Sentiment for sale

There are times when I'm thrifting that I have to flip my emotional switch to the OFF position. I've seen so many very personal items on the shelves, and it makes my heart hurt a little wondering how they ended up at the Last Chance Texaco of sentiment.

So many wedding dresses.

I was married for a long time. I had a lavish wedding that eventually came to a less-than-fairy-tale conclusion. But my white poofy wedding dress is stored inauspiciously in my cedar closet downstairs. I just don't have the heart to give it up. Little bits of the past might be worth taking up a corner of a closet, merely because those elements signify some kind of passage, good or bad.

Before I continue, I must clarify that I have very little attachment to most things. I'm barreling toward 50 at what seems to be a breakneck speed, and I've come to realize that people - not things - hold the most treasured sentimental worth.

But there are some things, like my wedding dress, that I simply can't relinquish.

My son Logan is a potter, and I've kept every piece - good or bad - that he's made. I love to see the progress in his pieces, and I love to imagine him at the wheel, working to refine his plate, cup, pot, wind chime.

I keep CSAP test results and report cards, drawings and notes from and to the kids.

I have volumes of journals written to my boys that tell them all about life through my lens. Those journals include lots of personal information, just in case they're curious a few decades from now. After my mom died, I wish I could have found some travelogue of who she was, just to clear up a few things.

But like Jackie O's biography (not to be read until she's gone for 50 years), there's a moratorium on reading my journals until the boys are old enough to absorb what's inside.

Other than those evocative bits of the past, I don't hold much stake in my stuff.

Some folks have even less of an attachment to stuff than I do, though. I've seen personalized pottery (a big pasta bowl painted with 'To Mom With Love'), certificates of merit, framed family photos, hand made artifacts, all on a shelf at a thrift store.

Maybe there should be some thrift store protocol that separates the highly sentimental from the purely functional. Like looking through someone's underpants drawer or medicine cabinet, some items don't need to be put on display.

Because those items on a thrift store shelf that had a very love-driven initial intention need just a bit of honor.

If only for those of us whose hearts twinge just a little when they see tangible sentiment discarded.

Trash talk

There are things in one's life that outlive their usefulness.

Whether it's a staying in a stale relationship, going to McDonald's, enjoying Kenny G or keeping crap you just don't need any more, some things simply don't keep a relevant place in a conscious life.

And there are opportunities to elegantly walk away, not participate, not listen, not do, not try, not accept less, not hold on just for the sake of holding.

It's no more tangibly expressed, this letting go, than checking out other people's trash.

The examples are everywhere. Lovely, classy Sue from work and I had a conversation today about what she terms 'garbage picking'.

She brought photos on her camera, and we strolled through several of her garbage picking outcomes. I'll add photos from Sue's trash finds later, but let me tell you: she knows where to troll the trash.

She showed me a beautiful vintage secretary which integrates perfectly into her home, which, of course, is classy. She noticed the piece sitting next to someone's trash, ready to go to the landfill.

She said she'd knocked on the door of the folks who'd set the secretary out for the trash man, and it was legit - they had no use for what, to Sue, was a complete free find.

Similarly, a few years ago I was in the market for a dining room set. And poof - on the way to work one day, a man had set a bunch of furniture by the side of a busy downtown street, and my dining room set was among his offerings.

It looks very Eames-ish to me, very '60s, very atmospheric. It's a drop-leaf that extends big enough to entertain at least eight people very comfortably. Here's what it looks like when it's all reigned in:

It fits so nicely in my dining room. And notice the chair to the right. So perfect.

And I particularly like the way this table gets bigger. Open up the center and the leaf is built in, just hiding there, waiting for more company. Here's the design:

Flip up the leaf, and you have a party. Pull up the drop-leaf sides and you have an event.

And the whole set cost me $200.

There's a lot to be found by the side of the road. What some people want to unload is exactly what you might like to weave into the fabric of your world.

It all comes down to conscious living. Sometimes the only drive is to get to work, single-mindedly and unobservantly getting to the next obligation.

But there are priceless gems everywhere, if we just look around. It's about seeing the value in the discards.

Trash talk can be a very rich conversation.

Higher education.

About a jillion years ago, when I was just about to graduate from high school, I made a last-minute decision. Just weeks before graduation, I decided I didn't want to go to the Ron Bailey School of Broadcasting. I wanted to go to UNC.

I'm no brainiac, but I think that was a pretty good move. And as I mentioned, it was very last-minute.

Times have changed. Apparently future potential collegians get started scoping out college possibilities long before I did back in the dark ages.

My oldest son Connor will be graduating from high school next year. That makes him a junior.

Real-live mail isn't dead. It apparently comes in the form of brochures and informational packets from colleges hungry for fresh brains. Here's the pile of mail Connor's received so far:

I don't know if you can grasp how large this pile of mail from colleges is, and the envelopes are, for the most part, unopened. Many will probably stay that way, at least for a while.

I'm thinking Connor's received this rock-star volume of mail because he did well on his PSAT test. He hasn't even taken the SATs yet. Imagine the mail once those results come in.

A lot can change in a year. But all of this mail has most likely been sent in vain.

I'm sure Connor will go to college. It's most likely he'll go somewhere close, in state, unless he gets a whole bunch of scholarship money, grants, loans, winning lottery ticket.

Interesting, that we haven't received one piece of mail offering up methods by which to pay for these institutions of higher education.

We'll find a way. More succinctly, he'll find a way.

Because tuition at UNC is around $13,000 per year. And UNC is among the cheapest colleges in the state. That's a far cry from 1983 tuition, when I graced UNC's halls. Back then, tuition was a fraction of what it is now.

Until decisions are made, we'll continue collecting this mound of mail.

Maybe we'll get a few slick brochures that address how to pay for the high price of higher education.

Books are good.

So after a very fast trip up to the mountains, I and one of my kids came home on Friday.

Mr. Fabulous and I had a free day yesterday, so it was only logical that we hit the bins.

Here's a picture to remind you of what it's like at the Goodwill Outlet, fondly termed 'the bins' by me and my people, thanks to lovely Miriam and our Portland bins experience. This photo was taken at the bins here in Denver.

Needle in a haystack to find anything of value, right?

It's true. There's a lot of crap at the bins. But the books - ah, the books.

The love of reading, the joy of expanding one's base of knowledge, the attractive price point....

All books at the bins are 49 cents. Each.

We found a bunch of really great books yesterday. I found a first edition Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Great Britain version. I found a first edition A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith - a personal favorite title of mine, and I bought it solely with the intention of reading it again. But this version is a first edition from 1943, which makes it even more compelling.

And then I found this:

When we got home with all of our treasures yesterday, I eventually got around to checking on the worth of this particular volume.

Its market value is somewhere in the $200 to $300 range.

Score!

So for a 49 cent investment, it's very likely this book will translate into my car payment this month.

That doesn't suck.

What can you buy for 49 cents any more? Not much.

But I got this great book, and a whole lot of other wonderful bits of book learnin', for 49 cents a piece.

Like the fabulous Coach purse I found at the bins a few weeks ago, this book and others we found yesterday have monetary value that far exceeds the bins' price tag. Finding these items compels me to wonder how so many people overlooked these valuables before we tripped onto them at the bins.

It's perplexing.

Books attempt to answer the previously unanswerable. And ironically, I'm finding valuable books in the most unlikely place, at the most desirable price. It's a conundrum why these volumes are virtually leaping into my hands at a rock-bottom price, but I really shouldn't question it.

I'm liking all this new knowledge.

Books are a good thing.

Serendipitous illumination.

Mr. Fabulous found a brass lamp at Goodwill for 7.99. It's so very obviously very old, with areas for two bulbs, and it adjusts to the height you'd like, for book-reading illumination or whatnot.

Here's another view. It's made of heavy brass, its body is a Grecian column, with lots and lots of detail. I put my Virgin Mary-in-progress pin next to the lamp, so you can see just how big the lamp is. Mr. Fabulous spent quality time this afternoon cleaning the brass to make it so very sheeny.

Isn't it cool?

The story doesn't end there. This bloggy blog isn't about a cool lamp Mr. Fab found.

He found just the lamp's base. He'd seen a shade that looked like it would work, at a different thrifty location. So we picked it up today. Here's the completed lamp, from a downside view. Check out the duel attachments to the two bulbs. Those accents didn't come easily...

We went to the bins today. And there was a crappy-ass lamp among all of the other crap. It had all of the elements that Mr. Fab had found earlier, plus a finial and some hardware. So we snagged the finial and the attachment hardware that you see in the photo above.

What are the odds, really? An antique lamp that Mr. Fab found, bare bones, in one location. A lampshade that looks like it was meant for the lamp in another location. The detailed hardware to finish the piece, found in a completely different third location.

I think the lamp was meant to be here, illuminating the house. And I think Mr. Fabulous has an amazing eye for attaching some elements to other elements. One of these things belongs to another...

Mr. Fabulous spent quality time taking the raw elements of this lamp and bringing it back to its cleansed, beautiful state. He attached all the other elements we'd found at the bins, and voila. A completely fabulous antique lamp, with an age-appropriate shade.

What a day.

I also found a The Principles of Knitting book at the bins today for 49 cents, and it's apparently quite rare. I intend to turn it around for a tidy profit.

All in all, it was a good day.

We slapped together an antique lamp for less that twenty bucks. And I found a priceless book for 49 cents.

And adding great to good, the brief spring break respite I had with my kids was so very nice.

My past few days have been illuminating, on so many levels.

My favorite credit card.

When I was a kid, my family did a lot of traveling. We went all over the country in a super-long Recreational Vehicle. I was a kid, and I had no concept of how much it must have cost to shuttle us across these United States.

Times have changed.

I'm going on a very brief trip up to the mountains with my kids. We'll leave tomorrow morning, with Gigi and one of her daughters. I was on the fence last night.

Not literally, because the fence was being pelted by a foot of snow.

But today the forecast is sunny with a high probability of melt. The snow is leaving quickly, and we'll spend part of Spring Break and a nice chunk of change getting away from it all.

Money has literally taken on a new currency lately. Going anywhere any more is like buying popcorn at the movies or lunch at the airport. It's all crazy-expensive.

I won't put anything on credit. Credit, like I'm hoping it will be with inclement weather on our brief vacation, isn't on my windshield.

Fun will be had, money will be spent, mountainous beauty will be appreciated, relaxation will be top on my personal list of objectives.

I wish I could whip out the card in the photo that's conspicuously incongruous to pay for stuff during our trip. I think I should be able to use it just because it's so cool.

I recently received new health insurance cards for me and my two boys, and the format is designed for four cards. In the fourth spot, I received the "This Space Left Blank Intentionally" card. It's the coolest card in my wallet.

I'll be out of the loop for a few days, vacationing in the snowy Colorado mountains.

Maybe somewhere on our route I'll pull out my favorite credit card, just to see what kind of reaction I get.

Can't win for losing.

Meet Futility Lad. He was the vacuous sidekick to Captain Useless, who was a B-list superhero a few decades ago. Interestingly, the pair's popularity waned in a gradual way, and the less-than-dynamic duo disbanded in the late 1970s.

I think Futility Lad's not gone at all. I think he's living in my house. A hand-drawn ghost, an incorporeal wisp, an exhausting shadow-shrug.

Futility Lad takes shape in crafty ways. He's hijacked the light bulbs that I know are around here somewhere. He's the one who makes me say, at least every day, where did I put my coffee? He's stashed my garage door opener somewhere, and I just had it last night. I can almost hear him chuckling maniacally to himself as I look for my keys.

Futility Lad must know how to shape-shift, and he apparently has the added secondary super-heroic quality of inhabiting more than one place at a time. Because I chatted with my lovely friend Shawn today, and without me bringing it up, she mentioned she's been plagued by losing things and forgetting important events, just like me.

I need a superhero to take charge, saunter into my home with confidence and kick Futility Lad's ass.

I think Futility Lad's nemesis is a multi-tasking, capable, take-charge, intuitive superhero. And for the sake of personal relatability, I'll make her a woman.

I imagine that she'd come in my house and first work a few superpowers on me. Maybe we'd do some yoga, which would incorporate several deep breathing techniques. Then she'd probably walk me through where I saw my errant items last, and we'd recreate - most likely through very sophisticated creative visualization - my crazed moments just before I lost the item or forgot the event.

Maybe then she'd do a bit of recon on Futility Lad.

After he's been soundly schooled and summarily banished, she'd probably feel it necessary to further realign my personal karmic chi, patiently answering my recent questions about what the Universe is trying to tell me about why I keep losing things that should be conspicuous.

I have yet to come up with a name for this reconnaissance-driven superhero. Maybe Perceptivion, Goddess of Clarity?

Judging from the input of my friends, I think I'll need to take a number.

Perceptivion, like any superhero that supplies extra doses of clarity while ridding the world of futility, probably requires an appointment.

I think she's a busy lady.