grandpa vermon

I have a grandpa Vern.  He looks nothing like this:

He lives in South Lake Tahoe, the previous owner ran the local brothels.  I guess the house attracts "characters."  Anyhoo this weekend he wanted to host a garage sale so I went up with my aunt and mom to help out.  If you saw the pictures I posted in March you may have started to understand that he has more junk than any other person on the planet (hopefully).  Here are some of my favorite pieces:

I sold the hats, $3 for 2 (he wanted $3 each or for me to take them myself) and the picture for $20 (he wanted $25) even better, I sold them to the same person. I hope they display them they same way I did.

 

This African CD stand we didn't sell until day 2 so he dropped the price from $20 to $12, another thing I wish I needed. 

But it wasn't all awe at finding amazing things, here are some other emotions I dealt with...

Bitterness:  My grandpa challenged my pricing one too many times.  Trust me -- there is no way he paid $10 for the tacky umbrella I sold for $1.  

Shock:  So a lot of the garage sale patrons were my grandpa's biggest fans.   He was selling his paintings for $100 and people were walking away bragging that they got an "original" and telling me how lucky I am to have such an amazing grandpa.  I kept thinking of The Emperor's New Clothes.   I could expand but either you understand the analogy or you don't.  Another shocking thing was that he made over $4,000.

Disgust:  The first night on the way in we met him, Ethel (his ex-girlfriend) and two of their friends for dinner at the Lakeside Inn.  I really don't like the Lakeside Inn, or the Smokeside Inn as my aunt likes to call it.  I don't every know what to order there, I think I need to start going with the prime rib special because that is what the old people get and the restaurant definitely caters to old people.  Instead I got what I thought was going to be seafood with a white wine sauce over linguine.  What came out was this flavorless soup with chunks of fish and a side of spaghetti.  It did not go over well with my stomach.  After dinner when we stood up to leave I realized that the lady that I was sitting across from was like 4 feet tall, I mean she stood up and was the same height as she was sitting down.

Awe:  This morning I walked down to the lake.  Some of the houses in his neighborhood are beyond massive and gorgeous.  But then I got to the lake and it is much more massive and much gorgeous than any 5 million dollar home.  A little perspective is good every once in a while.

 Now I will share 3 completely unrelated things:

1) Even though I've been back now for 9-months, my body has not adjusted to the climite.  Henceforth I have really bad dandruff, I feel like I have that gross cradle cap disease that my sister's kids get.

2) This week I am working full time.  8 to 5.  That means I have to leave before I usually wake up.

3) It is raining right now.  Very odd for September.  I head there were thunder storms yesterday, I missed out, I hope they come back, those are something I miss from my former life.

Survivor

Yesterday at work I had a very Survivor like experience. I've only seen about four episodes of Survivor, all on my NYC trip to the Congdons, but it seems like everyone is making alliances all the time, behind people's backs. So this lady literally cornered me in the copy room to ask me what I think about this other lady in the office. I said I liked her and that for the most part I try to live liking people, a very unexciting response,. She shared her undermined opinion of the lady in question and then we moved onto a more neutral topic. Do I look like I want my life to be filled with middle-aged drama?
On a brighter note, yesterday I got to deep-clean some cabinets, a break from the spreadsheets I've been spending my time with.
Another thing I get to do is sign for UPS packages. The UPS guy scares me, I guess he is just really friendly. I don't know how to deal with it so it is always a very awkward time.
Today I was informed that I am not supposed to just transfer every call to customer service because they are very busy. Good to know because unless someone calls and asks for a specific name I transfer them to customer service, because I don't have a clue what the rest of the people do.
In honor of the three day weekend, tomorrow is casual Friday. I now know how students feel when they usually have wear uniforms then get a free day. A lot of pressure.
Speaking of students, my commute is no longer exactly 30 minutes. It has been taking at least 35; 45 today because of an accident.
Last weekend my friend Morgan came to visit. She's from Iowa and been living in New Mexico, but we know each other from Nicaragua. It was great to get to spend time with her and lucky her, she got to house sit with me one night. To follow tradition, we played Boggle and Speed Scrabble. We probably played 10 rounds of Boggle and all but 3 rounds her score was double mine -- exactly. We also went to pick fruits and vegetables from my neighbor's house. He has something like 30 fruit trees and 50 tomato plants. He carried what we picked home for us down the road on his riding lawn-mower. He is 82 so I guess he can ride a lawn-mower down suburban city streets wearing a cowboy hat.