Clarence Antique World & Flea Market

There are two flea markets "in my area".  One in Avon, NY and one in Clarence, out near Buffalo.  The one in Avon is the flea market that I grew up going to.  (What's this?  You say you didn't grow up going to a flea market?  How odd.)  It's small and is located at a drive-in movie theater.  It's not the best, but certainly not the worst, either.  Then there is Clarence.  It's a 45 minute drive through the country, which is nice.  And it's just gigantic.  Lots of space for people to set up tables, storage lockers that can be rented out as booths and then a few very large buildings full of antiques co-op style.

It hasn't rained in Rochester in three weeks.  I'm not kidding, three weeks.  And we've had sun, and it's been hella hot.  Like, over 90 degrees.  It's starting to look like the dust bowl around here.  Farmers are weeping, insects are withering, grass is crispy.  So, of course it rained on Sunday while we were at the flea market.

It drove us inside, and I kind of wish it had happened sooner.  The prices inside were great!  The prices outside at the storage shed area were a bit steep.  But, I did manage to find a few delights. 

Can you imagine my surprise when I saw these sticking out from under a table in the rubble of one of the storage lockers?  I saw the plastic eggs first.  Then I dove for it.  I got all of them for $2.50.  I know what you're thinking, a steal, right?? I know.  Totally.  And they are flocked, baby! 

The little girl bunny on the side is a rattle.  A child's toy from the 50's, I'd guess.  Some of the kids toys from back then are so super creepy.  It's like the toy designers are trying to punish the kids or something.  Give 'em nightmares.  I mean, look at her creepy sideways glance.  You can almost hear the ghostly voice calling in the background "Saaaally, Saaaally..."  And then this little she-demon would turn her eyes towards you and then her head would follow and she'd say, "Yeeees...?" with a smile like a cobwebby grave.  I paid $5 for her.  Come on!  You don't find possessed Easter toys that often!

 

Then I found these.  The one and only Muppets collection purchase.  Very old plastic packages of gum.  Labyrinth gum.  I don't get the marketing scheme for this movie.  It's got some fantastic characters, not to mention a staring role for David Bowie's crotch.  They didn't make any toys.  Gum and trading cards.  That's about it.  Who doesn't want an adorable Ludo doll?  I know I do.  It could even utter adorable catch phrases like, "Sarah....friend!" and "Smell...bad!"  Want.  I got the old packets of gum for $6.

 

I love how the Jareth picture looks less like David Bowie and more like David Barbie.  He looks like an overtaxed mother in her mid forties.  "I swear, if those kids don't shut up and let me  have some ME time...."

 

I found this tiny white glitter encrusted jewel-eyed bird Christmas ornament for 50 cents at the outdoor part.  Mine!!

The little jadeite tray was only $5 inside one of the buildings.

I don't know if you know this or not but, I'm going to be in a wedding in November.  I won't go into detail about how you can all thank me and me alone for this affair. (It's not an affair affair, they were both single when fate (I) stepped in.)  But anyway, the bride is one of my very best friends on earth and she loves Christmas.  So, it's a Christmas themed wedding.  Yes.  Yes, I am jealous.

We each get to wear whatever dress we like as long as it goes with the color scheme.  I know you are thinking it must be red and green.  But you are wrong.  This Christmas themed late-fall wedding is peacock color schemed. Now you are jealous too, no doubt!

I found my dress a few weeks ago.  At David's bridal.  Typical, eh?  I was planning to get a vintage dress.  But I just saw one at David's bridal that was the perfect color for my skin.  Teal/Turquoise.  It's short and strapless and WAS $36 DOLLARS! I know, right?  Like I'm going to pass up a perfect $36 dress.  No.  It had a weird beaded flower jobbie on the waistline.  That dude is coming off.  I've been looking for a huge, gorgeous vintage broach to replace it.  Enter, this guy:

It's about 4" long and glitters like no tomorrow.  One of the best parts is that it matches the color of my dress perfectly AND it's not gold, it's a copper-y finish.  It is also the most expensive thing I've bought myself in a while.  It was more than the dress.  It was $40, even though the original price was $78.  Don't judge me.

Here, let's think about something else!  How about neon!  I'm enjoying this resurgence of neon more than is healthy. I'm reliving my childhood something wicked awesome.  It's making me want to go to the Hallmark store to pick out individual crayons in neon colors with my allowance.

So, in summary:

Plastic Nightmare

The Bowie Dream House

Like I Need More Christmas Stuff

The Gemrald

Meedly-meedly-mowwww!

Footloose

I have small feet.  Size 6 or 6.5 in women's.  These days that is a tiny foot.  I have a hard time finding shoes in my size.  When I was younger Payless Shoes had a whole row devoted to size 5-6.  Not so anymore.  These days they have about 4 square feet of space devoted to my size.  I can however, get a nice pair of Dora the Explorer sneakers if I want.  My size has now been relegated to children's wear.

What the world may not know is that Target is there to help a sister out.  I've been stalking their child shoe section.  This might seem slightly inappropriate, as I have no children and some mothers might worry about my intention just loitering around the area.  Get out of my way mothers and little girls.  I'm here for the shoes.

I got two pair of ballet flats last fall.  Never really thinking that I should check the entire section.  I just saw the flats, found my size and bought them for $10 a pop.  What an idiot.  I've missed almost an entire season of shoes!  

Witness: Exhibit A

I've been searching for literally years for the right wedges.  I bought a pair for $22 recently.  They are ridiculously cute: black with white polka dots and a peep toe and bow.  Heavy as an anvil.  I have to walk like I've got lead bricks tied to my feet.  Then I noticed these at Target.  In the kids section.  Now, I'm not going to sit and pontificate over what 8 year old should be wearing this type of a wedge.  I'm just going to elbow her out of the way and grab those shoes.  They were $19, light as air and fit like a miracle. Notice the adorable floral pattern on the bottom. A-double-dorable.  

Now, you just have to focus and ignore the fact that you can literally get a pair of sequined Hello Kitty ballet flats in your size as well.  Unless you are into that.  Then I say go-go gadget sparkle shoes!

While I was there I found these.  On sale for six dollars.  What?  What is happening to the world?  Why are children wearing styles that women wear?  Why are there gorgeous, comfortable sandals in a myriad (yellow, green, pink, blue) of colors being sold for $6? It feels too good to be true.

I'm also currently stalking a pair of hot pink Converse with hot blue laces.  These happen to be in the womens section.  They are $40 and you know how I feel about that.  Don't even try to lecture me for having too many pairs of converse.  I don't need that right now.  What I need is a hot pink pair.

I'm on the edge of my seat for the fall collection.  Dare I hope for riding boots?  Halloween Converse?  The mind boggles.

So, In Summary:

IfyouhavesmallfeetgettoTargetbeforeIbuyalltheshoesalltheshoes

SoDak The Third: Bad Bad Leroy Lands

When last we saw our heroes, they had just escaped the clutches of the nefarious Satan/Bear/Devils and his shock inspiring Spire/Lodge/Tower of dread! (Can you tell that I've been reading the original X-Men comics?)

So, then we went to the Badlands.  They have been aptly named.  There are signs everywhere warning you to watch out for rattlesnakes.  Rattlesnakes!  Did you know rattlesnake venom is poisonous?  It can kill you!  Why do people live near/go to places where they might be killed my poisonous wildlife?  I cannot get my mind around that.  There are plenty of places to live/visit that are not populated with poisonous creatures.  Why not live there?  Seems like kind of a no-brainer to me.  But there I was, in the middle of venom country.

We chose the perfect day to go because it was about 103 degrees and that just seemed perfect for a visit to a crazy desert cliff field lined with rattlesnakes.  Right?  Anyway, I didn't get a whole lot of pictures as I was a bit preoccupied with surviving.  You'll have to excuse my thoughtlessness.

This is a picture of a cactus flower.  I've never seen one in real life.  It was neat.  So, since I was with two boys, they of course wanted to hike through the poisonous snake area.  Obviously.  I asked that we not go more than a mile and my wish was granted.  There were about three trails that fit the bill but they were super excited about the one with the rope ladder.  That's right.  Because if you are going to see a poisonous snake, it really helps to be danging from the side of a cliff on a rope ladder.

You think I'm exaggerating, don't you.  Well take a look, smarty pants.

 

Yeah.

But the best part is that we got to climb up it and then back down!  Because this trail was a straight line.  No, circling back for this trail!

Did I mention I almost died?  Because I did.  About eleven times.

I also scared the crap out of myself with my water bottle.  We were just starting the hike and I was all eyes on the ground, eyes on the ground.  To the left, to the right, up ahead.  Searching for snakes, like a sane person.  My water bottle bumped into my leg and I gasped and jumped about thirty feet in the air.  Then I laughed for about half a second and then I went back to searching for snakes.  It wasn't until we were home that the husband told me he got it on video.  Nice.

The last two pictures were taken by my friend Karl.  Some of these rock formations were so bright and strangely colored that they almost looked airbrushed or spray painted.

After the hike we went to the Badlands Museum/Information building and they had air conditioning, bless their hearts to death.  The museum was pretty neat.  They also had a short film about the Not So Great Lands in a tiny little theater.  Some of us who were Eagle Scouts fell asleep during the film.  Others of us didn't.

As a treat to ourselves for making it out of the Snake Pit alive, we stopped at Wall Drug.  If you haven't been there I'm not sure I can describe it accurately.  It's got signs for thirty miles in every direction.  At least.  Billboards big and small advertising their famous free ice water and 5 cent coffee.  So, it's a little restaurant.  There is also an ice cream parlor.  An actual drug store area, lots of crazy dioramas, a T-Rex, fake singing cowboys, a chapel, a second restaurant, a western wear shop, a toy store and tchotchke heaven.  The husband got a koozie what looks like a western outfit, complete with belt buckle.

This is the husband and I in the back yard area.

So, in summary:

I'm A Lot Like Indiana Jones

Wall Drugged

SoDak Episode II: Satan's Spire

I promise right now that reading this will be more fun, educational and all around a whole lot better than watching Star Wars Episode II.

On the way home from seeing the big heads we stopped at a maze.  This was Nick's idea and he was giddy at the thought of trying it out.  This wasn't a corn maze, it was made of thick wooden fence.  The kind you can't see through at all.  This, my friends was a real mother effing maze.  Like, the kind from Labyrinth.  I'm not at all convinced that it wasn't changing on us to keep us from reaching Baby Toby.  Four of us went in, one very smart member of our party sat out.  There were 4 towers and you had to find each and stamp your card with the tower stamp.  Then you had to find your way out.  Our friend Karl made it out in something like 26 minutes.  He was an Eagle Scout though.  I hear they have magical powers. The rest of us took over an hour to get out of there.  The husband and I were the only team and we took the longest amount of time at 1 hour and 20 minutes.  I'd like to state for the record that it was only because he didn't do as I said from the very beginning.  It's that way with most of the problems in the world.

Next we went to Satan's Spire.  Or, as it is known to most other people: Devils Tower.  Actually, the Native Americans called it Bear Lodge.  I'm just going to tell you right now that I've never seen Close Encounters.  I do know that you can't just walk up to the top of this rock.  It's a bazillion feet tall and straight up.  Just sitting out there in the pseudo dessert like a massive tree stump.

We saw people climbing it.  With lots of ropes.  Crazy, crazy people.  You can hike around the base of it.  One mile of paved pathway.  That gives you some scope as to how big this guy really is.

On our way home we stopped (as always) at the gift shop.  I love when places like that really know how to do kitch.  Observe.  These, you uncultured swine, are called Jackalopes.  If they weren't $80 I would have sent one to my friend.  She would have loved it.  For real.

So, in summary:

Star Wars Episodes 1-3 Are Abominations

Jareth Wins

Big Stump

Flashback to 1980's America's Funnies Home Videos

SoDak Part I

I've been remiss.  I know that.  I can see that it's already the beginning of July.  I feel like a lot has been going on.  But I guess it's not anything all that interesting.  Just a lot of little things.

Still waiting for Santa Fe to get called in.  Two more weeks, supposedly.  Can't wait to have that project over with so that I can move on to more interesting projects.  Like paving the driveway.  Sense the sarcasm.

We went to South Dakota for a week last month.  What's in South Dakota, you ask?  Space.  Lots and lots of space.  Area.  Land.  The city that we flew into has 70,000 and it was the largest town by far that we saw while we were there.  The airport has one baggage claim area.  One.  It has one restaurant.  One terminal.

It sort of made me feel good about the earth.  If South Dakota has all this room, surely the planet can't be over populated yet, right?  I mean, NY state is pretty populated and the open land area is dwindling.  Sometimes you feel like all the free space in the U.S. must be used up by housing tracks and empty strip malls.  If you feel suffocated you can just jump over a few states to South Dakota and have a billion or so acres to yourself.

I'm not the greatest of fliers and the plane to and from So Dak was tiny.  One row of seats on one side and two seats on the other.  Coffin tiny.  It took a lot of booze to get me there.  And even more to get me home since I had to climb back into the tiny metal box of death.  The one airport restaurant didn't open until 11:00 am.  Our flight left at 11:00.  So I brought my "medicine" with me.  There I was in the ladies loo, guzzling a bottle of red table wine fighting back visions of that tiny plane and it's fiery interior as it plummeted to the ground in a spectacular blaze of heavy metal and screaming Sarahs.  It's pretty much the classiest thing I've ever done.

Anyway, while we were in that middle state we saw all of the sights.  The thing about the sights in So Dak is, they are big.  Very large sights.  Monuments carved from the living rock, (Can I just say, I have no idea what the difference is between living rock and non-living rock?  But, I do know that particular turn of phrase always sends goosebumps down my spine.  "The living rock...") giant rock formations, huge expanses of weird geolithic deposits.

The bad part is that the sights are not all in one area.  They were all about an hour or two one way from where we were staying, in adorable Spearfish, SD.  So, lots of time was spent in the car.

First up was Mount Rushmore.  Did you know that Mount Rushmore was the country's first National Monument?  Did you also know that the artist intended it to be the bodies of Native American Chiefs, but had to swap them out for Presidents (including Roosevelt, who was in office at the time) to get funding?  Just another slight on my people by the white man.  Because the Natives are my heritage.

Everyone said that it would be unimpressive in real life.  It would seem smaller than you thought it was.  It did not seem smaller.  The thing is huge and it's at the tippy top of a freaking mountain, people!  The original design, which incorporated nearly full bodies would have been even more impressive, but the rock wouldn't allow for that.  I love how they didn't even clean up after themselves.  Just left the load of rubble at the bottom.

While we were in the gift shop there was a man signing autographs who had worked on the giant sculpture.  Doesn't that blow your mind?  Someone who worked on Mt. Rushmore is still alive! 

One thing that really killed me about this monument was that everyone was wearing their United States team colors.  Shirts, pants, hats, even purses with the flag on it.  The husband and I call this "shirt to show".  If you go to a concert, you don't wear a shirt of that band to the show.  You are already at the show, we know you are a fan.  You don't have to wear that band's shirt to the concert of that band.  It's overkill.  At Mt. Rushmore, every second person was wearing shirt to show.

This thing I can't understand.  Why wouldn't you make it so that...I mean, his face is right in the middle of the...you could have added another...I mean!!

Another fun fact.  Did you know that TJ created the first ice cream recipe in the U.S.?  Yeah.  Because he's pretty much the best guy, ever.  Oh, I'm sorry.  I'm using his nickname, we're totally close.  I guess you probably know him as Thomas Jefferson.  You can call him TJ though, he's cool with it.

After we looked at the big rock heads we went by Crazy Horse, which is infinitely more awesome in my book.  It was also infinitely more expensive at $27 per car as opposed to the old white guys $11 per car.  So, we just looked at ol' Crazy from the road.

Wow, I'm only like a third of the way through this story or less.  I better do this in installments.  So, until next week (...or tomorrow, since I have it off.  Godblessmerika.) 

In Summary:

SoDak, An Exercise In Space

Classy Bathroom Boozin'

Don't Mess With Me Pale Face

Dead White Guys

TJ Invented Joy

Crazy Expensive

Tid Bits

The weather here is finally near perfect and we've been enjoying a whole mess of sales.  I haven't been getting that many things that aren't to resell on Etsy, but I do have a few gems to share.

Firstly, when I'm at a sale, I like things to be marked with prices.  I loathe when you have to ask someone how much something is because the skeptic in me thinks that when you admit to your interest in an item by asking the price, said price enevitably gets higher.  I always try to ask a general question like, "So how much is all this stuff, nothing is marked!"  It's almost always met with a "Well tell me what you are looking at and I'll tell you how much it is."  I hate this.  Most of the time I just walk away.  Sometimes you get really, really lucky and you get a set up like the on pictured below.

 

It does not get better than this, folks.  An oversized pad of paper on an easel with color coded pricing.  With notes!

Next on the agenda: An interesting house.  I went to an Estate sale about a month ago.  This house had lots of treasures in it but that isn't what really caught my fancy.  This house was interesting.  The kind of interesting that only comes from being owned by a really interesting person.  And by interesting, I mean super eccentric. 

See what I mean?  Mirrored wallpaper.  Mirrored!  What is this?  A porno flick?  Who has mirrored wallpaper?! And this paper is pristine.  Like it was put up yesterday.  And it's in the dining room, of all places!

Then there is the yellow faux bamboo furniture to match the mirrored plaid wallpaper.  Good god.  Can you imagine trying to eat in this place?

And to top it all off is the vivid green carpeting.  Like new!  Did they ever even step on it?  Amazing matching green love seats to match.  This place felt like a hidden garden, plush grass underfoot.

And who doesn't like making wee-wee in a olive and gold forest of bamboo?

I'm telling you, this place was the tops.  There was a second bedroom with mirrored wallpaper but I didn't take a picture.  It was done up in browns and looked like the lovechild of the 1920's and a James Bond set.  If I ever become an art director of a film I'm recreating these rooms because that shit is memorable.

Next on the random things list is a picture of my lap at Easter.  I love the inside of that purse.  It's just plain white vinyl on the outside with a tiny bow.

Lastly, I'd like to leave you with these guys.  I don't even know what to say about them, really.  They are the epitome of greatness.  They are about 6" tall and made out of flocked styrofoam.  I found them at a yard sale.  They were stuffed into a basket of other, newer, easter grass and plastic eggs.  The entire basket was going for $2.  I asked the lady if she would take $2 just for the pair of chicks.  There was this awkward and monumental moment where the lady looked at me like, "I can't BELIEVE this woman wants to pay me $2 for these hideous chickens!" and I looked at her like, "I can't BELIEVE this woman is going to let me have these adorable vintage chickens for $2!" In all honestly this set is probably worth at least $25.  As they say these days: Thay Shay Cray.

 

So, in summary:

I Spurn Unmarked Items

Don't Decorate Your House While On Drugs

Can't Have Enough Poka Dots

Ain't It J?

May Days

Another day, another yard sale.  

The last neighborhood sale in April turned up these treasures.  Black ballet flats with rainbow colored beads for 50 cents. (Yes, they were made for children.  I have small feet, ok?  I narrowly avoided the Dora the Explorer sneakers.)  An adorable drum major (see what they did there?) vintage Christmas ornament to round out the dollar.  

To know me is to know that I love my marching band days.  I played clarinet for a while but after an entire parade of honking out "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" it was time for a change.  I then became a majorette.  Twirler.  Fire baton. That's right, you heard me.  And yes, it was that awesome. 

Anyway.  I went to a church sale on my way home from work on Friday.  One of the last things that I spotted was this:

Yes, that's right.  Kermit soap.  Not just any Kermit soap, either.  Hallmark, "Sailor of Fortune" 31 year old Kermit soap in the original packaging.  To be exact.  One dollar.  I cannot tell you the amount of will power it took to "poker face" my way through this.  But I did it.  Because I'm just that good.  What a prize for the Muppet Room!  Just a quick fyi - you don't want to be using this soap, because ol' Kerm over there smells something terrible.  Rancid old lady smell.  I'm going to pretend that it would smell better if it weren't 31 years old.  Hopefully someone over at Hallmark had better sense than to make a child's soap smell like an old woman.

Also, side note: If you feel like a good cry please head over to Netflix and watch "Being Elmo".  It's the story of Kevin Clash, Elmo's puppeteer. I already knew the whole story and was not expecting it to be so emotional.  Very interesting for a Muppet fan, but a great story for anyone at all.

Then a church sale on Saturday turned up all these goodies.  Tiny little Hallmark and Russ treats for my shadowbox.  The larger house is actually a little box, the roof comes off.  I think that the dressy Jack-o-Lantern candles might be from as early as the 40's.  Each piece was a quarter.

Then there's these Christmas cuties. Tiny guys for 25 cents each.

Lastly we have a jewel eye kitten for my jewel eye friend, a little frog that was supposed to be in the Halloween picture (for that is where he will be displayed), a vintage flower pin that I'll make into a hair clip, Hallmark spring chick with cart and yes, that's right...more Disney pins to trade!  I'm now up to 8 pins! Watch out Disney (in like, two more years) because I'm coming to trade!!

So, in summary:

Pyro Marching Band Geek

Victory

A Million Tiny Pieces

 Great, Now I Can't Stop Thinking About Disney