Sunday, September 14, 2008

Farewell to Summer Part I: Yard Sales










Usually by this time of year I'm aching for the fall: sweater weather, seeing my breath in the morning, nesting and cooking up big pots of soup. But we've had such a beautiful and temperate summer--plus it's been so mercifully quiet--that I'm starting to mourn the loss of the season.
Hey calendar, I'm not ready yet!

I've decided this summer needs a tribute, so I'll take a few posts and detail some of my favorite things about the season that's just about to leave us behind.

No summer weekend is complete for me without hitting a handful of yard sales. This used to wear John out, until he realized you can find great CDs and, just a couple of weeks ago, under-face-value
Nick Cave tickets (!!), and now he's a convert for life.


These are a few of the treasures we've found within a 6-block radius this summer.

2 comments:

leslie said...

please explain the weird organ thing. Does it plug in? How does it sound? what's going on on the left side?

The dress looks darn cute!

Christy said...

I'm hoping John might make a special guest appearance to answer the organ question. Not being an aficionado myself, I can only offer the most conspicuous details, but John can add the nuance. For starters, this is a Farfisa Pianorgan, made in Italy in probably the late 1950s. According to the internet, its sound is not unlike an accordian, and in person it's a gorgeous thing to behold. At $65 we probably paid the high end of fair value, but we bought it from a working musician who hated to part with it, but is moving to a tiny apartment in Brooklyn and had to purge.

The dress was a better deal at $7 (original $88 pricetag still attached at time of purchase). I had to invest another $22 to have the bust taken in (ahh, gravity) and spaghetti straps attached, but it let me discover an awesome seamstress who works out of the basement of a 2-flat a few blocks west of us. The whole cavernous space is filled with reams of fabric and various adornments, and fancy suburban types come and go from their double-parked Mercedes and SUVs. It's a pretty amazing scene.

Yard sales aren't as cheap as they used to be in these parts, but every piece tells a story, and that's worth something on its own.