Weekend Finds 1: Eartha's Generosity!

Good morning!

Thanks for all your kind comments on my ma's wedding dress both on the Facebook page and back here on the original post! I will followup with that photo of the woman herself in the same gown some time soon! :) I've got wedding on the brain, but I'm fighting it tooth and nail this week to tell you about all the goodies I snagged in the last weekend or two that have yet to show themselves on the blog. Take a look!

Jamie posted the other day about Eartha Kitsch's awesome, "take anything you want, please, it's free, I need to clean out this garage" event at her house the other day. IT WAS AMAZING. I told her after I got home, I was surprised at all the neat stuff I had in my car when I got back home. I'd been so busy crackin' up with the assembled parties (Rae and Travis were there, too, and Mr. Kitsch of course, who added funny origin stories about some of the stuff we were taking off their hands), that I'd forgotten about the freaking amazing haul of goods exchanging hands! First of the very neat things I got? Board games:


Confession: I have a sick, Quentin Tarantino like weakness for any seventies' movie or tv tie-in merchandise period, but board games are really high on the list of things I won't pass up. I have board games for everything from Welcome Back Kotter to Dukes of Hazzard to Happy Days, so you can imagine my STUPID amount of glee at showing up first to Eartha's house and seeing not one but TWO amazing board games sitting on the drive way. First, this Planet of the Apes board game.

This is you, running through Earth in 3978 AD in your bearskin clothes, trying to stay alive on the ape planet. I love how the cover blares the stark truth of the game's goal: "OBJECT: BECOME THE LAST SURVIVOR". Yeah, don't help your friends, or try and salvage the space ship to get home, or acclimate to ape human society, JUST SURVIVE. I haven't gone through the game play rules yet, but Eartha forewarned me that if any of the pieces were missing, it was probably her brother in 1978 AD who misplaced them. Possibly, he is also the one who wrote "You are a dummy, dummy" in ballpoint pen on the inside of the lid. I actually laughed out loud when I opened that and read the secret message for the first time.

Hold up...why do I have to build my own ape prison? I have to construct the means of my entrapment? Not cool, Milton Bradley. Not cool.

Isn't the board itself magnificent? This score dulls the pain of the $25 Dr. Zaius bank I didn't buy at the flea market this weekend (I know, I know. I wasn't thinking. Forgive me, Dr. Zaius!). I love the black and white background photos and the colorfulness of the color portions of the board!

OH MY GOD. IT'S THE BIONIC WOMAN BOARD GAME. Obviously perfect for a couples game night in which we could play The Six Million Dollar Man and Charlie's Angels board games from my collection. I have to say the one disappointing thing about a lot of these games is how tedious the actual rules of playing go...for example, the Dukes game is pretty much Sorry with less continuity and more "You got chased by Sherriff Roscoe and ran into a ditch, go back two spaces" cards. Ah well. Look upon Jaime Sommer's illustrated visage!

Heck yes, it features her fictional character's signature. I mean, duh.

Also heck yes, she is trying to net a cougar on the cover of the box. What else would she be doing? Did you guys ever see the episode where she teamed up with Evel Knievel to fight the KGB on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall? THIS WOMAN KNOWS NO LIMITS. Bring it, cougar.

The board is ok, but the the gameplay cards on this one are just fantastic. The one you're seeing reads "ADVENTURE 3: ATTEMPTED PLANE HIJACKING! Jaime foils attempt and saves passengers." Naturally. See the illustration where she has the hijacker in a bionic chokehold? 

Another of the garage hauls? Home wares! You know how I am about coffee tables, and I SERIOUSLY needed a smaller one for the ad hoc trunk-as-coffeetable situation going on in the green room. I almost died when Eartha said this was up for grabs:

Seriously, could it be a better looking piece of furniture? She said the original glass top was broken in a cleaning casualty, but it's extremely lightweight and easy on the eyes in spite of its missing piece. I just love this! The whole room (I took it back into the living room for lighting purposes, but it actually sits in the green room) just looks better with this fancy little atomic piece. I love it!

Also, this lamp? Tiny, plastic, tiki-style perfection:

I haven't quite figured out where to put it, but it lights up a darkened room with a blue glow like an aquarium, and I am all about that.

This wasn't even half the box of stuff I took home-- two pairs of shoes, a blue vase, a porcelain pair of kitties resting under a sunbonnet, a Marshall Dillon Gunsmoke puzzle, a mostly-complete NUDIST CAMP puzzle ("I might have to mail you a boob if I find it," in the immortal words of Ms. Kitsch), two skirts, two pitchers, and some other odds and ends are still sitting in my den ready to be distributed throughout the house. I had so much fun AND got so many neat things to take home. So thank you, Eartha!! :)

Did you have any tv board games as a kid? Been the recipient of someone else's extreme generosity? Make any good scores at the flea market or estate sales lately? Let's talk, folks!

I've got two more posts of "junk I have known" coming this week, so stay tuned! See you tomorrow.