yard sales, july 31.

Guys, the people who work at estate sale companies are starting to recognize me.  I had a fellow ask if he’d seen me before (which is a stupid question, how should I know if HE has seen ME?), and since he was old enough to be my grandfather, I’m going to assume he wasn’t trying to pick me up.  Plus, I hadn’t showered that day, and my clothes didn’t really match.

Just like in the dead of winter, I’m finding that estate sales are keeping me busy during the hot summer months when everyone is on vacation and not interested in sitting in the front lawn with their old crap.  Thank goodness dying is always in season (gee, that was tasteless).

Check out my pretty trash can.  It was two bucks, and the cashier looked at it like she wanted to hit whoever had priced it so low.  Sure, the bottom is a little shaky, and it’s got some mysterious stains that probably won’t come off, but I dig it.  It’s surely a lot more interesting than the plain round white one that I have now.

Here, let me teach you something about, uh, stuff.  This trashcan is an example of tole painting.  The picture in the middle is a print that was glued on somehow, but there is a hand-painted border around the picture, which is called tole painting.  I don’t know anything about tole, but I saw the word on the internet, which meant that I had to buy an example.  However, tole painting seems to be about making utilitarian items look pretty, and I am all about that.

Next up, we have a pitcher and three little mugs (not pictured).  I already have a few items of similar Mason Jar Chic, including four canisters and a salt and pepper shaker set so tiny, they are nearly useless.  My sister owns this exact pitcher, which she showed off to me a few months back.  And then I found this.  It’s entirely possible that I have seen this exact pitcher a bazillion times at a bazillion other yard sales, but this is the first time I’ve ever noticed it before, possibly because once you take notice of something, you see it everywhere.  Anyway, I have one now, and I will keep it.  The set was a dollar.

Do you know what this is?  If you do, I will be super impressed.  I will think you are the classiest person in all the land.  I bought two of these, and they are now the classiest things I own.  However, since I am not a classy person, it was all an accident.

See, Josh told me that he wanted to have a nice liquor cabinet, complete with fancy glasses and decanters and an ice bucket.  When I saw these little tongs, I thought they were for ice.  Rich people don’t just stick their fat fists into the ice bucket, like us commoners, and they sure don’t use the ice dispenser in the refrigerator door.  No, they have little insulated buckets, and they use tiny tongs to pick up individual pieces of ice.  You’re not classy unless you’re inefficient.  Anyway, I saw these tongs, assumed they were for rich people ice, and took them up to the cashier.  The cashier asked if I knew what they were, because she snobbily assumed that someone whose clothes did not match would not know what they were.  I said I thought they were ice picker-uppers, the word “tongs” having escaped my poor unshowered head at the moment.

But no, they are snail tongs.  She couldn’t remember the word “tongs” either, so she called them snail clamps, which sounds like some sort of snail torture device.  The point is, they are used for escargot.  How freakin’ classy is that?  Pretty freakin’ classy, is the answer.

I bought one Saturday, then I bought the other one Sunday, when I brought Josh back to look at books.  We bought 15 books and one snail clamp for $5.90.  And now those people know me as the snail clamp girl.

Okay, here is the find of the day.  I look at it and think that the world would be a better place if we all went on more picnics.  See, the problem with picnics is that no one ever goes on them.  And then when you do, it’s sort of half-planned and basically just eating Jersey Mike’s at a Ranger Station.  The picnics of reality never match the red gingham picnics of your daydreams.  And the problem is that you do not have this basket.  This basket guarantees you a lovely picnic full of delicious sandwiches and fruit and cake and wine for the grown-ups, on a lovely blanket spread across a lovely patch of rich clover on the loveliest day of the year, and it is all just so lovely.

I’m going to keep my video game stuff in it. 

I have good reason to believe that this is a Red Man basket.  According to the internet, Red Man is famous for its woven picnic baskets, and the ones being sold on various reselling web sites look exactly like this one, down to the pattern on the side. 

It’s so pretty.