Friday, June 09, 2006
We're having the sale now. 15 minutes from the moment I awoke, I got about 10 calls from garage sale fanatics whom I realise flit from one sale to another in the day or weekend. They asked mainly about the antique dining set, sofa, books, clothes and one man asked about 3 to 4 inch ladies' heels. Then a few of em cme to see the antique set, the wine and the books. One man mad about wine watches and clocks asked my father if the watch on his hand was for sale. And this man selling second-hand books picked out 30 plus books in 5 minutes and wanted to pay $18 for them and it got a bit awkward because we especially my father all thought it was worth more than that. Oh never mind. One man paid $700 for 3 2-decade wines that he reminded me to reserve for him before he reached, just after my father decided not to sell it for $250 to a businessman out for a cheap deal. Many of them were my grandfathers' and my father refuses to sell most unless he thinks the people buying it are sincere, think the wine is good and want to pay a lot for it. Ah, just like him. There are more people coming to see the sofa and dining set later. For some people a garage sale is a matter of business, for others a matter of obsession and collection and for others a matter of romantic interest (no one yet). Maybe romantic interest and obsession are the same. What would a fresh blood red rusty old Pleasure Chest contain?
Anyone can see why I wanted your kiss
It had to be and the reason is this
Could it be true, someone like you
Could love me, love me?
Angela's Ashes
moled at 6/09/2006 07:52:00 PM
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Punch-Drunk Love
Today me, iz and yh went around the entire estate putting garage sale flyers in all the mailboxes. And the estate is huge. Yh wore an SIA hat and iz wore a moon blue shirt with a brown graffiti hat and used the skatescooter thing and he looked like a newspaper boy. There were a lot of rabid dogs that scramble madly to the gate, and bark insanely. One even rattled the gate madly with his teeth. I think they needed tranquilizers. The nicest dog I saw was a beautiful dalmation with a red collar looking nice and fluffy sleeping and breathing heavily on the garage floor. It was amazing looking at the houses. Some had mailboxes were golden, or bronze or old dark turquoise, with flaps. Some houses had containers for newspapers saying 'Good Morning Newspaper' and there were a few very green emerald houses covered with plants and ivy looking like cosy glowing nooks. One odd househad giant china porcelain vases the height of one and a half humans and antiques everywhere in the garage. It was so surreal. At one point it was so hot and I stood in front of a house that was sort of clean and sharp and had maroon tiles and the car parked in it was shining so brightly under the sharp heat and all was so still it made me think of the title The Hissing of Summer Lawns. One cosy house had purple front walls and cloth circus tiny tents with tiny mirrors sewn on hanging in orange, red and purple, and it looked like such a magical house. Purple walls! It was like the kind of house I always wanted. There was a house that was like the secret garden. The gates were worn and charming and was in the shape of 2 huge lovely pink roses and it was all pink and green and old, and the garden had angel statues around, with lots of soft grass and flowers and the balcony up above had strings of flowers lining it neatly. It was the most lovely enchanting house. When we finished half we ran out of the 200 flyers and it was sweltering and we were in the middle of a deep part of the estate where the houses looked like weird white factory land. We went out and got more flyers and before finishing it up, yh went back to rest and it suddenly rained madly and iz and I ran home, me with the extra 200 flyers down my pants to prevent it getting wet and crumpled. We were exhausted and all got headaches.
Today I also arranged all the books and labelled them all by genre and price and all the clothes (hanging em nicely and sticking little stickers on the backs) and some of the funny things we've dug out (NASA barbie, polish barbie, body shop milk bath powder). I hope at least three quarters of the things get sold! Pink Floyd's dark side of the moon is going for $5, hamlet for...can't remember, little women for $2, just to name a few out of the hundreds. NASA barbie is $15. Bye bye NASA barbie. I will play music that will entice everyone to be in good moods and buy things.
Seeing all the houses and homes today made me think how nice it is to have a house of your own and stay in an estate where the children can cycle around during holiday afternoons, throw water balloons, get sweaty, and the house has a nice mailbox and crazy coloured walls and nice bedrooms for everyone, and drawers of clothes and warm socks and you can paste stars and planets over the walls and make the house as messy and magical as can be, and how nice it is to have a family to have all this with.
We will say bye to the house as it is in 10 days. Oh poo.
moled at 6/07/2006 06:41:00 AM
Monday, June 05, 2006
moled at 6/05/2006 06:52:00 AM
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Today was day one of packing. I took out all the books from my room that we're going to sell and brought it all down (at least one hundred books), and then the clothes and the bags! I was sweating like mad and it was the most exercise I've done in ages. My father cleared a lot of books so there are a few hundred books to sell. I just hope among the people who come there are one or two who are: for some unfathomable reason obsessed with bookworm books, for also some unfathomable reason fond of sweet valley. The amount of those we have is mortifying. But! Still a puny amount compared to the amount of other books we have. There are also a LOT of kids books, kids encyclopaedia books, novels, a lot of kids' non-fiction and adult non-fiction. I played mostly beatles cds today but I am feeling disgruntled now about packing (I don't really know what I'm doing, never had to pack like this before) so I'll listen to johnny cash tomorrow. I haven't even gotten to the diaries and notebooks and all the awful things I just can't help but keep. Help. I'm going to get such a KICK out of all this packing when it's done.
Anyone who's reading this, please come and bring your family!!!! There's nothing quite like a garage sale. Poking around, seeing another family's things. It's 10th and 11th June, Sat and Sun, at my house. We're selling an antique dining set, european sofa set, coffee table set, fridge, some other furniture, tons of books, clothes, bags, and I don't know what else yet.
COME ON DOWN
Speaking of help I finally listened to the beatles' help! cd today. After packing for hours I collapsed onto the carpet. I've never heard john lennon sing you've got to hide your love away, only heard the i am sam version. can i shout into the night that, i love the beatles! i'll admit, i think my brother and i will probably end up using some of the garage sale money to buy scrubs because he just loves it so much and he's always complaining about this or that and scrubs is one of the few things that i think will give him everlasting happiness, unlike everlasting gobstoppers which aren't everlasting at all.
"Cows are cows, son"
moled at 6/04/2006 06:48:00 AM