Saturday, April 30, 2016

almost magical

  I wish I could explain to you how it feels to not sleep, to toss and turn in the night. To set your alarm for 5:45 am and wake up 5 minutes before its scheduled to go off out of sheer excitement. To not shower, to dress quickly and practically in jeans and sneakers and old army jacket. To rush your family in the most passive aggressive way to the car. To wait for three hours for a maybe, full of hope and nauseous from nervousness.  To stand in line with a bunch of equally passive aggressive Pacific North-westerners that all would trample you if it meant getting in five minutes early.
  I went to an estate sale. A really really good estate sale. Possibly even the defining one in my surprisingly long career as an estate sale devotee.
  It was the home of a still-kicking 93 year old woman, according to her strangely accented neighbor who appeared in the line maybe an hour before the doors opened. She had excellent taste, sharing my passion for chenille bedspreads and Edwardian clothing. She had nothing but Edwardian clothing. I don't know how she got it, she is far too young have actually worn it during the era, maybe it was her mother's. I wish you could feel what it was like to walk into a room full of  Edwardian clothing. It is heaven. It is bliss. It is the type of excitement that make your body actually tremble. I bought way too much and now I'm in debt to my aunt. At the same time, it manages to feel like I didn't buy enough. You figure that out I can't. I mean I left with 3 dresses, 2 skirts, one blouse, a skirt slip, a 1940s head vase, a 1940s chenille blanket, and a cake plate + dome.
  Afterwards we went to the U-Distrct farmers' market and I ate my all-time favorite cinnamon roll (from Tall Grass Bakery) and there was an old french woman playing the accordion with a little velvet cloth on her lap.