missing Lizzie, Zoë came along and immediately started whooping his ass. He loved it. 

I’m sure he also loved that he was big enough to jump over the barriers that kept her in the kitchen when those puppy teeth got too tiresome!

It’s part of our contract with these loving creatures that one day we will have to say goodbye. 

But before that day they bring so much love and joyfulness that the bargain is worth it. One of my favorite quotes is from the song “Two for the Road,” where it says, “Every day that you are mine will be a lovely day.” We forget sometimes to pay attention to the loveliness. Edward always reminded me, and so will his memory. 

Bag It. Amen.

First weekend in March has become one of our favorites, and the reason is simple:

Church Rummage Sales with One-Price Bags!

Not that we didn’t enjoy the other church rummage sale without bags to stuff…but we didn’t buy anything there. Though we did check out all the merchandise.

The sale at Morningside Methodist is one we look forward to all year. Well organized, the stuff is clean, super nice ladies running the show. It’s big enough to find some treasures but not so huge that you’re overwhelmed and just want to run away. (Though I suspect it might be overwhelming for the organizers!) And for $5 they hand you a Trader Joe’s bag to fill as you will. If you ever want to try upcycling clothing, this is the kind of sale to watch out for.  

So what went into my Morningside bag? I started on the textiles aisle (told you it was well organized!) and into the bottom of the bag went this gorgeous piece of embroidered fabric.

Over four yards, already washed, and the fabric itself is either all cotton or a cotton and linen blend. It's probably a decorator fabric, but not so heavy it can't be used for apparel. I’m playing with ideas for it.

Next I found a set of four brand new Crate & Barrel placemats in an interesting cotton weave. Three of them had an inexplicable cord attached to one end, I suppose so you can roll them neatly for storage.

But then you have this cord on the table or making a lump if you hide it under the mat. Cords have now been removed, but they are cute. I'll use them for something else.

A vintage table runner of filet crochet was buried among the bedspreads and pillowcases. Hoping to use it in an upcycle, because I love the donkey!

On to the racks and tables of clothing. (I apologize for all the wrinkles in the pictures. Things that have been stuffed into bags come out that way!) We like to support local industry,

so into the bag went a buttery yellow linen vest and floral skirt. (I'm getting ready to start combining several linen things and see what happens.)

Found a cute shirt of lavender cotton that fits (but didn’t get photographed) and another linen shirt to play with.

A soft, creamy turtleneck sweater went in. 

The fabric tag said it was made of “55% seide & 45% kaschmir” and while I don’t read German, I figured that much cashmere couldn’t be bad. Turns out ‘seide’ is silk!

I love the beadwork on this sweater vest. My original thought was I’d upcycle it somehow, but the darned thing actually fits. So with total disregard for what is considered fashionable, I plan to wear it.

My bag was getting pretty full by now. Judy had found only a pair of flipflops, so in they went. And then one last cruise of a clothing rack revealed a fabulous painted jacket.

Probably too wild and crazy for many people, but I love it! In fact, I like it so much that bright and early Saturday morning I did some remodeling on it for a more comfy fit. Added orange vintage buttons, then pulled this scarf from my stash 

and went to work making it into a pleat in the back. I didn’t even cut the scarf, just doubled it since it's such a lightweight piece.

In all, my bag held 11 pieces. No, make that 14 if we count the placemats separately. Which averages out to about 35¢ each. Hooray for bag sales!

I would have been more than happy with that one sale for the weekend, but another church had a huge sale on Saturday. We’ve been to this one before, and it truly is overwhelming. Thousands and thousands of items, hundreds of people, and noise like you wouldn’t believe (made worse by the loud rock music they insist on playing). But because we’ve been here before, I knew the last two hours they cut prices to half…and that you can stuff a bag with clothing for two bucks. Of course they give you one of those little plastic grocery-type bags, but with the proper techniques you can get a fair amount in one. The proper technique is to tightly roll each piece, and the amount I got in was 11 pieces!

Even though things were pretty picked over when I arrived there were still hundreds of pieces of clothing. I found a cotton shirt for the hubs,

some sweaters for upcycling, including a Ralph Lauren lambswool

and a cashmere blend sweater set.

I just have to find a way to re-use this piece. Those squirrels!

Another linen shirt for upcycling.

A heavy linen eggplant-purple shirt that fits as is, but I have some ideas for embellishing.

This linen tunic is a European brand and looks unworn. Its retail price was likely about $70.

I thought I was finished, then found a rack of scarves near the exit. Most were pretty sad, but the large red and black ones went in my bag

And somehow no one had picked up the luscious raspberry-and-cream colored cashmere and silk.

So, two bucks divided by eleven…about 18¢ each.

Amen to that!

A Ghost Story. Sort of.

Last week on Saturday I saw a Craigslist ad for an estate sale over in Monmouth (about 12 miles west of Salem). It promised lots of stuff and I noticed some vintage Christmas ornaments in the pictures, so off I went.

I figured there would be a zillion people there, but found parking right in front of the house. The family was busily pulling stuff out of the garage. A handful of people were lined up at the front door, so I joined them. A few minutes later a large young man came up and got in line in front of me. You ladies who are my age no doubt have had similar experiences of being invisible. He wasn’t joining someone already in line either. If the line had been longer I might have kicked him in the ankle and told him to get behind me. In a few minutes he got bored and left the line to see what was coming out of the garage.

Desultory conversation among the line standers ensued as the time for the sale to open passed and we were still standing there. Another lady got in line behind me, we chatted. Then Large Young Man came back and got in line in front of me again. This time he seemed to notice us and muttered something about being there earlier. I stared at him and he turned away. It's pretty rare around here to encounter this kind of rudeness.

“I wonder what he thinks we might have snatched away from him,” I said to the other lady as we finally entered.

Entering turned out not to be easy. Everything in the house was piled (literally) in the living room with a sort of circular path through it. We all did a sort of shuffle around anyone who stopped to inspect something. I admit I paused to look at the demonic squirrel lamp, but decided to leave him where he was.

After all, what kind of shade could possibly go with the squirrel?

At the far end of the room I found a couple of boxes of Shiny Brites. A buck a box put them in my price range.

Did you know Shiny Brites started in the late Thirties and were made by Corning Glass using the same technique as their clear light bulbs? Then they went to the SB factories to be hand painted. Which some of these definitely are.

The only other thing of interest was a Jadeite dish, minus its lid. But it says on the bottom you can bake in it, so we can consider it a very small bread pan - and it was but fifty cents.

I went back outside and noticed there was a lot of stuff piled up along the side of the house. I overheard one guy telling another that all the stuff out in the side yard was free. I found one of the family to double check this info and sure enough, free it was. So I went to take a look and quickly decided that they had the pricing about right. 

Junk piled by the fence, and junk in boxes. I did unearth a few vintage home magazines that look kind of fun (and smell a bit musty, so probably not a permanent addition to my home). 

Another guy was industriously digging through boxes and among other things had unearthed a Bakelite dial telephone, but without having gloves on I was not doing any serious digging.

I headed toward my car, but stopped when I saw two old hoop chairs with stuff piled on them. I've actually had my eye out for these since I started seeing pictures of them refurbished with colorful rope.

Alas, my pair have plastic frames instead of metal, but what the heck. They were free and will be perfect to practice on. And I bet I can paint the frames black and no one will know the difference. 

As I lugged my Shiny Brites, magazines and chairs to the car (got the chairs in the back seat by putting the top down, then was able to put it back up for the ride home; it's still too chilly to really be convertible weather) I saw the lady in charge and stopped to thank her for the free stuff and commiserate on how much work it is to do this kind of sale. She shook her head. “You would not have believed it. When we started, the living room was piled so full with stuff we couldn’t even get the door open.”

I looked at her with some concern. “Ummm, no one was living here, were they?” “Oh no, Grandma left years ago.” Whew, I thought. And since the old lady passed long ago condolences did not seem to be required. Then the woman said, “The real problem was, she kept bringing stuff and leaving it here.”

I'm afraid my eyes goggled. “She left stuff here after she was dead?” I blurted. She laughed. “No, no, she didn’t die, she just moved out. But you know, we did talk about advertising this as a haunted house sale. My sister said we could sell ten dollar tickets and let people take whatever they wanted.”

I said they would probably have made just as much money.

I wonder if the place had really been haunted if Grandma might have spirited away the rude young man. Or at least scared him to the back of the line!

Queueing Up

Friday was a standing-in-line kind of day. The first estate sale started at 8, in an old house. At the time it was built it would have been way out in the country. Remember the picture book The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton? The one where the city grows out and around the sweet little house? (If not, we can wait while you Google it and look at some of the pictures.) 

This wasn’t so urban as the picture book house, but the once-country lane is now a fairly busy main street – with no shoulders to park on. Fortunately we got there early enough to park in the yard. They actually had a lady directing cars where to park. Kind of like a mini – VERY mini – state fair.

We got in line. More people got in line. More cars arrived. The line had to move over so the cars could get past us. We made new friends in line. At last we entered the little house, which was one of those little houses that had rooms added here and there over the years as the family grew and there was enough money. With about 30 people in there it was crowded. And not a darned thing I wanted to take home! I don’t think Judy found anything either. KK found a bundle of crochet hooks back in one bedroom marked $6. “Really?” she asked the lady minding the sale back there. (We have high standards for low prices.) After a minute the nice lady put a new piece of masking tape on the bundle - $3. “We need to make as much for the client as we can on the first day,” she told me. “But…well, I also know who marked that.” We chuckled together over how differently people price things.

The next estate sale didn’t start until 9, and we did our best to make the first one last long enough not to be too early. But sure enough, we arrived, and there was a line. More cars arrived, more people in line. The same people from the first line. We all greeted each other and traded stories on what we had found. The two ladies behind us buy furniture to paint and resell.

When we finally entered, we found another little old house chock full of…pretty much nothing I wanted. (Which is not a problem. When you go garaging just about every week, it's more about what you don’t buy than what you do!) Then on a pass through the kitchen I spotted a couple of hammered aluminum lids.

I'd never seen any quite like these, though when I looked them up online they don’t seem to be particularly rare. (I also looked up how to clean them. Happy to report that boiling water & vinegar took off just about all the grunge.) Thanks to my well-practiced bargaining skills they weren’t very spendy either. Neither had a price tag, so I asked the young woman keeping an eye on the kitchen how much. “Ummm, five dollars each?” she ventured. I was polite. I did not laugh in her face. “No, guess not, I was thinking something more like fifty cents each.” I laid them back down on the crowded table. “A dollar each?” I picked them back up. “Okay, thanks.” Just then an older woman swooped into the kitchen. In a pleasant enough voice but with a smile that looked a bit wooden, she said, “I'll take over in here. You can go mind the door.” But she didn't try to renegotiate my lids, so I was good.

When I paid for them, the lady taking money told me, “We looked everywhere for whatever those go with and never found anything. But come back tomorrow, maybe they will turn up.”

But all I really want is the pretty lids. (Which are much prettier now after their hot vinegar bath!) I'm trying to think of some creative way to display them. Maybe as yard art? Anyone have any ideas?

The next place again had nothing. The house had been closed up for a while they said, and there was a weird smell. Made me think of bug spray. Ick. Didn’t stay long in there! Then we headed for another estate sale east of town. Where I met an absolutely wonderful dog. This is Jetta.

She is probably a Basset/border collie mix, and the darling of the family. The grandkids dress her up and have tea parties with her. But for me, she had a kind of special meaning. She looks very much like a dog we met many years ago (he was probably Basset and Lab) who was apparently homeless, and I have always regretted not putting him in the car and taking him home. For those of you who have read any of my mystery novels, he is the dog I immortalized in the books as Jack. I almost felt like I was visiting with an old friend when Jetta came out.

This sale was for a lady who was very creative; they said she was a notable quilter. I picked up a leather thimble to try.

Also succumbed to this vintage embroidery. Handmade. Fifty cents.

Maybe I can actually use it as a bell pull – I tug it, and it rings in my husband’s office downstairs (a la Downton Abbey) and he comes up and waits on me. Think that would work?

Our last stop was in one of my favorite Salem neighborhoods, near Bush’s Pasture Park. When we pulled up in front of the huge old Victorian house Judy said, “I have always wanted to see inside this house!” We met the nice old lady who has lived there for sixty years and several daughters and a granddaughter.  A big transition for her to sell the house and move somewhere more manageable, but the folks who bought the house reportedly plan to restore it. Which made us happy. After all, one family spending sixty years in a house is what local history is all about. And buying and using some of their things weaves their story into the fabric of many other lives.

So we had a great morning, and at the end off we went for lunch. And I'm very happy to report we did not have to stand in line for a table!