Yard Sale Bloodbath

It’s been ages since we’ve had a guest star come along! With Meghan out of town, my Portland pal Bonnie Ditlevsen came along for the ride. I warned her that October didn’t promise a whole lot in the way of sales, but she was still excited to have the Yard Sale Bloodbath experience, and kindly offered to write up the day’s report! Take it away, Bonnie …

The fall rainy season finally hit the Pacific Northwest, ending our unbelievable streak of heat-infused summer drought. Seattle somehow seemed like its old self as we got into Jenny’s car to check out some sales, both regular and estate.

First off, there was a fundraiser yard sale benefitting a preschool. Note the Seattle-savvy tarps and canopies!

As we imagined, there were all kinds of ex-baby and toddler items, pint-sized wooden furnishings, and this bevvy of books in a tub indicating what happens to many women when they breed: The Expectant Father and the ever-scary What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Children’s Vaccinations followed by Danielle Steel, Mary Higgins Clark and Patricia Cornwell books (all now passé due to the fervor over Fifty Shades of Grey, I’m certain). These were sharing plastic-tub space with old Baby Einstein DVDs, Mom and Baby Fitness, and The Art of Aromatherapy. And alongside those, a couple of titles that gave me pause: Heart Full of Lies and If I’d Killed Him When I Met Him…. Slit my wrists now!

Kudos to the kids selling drinks and crispy rice bars.

I was eyeing a nice retro-ey set of wooden alphabet and vocabulary picture blocks for $5, and said to Jenny, “You know, for five bucks, it’s okay with me that there are a couple missing. “I count 26 blocks, Bonnie,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve got the alphabet covered.” “Oh,” I said. Hmm. So…why do they leave a couple out? Would the seven-month-old baby I was buying these for ever notice, or care?

I picked up on a mysterious European baritone accent under the blue canopy. After 12 years spent in four different regions of Europe, I like to think I’m rather good at pinpointing any European dialect accurately within 100 miles, but this guy? He had me really stumped. Just then, Jenny whispered: “It’s Furniture Guy!” Oh, how this made my Yard Sale Bloodbath day. To get to meet one of the characters from the blog, right off the bat like that? It was electrifying. “He’s some kind of European!” I whispered with excitement. Jenny said, “I never really noticed an accent. He’s just annoying.” “So he’s Annoying Furniture Guy?” I asked. “No,” Jenny clarified. “We just call him ‘Furniture Guy.’ You’re thinking of ‘Annoying Jewelry Guy.’”

I was impressed with Jenny’s reserve. I don’t get out much, nor am I the big shopper. So after getting the wooden baby blocks, I coveted a $2 stainless steel OXO utensil holder with rubberized base and several pricey metal spatulas of varying forms. A decent enough deal, I thought.

We then drove to Broadview, a gorgeous hill of ’50s- and ’60s-era homes north of Ballard. I admired the sweeping views of Puget Sound and all the successful and well-tended landscaping of the homes. Yet I was puzzled by strange signs that read, “Arterial Ends Here.” We have no such signs in Portland. I asked Jenny, “Does that mean it turns into a vein?”

Our estate sale looked busy; there was even a line. Jenny pointed out that under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t waste precious morning yard sale minutes waiting in a line, and so we decided to check out a nearby sale. But Jenny warned me once we saw its sign: “Balloons are one of the telltale signs that a yard sale might suck.”

Ruh-roh! There were the balloons, all chipper and flowing in the breeze. I spotted some ugly, Boomer-style golf clubs right at the front of their carport.

A woman was selling mostly kitchen items and clothes. She needed to slice her prices by about 80%, but who was I to tell her that? She lives in a house in Broadview, and I don’t. Rich people don’t stay rich by giving things away for free. But one item caught my eye, and wasn’t horribly overpriced: this lovely red enamel griddle with panini-making lid for $5.

I wanted it. I wanted it bad. But I also wanted one textured-fabric black skirt, too, and this delusional woman had priced it at $10. Crappy purses Jenny looked through were $15, $20, or more. Her overpricing actually started pissing me off about buying anything at all from her, even the panini griddle. I started making some dumb small talk about The Surprise Chef on PBS, how he would use two heated cast iron pans, one on top of the other, to smoosh marinated chicken pieces into grilled, crispy perfection. The woman didn’t give a shit. We left, me babbling about the panini pan, Jenny swearing that the lady would have every single item still in her possession the next day.

As we approached the estate sale, we noticed men scurrying to and from their cars, like leaf cutter ants, loading ’50s- and ’60s-era merchandise. They shot furtive glances at one another and at us, like anxious squirrels in autumn. The house had enormo windows upstairs and on the basement level, all overlooking gorgeous Puget Sound. We had to stand there in a really long line that simply did not move. It got ridiculous with the big, fat windows we peered into showing that there weren’t all that many people inside. What did they think we all would do? Shoplift? Still, it was while peering in those megawindows that I noticed the insanely overpriced stickers all over everything. Items had not one, but three, four, even five stickers covering them: $55 for some lousy end table. $175 for a weird retro lamp — that I coveted, but still. $28 for some dumb bronze statuette.

This place was betting on all of us yard sale saps to show up on the opening day and pay their doubled, tripled and quadrupled prices out of fear, and the peer pressure of standing in line with no way to buy anything.

So we stood there, wasting our precious lives, watching the human squirrels come and go with their purchases (Latin plural: “purchi”), hearing the occasional disgruntled remark about the cashier’s utter rudeness. Was this going to be the Estate Sale Soup Nazi? One man who exited the heavily guarded door said this as he emerged, head turned back at her: “I was just making sure I wasn’t the guy you were yelling at.” Niiice.

I noticed an abandoned coffee cup wedged into the shrubbery. Many of us felt a bit like that coffee cup. Then I saw a plant that looked just like marijuana, but Jenny assured me it wasn’t.

A couple of people in front of us left the line once they saw the inflated numbers on the little red-orange neon price stickers. Yay for moving up, any way we could! I snuck off to peer through those windows again. Red-orange stickers on everything, multiple times each. It certainly looked as if some obsessive type, or perhaps a person with delirium tremens in both hands, had applied those stickers to everything. I felt the strange lure of a yellow plastic toy horse that contrasted so nicely — so Swedishly, really — with the house’s slate blue exterior. The horse just seemed, well, special. My sons are 12 and 9, too old for such an item. But I wanted it.

Jenny was getting increasingly bored and annoyed. “Why do they only let one person in? It’s empty in there!” But on the front door, there was an aggressively masking-taped, explicit set of rules & regs. (Cash only! You haul larger items! No wire hangers!!!)

There was also a list of numbered signups that went all the way to #63 and included the names of people who’d come by early … some in the wee hours of the morning like 3:15 AM!

A couple of men in front of us, whose native language and origins I couldn’t discern (Armenia? Georgia? Afghanistan? Azerbaijan?) began joking around with us. They’d heard me whine about somebody buying my yellow horse out from under me. One of them jokingly told me he’d buy it, then sell it back to me at a higher price.

It had been more than an hour, and we began wisecracking about the Art Deco hand-shaped doorknocker and the woman behind the door who guarded the estate sale like a junkyard dog.

A lady behind us picked up on our merry banter. When one squirrel-like dealer exited, then entered, then exited again, hauling his purchases, she wondered out loud if he was a dealer, or if maybe he worked at Microsoft. She got bold on his fifth trip, and asked him both questions. “No,” he insisted, to both. “Maybe he just has good taste,” I said, which he heard, and actually turned around appreciatively to smile at me about. Is this the way to flirt in Seattle? Compliment some dude on his good taste in buying overpriced, Boomer-era crap? Maybe.

Finally, we were allowed in. Whew! Right away, we realized why we hadn’t seen people through those massive front windows: the house itself was labyrinthine, and a cornucopia of fascinating old merchandise of all kinds awaited us. Vintage clothes. Portraits. Furniture. Shelf items. Books. Collectibles. These people had traveled the world, and must have been some sort of ethnic Scandinavians, too, judging from all the music and story books in Icelandic. I picked up a couple of Norwegian and Icelandic little flags for a buck apiece, and grabbed a mug with a 3-D raptor’s head poking out over the handle for my crazy sons.

We were mesmerized by this bizarre 3-D puppy portrait (it’s hard to see, but the heads were puffed out in a trippy manner):

And this naked doll with multiple price tags stuck to her, right next to a cash register. It looked like some anti-human trafficking ad sponsored by the ladies of Hole.

Jenny couldn’t take her eyes off of a vintage Creepy Crawlers set with metal molding plates, but didn’t want to spend $35 on it. I spotted this gorgeous old Danish doll — just like one from my girlhood. Did I want it for $32? Um, nope.

I went down to the basement to the spot by the window where my beloved yellow plastic horse had beckoned me for well over an hour. Gasp! It was … gone. My heart sank. Then I realized that maybe, just maybe, the friendly and joking Armenian/Georgian/Afghan/Azerbaijani guy ahead of us had gone and grabbed it just to make a practical joke. I hoped so. But where was he? More and more people now were allowed in, and I got lost in the labyrinth. We made it to a room in the basement full of old music stands, sheet music, and miscellaneous books and papers.

We also spotted this frightening portrait (I wish I’d noticed how much they were asking!)

And around the corner … surprise! There was my guy, yellow horse and all. “I saved it just for you,” the man beamed, and I laughed a full belly laugh and thanked him for his very good deed.

Jenny was delighted by this exchange, but pointed out, “Bonnie … what do you want with a $16 yellow plastic horse?”

“Oh,” I said, “nothing, really. I have no use for it. It just looked so special sitting in the window of the blue house while we were bored shitless in line.”

“So … why buy it?”

“Because of the guy.” I didn’t want him to see me abandon the thing, not after all that merry banter.

Reason won out, though. Sixteen bucks for a dopey yellow plastic horse? I figured I’d spend the money more wisely buying us some pho for lunch.
Overhearing our decision to ditch the horse, a nice lady before us in line for the register whispered about the Estate Sale Soup Nazi, “She’ll make you put it back where you got it, you know.” Jenny, by this point, was OVER this sale, no matter how fascinating some of the items wound up being. “I’m not fucking putting it back,” she said to me as an aside. She set the horse high up atop a filing cabinet, where it stared out at Puget Sound.

And it wasn’t too out of place there. There was a myriad of oddball vintage toys spread out on a table near the register.

I couldn’t wait to hear and see the Estate Sale Soup Nazi lady in all her rude glory. I figured I’d stir the pot a little by asking if, as an Oregon resident, I could please be exempted from Washington sales taxes. This meant forty cents in my case, but it’s the principle. “Sales tax exemption doesn’t apply to estate sales,” Rude Lady told me in a cold voice. “At least I asked,” I smiled at her. Jenny got a little Ratfink charm and a couple of vintage monster art cards for her husband. They were all unpriced, and she was fearing the worst, but pleasantly surprised to only be charged a dollar for the bunch.

Our next adventure took us to the enclave of Magnolia, to yet another estate sale. We loved our first glimpse of the lavish lifestyle this formerly-alive-and-well couple must have enjoyed. Trips galore to Russia, Holland, and Egypt! Collector plates and spoons from all states and presidents! Hummel figurines! (Even a Hummel nun’s head!)

I loved how you could take such places as Saint Basil’s Cathedral and the Notre Dame de Paris home with you in your carryon, for posterity.

These little figurines were a reminder of who truly built America. Not my generation, that’s for damn sure, though we enjoy blogging about it!

There were just so many collector’s items and souvenirs from everywhere that I started thinking about it. Would I someday wind up like that? In assisted living, surrounded by a few items of collectible crap while, back at the house my kids were liquidating out from under me, some snippy yard sale bitches were having a righteous laugh at my expense? Should I become a Buddhist, maybe? Follow the four-fold then eight-fold path, and aspire to not own so much shit? Sigh. I pondered this while looking at more and more and more realms of stuff.

Jenny got all crazy-claustrophobic in one bedroom, seeing this Wall of Shelf Objects and Stuffed Animals from Hell. Yikes!

I almost thought she might need to buy some of this ancient liquor and pour herself a shot of Caffe Lolita or Pineapple Liqueur.

In another room, we found this stack of a frighteningly-named item: Wee-Wee Pads. Complete with possible picture of the puppy who wee-wee’d on them.

And that wasn’t the only dog … this guy was taped up to the wall of the downstairs bathroom.

I got all giddy when Jenny pointed out a Pepsi bottle with Cyrillic writing! Later that night (at 826 Seattle, in a performance with Verbalists) I would be reading from my 1989 memoir story of traveling from Munich to Moscow via Berlin. I was THERE around the time these estate sale’s elderly folks must have been! They might have bought and actually drunk from the $1 bottle, in Russia. Or not — I know that when I was in Russia, I’d have given my right arm to drink something other than nasty rye bread kvass or sickly-sweet port. Pepsi, no matter the funky writing on the label, would have been a welcome sight.

Then we encountered a chatty, friendly old guy who was walking around the estate sale carrying a huge bird cage housing his sulfur-crested little parrot!

At first I thought he had bought the cage or bird there, but pretty quickly we figured out he lived down the street and was using his pet bird as a conversation starter. “I like to take him out around the neighborhood,” the guy said, holding up the cage to us. “He likes meeting new people.” It was sweet, and somehow I felt he’d beaten me to the punch. After all, I’m the Portlander, not him. I was supposed to put a bird on it, right? Seattleites, always outdoing Portland. At least now I know why the caged bird goes estate sale-ing!

And the best thing? The estate sale cashier at this second place answered my sales-tax-for-Oregonians question honestly. “Just show me your license and I’ll jot down your address, and that way, you save ten cents off the $1 Pepsi bottle,” she said, friendly and helpful as all get-out. I didn’t make her bother, but was happy to have confirmation that the woman from the first sale was not only rude, but a baldfaced liar to boot.

Jenny and I had a $13 day overall. A day of fun and laughs, with a bit of rudeness and frustration for good measure, and a whole lot of cool old stuff no one really needs, but a surprising number of people will stand in line to paw through.

A hearty salute to Bonnie for riding along to sales, resisting the siren songs of the yellow plastic horse and the red panini pan, and making it out with her wits intact. And for saving ME from having to recap this questionable, yet entertaining day!

We’re thrilled to have a guest post from Tom Zarrilli of Yard Sale Addict. Tom started the blog in 2004 and closed up shop just a couple months back. When we got a peek at the photos below (via the still alive and kicking Yard Sale Addict Facebook group), we practically begged him to do a guest post for us. Kick your feet up and enjoy!

Creationism or properly Creation Science has made a name for itself in debates over school textbooks. But it has also fostered the establishment of a number of small museums around the country that offer those who prefer a biblical inspired version of natural history a place to see dinosaurs and other things prehistoric in a different light from those old line humanist institutions one encounters in major cities.

One of these establishments, The Museum of Creation, is located in Social Circle, a small charming town about forty minutes east of Atlanta. Social Circle is mostly known for the Blue Willow Inn, a highly touted southern restaurant located in an old Victorian home. I had heard some talk of a creation museum there, but I never considered a visit until I saw the ad in the Sunday paper for an auction indicating that it had become a victim of these recessionary times and its entire contents were up for sale. The museum is the brainchild of John Hunt, a skilled taxidermist who in his long career has created elaborate displays for theme parks and museums. The sale appeared to be the cultural opportunity of a lifetime, mixing yard sale, roadside attraction and religious dogma into one fun-filled package.

I set out to explore the place on the preview day with two other artists, Stan and Devidyal, who shared my bizarre curiosity about the place — not only for the odd religious aspects we might encounter, but also for a love of taxidermy. I have always had a love of mounted animals. There were no hunters in my family, so we had no mounted stags over the mantle. As a child, I concluded that those dead heads that forever stared at you with glass eyes were something only the rich and elegant enjoyed in their homes. But my love of really great mounts (never used the word stuffed) was formed when my family lived within a day’s drive of the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History. Frequent visitations invoked dreams of having a home containing not only mounted yaks and okapi, but also life-sized dioramas of Eskimo hunters and tattooed Maori warriors.

Later, as an adult exploring the realm of yard sales, I determined that a dusty mounted moose head was the leading cliché of what people might encounter at yard sales. Sadly, in all my years spent in the yards of clutter I’ve never seen a moose head at any sale. While common white tailed deer heads do sometimes appear, overall the sales I visit are mostly stocked with plastic bass on plaques that sing “Take Me to the River” at the push of a button.

We found the Museum of Creation in a strip mall built directly behind the town’s noted restaurant — conveniently located so one could fill up on collards, country fried steak and peach cobbler, then wander through its doors to marvel at the wonders of creation.

To my surprise the place was not overrun with curiosity seekers. Perhaps more people would turn out for the sale itself, in lieu of today’s preview. At the entrance we were given a bidding number and an inventory list. Inside we found the museum for the most part unchanged from when it was open for business. Near the entrance we encountered the first animatronics display, a life-like talking lion.

At the push of a button he instructed us to enjoy the museum, go to the theatre and to be sure to visit the gift shop on the way out.

Past the talking lion was a hallway where seven huge paintings were hung depicting dramatically the seven days of creation. Past the seventh day of creation (which was really a day off for God) we encountered what happens when you hoard a goodly amount of creation by displaying it wildly arranged in massive glass cases. One case was a dizzying array of butterflies whose arrangement screamed of a serious OCD.

Some cases contained mostly skeletons, well-assembled skeletons but gathered together in no particular order. In one display the backdrop was a gigantic painting of Noah’s ark in a stormy sea, in front of it was a selection of rocks, eggs, assorted bones and a model of a velociraptor.

The whole thing began to look like someone was trying to create a TV show entitled America’s Got Taxidermy.

More animatronic creations showed up in the form of a pair of pandas silently nodding and shaking their heads. Another showcased two brightly colored macaws sitting motionless on a slowing spinning perch. One case labeled The Old Curator’s Office appeared to offer homage to the general confusion of the place. This display looked like it started as a curator’s office but soon turned into a junk pile badly in need of a garage sale. Scattered about were old lamps, a telegraph, a cast of the head of Abraham Lincoln, plush cats, more bones, more rocks, old furniture, a human skeleton, an old fire extinguisher, a selection of claws, assorted turtle shells, several pelts, and a faux Gila monster,. The best feature was that the glass was removed from the case and the general public could step into the display and shift through the clutter.

Another case offered a backstage look at how the animatronics were created. Here was the bare Plexiglas body of a lion with a good deal of electronics trailing out of its body so it appeared like some discard from an unfinished, low budget Terminator film. It was placed in a scary looking workshop littered with power tools, test equipment and remote controls that looked like they came from Radio Shack.

Amid, between, and scattered near the display cases was a mixture of minerals, bones, petrified creatures and objects of dreadful decor. I have no idea what purpose the five foot stylized metal chicken served. Among the mix was a mummified cat (technically not natural history), an alligator skull with a frog in its jaws, a large ceramic sculpture of a fairy with a flamingo, and an Asiatic elephant skull with a sign adjoining it reading “Please touch Asiatic elephant skull.”

In a corner was a pair of benches flanked by a massive faux elephant head, possibly placed there to give museum visitors struck with sensory overload a place to rest.

More hands-on exploration could be done in the back storage rooms away from the watchful eyes of the auction security officers. Here we came upon a metal case full of large broken insects and crustaceans. While I have drawers in my own home that have large broken insects in them, I would not consider putting them up for auction.

The back rooms contained not only the contents of a museum, but also the contents of a gym with a variety of exercise machines. In the center of the room were an unfinished full-size model of an orca and a full-size unicorn (thankfully not crafted from a dead horse).

But our greatest surprise was finding a cardboard drum marked “elephant hide.”

Amazingly, it did house an elephant’s hide.

Stan became fixated with the thick, massive, leathery dried skin and envisioned plans of adding it to his studio décor. I suggested fashioning a three-piece suit out of the leather, with matching shoes and hat. But when the owners explained that the barrel of skin would be in the four-digit range, Stan declined.

The theatre mentioned by the lion at the entrance was a large empty room with a stage at one end with a lion and lamb sitting in what appeared to be the set of a passion play. At the push of a red button located near the entrance the lamb and lion began a lengthy theological discussion. The lion’s remarks were accented by growls that sounded as though he suffered from a serious case of post-nasal drip. While the lamb that spoke in a very wimpy voice mostly remarked, “tell me more Mr. Lion” as he rolled his head and eyes about.

The area of what had been the gift shop was mostly empty, and most of its contents will remain a mystery. But left in the room scattered on the floor were a variety of carved figures of Native Americans, a wicker container used by the Swiss military for carrying munitions, a painting of a desert scene that incorporated real sand on the canvas, old coke bottles from around the world, and a huge stack of large plastic reproductions of the tablets of the Ten Commandments.

The largest single item in the gift shop was a Jurassic Park pinball machine. I have yet to determine what day of creation it was manufactured on.

We did not return for the actual auction held over the following two days, but some of the results of the sale (along with more photos) can be found on the Morbid Anatomy web site.

Wow. Just … wow.

Thanks, Tom! We look forward to following along on more of your adventures via Yard Sale Addict on Facebook.

Our frequent guest star Karl recently told me about a peculiar encounter he had while out doing what record squirrels do. But rather than attempting to recap this story in a normal post, I think I’ll just share our IM conversation with you.

First, Karl says: I do not think it is too unusual for other people to connect with other folks for a one-on-one meeting but this was out of the ordinary as you will read, it took forever to reconnect and I am going to say this was certainly worth it but I am ready to see what others think after reading…

Karl: weird story when yer ready…?!
Jenny: lay it on me
Karl: gave a gal my age my card after she got a “clockwork orange” poster right in front of me at a sale…for a dollar. she said she prolly did not want it…
Karl: that was over a year and three mos ago. she never called but i ran into her at another sale earlier this year and she says, i lost your card…gimme it again, i got records too…
Karl: so, she never calls
Jenny: is that the end of the story?
Karl: i then get a call from her this weekend (four months later) and she says come over last night…she is a pro picker and sells on ebay and has a house full of interesting things i can see – but this is out in the burbs
Jenny: and you got there and she was naked?
Karl: and she then says, lets go to the garage and she has art, she has clothes, she has all kinds of great stuff…and she does this for a living i think. I SAID, I THINK
Karl: hard to tell…but she give me the poster and proceeds to let me at a nice stack of records – about 75 or so. not naked bytheway
Jenny: that would have made the story really good.
Karl: and i get about 25. and she says, $25 including the poster
Jenny: wow good deal! I assume!
Karl: YES! after she tells me that she researched ‘em and that they were easily worth more than a dollar each – AND ENCOURAGED me to take more for .50 cents or whatever…
Karl: nothing funny going on here but i get 25 more and a killer adidas bag and she says, 50 bucks.
Karl: she turns out to be cool. super cool, totally knows her shit. furniture, clothes, you name it – records too.
Karl: i am about to leave and she asks, do you know anybody who can record sound? i say, no but one guy but he’s a recluse…
Karl: she says, “we have spirits here and i wanna know what they have to say”
Jenny: FUCK!!!!!
Karl: “the house and windows can shake, you know”
Karl: i say, NO I DO NOT KNOW!
Jenny: o.m.g
Karl: and she says “they are not ghosts, they are spirits”
Karl: it was kinda creepy
Jenny: weeeeeird
Karl: seriously
Jenny: and she has your number now!
Karl: continues to say, “i need someone to record what they are saying since – well, they said Haiti was going to happen…and Obama was going to win…”
Karl: I WAS LIKE WHAAAAAT?! the fuck?!?!?!
Jenny: dude
Karl: i was kinda tripping out…and left.
Karl: she was so nice jenny but this along with pictures of jesus at her doors…and she said she smokes a lot of weed (hello!)
Karl: i was freaking.
Jenny: good lord. FREAK SAUCE!
Karl: then i am driving home and looking at the records and thinking – am i going to bring these into my home?
Karl: yes, i get over it and now i can’t stop thinking about it.
Karl: straight tripping out.
Karl: KILLER RECORDS! i mean, jazz, psych stuff, indian – everything you can imagine
Jenny: dude, you better hope nothing starts shaking over there…..
Karl: stop that!
Jenny: btw, I am going to copy this whole conversation and send it to Meghan!

And all Meghan said was: “This needs to be on the blog.”

Karl adds: Lastly, I was not scared per se – more thinking, how does one come to tell another person, A STRANGER such things? I am pleased to say I am still around and none of the records have levitated or anything but I must admit, the entire thing still has me a bit freaked.

The moral of the story? Venturing into strange territory in search of the goods might bring scores, but you really never know what else you might find. It could’ve been worse, though … just ask the guy who dug through a bunch of disco records and found a mummified rat. Eek!

Our pal Karl has been guest starring with us quite a bit this summer, but he hasn’t written a post for us in over a year! We finally threatened to ban him if he didn’t pony up. Sure enough, he came through. Read on for a tale of record-hunting, straight from the squirrel’s mouth …

being a record squirrel/nerd is pretty tough only because i have been doing it for so long. every year i get older, some new record nerdlinger is out looking for more nuts to gather and call their own. my pals at yard sale bloodbath know i like a good hunt and i have had some great scores with them but one just happened without either of them being present.

last year (!!) i guest starred with meghan and jenny and went to the yearly olympic manor neighborhood sale. i met a child of the sixties who claims she has some vinyl so i give this lady my card … lo and behold she calls me almost a year later. and calls me and calls me and well, calls me. we schedule, we break and reschedule. reasons like the grandkids’ soccer games and her mentioning she has seen the beatles over and over gets me thinking she might be a nut job.

i finally get together with her (this does not get weird — or, that weird …) and she wants to talk about everything. like how seattle is so different and “so damn much” right now. once again, stories of the beatles ensue as i start to look through an incredibly bad *BAD BAD* stack of records. the next stack of about 40 are awful until i hit what has to be the cleanest copy of the second velvet underground record i have ever laid my eyes on. i am talking mint and sammiched in between mantovani and the god damn soundtrack to the sound of music. whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat the fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck? and then nico’s solo lp “chelsea girl” — uh, near mint….

i am ok since now more rock is showing up and i ask “you’re a local gal, did you ever see the sonics?” i am gasping thinking she is going to say something weird and stupid and she does: “oh — that noisy band. they were terrible!”. i start to really like her, yet no sonics records. BUT WHY DOES SHE HAVE THE VELVET UNDERGROUND?!?!?! she later explains the v.u. lp was probably a gift she thinks, and herman hermits (not purchased) was more her style.

after more stories about the world being so different now than that of the sixties (really — ?) i left with 55 records = $100. not a bad grab considering the nico and velvets lp alongside hendrix, some late sixties jazz stuff and yes … the beatles.

For more of Karl’s ramblings on records and such, check out his new blog — with the perfect name: Record Squirrel.

All right everyone … our recurring guest star, Leslie, has come through with an oh-so-special report for us! Take it away, Leslie …

As previously mentioned, we all went to a rather crusty estate sale that had been running for at least a month. The interior of the house was dusty, coated with spider webs, and stinky enough that I just kept thinking of the moist towelettes lurking in the bowels of my purse.

My purchases were very limited: one stick of Freedent Gum (possibly from the ’80s), a colorful Mexican aluminum decorative hanging thingy, and a BEWARE Of Cat sign. I don’t have a cat, but The Big Lebowski of cats on this sign looks like he’s chug-a-lugged an entire bottle of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill wine.

Plus of course, the prize from the fetid basement: a copy of The Swiss Colony Christmas catalog. Oh forbidden fruit! My extended family were not Swiss Colony people, so I never got to sample the undoubtedly delicious array of Swiss Colony offerings. I flipped it open and saw a product called “Pet Gouda” that featured a telltale brown box with air holes and that unmistakable Pet Rock font. I figured that the catalog had to be from 1975 or ’76. Wrong! It’s from 1978, well after the Pet Rock fad had passed and had shuffled off to nerdsville. Perhaps those Swiss Colony marketeers had been living under a Pet Rock for three years.

The catalog features 124 pages of enticing foodstuffs that would cause normal humans to double their Pravachol dosage. I feel compelled to share the magic … and especially the grammatical errors, bizarre capitalizations, funky punctuation, and random quotation marks that The Swiss Colony lovingly inflicted on their customers. Ladies and gentlemen, this truly is catalog shopping as it was in the ’70s (minus parking your polyester-clad ass on a plaid couch and having What’s Happening playing on the TV in the background). I’m not going to bother with snarky comments that would taint the enticing descriptions you are about to read. Here is a sampling of the exact text and photos from a sampling of taste treats offered by The Swiss Colony in 1978.

Pet Gouda
Deep in the Jungles of Wisconsin lurks the fierce and terrible “Wild Gouda”, fleet of foot and savagely predatory! With the ruthless instincts of a cunning wild beast, only Kaptain Kubly our “great white hunter” could hope to track and capture him. NOW . . . after months of training and obedience school, we have a Pet Gouda for YOU! The same glowing, waxy red coat, but underneath lies the most mellow, creamy personality you can imagine. This mild-mannered, lovable pet, comes with his own specially designed crate. Everyone will enjoy a Pet Gouda.

BE-E-E-F-A-LOG
What is this year’s most novel gift . . . most exciting culinary creature? The BE-E-E-F-A-LOG,” of course! Such a popular refrigerator roamer. If you free it from it’s carrying cage, you’ve unleashed the incredibly delicious taste of fine, hickory smoked Beef Sausage. We warn you and your gift recipient to “Beware! It’s Viciously Delicious.” Available in 1 lb. and 2 lb. Logs. So clever, folks will remember you all year long!

Crazy Creme Puffs
Men from Mars! You’d think so but they’re really our NEW happy, lovable people. Their plump little bodies are made of delightful smooth cremes: Dobosh, Pistachio, Mint, Pecan, Almond and Walnut, all “dressed up” in dark and light frosting suits. Each is groomed from the tip of his toes to the top of his head with an irresistible happy smile! Eighteen 1 oz. Crazy Creme Puffs handmade of course, in our Pastry Kitchen.

Chocolate Humbugs
The most lovable little creatures ever! They are sure to win over the most discriminating chocolate lover. 12 “critters” have centers of fluffy Chocolaty Creme, so meltingly good with tender Coconut covering. Hand decorated with “peepers” and ever so carefully cradled in egg carton. Absolutely heavenly to taste (if you can bring yourself to do it!) Made especially for our customers. Shp. wt. 2 lbs.

Heavenly Hash
All bedded down on a pillow of white clouds… That’s impish yet angelic, Rudolph as he keeps his eagle eyes toward heaven as if to say, “Isn’t it Heavenly, me riding on such a delightfully delicious cloud!” His solid flavored chocolate goodness with his red nose and bow tie, lies upon a 6 ¼ x 9” Heavenly Hash pillow that’s made of Chocolate, Pecans, Marshmallows and Cashews. What angel wouldn’t smile on this 15 oz. bundle of joy! Shp. wt. 2 lb.

I’ll leave you with this little puzzler: just what flavor is “solid”?

Hmmm … puzzling, indeed! And I’d also like to point out that below this description they note that the design of Rodney Reindeer is copyrighted … wait, is it Rodney or Rudolph? Get it straight, people!

Thanks, Leslie. I suspect I’ll soon be calling you in the middle of the night for emotional support after waking up in a panic from nightmares about the BE-E-E-F-A-LOG.

My parents and sister went to a city-wide yard sale day somewhere in the California Bay Area last month. Yes, last month — even in California, I think scheduling your city-wide yard sale in October is pretty bold! However, they lucked out and the weather was great and they bought all sorts of odd stuff … and were inspired by our blog to take a picture of the junk in their trunk. (Well, really the “junk in the back of their station wagon”, but close enough.) How cute is that?

Nice photo-styling, mom & dad.

First we got Karl’s take on Saturday … now we get Cathy’s write-up. It’s double-guest-star-riffic!

Back when ebay didn’t take such a big bite out of sales with their fees, I got the fever and was hitting garage sales, estate sales and thrift stores regularly. For every two things I bought to sell on ebay, I’d keep at least one gem for myself. And I got some great stuff.

Then life with small children set in, and making time for garage sales dwindled. UNTIL … a few weeks ago when Jenny & Meghan had a sale of their own and turned me onto their blog. I was inspired and begged them to let me tag along on their next trip.

I had every intention of being responsible about keeping my early-morning commitment. Then I got an unexpected last-minute invite to a party (that I couldn’t refuse) the night before. Stumbling to Meghan’s at 8:30 am with only 4 hours of sleep and alcohol oozing from my pores wasn’t what I had envisioned. I wanted to be PERKY! But instead I clung on for dear life as her car zipped through the streets of Ballard & Greenwood while Jenny flipped through their (very organized) pages of listings saying, “turn here”, “I think it’s at the end of this street”, “oh, we’ve been to this one before” … If I had thrown up the night before, maybe I wouldn’t have felt so much like throwing up at the end of those 4 hours …

My experience was way overshadowed by my hangover, which is most likely why I lack enthusiasm looking back on the day … I remember a lot of stuff I wasn’t looking for (clothes, books, records) with some selections of merchandise that surprised me when I looked at the people running the sale. That’s always been one of my fave things about garage sale shopping — getting a peek into the lives behind the doors of strangers (or sometimes neighbors). One of my favorites was the chick with the huge collection of cheesy Elvis memorabilia for sale (and a really odd grouping of surplus corporate gear — tees, pens, hats, bags, etc — in the back yard). When we were leaving, I glanced in the window of the living room and saw an Elvis lampshade and bust on the end table. That sort of shattered the story I had imagined of her outgrowing the Elvis collection and moving on. I guess she was just thinning out some duplicate pieces. Hunk-a, hunk-a, and all that.

My friend Leigh had given me an address (at the party the night before) for her friend Heidi’s sale. Luckily, she wrote it on a sticky and put it on my dashboard, so it was there when I got in the car to head to Meghan’s. I bought my only real purchases of the day at Heidi’s — a pair of poodle mosaics and two little chalkware poodle heads.

Next time I promise to spend the night before on the couch watching a movie instead of drinking mystery champagne cocktails on Tasha’s porch until 3 am …

Thanks Cathy! We’ll get you out with us again soon … hung over or not!

Here’s Karl’s thoughts on our day o’ saling last Saturday!

the time had arrived to be a guest star with the bloodbath girls and this is a treat for sure! i was psyched so when jenny wrote to me “be at meghan’s at 8:30″ it all seemed doable. yet after a rendezvous the night before which went sour with a less than liberating friend, i knew i was in for some fun. hitting tons of sales before noon is something i can’t seem to do on my own but in the hands of these pros, i was ready.

double guest star cathy (feeling the night before) (didn’t we all in some way?), meghan, jenny and i set out and as already detailed by meghan, we did ok but i personally observed some interesting things. first, the drive-by…is it worth it? a small debate ensued and both sides were presented but my feeling is that it boils down to intuition for me. i have drove by many a sale just peeking and saying “no way.” instead of thinking i missed out on those pristine blue note records or fill in the blank on what your flavor is – just drive by if you are feeling it. there are more sales to get to which also leads to the quantity issue. the girls and i hit so many sales and i was being pretty focused and that means, go to more and seek out what you are looking for instead of making mercy buys…which is what i did at the end. i had to buy at least one record (as i am a record nerdlinger) so when we stumbled upon a sale with records i was psyched. my psyched feeling was squelched quickly as they were $3.00 per and the lady barely budged after i created a pretty big mercy stack with donovan, steeleye span, you get the picture. then she told me “these are worth a lot of money, i checked online.” talk about harshing my toke…i trimmed my 20 lp stack down to three and that was because i had to buy something, anything. i was desperate and i think it showed. after i purchased my three (incl. the aforementioned donovan lp) the woman having the garage sale killed me by telling me “some guy was here and purchased…well, he took 73 but he is going to do work for me.”

ok, bottom line – i am going to guest star again and i know it will be a great adventure – as this one was too. final take that day: three lp’s, a gNr songbook for appetite, a handful of cd’s, a jewbacca shirt (!!), an everything bagel and a damn good time. thanks ladies!!

Thanks Karl! And thanks, Jewbacca.