The Estate Sale Diaries-November 8,2013

In the past six months the cash has not been flowing, and money has been out of my pocket. Coupled with a desire to live with less clutter following a successful de-cluttering campaign, I have scarcely been seen on the Estate Sale Circuit.

That ended today( and for who knows how long), and I drove out to three sales this morning in search of replacement bath towels and a comforter for my porch cats.

The first sale I went to was only a block from my apartment, and it suffered from minimalism and a dearth of goods. The people running it were stuck in cash and check mode, not having invested in the card reader attachment thingy every other estate sale company offers. I bought a two dollar New Orleans cookbook and left. The same bunch was running another sale up on a hill above the Harpeth River, and since it had cookbooks I cashed up at the ATM.


Life has its regrets, and I regret not having stopped at this sale first. The plague of Internet re-sellers had got there first and piled the cookbooks waist high at the check out table. Methodical as locusts chewing a grain tassel they hogged the view and the merchandise, and left us True Lovers of the Cookbook the chaff.

Or maybe not. I found M.K. Fisher's "With Bold Knife and Fork", a book of Turkish cooking, and this-




In the kitchen I grabbed a fine round stoneware casserole dish from Redwing Pottery.



I had to pass on an impressive collection of All Clad cookware that the estate sale people wanted 700 bucks for and would not sell separately.


In other rooms, and in a spacious under- the- house room that could have been a deluxe bomb shelter, I found more books. Hundreds of books. History books- Of France, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Israel, Russia. Here are two I brought home-







The next sale was bookish as well with enough Belva Plain and James Patterson to take over the shelves at the library , where ,alas, they already do. But I came home with two bathrobes, two towels, two sheets,two shirts, and two pairs of shoes. No comforter for the cats though.

Lastly, I confess to following some signs for a garage sale into a sub-division with so many cul-de-sacs, cross streets, and dead ends that I feared I might never get out. I found the sale , but left after a 30 second review of endless stuffed toys, and fancy little girl dresses.

It took me ten minutes to find my way out, and two elderly ladies made the mistake of following me, thinking I knew where I was going. After 3 dead ends and numerous trips around the same block, the ladies decided to save themselves and abandoned me-