Fall Is upon Us...'Tis Time to Rummage!!

Yes! This past week, I took a day off so that my fellow treasure hunter Laurie and I could make our biannual pilgrimage up to Winnetka for the big rummage sale. The fall rummage mecca is Christ Church, and its sale is always a doozie. So... let's get right to the spoils:

First, the shiny things:


The box is an old tin candy box with a hinged lid. I love the detail--it would have been way cooler if the flowers could have been some kind of paisley-esque motif, but hey, you can't have everything. The crocheted thing with the paillettes is a tote bag from Von Maur... it still had the tag on it. It's probably the least practical thing I got at the sale, but I cannot pass up paillettes. Nosiree! I didn't get the moniker "Magpie" for nothing!

Of course, the rummage has become a pretty reliable place to find cool table linens, and this year was no exception.


The small vintage tablecloth was a steal at $4.00, while even the large cloth (which will grace our Thanksgiving table this year) was a tad steep at $7.00... but it is pristine. The napkins are the coolest green paisley. I don't have anything to go with them... yet. But they are lovely and in such good shape. And at $2.50 the lot, who could resist?

Then there were the books...


I was much more disciplined this year than in years past, but to tell you the truth, we arrived a tad later than usual this year, and we had to park about a mile from the sale. Knowing you have to schlep your purchases offers a little incentive to rein in impulse buying. (Okay, okay... the damned spangled tote bag was an impulse purchase. But it weighs ounces, I tell you! Ounces!)

One book I couldn't resist, though, was this small journal:


Now, I already have more journals than I'll probably fill for the rest of my life (or, at least, until civilization implodes and we no longer have access to the Web and blogs and stuff), but I couldn't resist this one. And why? Well, I know you can't read it, but just take a gander:


It was inscribed! And very sweetly, from Gina to Brian, with hopes that he will record his travels, thoughts, and adventures. On the first page of the journal, Gina has copied out and slightly adapted the first sonnet in Christina Rossetti's "Monna Innominata: A Sonnet of Sonnets." It is dated May, '94. What a lovely gift! But, alas, one that doesn't appear to have been appreciated:


All the rest of the pages are untouched. It certainly appears this journal was a gift to a departing lover, but did Gina know that Brian would never come back to her? Given the way she adapted the sonnet, it could well be a parting gift, with the hope (probably vain) that Brian might reconsider. At any rate, I felt so sorry for this little book (there I go, anthropomorphizing again!) that I had to purchase it. Fifty cents is not too high a price to pay for this artifact--and who knows? Maybe it will inspire a story, or more.

Of course, the sale yielded the usual big man's shirt (only one, this time) and a couple of pairs of designer shoes in never-worn condition...


You know, Laurie and I were talking about all the shoes we've picked up at the rummage over the years, and how even if you figure that the shoes averaged about $3.00 a pair (this year, the going rate was $6.00, which we thought a bit steep, but these ARE Italian and never worn), the sum of all our purchases would not equal the original price of one pair of them. Ah, rummage, sweet rummage!

But, the piece de resistance, the BIG find, was this never-before-worn winter coat:


Only 40 smackeroos! Now, that's kind of pricey for the rummage, but, as I said, this coat has never been worn. And, as luck would have it, I have been pricing winter coats of late, as my trusty overcoat--which I bought in 2001 when my pals Barb and Beth came to visit--is getting a tad threadbare. That now-old coat cost at least a C-note more than this coat, BUT now that even mid-priced wool coats were going for $400+ at Carson's last weekend, I would say that 40 bucks is a really good deal. I'm happy. Can you tell?

Next up, in a day or two, I'll present our newest appliance. Oooohhhhh.....

Rummaging, Visiting Greg, and Various Other Musings

So, here's what's been happening in my life:

On Thursday, my pal Laurie and I made one of our semi-annual rummage sale pilgrimages, this time to the big fall sale at Christ Church in Winnetka. As usual, it was quite crowded. I'm not really sure how much I spent, but not an inordinate amount. I don't think... The most expensive purchase was two yards of really fine upholstery material with fall leaves on it. I hope there is enough to recover the seats of my dining room chairs. We will see. If not, I can always just make a pile of pillows out of it. I also got a pair of Italian leather loafers, a dress with tiny houndstooth checks, a crocheted sweater, a couple of books, a pile of LPs (for the amusing cover art), a huge ceramic platter in a funky 50s shape and painted with stylized pine cones, a couple of heavy vaseline glass candy dishes, a souvenir cup and saucer from Catskill Game Farm (a place my family used to visit on our way up to visit my dad's sister's family, who lived in Scotia, New York), and what I thought was the grand prize--a huge black soft vinyl (quite leather-like) messenger bag from the Gap... for five bucks!

I've been looking for an outsized black leather bag--hobo-style, messenger-style, big-ass-tote-style--to replace my beloved old leather bookbag satchel that has seen better days. I was really chuffed about finding this bag, until I got it home and discovered it smelled as if it had been languishing in someone's basement--someone's very DAMP basement--for a decade or so. Which is probably exactly where it had been. So, after soliciting advice from a message board I frequent, I turned it inside out, sprayed it liberally with Lysol, and set it out on the balcony where it could bake in the unseasonably warm and bright sun predicted for the weekend.

Then Jeff and I started what we expected to be a two-and-a-half hour drive down to Normal to visit Greg.

A little more than FOUR HOURS later, we pulled into the parking lot of the Bloomington-Normal Holiday Inn Express.

It took us two-and-a-half hours just to travel the 60 miles or so from our door to Joliet, where we stopped for gas and some coffee. The rest of the trip was pretty much a breeze, but damn! There was some construction, but not so much that it should have made the Stevenson Expressway a parking lot at 2:30 in the afternoon. We thought we would avoid the rush hour... but I think the rush hour got moved up a bit due to the alleged three-day weekend (alleged, because we sure as hell never get Columbus Day off--but apparently others do). Sheesh!

Once we got to Normal, we had a lovely time. Greg gave us a tour of his frat house, brought us up to date on how his classes are going and his plans for summer school and/or interships, showed us how to play Guitar Hero (which, by the way, is really not much like playing an actual guitar)... we took him out to eat several times, shopped, and generally relaxed. I actually read more than a hundred pages in the Beatles biography, and I'm now up to the beginning of Beatlemania. Maybe I WILL finish it by the end of the year! Greg was a great host; we had a good time hanging out in the unseasonably nice (well, HOT) weather.

Other musings: Now that I'm reading about the Beatles (and this book is thorough--good grief, is it thorough!), I'm really jonesin' to hear some of the songs and tracks that are discussed. I put my Anthology 1 CDs in the listening queue in the car... and the cuts are very cool. But I also want to SEE the Beatles Anthology documentary as well. I hope it is on DVD... (although we tried to start Volver tonight, and for some reason the DVD player isn't talking to the TV. Merde.) AND I can't wait until Help! is finally available on DVD. I know it's kind of corny, but I have a soft spot for it: "Go to the window!" and "I wouldn't touch you with a plastic one" are old catch-phrases of mine.

Also, the black messenger bag seems much less musty now that it has basked in the Rogers Park sun for a while. It still doesn't smell like roses, but at least it is better. There is hope. Or maybe I should just bite the bullet and find a leathersmith who can copy it in nice, durable leather. 'Cause the beatings I give my carry-ons are truly ruthless.

Back to work in the morning--no Columbus Day, observed or otherwise, for us. Which is probably just as well. No offense to my Italian friends, but that guy wasn't a very nice man, all told. Still. If my employer offered me the day off with pay, I would not say no. So much for the strength of my convictions.