Like a dream

Game Night has been a dream of mine since before I even thought I would ever be married or have a kid. I've always wanted to have the type of get-togethers that used to happen at my folks place all the time when i was growing up, only with 98% less drunken groping and passed-out "Uncles" on our bathroom floor the next morning. I used to love having all the adults sitting in the Kitchen playing a game (in their case it was Pinochle) while us kids got to just run around and play with all my toys and eat the type of food that our parents would never feed to us at home. Those are some great memories :)

Thank you, everyone, for making my dreams come true :)

BBQ2

Today we had our first "Family BBQ" at our new place. My Mom and Dad, my Sister (Jan), my two nieces (Haley and Hannah) and Sister-in-Law (Heidi) were here.

Started the day with my Dad wanting a ride to The Hardware Store for a MYSTERIOUS PURCHASE. Ends up, he and my Mom wanted to buy me a new Grill! Awesome, but WAY TO EXTRAVAGANT! They wanted to buy me one of those $300 Propane Grills! I talked thanked them, insisted that i couldn't POSSIBLY accept such a gift and instead compromised on a nice big Webber Charcoal Grill. Oh it is ever so nice... wish I had this sucker last night when i was trying to cook 20 Hot Dogs, 7 Hamburgers, 3 pounds of Salmon and 6 Smoked Sausages! i could have cooked it all at once instead of 4 pieces at a time on my lil' Hibatchi!

I thought I would never feel this way again!

Went to a GIANT Rummage Sale at a local Montessori school on Saturday. Sale was HUGE! It took up their entire parking lot, and it was a pretty friggin' huge parking lot. They had the lot divided in to their different "Departments" - Furniture, Toys, Clothes, Household Items, Books - just like a Thrift Store, only outside.

Crystal took "First Watch". That means that she was in charge of chasing Molly around the sale and keeping her entertained while I did a quick look around, then we would switch-off later so that she could browse undauntedly.

I walked past Furniture... in to Housewares... back to the far corner with Sporting Goods... nothing to be seen. Crossed over to the next isle to see Molly and Crystal playing in The Toy Section, discussed how I hadn't found anything yet (what a bummer) and decided I would at least go check out the books before giving up and taking control of Molly.

The Books Section was about 20 large boxes of books sitting in the middle of the parking lot. A few people were bent over digging through the boxes already, so I decided to just stand at the edge of the pile and scan the tops of the boxes for anything interesting.

Ooh! A Star Wars "Art of Dave Dorman" book! That looks good! And for 50-cents, how can I go wrong?

Right under that book were two giant Star Trek books - "Captains Logs" and "Encyclopedia". Okay, these boxes might be worth digging through! I got knee-deep in to the boxes and almost immediately found TWO CIGAR BOXES FULL OF MAGIC: THE GATHERING CARDS. All right! Keep digging!

Dig, dig, dig... a few old "Choose Your Own Adventure" books... cool...

Dig, dig, dig... meh. Getting bored. Haven't seen anything good in the last 8 boxes or so... might be time to give up. If I don't find anything in THAT BOX, I'll be done. Big stack of cook books on top, but it looks like old magazines underneath... I like old magazines. I like to look at the old advertisements. Let's just see what's under this book here...

***

Just last week my Mother and I were bemoaning the fact that you just don't find awesome things at Garage Sales any more. You never find that little old lady who's just sick and tired of keeping her son's old toys in the attic, so she sells all those original MIB GI Joes for a nickel each. You never find something that makes your heart race and your forhead sweat and all you can hope is that you don't "Blow It" and let on to the seller that they have a priceless treasure. Everybody these days KNOWS what they have and if it's a collectible or not and they've looked it up on Ebay and they know how much they COULD get for it or what it SHOULD be worth. Once upon a time way back in the late 80's, my mother bought me a box of comics at a Garage Sale for $5. We both knew all about the actual value of comics at the time, and she was really proud of her find. Ends up there was (among other incredible silver age comics) a copy of Giant-Size X-Men #1 in there. THAT was the last time I got one of those awesome sweaty-palms moments at a garage sale.

***

Let's just see what's under this book here...

Oh! IT'S A STACK OF OLD COMIC BOOKS! Well let me just look what's under h- OH IT'S ANOTHER STACK OF OLD COMIC BOOKS! I'm starting to sweat now... let's see what's under- OH IT'S ANOTHER STACK OF OLD COMIC BOOKS!!!

I peed myself a little bit.

It was a giant wax-coated meat packing box FULL of old Dell and Gold Key comic books; the oldest I found was from 1954, the newest was from 1975! I tried to remain calm, tried not to let them know what type of a treasure this was... and I couldn't do it. I had to make Crystal go and negotiate the price for me. I figured that I'd be willing to spend anywhere up to $100 for the box based on just what I had seen so far.

Crystal go the entire box for $5 :)