Blessings upon us: garage sales
Feb. 25th, 2006 02:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zdashamberYay! Such a good morning. I woke up bleary at 9:40 so I could throw on some clothes and move my car (2-hour parking 8-6 bleh). ...What will I do today, my mind thought slowly. ...I should vacuum, if I had a vacuum. ...I should check Craigslist for a vacuum at a garage sale. As long as I have be up at ridiculous hours to move my car anyway... Dragged the laptop into the bed, and found a garage sale near ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
broohaha's house that had a vacuum offered. Nice thing about the laptop: I can read the internet like I read books, lying on my side in bed.
I stopped by the 7-11 near my house on the way out. They sell tall insulated plastic cups with lids that fit into my cupholders, that you can fill with coffee and reuse endlessly. These cups mostly have Raiders logos on them. I now own about 5 of them. I guess I have to be a Raiders fan. I'm cool with that, though. Costumes! Aggression! Occasionally whooping the Broncos's ass! A great gamer from campaigns past who moved to DC, Eric Sylwester, was a Raiders fan...
At the 7-11 one of the Indian-subcontinent checkers was harassing a slightly mentally retarded guy, "I see it in your pocket! Why you say you not stealing if you go put it back? You come here for ten years, Chris, why you steal from us?" He seemed sort of bemused, like he was teaching the guy more than yelling at him. That would be a sad part of the job of a 7-11 checker.
Anyway, garage sales. It was a good thing the guy had put directions in his posting, since the Yahoo map showed the wrong address. Very bad signage (1-inch writing on cardboard, no signs on major streets) meant that there was a vast amount of cool stuff when I got there. I mean, bookshelves, good plates, Hanuman festival war clubs...
I miss seasons, but one really nice thing about the Bay Area is that there are garage sales every weekend that looks to be rain-free. All year round. And since there are so many well-off people here, a lot of the stuff is good. I heard some tale about people coming from Soviet Russia being amazed that Americans have so much stuff we sell perfectly good stuff to each other... Or maybe it was amazed at the bounty of different types of the same thing on store shelves. Either way. I appreciate it a lot.
Alas, the vacuum cleaner was gone--but there was a bike with comfortably high handlebars. I'd been planning on taking my bike to a shop last Saturday to get the handlebars raised, but it was stolen out of my backyard last Thursday night. Voila, again I am bike-ful.
And! There was a curly top hat that's specifically sized, as if it was well-made years ago, and it's my size! I set it down to try out the bike, and having decided to buy the bike I looked to see what else was there, and while I was finding a book of Gilbert and Sullivan lyrics and music, a black guy picked up the top hat. Alas! I thought. But I have many silly hats already, I consoled myself, while keeping half an eye out. And a few minutes later the black guy put the hat down again and walked away from it! Mwa-ha!
And the guy sold me the bicycle, the hat, and the book, all for $60. And that was after I gave him more than he asked for, because, sheesh, I'm not out to rob people who sell me nice things.
See the hat!
And I figured out how to fit the bike in my car, which is a good step in my evil plan to escape the Bay Area should it become necessary, and headed back to my abode, finding en route a garage sale by a girl my size and picking up some nice shoes. Having a 7.5-8 foot size: not ideal for buying new shoes on sale, but really nice when it comes to pre-owned shoes.
And then I came home and ate some stuff and found a claymation clip on the internet of a Nina Simone song done by Aardman Animation a long time ago. Great voice on that woman. Great music.
broohaha's house that had a vacuum offered. Nice thing about the laptop: I can read the internet like I read books, lying on my side in bed.I stopped by the 7-11 near my house on the way out. They sell tall insulated plastic cups with lids that fit into my cupholders, that you can fill with coffee and reuse endlessly. These cups mostly have Raiders logos on them. I now own about 5 of them. I guess I have to be a Raiders fan. I'm cool with that, though. Costumes! Aggression! Occasionally whooping the Broncos's ass! A great gamer from campaigns past who moved to DC, Eric Sylwester, was a Raiders fan...
At the 7-11 one of the Indian-subcontinent checkers was harassing a slightly mentally retarded guy, "I see it in your pocket! Why you say you not stealing if you go put it back? You come here for ten years, Chris, why you steal from us?" He seemed sort of bemused, like he was teaching the guy more than yelling at him. That would be a sad part of the job of a 7-11 checker.
Anyway, garage sales. It was a good thing the guy had put directions in his posting, since the Yahoo map showed the wrong address. Very bad signage (1-inch writing on cardboard, no signs on major streets) meant that there was a vast amount of cool stuff when I got there. I mean, bookshelves, good plates, Hanuman festival war clubs...
I miss seasons, but one really nice thing about the Bay Area is that there are garage sales every weekend that looks to be rain-free. All year round. And since there are so many well-off people here, a lot of the stuff is good. I heard some tale about people coming from Soviet Russia being amazed that Americans have so much stuff we sell perfectly good stuff to each other... Or maybe it was amazed at the bounty of different types of the same thing on store shelves. Either way. I appreciate it a lot.
Alas, the vacuum cleaner was gone--but there was a bike with comfortably high handlebars. I'd been planning on taking my bike to a shop last Saturday to get the handlebars raised, but it was stolen out of my backyard last Thursday night. Voila, again I am bike-ful.
And! There was a curly top hat that's specifically sized, as if it was well-made years ago, and it's my size! I set it down to try out the bike, and having decided to buy the bike I looked to see what else was there, and while I was finding a book of Gilbert and Sullivan lyrics and music, a black guy picked up the top hat. Alas! I thought. But I have many silly hats already, I consoled myself, while keeping half an eye out. And a few minutes later the black guy put the hat down again and walked away from it! Mwa-ha!
And the guy sold me the bicycle, the hat, and the book, all for $60. And that was after I gave him more than he asked for, because, sheesh, I'm not out to rob people who sell me nice things.
See the hat!
And I figured out how to fit the bike in my car, which is a good step in my evil plan to escape the Bay Area should it become necessary, and headed back to my abode, finding en route a garage sale by a girl my size and picking up some nice shoes. Having a 7.5-8 foot size: not ideal for buying new shoes on sale, but really nice when it comes to pre-owned shoes.
And then I came home and ate some stuff and found a claymation clip on the internet of a Nina Simone song done by Aardman Animation a long time ago. Great voice on that woman. Great music.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-27 06:40 pm (UTC)Oo, and in last night's game on Civil Blood, Tsark captured Jenna and threw her in the trump-blocked dungeons. When he interviewed her later she was matter of fact defiant, and told him not to pretend to himself that he's the only solution for king. Which seemed to sink in to some degree, since he was asking various people for the rest of the session if they thought Gawain would be a better king than him.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-27 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-27 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-28 06:47 pm (UTC)