It's Monday! I'm rambling! Will wonders never cease?
QUESTIONS WHICH DEMAND AN ANSWER
Has my forehead always been this wrinkly? Also, is my hair thinning?
STRANGE WEEK
This is going to be an unusual week for us here. I have treatment tomorrow. If I feel up to it, I'm going to go see Black Panther afterwards. If not, I'll be seeing it later in the week, for sure.
Keith is heading to Arkansas after dropping me off at the cancer center. It's moving day for his mother, and he's going to help out. It's been a long, stressful journey for everyone concerned--one that demands its own post. Tucker and I will be holding down the fort here. Woo hoo! Cartoons all the time!
WRAPPING THINGS UP
After today, I should have the big booth redo I've been working on for several weeks now completed. I've just got a few more things to do, including taking pics, and I'll be able to do the big reveal here. This has been a real challenge this time around.
Just as soon as I would get one part done, a really large prominent item would sell, meaning I'd have to start on that part all over again. Then junk set out hit last week while I was still working on the booth, adding in more big, new stuff to deal with. On top of all this, Keith has been inspired by his mother's ordeal to start downsizing, which means more things for me to deal with. (So. Many. Books.) On the other hand, getting that crap out of the house has been nice. We even got a new bed to celebrate.
Speaking of junk set out, it was kind of short this time around. It rained off and on. It was cold. Not much stuff got put out. Regular spots didn't participate. Then, the trucks came through extremely early in the week and it was all over. Despite all of this, I did get two mice Mazda loads of stuff. I just finished getting pictures of it all, so I'll be sharing those too. MUSIC FOR MONDAY
Not much else to talk about right now, so let's cut right to a very special Music for Monday. Seriously, even if you normally skip these videos, check this one out. It's awesome!
Old Sesame Street kicks ass.
Have a good week! Watch out for wrinkly foreheads and buckets with holes!
I keep trying(and failing) to get an actual Monday Ramble out, but it doesn't seem to be working very well. Let's go with this one for this week, at least.
First up a question:
Do these sunglasses make me look all, you know, celebrity and stuff? (Probably not. The scraggly-ass goatee is looking particularly scraggly-ass here. Brad Pitt can pull that shit off. Me? not so much.)
Cold, windy and wet this week, but no freezing temps and no snow. We've had too many days of that over the past couple of weeks. I declared a little while ago that I wasn't leaving the house until the temp was above 20, then promptly spent several days drinking hot chocolate, eating pie, and watching cartoons. I am so over this winter.
I have definitely come to understand why some large mammals hibernate during the cold months. I'm wondering how I can sign up for that program myself, since I am also a large mammal. I just need to find an electric blanket that will stay on for three months and teach the cat to feed himself and scoop the litter box.
I'm working on a major booth redo, but it's going painfully slow. I'll have pics when I get done, if I get done. It's been a good January, sales-wise. I haven't really had a post-holiday dip, which usually happens after New Year's. I've been on a bit of a roll since the week before Christmas, even with the store closing for a couple of days due to weather. Small furniture and higher-priced items are really moving right now.
2017 was kind of average as far as booth sales went. I set a huge record in March, then crashed hard in April. Summer was better than usual. Fall would have been, except that I took an extra booth during a rent special to try and move some furniture, then barely broke even. I ditched it when the special was over. November and December were super-good.
Tine for another pic.
That was my anniversary gift from Keith. We decided not to do Christmas presents this year, just a small anniversary gift each. My collection of Batman shirts keeps growing.
Tucker is starting his daily rampage through the house. It's crazed kitty time! (Or, as I like to call it: "Go, Speed Racer, Go!") Life with kittens, I tell you.
I made a super-major comic score at an estate sale last week. Nearly 100 issues of one of my primary comic obsessions. I plan on sharing it soon. I actually want to do an in-depth sort of look at the four kinds of comics that make me go "Squee!" when I find them. One them you can already guess, vintage romance comics. I'll go ahead and surprise you all by saying that none of the other three are Batman or Wonder Woman.
And with that, I'll leave you with some Midweek Music.
I know that I haven't been blogging for the last few months, but I've been intending to blog. That's something, isn't it? I've got a folder full of photos to prove it. That's right. I found the time over and over again to take pics of stuff for the blog, but not to actually put them in the blog. It's hard to be me sometimes, let me tell you. Sigh.
For the next few posts. I'm going to dump as many of those pics out as I can to at least give a snapshot of the junking for the last half of last year. That should give me a handful of quick posts and enough time to at least get the rest of the month planned out. Plus, I know everyone likes finds posts. Right?
Ready? Let's go!
Let me start with the first finds of 2018 (or at least a teaser), courtesy of the New Year's Big Flea. This was what Gran, my granny cart, looked like at the end.
Care to guess what's inside? I'll give you a hint:
It's the start of a vintage clock radio collection! I bought a couple from the guy, and he made me an offer I could not pass up on the rest. There are nine all together. That's the benefit of shopping on the last day of the Big Flea. Tomorrow, I'm pulling my Christmas out of the booths. I have a good idea about what to replace it all with.
If I remember/have time, I'll get some pics of everything else in the cart. We'll see. By the way, did you catch the helpful advice printed on one of those boxes?
Words to live by.
I found all this stuff in an alley during junk set out. It looked to me like someone had cleaned out a relative's house and bagged it all up for the junk pick up. Someone had ripped open all the bags and scattered stuff everywhere. (DON'T EVER DO THIS!) I ran home and got a bunch of bags and filled them all up with stuff. This is a pretty representative sample. Bith the Jean Nate powder and the Stanback stuff had never been opened or used. The Jean Nate made me think of this girl named Gina who sat across from me in my Trigonometry class during my junior year of high school. She was always carrying on about Jean Nate stuff and how good it made her smell. She would actually say things like: "Gee, I smell good today." Isn't it odd the memories this stuff brings back?
Most of the stuff from this find was paper goods and ephemera. There will be pics of some of it later.
When you find a cheap Thor helmet, you just gotta buy it. Then take a selfie while wearing it.
The long, shaggy, slightly disheveled look I'm rocking these days kind of fits with the viking motif, doesn't it? For Odin and Asgard!
There's an old Democratic Club down the street from us that was gutted and renovated over the course of last year. The dumpsters yielded wonderful salvage treasures like these. I love the detail work on the hinges. I found a dozen or so of them, and they've been popular items at the booth.
Sadly, I also found some awesome wooden drawers and two wonderful tables at this site. They went straight to the booth, but I did set them all up for a nicely staged photo, only to have my phone battery give out before I could take it. They all sold on the same day to the same person, so I never got a picture, but they were awesome. Two of the drawers were the old cash drawers from the bar.
In case you didn't know, a Democratic Club is a lot like a VFW or American Legion post, basically an open bar. I had the pleasure of speaking at one in the 90's, when we were trying to get LGBT anti-discrimination laws passed here in town. I learned that you don't ever go to a group to talk about anything, when they've invited you to come after the bar has been open for two hours, even if they do say they're Democrats. I actually met the then-Democrat state Senator for that district (which included my neighborhood) who told me I could shove the information I had brought "up my ass." A year or so later, he switched to the Republican Party. Again, odd memories, huh?
Does anyone know what this is? I thought it was some kind of jewelry holder, until I realized that there was nothing to keep it from sliding off. I bought it because I thought it looked cool.
Half-Price Books does this traveling clearance event in several cities every year. For the last three years, Louisville has been one of the sites. They reserve a big room at the fairgrounds and fill it with stuff. Nothing is over 2 bucks, and a bunch of stuff is less. This was my cart at the last one.
Not everything at that sale is new or recent. There plenty of vintage items, like this trivia game from the 70's. The book below might be my favorite find from that sale. I love kids books. I got it for the title--I'd never seen the word "Brimful" used before--and the Tasha Tudor art.
You gotta grab your finds where and when you find them. All this stuff was a curb find when I was on the way to the bus stop one day. I crammed it all in my booth bag and still managed to catch the bus on time! The baskets were an appreciated find. I use a lot of them for displays.
People seem to like these big family-style Bibles, so I pick them up whenever I can find them cheap.
This is an odd, little display I made in my salvage booth. Nearly everything in it was a curb find.
I think that will do it for this installment. There will be more to come. Now, if you will excuse me, I have some fresh buns in the fridge and I have to go get them out.
My glasses broke the other day, so I'm back to wearing contacts, which I haven't done regularly in years. I've kept my prescription up to dote, but I've gotten to the point in life where I want getting ready in the morning to be as easy as possible, so the hassle of contacts has been just one more thing to do that I don't really want to and so I haven't.
The nerd glasses didn't really go with the longer hair anyway. They'd work if I were planning to actually go the man bun route, but I feel like I am too old and fat for that. I'm actually working on more of a loose, hippie ponytail. I think little, gold-rimmed specs would look better with that.
Without my glasses, I think I look like my mother with a goatee, which kind of makes me nostalgic for my childhood days with the carnival, when I would watch Mom primping and combing her beard before going on stage to do her act is kind of unnerving. Even worse, Keith keeps telling me how much he likes the way I look without the glasses, and in the back of my mind, a little voice is going, "He thinks your mother with a goatee is hot." I think I need therapy.
FROM THE MOUTHS OF BABES
I had a great conversation yesterday at the mall with a 12 year old boy looking for Spider-Man comics. He told me he was looking for "older ones." I said "Old for you? or Old for me?" He had to think about that for a minute, then told me he meant 90's. Old for him, then. I told him to keep checking back and would do my best to find some.
I actually do need to carve out some time for a bad movie/comic bagging marathon. I've been selling a lot of those boogers lately.
SPEAKING OF THE BOOTH
It feels like tax season is finally upon us. Sales are picking up all the time. The weekends have been gold rush city of late. Saturday was my second best day ever. The gravy is flowing and the small furniture is flying out of the door. So is the pricier stuff. Saturday some dude came in and bought all of my vintage metal lunchboxes.
IT'S JUNKER CHRISTMAS!
This is junk set out week for the next neighborhood over from us, which means that we are next. We've already got an early start on our set out pile going. You're not supposed to do that, but my neighborhood ain't much on rules. It's the first time we've ever tried it, though. Watch us get cited for it, while the folks down the street who have had the nasty couches sitting on the curb for a MONTH, get by with nothing.
I made two "practice runs" last night. One to a pile in the other neighborhood. Got some small stuff, but nothing notable, except for two old fishing poles. The other stop was at the magical house down the hill that disgorges all kind of interesting stuff every set out period. They always start early and will be putting out crap right up until the garbage trucks come. Last night it was a bunch of old religious texts and prayer books. SCORE!
There's also a new renovation dumpster on our street, two doors down from us. I told Keith that it was like having junk delivery!
All this is to say:
IT'S ON BABY!
MUSIC FOR MONDAYS
And finally, to set you on your way: The Carolina Chocolate Drops!
So we've gone through a week of freezing temps and snow and are getting ready to go into a week that is supposed to peak at around 70 later on. Sigh. Welcome to the Ohio Valley. Still the warmer weather will give me a chance to do some stuff outside, which is nice.
We've already started making our junk pile for the Feb. set out by the back fence and it's getting a little untidy. I would like to straighten it up a bit. Some of the neighbors have already started throwing things on the curb, even though it's early. We're a bunch of rebels in my 'hood, for sure. I need a nice day to get out and scavenge.
I'd also like to spend an afternoon at storage making a load of furniture for the booth. I'm starting to see I've got a good deal of room for some more big stuff.
SPEAKING OF THE BOOTH
I'm just about finished re-stocking. Sales have been consistent, despite the weather. I have heard that tat returns will be delayed this year until the end of February, which is worrying. I really need that sales boost. At least that gives me more time to prepare.
Today, I have to try and work another bookshelf into the book booth. I think I have figured out how to do it. Keith is getting ready to thin his books and has warned me to get ready for them.
I'm on a crusade right now to get the back log out of my house. We want to swap out my junk room and the bedroom, as the junk room has more closet space. The bedroom will be turned into a workroom/office.
Every morning before I go the mall and every evening after I get home, I try to get together a box or two of stuff, which goes to the booth the next day. I'd rather be figuring out how and where to place it there, where it can make some money, than here, where it is just in the way.
AND NOW A WORD FROM MY MOTHER
I've also been going through old boxes of stuff to see if there's anything that I can sell, donate, or otherwise get rid of. There's just too much crap around here. In the course of doing that, I found a folder of jokes and clipping and stuff that my mother used to stick in with her letters (remember those?) when I was in college. I have a briefcase full of those letters too.
Among them all was this gem, which she sent me while I was in seminary. I promptly taped it to the door of my dorm room.
If you think that my sense of humor is crazy, you should have known my mother. She was a nut!
JUST CALL ME DOPEY
I forgot to tell you all that I'm on Ritalin now to try and deal with my treatment-related fatigue. Apparently my fat, old, tired ass has a lot in common with a sixth-grader who can't sit still. It actually does help a lot, without the side effects I was having with the steroids. It's not the same kind of manic energy boost, but more of a controlled, sustaining effect. I do need to take more than one to keep going through the day. If I miss my afternoon dose, I sure start feeling it!
Sadly, there's no throwing wheel action here, but she kicks plenty of mythological ass! I highly recommend this one and am now super-psyched for the movie this year.
Happy 2017, Everyone! I hope you had your black eyed peas and cabbage and are looking forward to a prosperous and healthy new year.
I'm just going to a do a real quickie update here to talk about the holidays a bit and get back in the groove. I have a lot of pics and stories to share, plus some finds, but I'll save those for another day. I've gotten behind on my blog reading again, so I'm trying to carve out some time for that as well.
We're expecting snow tonight and tomorrow, so I plan on staying in if it happens. I have some cartoons ready to watch, plus a couple of documentaries on YouTube. I'll catch up on some reading, laundry, blogs, blogging, and pricing too. Maybe a nap as well. And hot chocolate. And pie. Maybe popcorn too.
Of course, now that I have all that planned, it'll be 76 tomorrow and brightly sunny. Oh well. If that happens, I guess I'll go to the booth. I'm heading there as soon as I finish writing and posting this. I haven't been over there since the Friday before Christmas. I finished the bulk of my work and decided I wanted a holiday break.
I had a very good month in December, booth-wise, which was most welcome after a weak fall. I had more $100+ days in December than I had in the months of September, October and November. It seems to be holding for the first few days of January, but I'm going to work some magic to keep that going. Mazda is packed to the gills with new stuff to go over.
One of the things I have to do today is pack up the Christmas, which will free up about five shelving units for new stuff. I'll leave the vintage Christmas in the booth, but make a new section for it. It will sell throughout the year. I'll probably make a shelf for Christmas books and music too, just to keep from lugging that heavy stuff out.
I also need to make room for some more furniture. I have a load ready to come off the Hillock, but just need a spot for it. I've sold several larger items recently, so I just need to reconfigure things to make the space. Our next junk set out happens in a month, so I need to get ready for that by moving more large items.
Christmas sales always confound me. After two years of low sales on wrapping paper and Christmas cards, I sold all I had this year. Wreaths and small trees usually sell very well for me. I sold one of each this time around. Last year, I sold no ornament sets. This year, I sold 3/4's of my stock. It's always a riddle. The only things I know I can count on are blow molds and vintage flocked deer. I sold every blow mold I had except for one, and all the reindeer. That was almost ten blow molds and about a dozen deer.
Speaking of Christmas, ours was really low key. We decided not to get each other any gifts, in lieu of buying a new mattress, which we really needed. We didn't even cook. We had lunch at Waffle House and dinner at a Chinese restaurant. In an odd way, that was, for us, kind of traditional. Waffle House was a my father's favorite restaurant and the place where he would have his own holiday meals. In the days before we bought the house, Keith and I would take a vacation over Christmas, usually to San Francisco or New York or Chicago. That always meant we ended up eating out at either an Indian or Chinese place on Christmas Day, since they were the places most likely to be open. When we got married in Chicago two years ago, we revived the tradition of the Chinese food Christmas meal.
By the way, we celebrated our anniversary Christmas Eve with Mexican food and then watched the wonderful Christmas concert recorded at Berea College (my alma mater) on CBS. Like I said, it was low key, but wonderful. I had been working at the booth practically every day all month long, so it was a nice to have a simple holiday.
New Years was celebrated with the traditional visit to the Big Flea. More on that later.
And now the holidays are over. Time to get back to work. And blogging.
Here's to a good 2017 for all of us. Big, wonderful, sloppy, happy hugs!
PS Don't forget to go to the thrifts this week! They're still awash with year-end last minute donations! And Christmas clearances should be up to 75% or even 90% off now.
This has been a rough year for blogging for me, apparently.
I did have a good birthday. Thanks very much for your well-wishes. I went to three vendor malls I don't normally get to, plus a church sale that turned out to be really great. This guy at the church sale had a tub of Batman comics, but the sign with the price was turned over. I went to flip it back, expecting it to say they were a dollar each or something.
Instead, they were 25 cents each. I heard Keith say: "I know that look." And the next thing you know, they guy and I have negotiated a price of 20 bucks for all of them. I counted them later and it worked out that I paid about a dime each for them. Score!
Here they are all waiting for to have a chance to pop in a cheesy movie and bag and price them.
Some other guy at the sale offered to run home and get his "brand new" Batmen comics for me. He had been asking five apiece for them, but would take a buck each from me. I told him I was too cheap for that and walked away. Seriously, you just saw me pay less than 25 cents each and you think that's a strategy that will work with me?
It ended up being a good comic weekend. Two of the malls I went to had some great comics for good prices available as well.
Just a small representative sample. Lots of Silver Age Harveys and Archies in this batch. I have a couple of buyers that look for these, along with Dell, Gold Key and Disney stuff. It's honestly a niche that the other guys with comics in our mall don't bother with, not even they one other guy who actually knows comics.
Since the previous weekend, I had struck out on comics at the big flea and at a comic shop sale, I was kind of glad to find so many. I told Keith that the comics I expected to find the last weekend were actually hiding in the next weekend!
I did find some fun DVD's at the big flea, even if there were no good comics.
And then the world ended.
I've spoken and will continue to speak my piece on the election over on the Book of Faces, so I won't repeat it all here. I will say that I am sad over the election results and scared as hell for so many reasons. The racist attacks we've seen so far are only the tip of the iceberg.
I am still trying to wrap my head around it all. I may end up yet having to do some posts here as well.
I will share this though. I stayed up until 2:30 on election night, Keith went to bed, but I had to know. I stayed up until the electoral votes hit 270 and it was called for Trump. At that moment, the tears I had been just barely holding back let loose. Chiquito was asleep in my lap, and he sat up and looked at me and started rubbing against me.
I got up and laid down next to Keith. I woke him up and told him what had happened. We held each other and I cried some more. Chiquito came and laid on top of us and it was just us, alone in the dark. Together against what had just become world.
The next day, I cried myself out. I posted about my sorrow on the Book of Faces, which has caused people I thought were my friends to mock me.
We have got to be better than this.
I am finally almost done with the booth re-do. Keith went and helped me for several hours on my birthday. (Best present ever!) And now things are looking good again. I still have a bit to do, plus I sold a shelf last night, so I've got some extra work to do today. I'll have pics tomorrow.
Sales are slowly picking up again. Election day was the first hundred dollar day I'd had in over a month. Since then, things have been a lot stronger, with several big pieces selling. Looks likes Melissa was right.
This past weekend, I house sat for my sweet friend Laci.
She likes my orange backpack and sleeps on it every time I'm over at her house.
I had a mishap at Goodwill last night, when I picked the wrong size cart.
Oops!
But that wasn't as bad as missing out on three boxes of Shiny Brites when some kid cut in front of me and grabbed them. ACK!
I have sooooooo much to do this week! Treatment tomorrow. Finish the booth. Get the Christmas out. Laundry. Pack. Plus, there's a John Prine show on Friday that we have tickets too.
Thanksgiving is a week from Thursday. Ack! How does it sneak up like that every year? We leave for Arkansas this Saturday. (Shara email me!)
The sorrow that began with the election results last week continued with the death of musical genius Leonard Cohen. (My beloved Emmylou Harris had stated that he was the one artist she always wanted to work with. Now she'll never get the chance.)
In light of everything that happened last week, there's only one choice for Music for Monday.
Take care of yourself. Take care of each other. Be loving and kind.
After a kind of moderate last week, the heat is back with a vengeance this week. Ewww! COME ON FALL! Eddie's sweating and waiting! (TMI?)
It's so hot right now that we went to a large outdoor sale on Saturday with dozens of vendors and I just flat gave up in the middle of it all and quit. I ain't built for this any more. I did make one super-fabulous find, though. Check back tomorrow to see it.
Not only is it awesome, but it's a total keeper.
I put off starting my big booth redo for a couple of days to finish up some things here at the house. Part of that work is outdoors, and I am dreading it.
Speaking of the booth, I think the summer sales slump is wrapping up. I've had really good sales all last week, except for one day. Lots of potatoes and bigger and bigger ladles of gravy. Yum! I'm going to come out of this month well ahead of where I've been the last three. It's still not where I like it to be, but any improvement over recent history is welcome. LOOK WHAT I FOUND THE OTHER DAY!
Just the table, not the junk on it. It was sitting on the curb at the bottom of the hill the other day as I was rushing to catch the bus. I figured it would be gone by the time I got home, but it was still there. It was kind of hidden by some tree branches. I wouldn't have seen it originally if I hadn't been walking down that side of the street, which is not something I usually do.
I got one of those looks from Keith when he saw it, so I told him that it was "perfectly primitive." That's also what I put on the tag. HEY PAM AT VIRGINIA RETRO!
Okay, so you really did paint yours, and I just found this one, but I thought it was cool and it did make me think of you.
Those that can, paint. Those that can't, buy.
Check out Pam's blog, if you haven't already. THE THINGS YOU LEARN WHILE DINING OUT
Pikachu likes Mexican food.
My last latte appointed me a professor. Of what, I have no clue.
And the most recent fortune cookie wisdom.
DVD OF THE WEEK
This is an absolutely charming short animated film from 1966, directed by the wonderfully talented Gene Deitch. The full title is Alice of Wonderland in Paris. Alice meets a mouse named Francois, who takes her to Paris so she can fulfill her dream of meeting Madeline, of the children's book series. Along the way they swap stories, which become the various segments of the movie. Art for each story is provided by creators such as Ludwig Bemelmens (creator of Madeline), Crockett Johnson (creator of Harold and the Purple Crayon), and New Yorker cartoonist James Thurber. There's not much else in the way of plot, but the whole thing is just too sweet and totally endearing. (I'm also a great fan of both Thurber and Johnson, which adds to the film's appeal for me.) Highly recommended, if you can find it.
By the way, Crockett Johnson is going to pop up here again in a few weeks. WRAPPING UP
Not a whole lot happening this week, it seems. Let's make up for that with some music for Monday.
Have a happy and safe Labor Day weekend. I'll be heading to the Big Flea! It's antique wing time.
Booth sales are still in summer slump mode, but it's starting to pick up a bit. I'm only running 1/3 to 1/2 less than what my daily totals should be, as opposed to last month's 1/2 to 2/3 less. I'm trying to hang in there right now and not give anything up. I really don't want to drop a space with fall right around the corner. I don't think that slump times you know are going to be slump times are the time to make decisions like that.
Truth is my sales are almost exactly what they were this time last year. I just have two more spaces, which makes a difference. I had a huge growth spurt in March and April, so I'm expecting that to some back when fall hits into the holidays.
Right now, though, the mix just isn't right.
I look at my sales kind of like a plate of mashed potatoes and gravy. You want to have the right amount of both so you can have a tasty meal. I've always made most of my sales from small, lower-priced items, like five bucks and under. It's the kind of thing that people come to a flea market to find. Those are my potatoes, if you will. I need a good-sized mound of them, white and fluffy.
Furniture and other large or higher-priced items are the gravy--that little extra treat on top that makes everything extra special. You can have your taters without gravy and they'll be okay, but with it, they're fabulous. You definitely want the tasty gravy.
Now, it's not hard and fast, but you need the right mix of the potatoes and gravy to have the right kind of sales totals--a nice mound of those small dollar sales, topped off with a bit of gravy. On the really good days, I can look at my report and see the big items and the small ones complimenting each other to create a nice total. Potatoes and gravy. Mmmm!
On the off days, I can usually sum up the problem as not enough of one or the other. It's treat to sell a 50 dollar piece of furniture, but if there are only a few smaller dollar items, then the total is going to be less than what it should be. A huge ladle of gravy on a tiny dab of potatoes is still edible, but it just doesn't seem right.
On the other hand, a day with good small sales and little to no large action, can still fall short. A big mound of potatoes with just a little dab of gravy is out of whack. But on those days when you have super-strong small item sales, topped off with four or five good large items, you've hit the taters and gravy train!
Now, this is not to say that you can't go all the way to one extreme or the other. I've definitely had some really high dollar sales days where the most expensive thing I sold was five bucks. I just sold a ton of them. It's a plate of just potatoes, but I'll take it. You can take one look at me and pretty much tell that I've never passed up a plate of potatoes in my life.
I've not really had this sort of day, but it is totally possible to have a high dollar day of only high dollar items--a plate of gravy, as it were. I'd certainly take it. When I was growing up, my mother and my grandmother both would leave the gravy bowl on the table until all the other dishes were done. They knew that someone (me) would be coming along to finish off the leftover gravy. To this day, I love a bowl of cold, leftover gravy. I know. I'm weird.
For my experience, however, small items will sell every day. You just have to get the right amount of them. The big stuff sells in dribs and drabs. That's why it's the gravy. It's extra. It's special. There are a lot of vendors who primarily deal in furniture that I outsell all the time with nothing but smalls.
Obviously, this is my own model and thoughts, grown out of my own experiences. Yours may very well vary. They probably do. Switch from a flea market mall to an antique mall, for instance, and the customer expectations change, so the experience and the mix changes.
The trick, which is always hard to pin down, is to figure out how to consistently get that mix right. Right now, I'm eating enough taters, but way too little gravy.
Well, hello again, friends! I've not had many opportunities for blogging lately, but I have missed you. There's lots to share, so let's get started. EDDIE UPDATE
I haven't talked a lot about the cancer stuff lately, because there really isn't anything changing. I get my treatments every three weeks, and things continue to go well. I had another scan at the end of last month, and everything still looks good. I qualified for an assistance program from the drug company, so my co-pays are now taken care of, which is nice.
I seem to finally have all the steroid withdrawal over with, so things are returning to normal on that front. The blood sugar is lots better, and I've dropped a few pounds. Not many. Just a few.
I had a sinus thing going on last week that kept me out of action for a few days. It seems to be clearing up, although I still have a head full of yucky stuff. I feel like all I do is blow my nose. And cough. A lot. I'm afraid that I may accidentally blow one of my lungs out my nose when I get on a coughing jag. Hate it when that happens.
I've always been prone to stuff settling in my chest, which then takes forever to clear out. I've actually coughed so hard before that strangers have come up to me and told me I need to stop smoking! And I don't smoke!
The sinus thing started last Tuesday, which was also a treatment day. Since I was already planning a stay-at-home low key week, I was in a great spot to just stay in bed and rest. Things really worked out well, and Chiquito liked it too.
BOOTH UPDATE
Well, sales are a little better this month, but not by much. It's very fits and starts right now. I did HUGE over the July 4th weekend, but then took the rest of the month up to this past weekend to double that amount. The crying of the blues will continue until further notice. I'm moving lots of stuff, but it's nearly all small, lower priced items right now.
It seems like on the days when I do sell a larger, higher-priced piece or two, that's all I sell. The mix is off in my sales totals. Still, they are higher than last month, for the most part.
I moved out of the booth with the pole smack dab in the middle of the entrance to a space right next to may other spaces. Less walking for me. I like having all my spaces together.
At the same time, one of my college roommates, who also had a booth in our mall, got a new job and had to give up his booth due to time issues. He gave me and another vendor about 75% of what was in his booth--FOR FREE! I've been kind of awash in stuff from that. Really nice stuff to boot. He does a lot of woodworking and repurposing kinds of stuff, and some of his projects were included in the items he gave us.
Slow sales are causing a lot of vendors to leave, but there's also been an influx of new folks. Open spaces in out store get snapped up pretty quickly, often by existing vendors. The manager told me at the beginning of the month that there wer so many vendors swapping out spaces that it was almost like a jigsaw puzzle.
This was one booth's closing sign.
I had been intending forever to get a pic of the "Buy from the BUNNY" sign to put in the blog, because I just love it. I never got around to it, until it was time to say "Bye Bye Bunny." Sad.
Of course, since I was out all last week, I'm planning on spending all this week at the booth trying to pull things back together. I'm hoping to take new pics, since an update post is long overdue. I just need to remember. That's the hard part. DVD OF THE WEEK
This is a favorite movie of mine and I like to pull it out and watch it from time to time. Martin Sheen and Trevor Howard work so well together and their scenes just shine throughout the whole film.
Religious politics and inner working fascinate me, especially with the Catholic Church. I am constantly reading up on various aspects of the way the church operates. One of my favorite subjects is the tension that exists between the newer course the church has taken since Vatican II and Catholics of a more traditional/conservative bent.
This 1973 TV (!) movie (based on a novel by Bryan Moore) examines that tension with Sheen playing a young priest sent to get a recalcitrant Howard and the monks of his monastery to update and move along with the times. The story is set in a fictional time after two more church councils have brought even more changes, and the monks have become steadfast and reactionary.
Like I said, the acting is exemplary and the story avoids any easy answers as the men strive to understand each other and seek a resolution. The ending is haunting.
Given the current tension that exists between the current, very progressive, Pope and many more conservative bishops and cardinals, this 40 year old movie is surprisingly timely. Well worth hunting down.
STUFF UPDATE
Since sales have been so slow lately cutting back on going to yard sales and such. I'm in "clear out the backlog" mode instead. I did buy a bunch of manga over the weekend, but I was really low on it. That was the first major purchase I've made all month.
Since that means I won't have any new things to share here, I'm taking a different approach to doing finds posts. Check in tomorrow for the first installment.
Have I really only done less than a dozen posts this month? Odd's Bodkins!
I shall have to do something to rectify that. Jinkies!
I've decided that I'm going to divide Monday Rambles posts with headers from here on out. On weeks when I really ramble, the posts seem to be really disparate and jarring to read, so hopefully this will smooth things out a bit.
Now, if you don't want to read me babbling about toenails, comic books, Komodo dragons, or making mashed potatoes while dancing the Mashed Potato, you can skip those sections. Or at least you could if the headers made any sense. Chances are they're not going to. Not at this blog. But, hopefully, maybe, they'll at least be entertaining.
Now someone remember to email me on Sunday to remind me to have headers next Monday.
BELATED HAPPIES!
No, not "belated hippies" although that does sound kind of interesting. Belated Happy Father's Day to all the Dads, Grandpas, and people with Dads out there. I hope you all got to do something fun together yesterday. If, like me, your father has passed on, then I hope you had some happy memories to look back on.
HE WAS THE GREATEST!
Muhammad Ali's funeral was one of the biggest things to ever happen in Louisville. Outside of the Derby each year and visits by the President or candidates for President, I can't recall another event that stirred up this much attention for our fair city. The Queen came through once, but that was for the Derby. Usually, the only way to garner excitement around here is to either be a horse or dress up like one.
Anyway, along the procession route, people were given sidewalk chalk to express their feelings about Ali's passing. I was walking downtown a couple of days later and saw this one and thought it was cool.
HEALTH WOES
I'm having some issues right now, but I'm hoping they will pass in a while. It may take a few weeks, though. I've stopped taking the steroids. Between the effects on my blood sugar (sky high), my blood pressure (getting that way) and my weight (approaching aircraft carrier status), I decided that I couldn't take them any longer. I refuse to be known as "Fat Cancer Guy." (Although that could be an interesting super-hero concept.) Or, as I told Keith, "I'm beating cancer. I will not be taken down by Diabetes aggravated by the drugs given to me to help make the treatments more tolerable."
Of course, being me (and also my mother's child), I just stopped taking the damn thing. I never took the full prescribed dosage, so I though that one little milligram would be easy to step away from. Oh my galoshes! I've had muscle and joint aches like you would not believe ever since! At least the headaches have stopped. And the joint and muscle pain only flares up now when I've been busy for a while. At first, I would just sit there and throb and moan. (Yes, I did moan. I'm a man. That's how we deal with illness.)
Ibuprofen seems to keep things under control. I know some of this is from my body adjusting to life without Mother's Little Helper, but some of it is all the little aches and pains I've always had, but was not noticing thanks to the steroid. I'm also experiencing periods of weakness and major fatigue and seem to move awfully slow these days. Some of that last comes from being as large as a parade float. You never see one of those suckers tearing around like an Indy car either.
Of course, being me, I only did research about coming off steroids when the effects started getting really bad. It was then that I found out about tapering the dosage. Keith thought I should go back on them and then start taking them every other day or something, but I'm soldiering ahead cold turkey. My mother was a Campbell and this is the way that Campbells go about doing things. At least in my branch. Well, except none of the others would have bothered to research anything. I'm counting on mine being after the fact to help keep me in the clan. True to my family, I did not consult with my doctor either. (I'm not saying you have to do it my way, in fact, you probably shouldn't, but some things are genetically predisposed to happen.)
Right now it's all playing higgeldy piggledy with my life, but I think once it settles down, I'll be able to manage. I told Keith that once I'm down to just dealing with the fatigue from the cancer drug (which is the major side effect), I'll take it slower if I have to or add in extra days for rest or add in more naps. You'll never ever hear me complain about more naps.
OH THE HEAT!
Something else contributing to the sluggishness around here is the HEAT and its bff HUMIDITY. This one is not just hitting me, but everyone. Full blown Ohio Valley Summer is here. Staying in and taking more naps doesn't sound so bad.
OH THE KITTIES!
Especially when you can do it with these two.
This is Lacy.
Of course I'm his sitter! He's named after a Hobbit!
And this is Frodo who wouldn't sit still for a picture, so this is the best I could do. He did manage to photo-bomb Lacy's pic.
They're the two little friends I was pet-sitting most of last week and part of the week before. I've been sitting for Frodo nearly ten years now, whenever his Mommy goes away on vacation. The other pets that were part of the family when I started have all gone on. The year after my mother died, I spent the better part of two months over there while she was tending to her father in his final days.
Lacy's the new girl. She still hasn't figured out if it's okay for me to be staying there, but she did figure out that I give good head and belly rubs.
YARD SALES
So anyway, the reason that I didn't have a Mazda shot the other Saturday was that I had started having one of my weak and achy spells during the middle of the day. It was too bad too. This was the sale at the last gold standard church, plus the surrounding community. It's always good.
The church sale lived up to its reputation. They fill just about every room but the sanctuary with stuff, all organized by category. It's the same every year too, so if you're a regular, you know what is going to be where. They set a rule this year that nothing would be priced less than 50 cents, which kind of bummed me out. I imagine it bummed out a few of the old lady pricers too, because I still found 25 and 10 cent stuff. I think if i were an eighty year old chruch lady volunteer who had been doing this for years, I would go ahead and price it how I always did it. Silly rules!
The community sale was great too. We went to grab some eats at McDonald's first, so we went into this city from the opposite end we usually do. It's a pretty good-sized little community, full of all kinds of twisty little streets and cul-de-sacs. We do this every year and we've never been through all of it.
I met some sellers who were selling all their sushi dishes, because they finally realized that they love sushi a lot more than they love the idea of making it themselves. We laughed about that and I told them about the sushi making kit I bought with the same plan in mind and never used. I have no idea what they thought about me buying the sushi dishes. We just all kind of acted like it was natural.
At another house there were four or five different people set up selling stuff. The owners got the cool spot inside the garage, of course. They told me that their yard was "just like a mini-mall." I bought a vintage Bingo set from them and they threw in a stack of old game boards for free. One of the women in the yard was selling her mother's old books and magazines from the 40's. We talked for a long time about our love for old graphics and designs and she showed me a portfolio she had made of the ads from some of the magazines that had fallen apart. It was cool, but way too pricey for me.
My favorite spot was the one where two little boys--"going into third grade" they told me--were running the show, under the watchful eye of dad, who stayed at the top of the driveway. He let them do everything, and most of the stuff was theirs, but he was also close at hand to supervise and answer questions if needed. They also took the money to him and he kept it out of sight of any wandering hands and eyes. I bought a nice Wolverine race car from them, so of course we had to talk about Wolverine for a bit. Then Spider-man. Then Batman. I finally asked if they were brothers, and one of them said they were just friends, but he was helping so he could earn enough money to buy something there that he wanted.
Anyway, we don't have any pics, because we cut things short when I started feeling bad and I went back to nap with Frodo and Lacy. We just kind of unloaded in a hurry and I forgot to take any pics.
But I do have pics to go with the stuff from yesterday's Mazda shot, so check back tomorrow for the reveal.
LISTEN TO THE VENDOR MOAN
And this is the part where we (or rather I) wail about how bad June's booth sales have been. This past weekend was probably the worst one I have ever had. Wednesday was the strongest day last week, and it was a really good day. But it was bookended by one day that was less than five (!) dollars and one that wasn't much over that.
I know all the drill about slower sales in the summer, but I swear this is the worst summer I've had in seven years as a vendor.
Oh well. I'm heading over today with a Mazda load of crap lovely merchandise in hopes of turning this big ole ship away from the iceberg. I finally made next month's rent, but it's a good thing that I've done some bulk buys cheaply, plus snagging a lot of freebies lately, because I'm not looking at a big check for the other expenses.
If you happen to know a wealthy person named Penelope or Duke--you know the type, diamond-studded sunglasses and a Chihuahua with a designer collar--who's looking to drop several hundred on quality secondhand flea market merchandise, send 'em my way. If they buy enough, I'll even cut you in on the action.
Apparently, the elephants in these parts are quite prodigious.
I don't care how skilled they are, though. No elephant is getting near the parts of my anatomy associated with fertility with sharp needles. I'd end up having to get the treatment for stress after that, for sure!
NERDS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN
This is one of my favorite weekends of the year coming up--DERBY CITY COMICON!!!!!! I got my pass the other day.
It has been a real pleasure to see this one grow and improve year after year. Homegrown cons by local folk are the best.
Of course, I go mainly for the shopping, but I've not had a lot of luck with the comic hunting this year. I've gotten small batches here and there, but not the big scores of great stuff that I'm used to finding. Hopefully, this will be a good con for that. I've already checked out the list of vendors and seen several that should be pretty good, including several of my regulars.
Failing that, maybe I can find another Batman shirt. Do they make them in blimpo size?
DVDS OF THE WEEK
Since I was pet-sitting in a house with no WiFi and none nearby to surf on, I had the world's longest and cheesiest bizarro film festival. I seriously must have watched at least two dozen DVD's. Me and Frodo had a ball. Lacy's not much for movies.
It was two hard to pick one favorite, so I ended up choosing two. First, from legendary Hammer Films, starring equally legendary Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing:
You seriously cannot have a cheesy film festival with that many movies and not include at least one Hammer Dracula film. This one is a total ball. Sure there are plot holes galore and a truckload of unanswered questions at the end, but it's a ton of fun to watch. Lee and Cushing are actor's actors and they give it their all, no matter how silly things get. And they do get a bit silly. Dracula has a bevy of vampiric women in matching outfits chained up in coffins in his basement for starters. Why? Because he's Dracula! They actually get nearly as much screen time as the big guy himself and all they do is writhe around and squeal and hiss.
It doesn't get much better than this. I am now hunting through my stash to see if I have any more films from Hammer.
My other choice was a cartoon show I had never heard of before.
Image from good old Amazon!
This show is kind of a mix between X-Files, Men in Black, and one of my fave animated shows ever: Ben Ten Alien Force. The basic premise is that aliens have been visiting Earth for centuries, giving rise to most of our myths and legends and monsters. Most of their purposes are less than benevolent.
An alliance of government agencies created the Roswell incident as a hoax in the 40's, to try and convince the world that aliens don't exist. Ever since, they've been fighting the evil creatures, while denying they exist. The plot definitely takes some twists and turns, and like most shows of this nature, you're never quite sure who to trust. The Wikipedia page for the show does a good job of breaking it down. (SPOILER ALERT!)
Plus, one of the characters is a Banshee! I am now on a quest to track down more of this fun show.
THIS MEANS YOU
WRAPPING UP!
Well, this was a rambly ramble. I had a lot stored up since last week. Have some Music for Monday to help it all go down.
Saw that one while on a trash crawl constitutional during junk set out.
I have a feeling if everyone would take both bits of advice to heart, this world would be a better place.
Who says flea markets aren't classy?
C'mon! We got caviar in the salvage groceries! Top that!
I found my birthday present the other day in a showcase across from my booth.
That's the way cool 70's Batmobile, by the way. And it has both figures with it! Now, I just need to find someone who loves me enough to drop 50 bucks (!) on it. Well, we do have six months to save up.
Shara did a ramble last week, so I'm doing a phone dump this week. More to come in a second.
I have never been more glad to see a month end than this one. Barring a HUGE rush today and tomorrow, I'm going to have my lowest total for 2016, and the lowest one in a while. Sales have just been off. And it's not just me. Nearly everyone I know here is seriously crying the blues, no matter what mall they're in. Sigh.
I know that May means Derby, Mother's Day, the start of warm weather, yard work, yard sales, graduations and proms. I know that this is just a cyclical downturn and things will pick back up when it finally gets too warm for the wimpy somewhat less than hardcore yard sale shoppers. But, dammit, I'm overly dramatic! I wail because it's what I do. And right now, I'm having a good one. Wail, that is. Not month.
If you listen close you can probably hear me.
How slow has it been? Well, the last two times I've gone in to straighten up, there was nothing to do! Typically, when things are the slowest, that's when booths get the messiest. At least mine do. Counter-intuitive, I know, but that's been the pattern borne out by seven years of experience. This time around, they're almost spotless. Even the comic booth, which is always a wreck. Sigh.
I was loading the van yesterday, when I started hearing some murmurings from the stuff I was putting in. It seems I had promised them their moment in the blog, but had never gotten around to getting pictures. In the interest of peace and harmony, here are a few shots of some recent purchases.
Heavy, rusted antique snow shovel. I can see this baby in someone's porch decor this winter.
Painted bench and vintage metal kid-size folding chair. I got three of the chairs. If there had been more, I would have gotten more. This came from a church sale I like a lot. Every year, they bring out a few items from their defunct school. Usually, it's school desks. This year, it was these chairs.
Folding wooden chair from the same sale.
Two drawers from the same sale. I've been kicking myself for not getting more, as they had a bunch. I love those heavy metal candle holders. The big GI Joe ship came from a fund-raiser sale that a friend of mine puts on every year. I was looking through all the small toys on a table when she said "Don't forget the big toys too." And there it sat. My friends know me so well. I also got a huge box full of those big cardboard bricks that they use in nursery schools. I forgot to get a pic of it.
Speaking of forgotten pics, that photobombing blue thing in the back is a handmade child's stool from the junk set out. This apparently is the only shot I took of it. It flips over, so it can still be used as the child grows. It was completely filthy, but totally solid.
Speaking of the curb finds, they'll be back tomorrow. I'll be wrapping up the bigger stuff then and moving on the the smalls by the end of the week. The smalls are where the real awesomeness lies.
I hope everyone has nice plans for the holiday. I was intending to go to the Big Flea today in honor of my mother. The sixth anniversary of her death was Saturday. Memorial weekend has a slightly different meaning for me, I guess.
However, when I was dropping stuff off at the booth, a soon-to-be-departing vendor offered me her two booths full of stuff for fifty bucks. She's been running a sale all month to clear things out, but still had a whole lot left. There's easily fifty bucks worth of movies alone.
On Wednesday, I'll ask the mall to add her number to my account, so I don't have to re-tag everything. Having a separate number for the buy helps me track the sales easily as well. They can't do it until she gets removed from the system at the end of the month, or all of her sales for May will be added to mine. (Well, she did say I could have everything.)
So instead of the flea market, I'll be heading to the Peddlers Mall today to sort out that stuff. If anyone does want anything, I can re-tag it. Otherwise, I'll pull it off the floor and stash it until the first. The largest items (and there is a little bit of furniture) will go right into my spaces with new tags. She kept her stuff fairly organized, so it won't be a hard job, but it will take most of the day.
I think Mom would understand. I'll hit the Big Flea again in July, in honor of her birthday. She would be 74.
The only thing I was going to be hunting at the flea market was comics, since I am running short. However, there's already a sale for Saturday on Craigslist that advertises "thousands" of comics for 50 cents each. And there's a con coming up at the end of June. I think I'll be all right.
Yes, I do realize that I paid for the privilege of cleaning out someone else's spaces. It's good karma. The last two vendors to leave ended up just giving me tons of stuff they didn't want to haul out.
I can't play on the scale of some of the larger vendors, but I do okay for myself. The best stuff kind of falls into your lap, it seems.
Yes, I know this is why Sorrow Mountain is a thing. It is slowly coming down. I need to get some pics of that progress for you all.
