DO YOU BUY THIS?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ebullient Mrs. Bass and the lovely Bass lasses have a thing about garage sales, and the Onion Creek Memorial Day neighborhood-wide sale was something not to be missed. Mrs. Bass was alerted by Darla, who owns the consignment store at the corner of Pecos and Bowie, that we really should get there early if we hoped to nab anything good. As my i-haul cruised in at eight, we passed loaded pickups  already dragging away their booty.

 

Rifling through all the no-longer needed luggage, handbags, belts and costume jewelry, we gathered snippets of lives, and all of us scored something for a song. The youngest among us found a papa-san chair to give her Dad for Father’s Day.  The picture frames Mrs. Bass purchased, just for the matting, were a steal (“do you know how much you pay for matting?”). Mrs. B’s daughter was pleased with that credenza from the guy whose wife had left him for someone she met on the internet. The silk pants I bought from the Taiwanese girl with four Mercedes in her driveway are just the thing to go with my mandarin collared tunic. We girls chattered happily about our plunder all the way home.

 

Going our separate ways in the afternoon, I headed for the legendary retailer Sam Moon, the Korean box store of all things bling. Although there was no “sale” in progress, the place was mobbed with women seeking, seeking inexpensive handbags, jewelry, belts, shoes and other necessary accessories (see paragraph above to understand life cycle of cheap stuff).

 

The quantity of Chinese merchandise there was staggering, floor to ceiling, aisles crammed four thick with shiny barrettes, monogrammed windshield screens, fake pony tails. Here we see a customer with her current, nice handbag on her shoulder, paying homage at a corner shrine.

 

 

I did not buy the pink cowboy boots or a glitzy belt, not because I have some kind of superior backbone in the face of a full frontal assault of Crazy Cheap Stuff.  Nope, I did put a lot of items in my cart and drove them around for awhile.  I did not buy them because I did not luuvvv them. That is Texan for love.  Maybe I still need time to observe my surroundings. The ladies here wear mostly Title Nine dresses and Keen shoes. Do they completely reject the rest of Texas? Won’t I need to buy anything with a twang in order to fit in? Here are the boots I did not buy, in case you want them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Someone suggested that blogging is a kind of therapy.Well, if I'm going to be mentally sound, I might as well dig a little deeper at your expense, dear reader, to explore my relationship with Stuff, and write what I DID buy. I bought, and will return, rainbow striped espadrilles, a headband with sparkly turquoise beads, and an extra set of ear buds.

 

Yes, Doctor, I bought them because of my need to assimilate, to be accepted.  However, I am returning them because I am working on raising  my  EQ level, so will WRITE about these THINGS rather than buying them.  Sigh.  Confessions and personal growth make for tiresome reading.

 

I did keep the Chinese cowboy hat which I justified for its usefulness in providing shade,  and the precious little gold drop earrings because they are sure to deliver a future chapter in which "he caught a sparkle and shimmy when she turned her  face nonchalantly away from his penetrating gaze.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Sunday I headed over to check out the Cathedral of Junk, a two- storey work of yard art created by Vincent Hannemann in his backyard over the last twenty-three years. You can walk in, under, around and up this  meticulous, massive amalgam of twentieth century “material energy” as he calls it. Inside, I feel like I’m under water, floating through a mangrove swamp, the suspended CDs flashing light, while the sun coming through the blue and green glass bottles gave the air a viscous quality. Vincent asks me if I am a psychic.

 

His back yard will be under water soon, up to the top of the cathedral, when the great floods are unleashed, he says. Good thing I visited today. We chatted for a bit next to the mailbox with head phones on it, clearly a communication apparatus, in my opinion.  If you look closely, you'll see a lot of communication devices are tucked into the cathedral, from first generation CCTVs to this radio, watching and sending signals.

 

Vince tells me that it's no accident that the specific junk in the cathedral ended up there, how all material objects have their own energy. He adds that he does not believe there is an energy crisis ." Haven't you heard of Einstein?", he stares at me.

 

Having only just begun to think about the energy that stuff and junk has in my own life, I respond,  "I need to ponder awhile." I'll have to figure out the connection between Einstein and Vince's Cathedral of Junk, so I ask if I may return. He says," You already know you'll be back because you're a psychic."

 

So, that was my Memorial Day weekend shopping, and communicating, and junk like that.