A Busload Of Random

 

  This skeletal duckie, he sees you SO HARD.  Yes I mean you, ladies who work at the phone company across the street.  He sees you.  

This area is a wonderland of thrift stores, junk shops and garage sales.  And unlike Washington, in Idaho every day of the week is garage sale day! Have we been thrifting? Have we FUCK, as they say in France. 

There's all kinds of clean, gently used, respectable goods out there, which is lovely - but the good stuff?  Oh my yes, the good stuff is out there! And a lot of it is prime mid-century stuff!  It's just....it's just...OMG IT'S JUST!!!

We have seen astounding things. Complete Broyhill and Lane furniture suites.  Mod goods galore - round phones, pod stereos, Op Art radios, and all the retro stuff too...chrome dinette sets, Seventies needlework, satellite clocks and all the usual suspects.  But the thing catching my eye lately is the Manhattan Glass.

  If Jean Harlow were tableware.  

For an even more wonderful visual experience, simply search 'Manhattan Glass:  images' and OMG.  

   

Oh, how I love Manhattan Glass.

Back in Washington you rarely see Manhattan Glass, and when you do it's stupidly expensive.  Here? They're drowning in the stuff - and it's being sold at 'junk glass' prices!  In our first week here, for around sixty bucks I could have completed a full eight-piece set with all the bells and whistles!  A piece here, a piece there, a serving dish at a farmer's garage sale, a dinner set in a junkshop hoard...

At the moment, of course, I need a full set of Manhattan glass like I need a hole in the head, but it's out there. Oh yes it is.  Waiting just for me!

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We have discovered something that seems to be an integral part of Idaho life:  Shopping at The Dollar Store.

We had Dollar Stores in Bellingham.  Two of them.  They were filled with squalor, filth and uncoolness.  It always seemed that the places were in the middle of an emergency re-stock, except the people doing the re-stocking were all mouth-breathing stacks of raw pork busy on their phones. The goods tottered in untidy columns along the grimy, stained aisles, shelves be damned, while the clientele tore through them like rogue javelinas. So not an appealing retail experience.*

Here in Idyhoe along the Snake River there are four different Dollar stores:  Dollar Store, Dollar General, Family Dollar, and Dollar Tree.  Each little town, no matter the size, will contain all four.

They're surprisingly fun to shop.  First off, they're clean.  Secondly, each one takes up where the others leave off. One will have a huge selection of clothes, the next one will be heavy on the kitchenware and household items, and the third will have lots of near-expiry food for sale. Number four will have all the hardware and car stuff - even lumber and residential electrics at times. As the shipments come in, this balance is always shifting, and it's important to remember that each store is already a variety dry goods  operation, so the one with all the kitchen stuff will also have case-lots of Bic lighters, parts for your Mercedes, and a selection of silk kimonos on any given day. As time rolls on, the kitchen one will transform into the spot to go for building materials and plastic storage things.  The food one will be wall to wall pots and pans and spatulas. You get the idea.

The done thing is to take a day and hit all four.  You will see the same pack of shoppers all the way down the line as you go, and that's a little awkward at first, but it's how they roll here in the land of onions. 

 

Customers will walk in and the clerk will greet them 'First time today, huh?' and everyone will laugh; because people do hit these stores three times a day,  going after the newly stocked items coming out from the back.  And this is the dirty little secret of the Dollar Stores:  each one stocks from it's central warehouse, but they also bid on lots containing online-store items that were abandoned in carts - so you can run into some very high-end goods tucked away amidst the plastic clothes and off-brand canned goods, IF you're patient and willing to dig.  

And that's how addiction works.

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I did a thing that I have not done before.

Being new to the area, I spotted an event being held at the local library, and thought to myself 'Hey, it's a beginning' and so I attended.

  

It was a 'Ladies Night', which is a gathering of ladies, and you do crafts and then eat some cake and sit around and bullshit for awhile.  Think of it like any other all - ladies gatherings...Yankee Candle, Tupperware, The Pampered Chef, Avon, and now picture me in a group of conservative strangers, trying to pass.  At least with community events you aren't expected to buy anything.

I cannot remember being quite so ill at ease.  And it was pleasant, it was low-key, people were perfectly friendly, but...man, I did not fit in.  And I too was low key, pleasant and friendly.  The vibe just wasn't...happening, or something.

We made a dragonfly sun-catcher out of paper jute, plastic film, wire and beads; and you had to use a hot glue gun to stick all this together.

I have never used a hot glue gun IN MY LIFE.

All these other women are just whuppin' though the hot glue sticks, and the long strands of dried glue are flying, and it's all over the table and in people's hair, and they're having a great old time.

Me, I have not used a hot glue gun, but I HAVE used a caulking gun.  And the principle is the same - squeeze moderately until as blob of gunk comes out, and then ease up on it.  Yes I know that sounds suggestive. It sounds that way because I wrote it that way. And it's funny.

So I take aim and I start hot glue-ing and lo and behold, I finish my sun catcher half an hour ahead of everyone else at the table.

And then I sit there.

Everyone else has formed their little conversation groups.

Aaaaaand I sit.

So now here I am with a dragonfly suncatcher and no intentions whatsoever of going back.

                                        Not my best work, but damn is that thing glued together.

I don't know. Maybe I should keep trying.  At least at the library I'm more likely to run into someone friendly.

Next meeting we'll be making what's called 'Glamour Dusters'.

                                                                       Yup.

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*For those of you who may not know what a Dollar Store is:  A Dollar Store is a place that sells stuff, any and all stuff, for super de duper cheap, and all the stuff comes from The Mysterious East. 

HINT: People will be trying on clothes in the aisles, so watch out for the Sneak Attack Idaho Crack!!