Weekend Finds

Finds! And finds a-plenty! The fish were biting two weekends ago, when I found these items. And here they are, dragged off the (occasionally faulty) memory of my Kodak, for your viewing pleasure. Pardon the lighting conditions-- I assure you these were all taken at my home, at night, with a malfunctioning flash... and not, in fact, during a solar flare, or on Mars.

The half-price, first Saturday event at area Goodwills came and went last Saturday, but I managed to sneak in earlier in the week and snag this mega-ton of Pyrex for a song. (Expert tip: the week before the half-off sale is the week the staff wheel out all the items from the back! Avoid the half-price situation altogether, it's not worth it!) I saw the tiny condiment-sized containers first, and it was like that camera effect in the movies where the shot goes from a tight closeup (condiment containers) to a fast, zoom out wide shot (Pyrex! Everywhere!) with accompanying, moment-of-wonderment music on the soundtrack.

I wrestled with the idea of buying the whole kit and caboodle for several moments, fully cognizant of my almost clinical addiction to kitchenware and the toll it has taken on the amount of cabinet storage space in my ever seam bulging home. Seconds after putting the dish back on the shelf, it was in the hands of and being scrutinized by a woman in a pair of khaki shorts with a buggy-ful of kids clothes in tow. I had no beef with her until she tried to buy my Pyrex... and then it was as if we were on a field of battle. After several agonizing moments of small talk (Khakis:"Aren't these neeeat? You never see them with the lids anymore." Lisa, in the most mournfully dejected tone: "Uh-huh." Khakis: "You know my grandmother had a ton of these, I wonder what they're worth now?" Lisa: ((mentally)) Please please please decide not to get my Pyrexes, I promise the moment you set them down I'll buy them, omg). The showdown ended after some moments of my absent mindedly looking at tupperware until she put the piece back on the shelf, and whereupon I snatched all seven pieces up in a makeshift, extremely breakable pile and headed for the front of the store, gleeful. Total expenditure... around $18. Which, in the words of that guy in the real estate office in the beginning of Psycho, isn't exactly buying happiness, but buying off UNhappiness. As I would have been very depressed indeed if the lady ran off with my dishes, bound for her own home rather than mine.

Cow creamer set, from an estate sale where I also bought three matching home made dresses (one of which will show up in a clothing post sometime this week). I was knocked for a loop when I saw these little guys on a shelf full of not-very-old items. I love how the first one is full bodied, the second one cuts off at the neck, and the third one is just a head. JUST A HEAD! Not at all weird, right? But somehow still totally cute. I've been trying to think of ideas for a coffee klatch sometime just so I can USE these. Any excuse to throw a get together will do.



This doll was from an estate sale where she was the largest and most detailed of a number of cloth, 1920's dolls. The piece of paper pinned to her waist reads in a washed out, handwritten scrawl "Virgin Islands". I just love her. Look at her 20's clothes! And all the detail that went into her! I tried, REALLY HARD, not to buy this doll for about fifteen minutes of carrying it around the rest of the house and sale, but it finally made its way home with me. And I'm glad it did.

At the Goodwill in Clarksville, Tn.... what may be the holy grail of Goodwill finds. I try and try to explain to people that Goodwills, and junk/thrift stores in general, are not, as they seem to be in some people's conception, just stuffed to the gills with 50's prom dresses and Bee Gees lunchboxes. Maybe they were at some glorious, pre-ebay moment I was, due to my youth, not culturally aware enough to enjoy at the time, but no longer does the retail space look like Quentin Tarantino's house threw up in it.

I stress the idea that thrift store success is about 90% dogged persistence. I will look through a hundred 90's teacher-jumpers appliqued in school buses and bees before I will find ONE sixties dress that may or may not be in my size. Or I might go through five and have four of them be perfect, 1970's maxidresses. It's all luck of the draw, but you can of course up your chances by going two or three times a week to different locations, every week. In this case, the powers that be rewarded my tenacity with what I at first thought was a nurse's scrub top in the women's short sleeve blouses section.

Except. It. Wasn't. OMG.

This is an apparently handmade 1970's man's v-neck shirt, with front pocket, made out of licensced The Six-Million Dollar Man material. Dotting an overall pattern of Steve Austin's FACE are playing card sized tableaux of the kind of trouble a bionic man can get himself in and out of in the course of a 54 minute episode.

Let me just say, that it was one of my finest thrifting moments. I keep trying to decide if I'll wear it (it fits), make Matthew wear it (it fits, though it's tight), or hang/frame it as decor (it's really a priceless national treasure)

Some pretty amazing movie tie-in sheet music, including... oh, could that be my patron saint Joan Crawford?

The piece on the right is a Western she made in 1930, and at right, 1933's Dancing Lady, the third of eight movies Gable and Crawford made together.

My favorite movie title...ever? Also, I love anything to do with Marion Davies, so this was a triple coup...Gable, Marion Davies, and a 30's play-on-names that I love. The only way the sheet music on the right could be better would be if pre-The Awful Truth Cary Grant had made an appearance on the cover as well as in the movie.

Two more of my favorite movies. Whoever bought this sheet music in the 30's and 40's was obviously a kindred spirit.



And last but not least on this lot of music, two Astaire/Rogers pieces (eek!). Look at the Marmaduke dog on the right, to Astaire's left... a face after my own heart. The seller at this sale had two or three tables in his front yard, one of which was heaped with the sheet music you see before you. His mother taught music in the front room of their house throughout his childhood and up until she was well in her 80's. I bought maybe thirty pieces total and a package of novelty cocktail napkins from the 60's for $5. The less photogenic of these are all twenties' popular tunes, Boswell sisters kind of stuff. AND FANTASTIC. I can't wait to make my live-in piano player take a crack at these.

As if the next sale had read my mind, I found even MORE sheet music:

Killer, right? I felt bad for the gal in short shorts who was crouched at the bin next to me, a bin which apparently was completely filled with hymnals. The one I chose (again, luck of the draw) was nothing but pop hits. She watched, pie-eyed, as I flipped, pie-eyed, through the selection, piling them in my arms. Complete songbooks of "best ofs" comprising hits by Gordon Lightfoot, Bread, Elton John, Tom Jones... and then a few older selections with a colossal Judy Garland compilation (including sheet music from pretty much her entire filmography, movie by movie), a best of Frank Sinatra from the time he cut that record with Antonio Carlos Jobim (making it pretty much a collection of Antonio Carlos Jobim music plus a few Sinatras, but NO ONE IS COMPLAINING, I love Brazilian music and Jobim in particular), Duke Ellington, and Henry Mancini.



"Wow, you really found some good ones. Did you leave anything worthwhile in there?" she asked. Me, somewhat guiltily, "Um, there's some stuff left in there." Kind of. I mean, stuff you wouldn't want, but stuff. I can't tell you how many times I've been on the other side of this exchange, watching someone sweep away with all the best of a sale MOMENTS before I got to the hot spot. You win some, and you lose some.Total cost for all books shown? $5.

Dark Shadows SOUNTRACK ALBUM, OMG. In pretty decent shape!



WITH the double sided, fold out, album-sized poster? OMG. Bear with me as I go into a nostalgia induced coma for setting the VCR to tape episodes of this from the Sci-Fi channel in middle school so I could watch them when I got home. Will there ever be so un-sexy a middle aged sex symbol as Jonathan Frid somehow managed to be on this show? I had such the crush on him. And then Quentin came along and Barnabas was supplanted in my affections. I wonder how the Tim Burton remake will fare?

Last but not least, some record selections from Goodwill:

Michael Parks is the Sheriff Earl McGraw at the beginning and Esteban near the end of Kill Bill... and he has a record? Well, this platter is scratched to heck, but I think I'll try and play it on my portable record player to save my console the wear and tear and see how he sounds. Patsy, of course, sounds like an angel, as always, and don't you love her ensemble on the cover of this album?

I spoke earlier of Brazilian music, and here's some of the best instrumental summer music you could possibly imagine, courtesy of Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd. This Flipper recording is SEALED! I haven't gotten up the gall to open it yet, but I will.

What's better than finding one Charles Aznavour record for 99 cents? FINDING FOUR CHARLES AZNAVOUR RECORDS FOR 99 CENTS APIECE.

I think my heart almost stopped when I found these. One of my favorite French singers, period, and some kind hearted, francophile like myself donated them so I could snatch them up at the Rivergate Goodwill.

My(second, as "Jezebel" 's embed feature on youtube is disabled) favorite song from the album in the upper right hand corner, "Je t'aime comme ça". Play us out, Aznavour! Did you guys beat anyone to the punch this last weekend on a fantastic estate sale/thrift store find? Make me feel less guilty about my snatcheroos by telling me about yours!