Just remember:

I may not be perfect....



But I'm perfect for you!

Green Day Mood

With everything that's been happening:  busy booth work, trying to save a booth that should be working well, car crashing, crappy weather, and such, I find myself humming a lot of Green Day.  It kind of fits my mood these days.  Feel free to join in:



I think that one is just as apropos now as it was when it was written.





That one could be considered the unofficial theme song of this blog!



I dyed my hair that color one summer.  Been wondering if I should do it again.  Scraggly graying goatee and all.



That whole album kept me sane when it came out.  I was going through a really rough time. That's also the disc that this song is on.  The whole thing was really cathartic for me.



That's always been one of my favorite Green Day songs, but that album is not considered one of their successes.  I liked it, but apparently no one else did.  I guess that should be a warning.

I can...

...totally lose myself for, like, an hour (or more) just watching 1966 Batman clips on the internet.











Not that there's anything wrong with that.  For me, the idea of "vintage" or "retro" will always include pop culture.  Always.

How did I waste time before the internet?

Things I Find

One of the fun things about buying books is seeing what you find tucked inside the pages. I  think people have been sticking things between the pages of books and forgetting about them since the dawn of time.  Bibles are just about the best for hidden treasures.  (More on this in a minute.)

All of the items in this post were found inside books from my large church sale book buy.  Talk about a never-ending source of fun and treasure.  Follow me!  Much awesomeness awaits!

I don't get the greenish cast on this page.  I've tried to edit it out to no avail.

It's a reproduction of the Gettysburg address!

When  I was a kid, I had a copy of the Gettysburg address, the Declaration of Independence, and a large copy of the Constitution hanging on my bedroom wall.  The Declaration and Gettysburg Address were printed on this wrinkly, yellowed parchment paper so they would look old.  I also had wanted posters for the James brothers and Billy the Kid.  Looking back, I'm not sure where any of them came from.  I just kind of had them. but they were cool.

Do you ever make up odd little stories in your head based on things you find?  Or ask questions that end up creating strange scenarios?  I found these in a cookbook, and they started my mind to working.

 

First thought that crossed my mind?  Why did they stop recording any of the baby's stats?  Did it really only take nine months for them to lose interest in their baby's progress?  Then I noticed that the immunization record just stopped as well! I hope they were more diligent in taking the baby for shots than they were in writing them down.  I'm not even going to get started on the fact that they never got around to putting down any important phone numbers!  They must have been new parents, easily overwhelmed by all the responsibilities.

See what I mean?  Does anyone else do that or is it just me?

By the way, there's no need to worry about the baby.  She made it to camp-attending age, at least.  I found a letter home from her in the same book.

This is the flipside of those record pages above. Wouldn't it be fun to find that Dr Spock record in a thrift?

It's the ideal baby shower gift!

It's no secret by now that I love religious items.  I buy them,  I sell them.  I collect them.  While my collection is exclusively Catholic in nature, I am decidedly more ecumenical in scope when I sell.  Footprints in the Sand?  I'll take it! Pat Roberston books on tape?  I'll (hold my nose and) take 'em!

Through years of careful purchase and study, I have come to understand the true nature of the  difference between Catholics and Protestants.  Laying aside issues of doctrine, theology, ecclesiology, and discipline, there's a much more practical issue at hand:  what they choose to save in their texts.

Thumb through any prayer book, missal, or Catholic Bible at an estate sale and you'll find tons of holy cards, prayer leaflets, and the like.  I once bought a huge stack of prayer books and missals at a sale, most of which I already had, just so I could get at the cards that had been tucked between the pages.  The person running that sale asked if I were a seminarian.  (Ha!)  That was back in my collecting (not dealing) days.

Flip through a Protestant Bible, and you might find a prayer or a pic of Jesus or some sermon notes, but you're just as likely to find someone's senior picture:

This poor guy's almost 40 now, sitting around wondering how that happened!

You're also likely to find Jesus in some odd places, like a cookbook:

Seriously.  In a cookbook.

I guess that might be appropriate.  There is a lot of praying that goes on whenever I'm in the kitchen.  Oh wait.  That's cursing, not praying.  Come to think of it, there's a lot of cursing that goes on whenever I do anything, like scan these pics for this post.  I still don't know why they saved as PDF files the first time, dangit.

Anyway,  now you know the real difference.  Feel free to call the Pope and let him know.  Let me know if he gets back to you.  In the meantime, I'll be thumbing through books, looking for more stuff!

Monday Rambles

This edition of Monday Rambles by Eddie-torial Comments is being brought to you by:

A kitty in a sink!

Chiquito is one of those water play cats.  You know, the ones who defy the stereotype that cats hate water.  He has always been nuts about water, running or still.  His water dish is always surrounded by little splashes that he has smacked and slapped and scooped out of the bowl.  He'll sit there for several minutes, until he's tossed all the water out of the bowl.  Then when you pick the bowl up and take it to the sink for a refill, he comes running and tries to grab the bowl while you're filling it.  It's insane.

One of the funniest things I've ever seen our cats do happened one day when he was doing his splash play routine at the water dish.  Bennie was sitting there waiting for him to finish, so she could get a drink.  Finally, she reached out her paw and yanked the bowl away from him.  I just cracked up!

He's been the only one in the house that was happy about the sub-freezing temperatures, because we had to keep the faucets running a bit to keep the pipes from freezing.  He sat by the bathroom sink for hours, playing and splashing and carrying on.  Then, he would crawl in bed with us with cold, soaking wet paws.  

Now that it's warm and the water is not running, he spends time beside the sink, occasionally staring at it, and at least once, sleeping in it.  That's his sleepy face in the pic.  We have a wild household.  

Speaking of warmer weather, it has been glorious here!  The ice and snow are gone!  We did have a nasty thunderstorm last week, but I just kept telling myself:  "It's not snow.  It's not snow."  I know a lot of other folks are still dealing with the winter weather and I do feel for you guys, but it's nice to see the sidewalks again!   

Friday was really windy, but Saturday was the best day we have had in ages!  It was the kind of day when there should have been dozens of yard sales everywhere.  Instead, there were none!  It was very sad.  We went to my uncle's to pick up some stuff to take to his booth, and his wife said that she was just "living for yard sale season."  Me too!  Me too!

I got "observed" by my boss at work last week.  I guess it went okay.  I wasn't happy with the way it came out, but the written review was pretty good.  I have to do it again this week.

I didn't have much of a chance to thrift last week.  Went to a couple, but didn't find anything.  I did get some Valentines clearance at 90-ish% off the other day.  Just a tad, since I don't really do a big booth Valentines thing.  People don't tend to think Peddlers Malls when they're looking for Valentines gifts.  I'll put them up for next year.  (While I was with my uncle, he gave me some Halloween clearance stuff that I left in his van ages ago.)

The sensational Sue at Vintage Rescue Squad has asked the most awesome question:  If you could have one junking super-power, what would it be?  I'm almost disappointed that I never thought of this!  I mean, is there a more perfect combination of comic books and junking?  (Other than shopping for old comics at flea markets?)  You can see my answer in the comments and leave your own!

This is the last week of February.  Can you believe it?  Where does the time go?  The year is almost 1/6 over!  One month closer to yard sale season!  Woo hoo!

More Car Deja Vu

Okay, so as I'm writing this (on Wednesday), Keith called me to tell me that the insurance company just called him to tell him there was more damage to the car than previously suspected, so they are declaring it totaled.  Shit.  No idea what we are gonna do now.

The worst thing about this is not that it's the second time it happened to us (within the space of a few months, yet), but that it's the third (or fourth depending on how you count)!  Yes, you read that right.  We've actually lost a total of  five vehicles (if you count the rental) to the shooting gallery that is our street.

We're not alone in this, other neighbors have lost vehicles or had them damaged.  Nearly everyone has a story.  We know because we've heard them.  In the middle of the night.  While we're standing around looking at the wreckage of yet another of our vehicles.  Us?  We're kind of legends in the neighborhood.  Not just for it happening twice in the span of two months, but for the time it happened twice in the same weekend!

I know we have some photos somewhere, but that was several PC's and cameras ago.  We printed some hard copies, and I've rummage around for them, but can't seem to find them.  If I ever do, I'll add them to this post.  Until then, you'll just have to take me at my word.

It was less than a year after we bought the house, so it happened in the days before this blog.  It was over a decade ago, in fact.  It was the dead of night.  It always is when this shit happens, it seems.  We were fast asleep, but were awakened by a pounding on the door.  We opened it to see a crowd of folks standing there.  The woman in front said:  "Baby, your car just got hit."  My first thought was:  "Oh shit.  I'm standing here in my underwear."

It happened on a warm summer night, so there were several people out and about who witnessed the accident, despite it being about three in the morning.  The car was wrapped around the tree, kind of like my truck was in November.  That poor tree has had more than its share of automobiles draped around it.

The witnesses said that the guy hit the car so hard he did a 180 and sped off on the wrong way down our one way street.  He did stop his car a few blocks later and call and report to the cops that he had hit our car.  He claimed that he was being chased and had to speed away.  No other cars were seen that night.  Because of his story, we had a bit of a wrangle with his insurance company to get everything covered, but they did, including a rental.  This was on Friday.  The accident happened in the wee hours of Friday morning and we got the rental that evening.

We spent the day Saturday running errands and shopping, then came home and did our usual stuff and went to bed.  In the early hours of the morning, I got up to use the bathroom and as I was getting back into bed, I heard a terrible BOOM! outside our house.  We opened the door to see the same crowd of faces. (I had taken the time to put on pants this time.)

A very drunken driver had sped up on to the curb at the liquor store three doors down from us.  For some reason, no one was parked between us and that corner that night.  He ran into a couple of street signs, one of which ended up in front of our house, and slammed into the rear of the rental, completely slamming it into the other wreck.  The rental was a tiny ball of stuff that used to be a car.

Our first thought:  "Oh shit.  It's a rental."  Keith got on the phone with the rental company and they told us that we were okay, because we had taken out the insurance coverage they offer when you rent a car.  They sent a tow truck, who got the car and we never heard another word about it from them.  Ever.

Fortunately, one of the witnesses got a license plate number and gave it to me, so the cops were able to chase the guy down.  In a weird turn of fate, the dude was a cousin of someone I worked with at the time!  It was an interesting discussion in the breakroom that day over lunch.

Our car was, of course, totaled.  Due to its age, we didn't get much for it, so we bought a used Volvo station wagon from the late 80's, which we ended up loving to pieces.  The air didn't work, but it was one of the most fun cars we have ever owned.  I keep telling Keith that we ought to just get another Volvo this time around and be done with it.

We got one other thing out of this, our status as the crash kings of the neighborhood.  People still come up to us and ask us if we're the ones that lost two cars in a weekend.  It's been a topic of conversation twice in front of our house in recent months.  Needless to say, it's a conversation I never want to have under those circumstances again.

I'm about to renew my assault on City Hall about this.  I spoke to our Councilman at a neighborhood meeting a few years ago, but nothing really happened, so I don't have high hopes.

Our street is narrow with no offstreet parking, so that makes it narrower.  There's a long stretch without a stoplight, which only encourages speeding.  To make matters worse, there's a slight hill and a small curve as you come into our stretch of road, which not only reduces driver visibility, but also sets a trajectory so that anyone going too fast who loses control is aimed at the cars on our side of the street.  I want a light or a stop sign put in at the corner.  I'd settle for a damn speed bump.

When I spoke at the Councilman's meeting, there were reps from various departments there.  He asked the public safety woman about putting a speed bump, and she replied that they don't do speed bumps, they only do "speed humps."

Hell, I'd settle for one of those. Whatever the difference is.

Yeesh.

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!

Artsy

Sometimes, I just gotta let my inner artiste run free! I must create!  I must bring my unique inner visions to the world!  Voila!  (Where's my beret when I need it?)

Artsy pic of my jeans

Artsy pic of my reflection in the gearshift knob

Artsy pic of my feet

Artsy pic of some handsome dude

Another artsy pic of some handsome dude

Still another artsy pic of some handsome dude

Artsy pic of a stain on my shirt

Artsy pic of my shirt

Artsy pic of hairs and moles on my arm

Another artsy pic of my jeans

Artsy pic of my thumb on the lens

It's highly possible I was a wee bit bored waiting for Keith to get through in the hardware store.

I Found a "U"

Something interesting happened the other day when  I was straightening my booth.  I found a "U."

It wasn't my "U."  I do sell various kind of letters from time to time, but this particular "U" was not part of my inventory.  Since I don't live in some magical land where letters hurl themselves from the sky seemingly at a whim, I was a bit befuddled.  Where did this "U" come from?  Was someone trying to send me a message?  Was this my destiny?  Could someone not have spared a few more letters so that I would know exactly what I'm foretold to do?  With just a "U" to go by, I might head off to save the Princess of Uzbekistan, when I was really supposed to be teaching unicorns to juggle.  Messages about destinies that only contain one letter are certainly prone to misinterpretation.  Clearly, I had a lot to ponder.

After a few minutes, I realized what had happened.  It had fallen off of this sign, which used to say "CLA CLU" instead of "CAL CL."

That little section of wall is located right above my booth.  It's actually supposed to say "CLASS CLUB."  Letters have been falling off for a while now.  Across the mall from my booth is a sign that's a bit more intact.

At least it's only missing a "C" and you can see where it's supposed to go.

Most Peddlers Malls are located in buildings that used to house large stores that closed or moved.  Typically, they don't do a lot of remodeling when they open the Peddlers Mall, so fixtures, signage, etc is left intact.  "Class Club" was the name of part of the kids' clothing department at the store that used to be in the mall.  Since the signage hasn't been maintained, letters fall off from time to time.  And I end up with a mystery "U."

This is the sign that hangs above the little nook where my storage area is.  It's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me!  I just know some customer has seen my sizable personage strolling out of my area, looked up, seen that sign, and thought:  "Yeah, right."

As for that "U"?  I stuck it on the wall in my storage room.  Maybe I'll find some more letters and make a new word or sign of my own.

Seen While Thrifting

This is just a bunch of oddball pics from my recent thrifting runs.  None of them were blog-worthy on their own, but together....well...  See for yourself!


I took this pic in honor of Macklemore's Grammy win.

Guilt.  The newest theft deterrent. 

That bit about "opening the door" sounds a little bit creepy, huh?

Here's some stuff I didn't buy on my trip to the antique mall.  (Mainly because I couldn't afford them!)

Who wouldn't want a giant ICEE cup??

I've always loved penguins!

Totally in love with this cast iron cross!  Seriously.

This fellow frightens and fascinates me.

Pardon me, Sir?  Which way is the restroom?  Thanks!

By the way, why do you only have three toes on each foot?

Omigosh!  Someone donated their altar!

This is huge, honkin' coffee table all ceremonially painted

Or maybe Mom got mad after she saw what Junior did to the coffee table and pitched it out.

 

I've got my doubts about the efficacy of any ceremonies conducted here.

 

 

I'm not really up on these kinds of protocols, but I do think spelling counts.

Finally, courtesy of the men's room wall in the store where my newest booth is, these words of wisdom to live by.  (Well for us dudes anyway!)

Yes, it was written above the urinal.

BEST THING EVER!!!

I found this baby the other day while I was working my booth.  Another vendor had it for sale and it was cheap!

I tried several times in several places, but could not get away from the glare on the glass.  This was my best shot.  Damn overhead fluorescent lights.

I thought the entire picture, dogs lining up to use the local tree, was too funny, but the real delight is in the details.

 This little guy just can't hold it, much to the chagrin of the guy in front.

The caption, which is handwritten in pencil, roughly translates from the French as "Wait your turn!"  Thank you three semesters of college French with Mlle. Watkins and Mme. Andre and that really cute dude who was the husband of the German prof who was head of the Foreign Language department.

This copyright info helped with the identification.  Charmarande is a small village in the burbs of Paris.  O'Klein is the artist.  He was a French cartoonist known for his humorous prints of dogs.  Apparently urination was one of his themes, according to Wikipedia.  A Google image search for his work brings up tons of fun little cartoons, including mine.  He was quite prolific, it seems.

Blurry signature, which doesn't look like O'Klein to me, but whatever.

The head of the line.  I love the satisfied look on the face of the little guy who's finished his business!

I look like this when I have to wait too long in the line for the bathroom!

Pity the poor guy at the end.  He's got some different business to conduct.

So, now I have a dilemma.  Keep or resell?  I have to admit that I'm really captivated with this guy's work and would kind of like to have some more of it.  I need another collection like I need more work to do, but I really like this!  A quick Amazon search did not pull up any kind of a book about O'Klein or collection of his art.  That would have solved the problem easily.

I think I'm going to have to keep this one while I figure it out.  For now, it's hanging in my storeroom at the Peddlers Mall.

What would you do?

Linking up with:  Thrifty Things Friday and Thriftasaurus!

Monday Rambles

We're supposed to warm up this week and get lots of rain.  I don't care about the rain. As soon as we can see the sidewalks, I shall ride my bike in my underwear through the downpours and take pictures and post them on Facebook.  Then, I shall put my clothes on and go thrifting.  If you should see me, you'll recognize my by the wet hair and the delirious warm weather grin on my face.


I hope everyone had a good Valentine's Day.  We did.  We stayed in, because it was snowing and icing and such, and nI cooked.  It was low key, but very, very nice. 

I didn't realize until after it was posted, but somehow in the course of editing, I accidentally deleted one of my "100 Things I Love About Being a Junker."  It was supposed to be #17 and serve as a companion to #16, which was "Buying Junk from Kids."  I'm going to include it here, since I would hate for it not to be shared:

16a.  Selling Junk to Kids.  That was one of my favorite stories last year and I wanted to share it again.  Eddie-torial Comments regrets the error.  To further drive the point home, I was at the Peddlers Mall the other day talking to one of the other vendors when this kid comes up and asks if we know where there are any Nerf shooters for sale.  We kind of point him in a direction and then he shows us the one he's already found and says:  "Score!  This one is only 10 cents and it works!"  he walks off and I look at the other vendor and say:  "That's what it's all about man.  I've been that kid."

Sales were through the roof at Peddlers Mall this weekend.  I was totally psyched.  Tax season is now upon us, for sure.  I stopped by there Saturday to drop off my estate sale purchases, and the assistant managewr told me that she had "been ringing my number up all day."  I did close to $100!

Still working on the other place.  Took a HUGE load over there Saturday.  The booth is finally starting to look like something that belongs to me.  There are still some holes, but it's much, much fuller.  I need to find my pegboard hooks, because I've got an idea for some cool shelving.  I also took a ton of pics and I'm planning to Craigslist the hell out of everything in there this week.

Speaking of estate sales, I went to two of them on Saturday.  I only bought a few things, but they were kind of special.

What's inside this awesome vintage Xmas box?

An even awesomer bunch of vintage cards!

The cards are for every occasion and no occasion at all.  All of them are blank.  Look for lots of random card posts for the rest of the year.  There are some fabulous ones in there!  I've got a lot of scanning to do! 

I need to clean this tray, but I didn't have the right stuff to do it in my storage room.  I love the way the different drinks are marked off.

I got a San Francisco fan, too, but it's not as nice!

I totally love that vintage step ladder.  The hinges are retro red!

And it still has its original shipping tag on it! I bought that yellow table too.

I realized what a total doofus I am when I was working at the second booth.  I have these letters that are designed to be cool wall hangings.  I'm down to the really odd letters, so I've not sold any in a while.  I took them to the new space to see what would happen and realized this:

 

I should have used them for a Valentines theme!  Doh!  Of course, they're not red or pink, so that probably would not have worked.  (And I am so not one to be priming and painting and such.)  Actually, due to the weather, I could never get what little Valentines Day stuff I have out of my shed to take to the booth.  There's always next year, I guess.  I did find some cool boxed valentines at a thrift and sold most of them.  They were 90's cartoons like Duck Tales, TMNT, etc.  Way cool.

Gotta run!  Look for posts all week!