Day 136

I don't think I was cut out to be an antique dealer. I got up extra early so I could walk the dogs, take a shower and get the trash containers put out by the curb before I went to the estate sale with all the ceramic Dalmatians. I thought I was early, because I arrived 15 minutes before the sale started, but there were already 50 people in line ahead of me. Annette, who told me about the sale, had warned me that I needed to arrive by 8 AM, but this was really the best I could do. Hey, I'm not a morning person. Most of the people ahead of me in line were antique dealers. They probably get up early every day so they can snap up all the good stuff before people like me even finish breakfast.

Luckily, the dealers today weren't very interested in Dalmatians. The owners of the home has been art collectors and there were tons of original paintings and small bronze sculptures to divert the dealer's attention. By the time I was allowed to enter the house, the two Dalmatian end tables in the living room and an amazing life size terra cotta Dalmatian had already been purchased. The bulk of the collection was still available though and I managed to find several wonderful porcelain Dalmatians that will probably wind up in my own estate sale some day.

I don't go to estate sales very often, but when I do I am always fascinated. I find myself wondering about the people who accumulated these objects during their lives. What did they do and why did their family leave these things behind? The couple who had lived in this house for 55 years had obviously led an interesting life. You could tell that a lot of the art had been purchased in Europe during the 1950's. In the husband's bedroom closet were three well tailored tuxedos and two long tailcoats. Jeez! Who owns their own tailcoat these days? I thought the man might have been an orchestra conductor. He certainly seemed well educated and had impeccable taste. I was so curious when I got home that Janet looked up the man's obituary. It turns out that he sold life insurance and lived to be 96 years old. He must have sold a lot of life insurance because the obituary said that he also gave over 31 million dollars to the UT Southwestern Medical School. Amazing!

After I carefully placed my new porcelain Dalmatian figurines on the coffee table, I returned to the more mundane world of work and computer problems. Our power went out last night and I think a power surge fried something on my mother board. The firewire bus won't work anymore. Ordinarily, this wouldn't be a huge problem, but the Apple monitor I use has a firewire connection. My screen has been freezing up all day. I bet the guy with all the ceramic Dalmatians didn't worry much about computers. I did see one very ancient Dell in the man's garage. It was sitting between an equally old toaster and a pipe wrench.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day