Monday Rambles

This little fellow is a bit nonplussed right now.

Please ignore the mess.  We're in the junk room.  It's junky.

We're in the middle of our annual house invasion by the ants, but we finally seem to be winning the battle, thanks to generous applications of what I call "Demetrious Earth."  However, before the tide turned, they made it into the bin where we keep the cat food for the first time ever.

Thankfully, it was almost empty, so we didn't have to toss much.  The problem is that we haven't had time to replenish the regular cat food.  I grabbed a bag of another kind at the grocery so we could make it through the weekend.  He's eating it, but is also taking great pains to tell me that it's not his "real" food.  Poor guy.

It doesn't help that I've been keeping it in the fridge, just to make sure that any surviving ants don't get into it.  We don't have any air tight containers large enough for all of it.  He's definitely nonplussed by it all.

(If you're nonplussed at times, does that mean that you can be plussed at other times?  Wouldn't being nonplussed mean that you were being subtracted?  But from what?  Oh, the quandaries!)

We'll pick up some more of the regular food when Keith gets me at the mall tonight.

I saw these lovely flowers when I was on a walk last week.

The fortune cookie recently gave me some sage advice.

I never got to talk about Derby week sales, thanks to our internet outage.  I ran a 20% off sale at the booths, which kept my sales totals up to regular levels, and even surpassed that on a coupe of days, but killed me to do so.  I can handle doing a one day sale, but a week or more is just too much for me.  I hate to see that much money not being made.  Things have been dismally slow ever since.  We're in the doldrums here and will be until people decide that it's too hot to be doing things outside and that the flea market is a much better deal. It helps that they have finally got all the air units in the building working.

The internet outage led to an impromptu oddball film festival for several days, as I was desperate for something to watch.  Since it was also during my treatment time, I had some rest and down time with not a lot going on.  I got so deep into my stash of strange DVD's that I had to hit a couple of dealers in the mall looking for some more.  The secondhand store down the street helped too.

Remember back when DVD's were just getting widespread exposure and all kinds of stuff would show up in bins for a dollar or two at stores like Target and Walgreens?  This was one of those DVD's.  Because they were so cheap and plentiful, they can still be found at yard sales and thrifts all over the place.  If the topic interests me (and the price is right), I'll usually pick them up.  Often, they're quite good.

This is one of the good ones.  Produced in Australia in the 80's, the character designs have a retro Hanna-Barbera vibe to them that hearkens back to their early 60's heyday.  The animation is far better than HB ever was, making for an enjoyable watching experience.

The company that distributed this one also released a ton of others.  I've seen a couple.  The Odyssey was quite good.  Hercules, not so much.  While I was searching for the cover image to use, I discovered that this exists.  I must find it!

Bob and Penny Lord were EWTN mainstays for years and years.  They produced 30 minute videos about various saints, miracles, and Catholic shrines.  I've seen many of their productions and love them to pieces.  From time to time, I can find one of their DVD's at a thrift and I always snatch it up.

Their productions have a lack of polish that is endearing.  They're not totally amateurish, but it's pretty obvious they're not a professional production crew by any means.  It's also pretty obvious that Penny loves to be in front of the camera, perhaps a bit too much.  During some of their films, they'll be interviewing a priest or a nun, and Penny will do all the talking to the point where the interviewee never gets to say anything!  It's kind of a hoot to watch.

Still, you can tell that this is a couple that sincerely believes everything that they cover.  They genuinely love their faith and want to share it.  In the end, whether or not you share their belief, you cannot help but love their shows a little bit, just because of who they are.  Sadly, they have both passed on, but the media ministry they started continues.

I also read a few more graphic novels than usual.  This one was the best of the lot.

Set in the early days of the Batman/Robin partnership, this collection shows how that partnership impacted each of the heroes and how a shocking incident of violence changes it forever, planting the seeds that will eventually lead to its demise.  The art is sharp and stylish.  The writing is insightful and clever--playful at times, disturbing at others.  It's an engaging read that manages to remember for a far too brief moment that Batman comics used to be fun.  Even though that more light-hearted atmosphere is totally destroyed by the end of the story, the way everything unfolds left me feeling both nostalgic and a little disturbed.  Unfortunately, it seems that Batman must always be marred by violence these days.

All product images were taken from Amazon and are copyright by their respective holders.

Today will be my only booth day this week.  I have a lot to do around the house to get ready for this weekend's junk set out in our area.  (I know you all are sick of hearing about this, but it's a big deal for me.)  By Wednesday, there should already be a dozen or so good stashes of stuff popping up on the curbs.  I've already discovered that the folks that have alleys behind their houses have begun building their piles.  I got me some hunting to do!

Not to mention some crap to haul out here.  My aim is to get a good clean out at the house in prep for my yard sale in early June and as part of the work on razing Sorrow Mountain.  To get that stuff done, I'm going to have to put the booth on autopilot for a little while.  (Unless, of course everything sells in one day.  I'll come in and restock then.  That would also take care of a big hunk of my backlog.)

I'll check back in this week with pics of recent finds.  In the meantime, here's some Music for Monday.



If that doesn't put you in a mood to have a good week, I don't know what will.

Retro Y'all!

We lost one of the greats this week.

RIP Merle.



They don't make 'em like that any more.


Bonus:

Emmylou's version.

Monday Rambles

The problem with doing a mid-week update post, like I did last Thursday, is the potential to take the wind out of the sails of the Monday Rambles post, which is supposed to be my regular weekly update post.  Not that I'm trying to be some kind of kind of strict literalist when it comes to my posting schedule, but I did start doing certain posts on certain days so that readers might have a idea about what was coming up.  Assuming, of course, that I actually do post regularly.

I purposefully kept Thursday's post a little sparse, so that I would for sure have some things to ramble on about today.  Now it is time to expound a bit.

By the way, I am aware that it's Tuesday.  In the afternoon.  Late afternoon.

Bad blogger.

TREATMENT UPDATE

Last Tuesday was treatment number four, so it's time for me to have another scan to see if this immunotherapy thing is working.  I'll do that a week from this Wednesday, then get the results the following Tuesday when I go for treatment number five.

At this point, I seem to be tolerating the drug fairly well.  I'm not having any of the nausea/diarrhea issues, except on infrequent occasions.  The same for the other main side effects.  I'm still having to watch my blood sugar closely, but that's really it.  I do get fatigued, but that is worst on the day of the infusion and the day after.  Otherwise, I really only have fatigue issues when I go too hard too long without rest breaks.  And those can carry over to the next day, usually resulting in a day in.

All in all, if this has to be my condition and status for a while, I can tolerate and live with it.

At this point, the treatment is so new that the docs still don't know how long it will last.  They honestly don't know when to end the protocol.  The first people to receive this drug are still receiving it every three weeks, two and a half years later.  This makes me a little uneasy, mainly from a payment point of view.  What if insurance gets tired of covering a never-ending treatment?

The current line of thinking seems to be that they'll be able to make that call soon, based on the experiences of those earlier patients, but that I should be prepared for at least two years of treatments.  I guess this makes me "cutting edge" or something.

And that makes me think I should dye my hair pink, pierce my nose with a safety pin, and form a punk band called the Gall Bladders.  I've never been "cutting edge" before.

I'm not trying to make any predictions or get any hopes up until I have that scan.

On a related note, I seem to be mostly over that damn cold now.  Thank goodness.  I agree with everyone who said that summer colds are the worst. Because they are.

BOOTH UPDATE

May was a struggle.  I finally ended the month with an okay total.  Not great, but okay and totally acceptable.  Since last June, I have managed to top a thousand in gross sales every month.  Sometimes, it's waaaaaaay over and others it's just barely over.  My goal this year has been to get things to a consistent level every month.  I want that thousand to be my net.

So far, June has been good to me.  Sales have been consistently high and I am way ahead of where I was last month at this time.  Furniture has started moving again, something that wasn't happening last month.  Also, comic books are flying out of the booth in large amounts on an almost daily basis.  I'm cautiously optimistic.

The most surprising part of my sales this month is that my booth has been totally trashed for weeks.  After ten days in SF, plus several days of cold and other distractions, calling the place a "wreck" is an understatement.  I spent today pulling everything out of the end booth and completely rearranging it.  Now, I'll need to get a load of stuff ready to go over, so I can restock and do the big rearrange on the aisle booth.

The mall moved a bunch of showcases that used to be across the aisle from my endcap booth across the store, with the intention of creating more booth spaces.  I requested three of them, hoping to move my aisle booths up closer to my other ones, plus pick up a space to move the books and comics into and expand my selection.  Turns out they're only making six new booths and they've had multiple requests for those spaces.  To be fair, they're going to hold a lottery for the spaces, one per vendor who gets drawn.  I guess we'll see what happens.

Since it's only possible to maybe get one of those spaces, I'll use it for the books and comics if I get it.  That will pull the rest of my book stock out of storage, plus I'll also need a bunch of the shelves I'm storing.  Moving the books and comics out will let me move new shelves into the end booths and get more boxes out of storage, plus a few more pieces of small furniture.  It would be nice to make a dent in that stash.

In case I don't get picked, I went ahead and told the manager that I would like to pick up a space for the books and comics for July.  I think it's a move I need to make, even if I can't get one right near my current booths.  For all the sales, it is really hard to keep the comics and books neat.  They need a space away from my "curated" furniture spot.

WEEKEND UPDATE

Joy posted recently about the advantage of a church sale: lots of good loot in one place.  Usually.  For the first time ever, the largest and best church sale of the year let me down.  Miserably.  Part of the issue was a couple that had somehow managed to snap up all the best furniture within minutes of the sale opening.  Seriously, we got there about ten minutes after it opened and most of the furniture had sold signs on it.  There weren't even that many people there yet!  I watched the buyers loading up as we were leaving.  The furniture that was left was either unsuitable for my needs or overpriced.

As far as the other stuff goes, the volume was way down.  This is the place that usually has about six rooms full to the brim with stuff for sale.  There were still six rooms, but they were only about half full.  It was still a lot of stuff, but not in comparison to previous years.  The quality was way down too.  There just wasn't that much to be excited about.  The toy room in particular was a huge letdown.  Last year, I made four trips through this one room alone, buying armloads each time.  This year I didn't buy anything there!  You read that right.  I left a toy room empty-handed.  Me.  Really.

One of the shoppers remarked to one of the church volunteers about the drop in the amount of items for sale.  The volunteer kind of looked over her shoulder, lowered her voice, and said:

"I hate to put it this way, but it kind of depends on how many people in the church have died recently.  Or moved into assisted living."

Talk about killing your shopping buzz.  Now I'm feeling guilty about all the good years of shopping I've enjoyed at this church!  Welcome to the Dark Side of Resale!

Somebody leaving the sale told Keith about another church sale nearby that had lots of stuff, so we decided to hop over to that church, then hop back for the rest of the neighborhood sale around the church.  Yes, Mazda can hop.  Mazda's talents are limitless.

That sale turned out to be a bust--lots of stuff, but way overpriced.  They weren't open to bargaining either, since they were raising money to build a well in Africa.

On the way back to the other neighborhood, we detoured for a different neighborhood sale and ended up spending the day there.  The majority of what was in Mazda came from this neighborhood.  By the time we were through there, the van was full, so we called it a day.  Sometimes, serendipity is good for the soul.  And the inventory.

Most of you all called the green chairs in Mazda.  There were four of them.  They are heavy and quite sturdy.

I didn't realize that this pic of these cool MCM tables came out so badly until it was too late.  Somehow I didn't notice the chair legs flying across the front of the camera when I was taking the picture.  It was hot and I was sweaty. 

The tables are the round things.

We got the tables as part of a package deal with two small cabinets that were nothing special, but the price was right.  I didn't get pics of them.  I also didn't get the two directors chairs and the small book case I bought the funniest little woman.  When Keith walked up to the sale, she grabbed a mirror and shoved it in his face.  "You need to buy this mirror!"  I hope she wasn't trying to make a comment about his beard.

Coming up, I'll show the smalls.  Later in the week, the San Francisco finds.  Finally.  And the junk set out stuff.  And the San Francisco pics.  And some other stuff.  And the path to world peace and inner contentment.  Maybe.

REST OF THE WEEK UPDATE

This is booth week.  Most everything I'm working in is related to getting my booths back in order.  I'm planning in wrapping that up by Wednesday evening, so I can rest on Thursday.  We have tickets to see Todd Snider play Thursday night, so I want to take it easy that day.  Friday, I can see some thrifting happening.  This weekend is Louisville's big annual nerdfest the Derby City Comicon.  I got half price tickets through Groupon.  I'm pretty excited, as one of my favorite cartoonists is going to be a guest.

Of course, I'll be getting my shop on, but I'll be looking for stuff for me and the collection, instead of resale.  Still, if an unbelievable deal pops up...

SHOUT OUTS UPDATE

I forgot to mention that the wonderful Lorraine of Clamco celebrated her fifth blogiversary right before we went on our trip.  That's a lot of good reading!  She offers plenty of good information about re-selling along with entertaining stories about daily life.

Super blog friend Linda celebrated a milestone birthday last week!  Happy Belated Birthday wishes to her!  Woo hoo!

And the ever-awesome Shara recently celebrated her 24th wedding anniversary.

Big virtual hugs to everyone!

EMMYLOU HARRIS UPDATE

Last week, my most beloved and admired Emmylou Harris received what is considered to be the most prestigious music award in the world, Sweden's Polar Prize.  This award is considered the Nobel Prize of music.  Personally, I think this is entirely deserved.  There is simply no one else like her in music.  Watch her acceptance speech here to see what I mean.  One of the coolest things about the award ceremony is that First Aid Kit, an amazing duo from Sweden, got to perform their sublime song "Emmylou" for her.  Awesome.  There are lots of great clips from the ceremony available featuring a variety of artists performing Emmylou's music.  Well worth checking out.

In fact:

Can't think of a better note to sign off on.  Got to go load the van.

Woo Hoo!

Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell have another duet album coming out soon! I'm totally psyched about it!  Here's the title cut, which is only seven different kinds of awesome.




I have seriously been playing this over and over.  I love it!

Woo Hoo!

Stuff I Like

It has been a while since I did a "Linking Around" post here on the blog.  I need to rectify that, but don't have time right now.  Instead, here's a scaled down version, centering on three things that I like:  soap operas, comic books, and Emmylou Harris.  Consider this your "Eddie's gonna talk about soaps and/or comics" warning.

I'm pretty psyched to read that Emmylou's new project is a re-release of her seminal work, Wrecking Ball, with extra material, including a "making of" DVD.  While it's odd that they decided to do it this year, instead of waiting to do a 20th anniversary reissue next year, this is one to look out for.  Even this far down the line, it's impossible not to look on that album as a career-defining moment for her.  It rattled long-time fans' cages and set her loose on a new, introspective career path, where she's still mining gold.   It's a classic in every sense of the word.

I'm excited about the upcoming reissue.  She'll be doing some touring with Daniel Lanois, who produced Wrecking Ball,  but I don't know if it's going to come near here.

I hope this will help people think about more than this, when they hear the words "Wrecking Ball."  Not that there's anything wrong with Miley Cyrus' song.  It's a little overblown, but it's not a bad pop song.  The video isn't so much scandalous as it is cheesy and overly literal.  I do think this version is a hoot!  And this will be the last time I ever mention Emmylou Harris and Miley Cyrus in the same post.

The always awesome Roger Green (Check out his blog!) left me a link to a vote that chose Days of Our Lives as the greatest soap opera of all time.  It's really interesting, because it was done as a bracket, tournament-style.  The match-ups and outcomes are quite interesting.

While I totally appreciate the inclusion of the great soaps of the past, the outcome of those early rounds is not surprising.  Some of those shows have been off the air for decades.  While they'll always be fondly remembered, there are soap fans who have never even seen an episode of them.  I have been able to see at least one episode of most of them, thanks to YouTube.  My grandmother used to watch Edge of Night, and I saw a few eps with her.  I really got into Ryan's Hope when they were airing it on SoapNET.

The real surprise in the first round was ratings powerhouse The Young and the Restless (which has been the top Nielsen-rated soap for decades) losing to As the World Turns, which went off the air a few years ago.  I guess that cancellation still stings. ATWT is an old fave of mine.   It was the first soap I got into heavily.

All of the soaps that got axed most recently did well in the voting, it seems.  Three of the final four shows are not on the air any more.  All My Children defeating General Hospital makes sense, I suppose, even though GH is the only show left from ABC's once-venerable afternoon line-up (which included AMC).  It seems right that Erica Kane would defeat the juggernaut that is Luke and Laura.

I was really happy with the Final Four.  I was really getting into One Life to Live when it was cancelled.  I was never that much into AMC,  but Guiding Light was another one of my early soap faves.  (I was a CBS Daytime boy for ages!)

These days, though, my heart belongs to Days, although General Hospital  is just about unmissable for me.  In other words, I totally agree with the outcome and thank Roger for sharing the link with me.

Laying aside the not getting paid part, one of the nice things about having no work snow days was that I got to catch up on some comic book reading.  One of the things I read that I really enjoyed was the final Courtney Crumrin series, which I picked up out of the quarter boxes at Half-Price Books a few weeks ago.  I was unaware that creator Ted Naifeh had brought the Courtney franchise to a close.  It was one of my favorite series of the last decade.  I thought he wrapped everything for Courtney up quite nicely.

Courtney is the story of a misfit teen living in a snobbish, elitist community who discovers that she has inherited magical powers from her great-uncle.  Think Harry Potter, but sullen, withdrawn, and sarcastic.  She makes unbelievable mistakes along the way and hurts as many people as she helps.  She's actually about as anti-Potter as you can get.  She's also incredibly funny and has a charm all her own.

It was a real pleasure to read the finale to Courtney's story.  All of the various Courtney comics have been collected into book form, making the series easy to try out.  Also, the first issue of this last series is going to be part of the Free Comic Book Day giveaways this year!

There you go.  Three things I like!

Monday Rambles

This is the view out our front door.

This is the view out the back door.

I'm not totally sure I understand this.  When exactly did we move to Michigan?

Part of the neighbor's tree fell off under the weight of the ice.  It fell in our backyard.  You can see part of it in the pic above.  Thankfully, it missed the sheds and the house.  It's kind of funny how tree bits look so much larger on the ground than they do when they are still on the tree.

Practically everything around is still covered in ice.  It would be pretty if we didn't have to get out in it every day.  I can deal with it as long as the temps stay in the double digits.  It might not be what I desire to do or prefer to do, but I can deal with it.  I'm still limiting my ventures outside to those things that have to be done.   No fun side journeys these days.

I was supposed to be off this week due to budget cuts, but we saved so much money over the last two weeks with weather-related cancellations that now I'm supposed to be working.  Supposed to be.  But not today.  I'm going to the booths instead.  I hope that the weather cooperates the rest of the week and I can work.  I need it.

I actually saw  someone using the phone the other day!  I thought about getting a pic, but there was really no way to discreetly do it.  It would have made a great conclusion to the whole phone saga.  You'll just have to imagine it for yourselves.  Eddi-torial Comments:  Where the oddball, throw-away joke never really ends.

After the concert last week, the venue sent us an email asking for our feedback.  I replied with a glowing email. (Gee!  Imagine that!) I got a reply shortly thereafter thanking me for my email.  The email also shared that the unanimous opinion of all the venue staff was that Rodney and Emmylou were he "easiest" performers to work with.  "No backstage egos at all."

Emmylou has long had a reputation as being very gracious and genuine.  She is extremely well-regarded among her peers.  Of course, it's one thing to be regarded by your peers and quite another to be praised by all the backstage folks who make the shoe possible!  She's quite a lady!

The car got towed away Friday night.  They're going to fix it instead of totaling it, which is a relief.  What remains to be seen is what happens to our insurance.

Want to see something cute?

 

She's a flash drive!  Keith got her for me for Xmas!  I'd been waiting to use her until I had some junking related files I needed to back-up.  She's my official junking drive.   I love her!  He told me that sometimes the perfect gifts are pretty obvious.

It does feel kind of creepy to pull her legs off to use the drive.

One of the best features is the packaging.  Or rather, the artwork on the packaging.  It's all done in that classic, awesome Dick Giordano style that was the model for so much DC merchandising for years.  There are even temporary tattoos.

Yessir!  That's the Amazon Princess I grew up with!

I'm going to plaster that WW logo on my forehead and wear it to work on Monday!

Did some junking Friday and Saturday.  No sales happening, so I hit the shops instead.  I'll share finds tomorrow.  I will share these vintage-style Valentines they have at Barnes and Noble right now.  I saw them while I was making my rounds.  They're like six or eight dollars a box or something outrageous like that, given that there are only 8 to a package.  I'll wait until next week and see if they go on clearance.  I thought maybe a few folks might like them!

Of course there are puppies!

And kitties!

Why was I junking at Barnes and Noble?  Some of you may know why by now.  If you don't, I'll tell you later.  (It's kind of a sad tale.)  There is a hint in the paragraph before these last pics.

My what a random Monday Rambles!  Speaking of Valentines, "Your Vintage Valentine of the Day" starts today!  Limited engagement!  Four days only!  That's because Valentines Day is Friday (and because I only have four vintage Valentines to share).  Look for a special Valentines post on Friday!

GLORIOUS!

First off a little disclaimer.  I've been an Emmylou Harris fan since I was 16 years old.  I'm a wee bit biased.  My nickname for her is "The Goddess of Music."  There's a high chance that I'm going to gush a bit.

Outside, it was rainy, snowy, sleety, icy, yucky, icky and cold.  Inside, we didn't care, because it was

THE 

BEST 

DAMN 

SHOW 

All pics by Keith

EVER!

You can quote me on that!

From the opening ("Grievous Angel") to the last encore ("Boulder to Birmingham"), it was two hours of non-stop musical heaven. Just about every phase of their long and varied careers were represented, with a healthy sampling from the days when Rodney was a member of her Hot Band and a nice selection of stuff from their Grammy-winning duet album Old Yellow Moon.  (Emmylou joked that it was "40 years in the making.  She noted that they had meant to do it from the beginning of their friendship, but they "got kind of busy.")

Their band was way hot, especially the guitarist, Jedd Hughes, who is already making quite a name for himself as a musician.  He was totally smoking, rocking the house on classic tunes like "Luxury Liner" and "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues."   

The show was so good that it's hard to pick out highlights, but I'll try.  I was totally psyched that they did "Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight,"  my hands-down lifelong favorite ELH tune.  I've seen her live three times now, and every time she's done it.  I feel kind of spoiled.

Watching them do "If I Needed You" brought tears to my eyes, because it made me think back through last year and how I never would have made it if not for Keith.  Hell, he even bought the concert tickets as a part of my birthday!

Throughout the show, they would open the songs with just Emmy and Rodney playing and the band joining in bit by bit.  I loved seeing her playing showcased like that, since she frequently downplays it.  I was really impressed at the way the two of them, playing alone, were able to recreate the dense, moody atmosphere of the recorded version of "Red Dirt Girl."

I'm hoping that now that this tour is over and they're moving on to other things--they each have new projects due out in the spring--that she'll make "Spanish Dancer" and "Back When We Were Beautiful" from their album part of her regular concert rotation of songs.  With a career as long as hers that's filled with as much good music as hers, I know that she has a lot to choose from when it comes time to make a setlist.  I think those two songs will fit in well with her established repertoire.  Ditto for "Old Yellow Moon" which was so perfect on Tuesday night that I almost shouted "AMEN!" at the end.

At the very end of the show, she brought her dogs on stage to meet everyone and made a plea for adopting shelter animals.  She runs a dog rescue in Nashville, so this is a cause she really cares about.  It was a neat way to end the perfect show.  You can see pics of her dogs (plus the band, taken right after the show) on Rodney's Facebook page.

Setlist (as best I can remember):

“Grievous Angel”

“Wheels”

“Pancho and Lefty”

“Til I Can Gain Control Again”

“If I Needed You”

“Red Dirt Girl”

“The Rock of My Soul”

“Love Hurts”

“Luxury Liner”

“The Road”

“The Angels Rejoiced”

“I Know Love is All I Need”

“Invitation to the Blues”

“Spanish Dancer”

“Dreaming My Dreams”

"Back  When We Were Beautiful

“Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight”

"I Ain’t Living Long Like This”

“Old Yellow Moon”

“Stars on the Water”

“Even Cowgirls Get the Blues”

“Boulder to Birmingham”

The weather outside was truly frightful, but Tuesday night was the most perfect night ever.

TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT!!!!!

Well, we got a rental and the insurance process has been started, so we'll see what's going to happen.  I'm back to work today, but not tonight, because tonight is the night I've been waiting for since my birthday!

I'm glad we got the rental, because that means that we won't have to walk, get a cab, or hitch a ride with a German engineer.

Yes, tonight is the night, folks!  They'll be here!

Fresh off their Grammy win, yet!

And I'll be there!  With bells on!  You betcha!

I'll write about the show later this week.  I'm not sure if Keith is going to take pics or not, but if he does, he'll want to fiddle with them for a couple of days.

All the crappy car wrecks and single digit blues in the world cannot bring me down today!

I don't care about the weather forecast, either!   I'm going, dammit!  She's going to be there.  And it's going to be wonderful!

Thursday Rambles

Oh dear!  I missed Monday!  I had the day off and spent it with my uncle and then at the booth, getting Xmas stuff up.  I'll have some pics of the finished product in a few days, when it's all done.  In the meantime, enjoy some rambling.

Oh the humanity!  (Part I)

I got on the bus the other day and the driver said his fare box was broken, so no one had to pay.  I use monthly passes, so it's not that big of a deal to me.  The woman behind me had cash and the following ensued:

Woman:  I need a transfer, please.
Driver:  I can't give you one.
Woman:  Why not?
Driver:  Because you haven't paid.  I can't give a transfer when you don't pay.
Woman:  You said not to.  Here.  (Tries to give him  the money.)
Driver:  I can't take that and the fare box is broken.  Just get on.
Woman:  But I need a transfer!
Driver:  I'm sorry.  I can't give you one when you can't pay.
Woman:  How am I going to get on the next bus?
Driver:  (Points to the dollar in her hand.)
Woman:  Oh.  (Goes and sits down.)

Oh the humanity! (Part II)

We're out looking for Halloween clearance items during my birthday shopathon.  Keith is waiting in the car, and I am wheeling a cart out from the store when I see them:  Vultures!  Waiting for a parking spot!  Our parking spot!  One woman is holding up a couple other cars in order to swoop into our spot when we vacate it.

I unload my cart and then take my cart to the cart corral.  And she HONKS HER HORN AT ME!  Apparently, I am not moving fast enough to suit her.  My response is to slow down.  I don't mind people waiting for a spot and the lot is pretty full.  But honking at me is behavior I don't tolerate.

I get back to the car, walk over to the driver's side and say to Keith:  "We need to have a pretend conversation because that woman (I might have used another word here) honked her horn at me."  He looks and me and says:  "Really?  I think I need to look at something in the back."  He gets out of the car and we go to the back and he grabs something out of a bag and we pretend to examine it.

By now, she's got a line of four or five cars stretching out behind her and they are honking at her.  She roars off, the line breaks up, we get in the car and leave.

Oh the humanity! (Part III)

I'm in one of the other Peddlers Malls as part of my birthday shopping extravaganza.  It's the day after Halloween and they are playing Christmas music and I am totally hating it.  Totally!  I mean, it's barely November, people!  As I'm shopping, I start hearing other people complaining about it.  Over and over.  Eventually, they start getting on my nerves more than the music is.  At that point, I decide that maybe I like the music after all.

I had a wonderful birthday, as you can see here.  This is me in the process of turning 49.  I think that's my "I'm turning 49" face. (Although it might be my "I really need a haircut" face.  They're kind of similar.)

We went to dinner at my favorite restaurant.  The food was fabulous!  We only go there a few times a year, so it stays really special for us.  It's the "go to" place for happy celebrations!  Guess who my birthday present was?  Yes, I did say "who."

Here's a hint:

Get it?  Here's another hint:

They're gonna be here in February and guess who got tickets as a birthday gift?  (No hints this time.)  I'm over the moon, whatever color it is!  According to folks on the Emmylou mailing list I belong to, it's a fabulous show.

Speaking of birthdays,the extravaganza shopping was not quite all it was cracked up to be.  I found a few things here and there, but not much.  Perhaps my best two purchases were this vintage Santa blow mold:

He's an Empire, dated 1968.

And these:

Santa's a little more interesting than previously believed.

I did get some other stuff, but nothing blog-worthy.

The Halloween clearance hunt was a little rougher than usual this year, for some reason.  Most of the Walgreens did like two days at 50% off, then shipped it all off.  Every other place kept their stuff at 50% forever before dropping it to 75% off.  There's no profit margin at 50% when you consider that you're going to have to sell it for a little less than the stores will have their stuff at next year.  You can do that and make a healthy profit, especially in bulk, but you have to get it cheaply.  That means at least 75% off.

I saw a few too many booths during the birthday shopping that not only didn't really have a handle on this concept, but they were trying to sell their Halloween stuff at more than the regular retail stores were!  They also had tons of stuff left over.  All I had was this:

 It actually looks like more than it is.  None of those tubs are completely full, due to the odd size of some of my leftovers.  I had over 80% sell through, which is really good.  Not to worry for next year, I finally did hit a well-stocked Target with tons of 75% off stuff:

Cashiers do not like to see me coming!

 Now I just have to price and store it all.  A junker's work is never, ever done!

Speaking of junker's work, here's a preview of the Christmas set up at the booth:

Charlie Brown trees UNITE!

In other booth news, the end table Albatro$$ sold!  And I didn't lose money on it, as it was marked down to my cost.  I was so excited, I did the Happy Dance at the booth.  And then I put the Deliverance Desk in its old spot.

Lastly, there's been a new development in the phone saga.  I think it's trying to return the kindness shown to it during its time of need.

I can remember when phone calls were 10 cents!

I've kind of got a lot to do right now, with the holiday transition and Thanksgiving prep and all, but I should still keep blogging.  Look for the return of the vintage Christmas cards right after Thanksgiving.  I've got a ton of them, so I'll probably so several each day.  I've got some scanning to get to!