Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

It's Labor Day weekend, and in the past, I wouldn't have bothered getting up. There were never any garage sales on a three-day weekend. But on my way home from work yesterday there were signs all over the place advertising Saturday morning sales. It's the economy ("stupid!"). People can't afford to go anywhere, and they need all the cash they can scrape together. The number of sales every weekend is getting to be sort of remarkable around here. This is probably the only good thing to come from the weak economy. In any case, I'm taking full advantage.

Gail and I headed out into the fog this morning and saw so many signs we had a hard time deciding on a direction. First stop: toy land. Gail told me recently about a little boy named Emiliano, one of the many youngsters who often stop by their Baja palapa to visit. Recently he told Gail's friend Lucilla (his abuela) that Gail and Stan are getting pretty old. They're probably going to die soon, he told his grandma. Oh, so touching, she thought, he's worried about them! Then he said, "What will happen to their toy box?"

Gail has been stocking her toy box with garage sale goodies for years. She also tries to bring back special items for each of the little boys who are regular visitors. This year before she left, Emiliano said, "Remember when you brought me that truck?" Ooohhh. Hard act to follow! Today we found this Tonka helicopter, complete with sound and rotary action: 50 cents. Unbelievable deal. Everyone who's seen it sitting on the kitchen counter wants to play with it: hopefully Emiliano will, too.

We bought all kinds of little goodies today, including a bunch of games and books for my classroom. Also a very nice white bathroom cabinet to replace a pretty funky one in my smallest bathroom. I won't bore you with photos of all of it. But I did get a bunch of little useful kitchen things: very nice wooden salad utensils, a set of like-new steak knives, and a pretty little tea cup with a lid...and then these wire things. Gail thinks they're for fishing hard-boiled eggs out of the water. Does anyone know what they are? I just thought they were cute! They may even have costume potential.

We saved an "Estate Sale" for last today. It was right around the corner, and it's been going on since Thursday. We figured it would probably be pretty picked over and we weren't expecting to find a thing. And that word "estate" is often used pretty loosely! But lo and behold: an actual estate sale, where everything in the house was for sale. It was the source of the steak knives, and the Viking egg-dippers, and all seven of these Audobon Society field guides for $3.50. A very nice find, I thought, especially on day 3 of their sale. A gentleman perusing the book shelf right after me was pretty bummed that he had just missed them. There were plenty of other goodies left for him, though. I wished him "Happy reading" and went on my merry way.

One last tesoro: this piece of Tonala pottery from Mexico. It says "ardilla" on the bottom, in case you couldn't already see that it's a totally adorable squirrel! Definitely the find of the day.