A Mixed Bag of Friday Finds

Yay, it’s garage sale season again; we are so thrilled, that we feel like singing the Garage Sale song.  All together now:

There are dress-up clothes, a garden hose.
A hula hoop, a pot for soup,
A frying pan, a Chinese fan,
A teddy bear and a rocking chair
A scarf and coat and toys that float.

CHORUS:
‘Cause yesterday’s treasures
Bring you brand new pleasures,
Something used for you can be
Something used for you is new to ME!!!

excerpt from Garage Sale–Pass It On by Fran Avni.

Now, if only the garage sales we visited this week were worthy of this paean!  Still, it’s the thrill of the hunt, don’t you know.

Almost immediately, we had a head-scratching moment.  This metal vase was marked $25 when we think 25¢ would be more like it.  It was huge, lightweight, marked China, and had no discernible merit.  Go figure!  Then Kathy discovered a box of unused candles, various colors for 20¢ a pair.  Obviously, the seller was familiar with garage sale prices, but didn’t apply this knowledge consistently.

While we did buy a few things, there wasn’t anything too exciting to be found.  We did have a good time rummaging around in the free boxes.  Next on the agenda was Goodwill, as usual.  We didn’t expect to detect a Friday find in the parking lot, but this VW Bug was just too cute:

Honestly, how could you be in a bad mood when you drive this car?  Just passing by it in the parking lot put smiles on our faces.

Right in the front of the store there was the sweetest Tom and Jerry set.Tom and Jerry is a winter drink similar to eggnog; it was pretty popular up through the 1950’s, which explains all the Tom and Jerry sets we stumble across.  For those of you interested, here is a recipe for Tom and Jerry from allrecipes.com:

Ingredients

• 12 eggs, separated
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 pound butter, room temperature
• 3 pounds confectioners’ sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice

Directions

1. Beat egg whites and salt until foamy in a large glass or metal mixing bowl until stiff peaks form. Lift your beater or whisk straight up: the egg whites should form a sharp peak that holds its shape.
2. Beat the egg yolks to soft peaks in a separate bowl. Beat the butter and confectioners’ sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks and vanilla to the butter mixture; mix. Stir in the nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and the egg whites; beat until well blended. Batter can be frozen or kept in refrigerator for several weeks.
3. To make a Tom and Jerry, fill a cup of hot water with spiced rum or brandy, warm milk, hot cocoa, or eggnog and stir in 1 heaping tablespoon of batter.  (Makes 12 cups, so you’d “batter” have lots of friends).

If you are concerned about raw eggs, this recipe isn’t for you!  There are single serving recipes out there, but if you have all the cups and a bowl, you might as well fill ’er up.

Come to think of it, this poor man might have enjoyed a Tom and Jerry while schlepping his wife’s purse and suitcase around the store.  We call him The Good Husband:

Tried to be sneaky about this picture, but you can see I was busted by the woman walking by.  She just kept on walking, never stopped to ask why we took her picture.  I could have told her the truth, “we weren’t taking your picture, you just got in the way”.

Ok, it wasn’t all VW bugs and alcoholic drinks; we did see a couple of really, really bad things.  Like this clock:

Nothing says class like brass and fiber optics.  Gosh, I hope the flowers glow pink!  You can’t even see the big old obnoxious knob on top of the clock–sheesh!  If you want a bad clock, at least get a fun one like either of these:

Not an ounce of pretension in either of them; just goofy badness, which we much prefer.

We would have preferred to have never seen this:

What in the blue blazes were they thinking when they made this jar?  The raised pattern reminds us of worms, and for an extra huh? moment, her stockings are baggy.  And exactly why does this jar have legs at all?  It just makes the whole thing extra creepy.

We figure this next item is for the busy fifty-something male executive, who could use some sympathetic magic to help with E.D.

Did no one after making this, look at it and think, “hmmm, this looks kind of familiar”.  It did give us a good laugh, which made people look at us even more strangely than usual.

Finally, we saw something that we didn’t even know existed.  We do run into the panther version of this 1950’s statue occasionally,

but never a lion!  It really isn’t our thing, but we are confident that some happy shopper dragged it home.  It will look swell on top of an old TV cabinet.

Well that’s it for this week, but we do have some other business.  This is our 99th post, so we are trying to figure out what to do for number 100.  We could do a reprise of the best of the bad, a “special” weird collection post, or just keep going and do a regular post.  If you have a preference, let us know; otherwise, we will just please ourselves!