Monday, November 06, 2006

Abandonment Issues

So here’s my wacky idea du jour: I’m a-gonna show you some stuff I found lying around on the streets.  I mean, I find a lot of stuff lying around in the streets, but usually it’s of the used-gum/bio-byproduct variety.  However, occasionally I find something cool enough to merit a sidewalk swipe and I tote it home with me.  Usually this stuff is not so actually cool by the cold light of the following dawn, but sometimes I get a winner - and that’s a-what I’m sharing today:

Bowl, found on 14th near Clement, in a big jumbled mass of mostly useless and ugly household items:

(we now keep it atop the fridge and toss dirty babybibs into it.)

Long-time readers might recall this happy fellow:

Yes it’s the foam foot.  I honestly don’t recall where I found this sucker.  Don’t be giving me a hard time, I was abducted by aliens.  Of course, they were from Albania, but an abduction is an abduction, right?  I keep it in the study, and it currently hangs out on the bookshelves keeping my trashy historical novels company. 

This one was found on Geary near 16th, leaned up against a municipal garbage can. 

Despite the reflection of PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN IN THE REFLECTION, you might be able to discern that it’s a cool photo, maybe 25” tall and 15” wide, in a wooden frame.  Maybe it’s a little cheesy, but it does make the front lav feel a bit more spacious.  Don’t you think?  Don’t you?

Finally, my ultimate favorite:

I think this one showed up on my very own block.  It’s about 30” wide by about a foot tall, and the tiny blurry legend at the bottom reads: HISTORIC FIRST PHOTO OF EARTH FROM DEEP SPACE / Taken August 23rd, 1966 by NASA - Boeing Lunar Orbiter / Distance from Earth - 232,00 mi.—Altitude above Moon - 730 mi.  PLUS: on the back is a sticker that tells me the sort of beat-up black wooden frame is courtesy of F. T. Coppins Inc, Custom Picture Framing, 428 Pearl Street, Buffalo NY.  (phone and zip available by request.) So this sucker travelled across the continent to reach me.  I do not have it currently displayed.  I’m trying to get it sufficiently high above the moon.  I’m also going to repaint the frame. 

“Deep Space,” dudes and dudedettes.  That’s what finding stuff on the sidewalk is all about.  That and the occasional bowl of dirty bibs.  So… have you got any stuff lying around that you found on the sidewalk?  Remember - food doesn’t count!  (but if you get the right product, it may know the alphabet.  I’m referring specifically to certain cereals, cookies and soups.  Clever ones, they are.)

oh god; where do I start?!! scavenging for ‘found good stuff’ is one of my favourite and most satisfying activities. so let’s see...my most recent find is last Wednesday, which is Garbage Collection day in the res. area behind my office. I scored two beautiful brass pots, into which I will probably insert some healthy happy green houseplants. On the drive home from work this summer I scored a really cool leather chair tied into a doweled wood frame, sitting at the end of the laneway. I have collected many a picture frame, and furniture, and even clothes...I think I need to write my own post about this, because I could go on and on...Yay for the fun of scavenging!

i found a le creuset dutch oven at a garage sale for 5 bux...does that count?  when i was a kid i used to find clothes discarded or washed away on the beach and wear those.  remember my “sex wax” tshirt?

i also found - and toted home and up the stairs - an antique singer sewing machine, complete with it’s wooden cabinet and all original warranty cards, etc.  that thing moved around with me for years till i sold it for good money at a garage sale.  it had been built in 1934 in edison, nj.  odd tidbit: my husband’s maternal grandfather worked at the singer plant in edison, nj in 1934, so he could have made that very machine.  pretty cool, huh?

I’m not so much with the scavengy, but my dad is. Coolest by far though was the yellow ceramic teapot we dug out of our flower beds when we replaced our fence. First we found the lid, and while weird, we didn’t think much of it. When we found the actual teapot (full of hardened dirt but completely intact, no cracks or chips) we were all dumbfounded.

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