Out of Season

I was talking to my friend Rhonda inside my car before going into the grocery store on a Friday night a few weeks ago, and she asked me off-the-cuff if I was planning on going to garage sales the next morning. As she asked this I was pulling my sleeve as far as possible over my exposed hand to keep it warm, noting how my breath was steaming up the inside of my car as the temperature clock outside the bank flashed 2 degrees. Fahrenheit.

"Garage sales?" I asked her. "It's.... not really the season."

Rhonda was fortunate enough to spend most of her adult life in the Pacific Northwest, where garage sales are a year-round event. But in the dead of Chicago winter, no one's even shoveling their sidewalk, let alone setting up a card table on top of it to sell their possessions. In fact, when it's this cold outside, no one much likes to leave their house. You'd think that this would be good in the way of diminished competition, but really, the lack of available outlets for bargain shopping tends to cramp the hundreds of bargain shoppers (like me) into the very few outlets open at this time of year: thrift stores and estate sales.

So like any good year-round Midwestern thrifter, I prepare my short list on Thursday evenings for a Friday morning cruise of the estate sale scene.

This Friday, I had just two sales on my list, neither of them that promising. But hey, in times of famine, tenacity pays off. Even if you have to drive around in this thing:



Is there a car under there?


The first sale was in Evanston. To my surprise there was no line, no wait at the starting time of 10 a.m.




As soon as I got in, I could see why. Slim pickin's. Nothing much in the way of collectibles or decent books. But these sales are always good for stocking up on staples, like office supplies.




I refuse to buy a legal pad at full price when I know I can get them at estate sales for 25 cents. Same goes for envelopes, felt-tipped pens, staple removers and cleaning products.

Awesome purse I didn't buy:




I was able to dig up 3 valuable reference books on pipe-fitting, each selling on Amazon for more than $12. (I paid $1.50 for all three.) So in the hopes that my day could only get better, I took a chance on the next sale in Park Ridge.

I was just starting to curse the dreary, salt-encrusted look of things on Touhy Avenue when what out of the corner of my eye should appear?




A thrift store I've NEVER seen or heard of! I've spent the last four years driving around the 234-square-mile area that is Chicago (not to mention the suburbs), and I thought I had seen it all. But here was a previously untouched thrift mecca just 10 miles from my apartment. I felt like Lord Carnarvon opening Tut's tomb!

Unfortunately the "treasures" inside my discovery weren't exactly priced to go.



Fifteen bucks for a jelly jar, thirty-five for a Fenton? (not) sherbet dish, twenty-five dollars for a Walter Peyton highlights VHS video, etc.




Dismayed, I was about to leave when I noticed a second entrance two doors down. THIS part of the store looked a bit more promising:




These are cool:



Five dollars!


Awesome wagon-themed ice cream dishes for 50 cents each:




And this card, which I couldn't quite figure out. Is it intended for a better-than-decent male sibling, or a very attractive black man?




Either way, Happy Easter to them, at just 25 cents.


I bought a Thomas Pynchon novel, an academic book on the South Asian diaspora and a hardcover cuckoo-clock making manual, all for 55 cents. The resale value of these items is considerably higher.

Satisfied, I continued on to the Diane Hudec (formerly Auction Bay -- do I smell a 'cease & desist'?) estate sale.

I usually save the Hudec sales for last, as they are significantly, ambiguously overpriced (you'll see what I mean in a second), so most of my competitors seem to stay away.

As expected, Hudec never fails to ambiguously overprice:




"So... is this basket 5 dollars, 50 cents, or 10 dollars?" (You won't find out until you reach the check-out counter, where the lines are always ridiculously long for this very reason.)

More ambiguous pricing from Hudec:



However, I must say Diane is always willing to bargain as a result of this ambiguousness, and there are always a few good deals to be found:






I found my childhood spice rack at this sale (although ours was in goldenrod):



Ten dollars.


Alas, there were no good bargains at AuctionBay for me this Friday morning, so I lifted a plant and a can of beans and ski-dooed.

I hear it's supposed to be 15 tomorrow. Yeay!

Les Puces -- The Second-Hand Scene in PARIS

My recent trip to the Czech Republic by way of Paris explains my gap in blog entries. But fear not -- I have returned armed with information for those savvy travelers interested in the antique scene in Paris.

Paris, as some of you may know, is the birthplace of the flea market. The name "flea market" comes from the flea-ridden cast-off rags and clothing once worn by royals and merchants, sold in the makeshift pop-up storefronts along the Marches de Pouces in Paris' northern suburbs. So it was to Les Pouces de Saint Ouen that we ventured, to see where all this madness began.

(Here is their website in case you are interested.)

Our marche began in the city center. The easiest way to access Les Puces is to take the Paris Metro line 4 (maroon in color maps) to Porte de Clignancourt and exit at Porte de Clignancourt, the last stop on the northbound line. Follow the Sortie, Marches aux Puces signs. Once you exit, turn around and look for the highway overpass (white bridge). Walk underneath it, then turn left onto rue des Rosiers. From here it is difficult to give exact directions to the "best" part of the market, but for those veterans it should be easy to follow your nose past the knock-off Pepe Jeans, purses and Looney Tunes stuffed animals to where the real flea market (read: not wholesale and knock-offs) begins.

When we visited I was starting to think we might never find a real antique amidst the bad leather and keychains, but slowly, Def Leppard and Britney Spears t-shirts gave way to architectural remnants and antique light fixtures.


Here we are making our way past the wholesale and knock-off section:




To something a bit more authentic:




Look! Vintage Doc Martens! (And there were TONNES.)




There were a lot of army surplus vendors with remnants from many years and many armies:




Check out this happy soldier:





We bought a Saint Christophe medallion from this vendor (€1 or about $1.49), to keep us safe on our travels:





There was a large vintage vinyl record store, specializing in jazz and blues.




I loved this little guy, however pricey at €25 (approx. US$36.75).




The year-round flea market allows for some pretty well-established storefronts, like this dealer in architectural remnants:













Many of the other dealers had small tables of trinkets outside their shops.




We were totally surprised to find this antique cabinet at the Paris flea market:



Jem's mom owns the exact same one back in the States! We were told it had just sold for €3,500 (about US$5,145).


Look: signs in French!






Not everything was antique. There were plenty of mid-century/modern furniture and fixings to go around.










If the exchange rate were better and my suitcase bigger, I would have bought this red wire two-tiered serving platter for my friend Andrea:




The flea market seemed to go on forever...




Squirrel or Satan for your garden?




More stuff for your lawn that definitely won't fit in a suitcase:






Happy shoppers, Jem (left) and Katherine (right -- yup, that's me).




I was starting to wish I had a bigger suitcase...






Books galore.







Ooo la la!





The market is open Saturday 9:00 a.m. -- 6p.m., Sunday 10:00 a.m. -- 6 p.m., Monday 11:00 a.m. 5:00 p.m., and closed Tuesday through Friday. YEAR ROUND. (We were there in January.)

Bear Hunting

I decided to attempt Round Two of my search for appropriate attire for the Bears game, this time in Bear Country.

My goal: to find some warm Bears gear that doesn't make me look like a soccer mom and that will stand out enough to get picked up by the TV cameras from the 5th row in the end zone. (I want my .15 seconds of fame, dammit.) I'm also hoping the challenge, and subsequent appropriate costume, will restore my excitement in seeing the Monsters of the Midway after a horribly disappointing performance in last night's game against the Redskins, in which my favorite QB, Sexy Rexy Grossman, sustained a season-ending injury. What's a poor fan to do but seek solace in the comfort of familiar thrift stores, hunting for, well, Bears?

I started out at the Salvation Army.



I rarely visit this store, and once I got inside I remembered why: it's totally disorganized and smells like someone forgot to throw their McDonalds from two weeks ago away. I didn't find any Bears gear but I did score five resalable books for a decent price, including this little gem, for just $2.26.



I'll re-sell this for $18.95.

Are there no Bears fans in this city? Or is everyone just holding on to their gear in the hopes that the Bears go to the Superbowl again this year (now a mathematical impossibility, though no one can explain exactly why)?

After getting out of rotten McDonald's pit, I took a trip to one of my favorite thrift stores, the Uptown Unique.



The Uniques in Chicago are one of those awesome brands of thrift stores where everything is organized by style and color. So I headed over to the men's navy sweatshirt section, where sure enough:





Nothing too flattering or stand-out, though. There were some more promising items in the kids section, but alas, they were all too small.





On to the scene of my next conquest, Village Discount Outlet on Clark.



Chicago thrift stores have decidedly more orange and blue items, even though not all of them are Bears-related.





After looking for a long time at that last scarf, I decided to buy it. Not officially-licensed Bears merchandise, but not soccer-mom-ish, either.

The Village also had a fantastic selection of Bears jerseys, although I didn't think they'd be warm enough.










And once again, the best warm-weather gear was in the kid's section.





I bought the clownish scarf and decided to make one last stop at another Unique, this one in West Rogers Park.



And there, as soon as I walked in the door, is where I saw it:



Orange faux-fur, of course! Like a real bear, but orange, like The Bears! I had a mini heart attack when I found the coat didn't have a price tag on it, because Unique has a strict no-sale policy for anything without a tag, but the woman working the counter saw me come in, run to it, and obviously noticed my dismay, so she said she'd sell it to me for $18. A little steep, but I paid it, since the coat was perfect.

Then I took a trip over to the men's navy sweatshirt rack again to find this awesome hooded sweatshirt priced at just $3.50 -- and in my size!



Pair them all up (with white knit "animal ear" winter hat), and I had my outfit, and my excitement about the Bears, restored.



Just check out that faux animal and those glam-rock buttons!





Can you say Jumbo Tron?