Shopping karma strikes again

I wasn't going to go. I figured I'd spent enough this month, what with the taiko drum building workshop and that chance find of Jodai-Gire at Moe's.

Only it was beautiful this morning after several unseasonably hot days. I needed the exercise. So I slathered sunscreen, dug out a hat and a tote bag and headed down to Antiques By The Bay out at Alameda Point - just to walk around, see? 

First eye-catcher of the morning, a rack of vintage garments with a sign marked "All items $20." Eyed up a man's silk vest, but it looked too small for me. Noticed a man's juban with a shi-shi motif on it. Some stains, not awful. I made the decision to leave it on the rack. If it was there on my way out, maybe.

Saw a beautiful Steiff monkey, stopped briefly to admire and kept walking. I watch enough Roadshow to know how expensive he was likely to be. 

There were the book people. I stopped to browse, noticing an interesting sprinkling of lacquer bowls and Japanese dolls out among the books. I turned my head. There was a tea bowl with a crane scratched into the rough brown glaze, tea whisk in its own wooden tube to protect the delicate bristles, bamboo tea scoop and caddy on a lacquer tray. I inquired as to the price. $50. I sucked in my breath - not that it didn't seem worth it, but it was $50. "It's the whole set," she said, pointing out two blue and white porcelain jars and a wooden box behind the tray. One jar had an immaculate white napkin coiled inside, the other a tiny bamboo lid (I honestly do not know what this one is for). I bit. It was completely worth it. The dealer told me the tea things and other dolls and objects belonged to an elderly friend who has decided it's time to unclutter her home.

Wrapped, packed and paid for, I continued up the airstrip. I didn't even bother looking at the one dealer who specializes in Japanese antiques. Three times I've gone in there and asked about items only to be ignored. 

I stopped at the lady who usually has a couple of fans, or lacquer pieces and lots of vintage jewelry. There was a beautiful, but battered old lacquer box sitting on one shelf. Dark red lacquer with birds and branches, plus three crests in gold leaf. Sold for $10.

I'd only covered about a third of the market at this point, but I'd had two really good finds and my bag was getting heavy. I headed back down the center aisle, cut right and ambled casually back toward the vintage clothing lady. From a distance I saw a woman trying on the shishi juban. I slowed my pace and thought, "If she buys it, it was never meant to be mine. No big deal." She took it off, put it back on the rack and walked away. So I bought it. Being an undergarment, there are a few stains and condition problems. I can live with that as I'm probably going to take it apart and make something else with the fabric. (EDIT: Further inspection in an environment where I could actually lay it out reveals significant wear spots along the shoulder fold and another in back a few inches above the bottom hem. It may be reincarnated as a dress or something....)

Behold the haul:
 

E-mail, Real Mail and Being an Internet Hero/Weirdo Magnet

Someone on my F-list is musing over the trade-off between the convenience of e-mail and the joys of sending and receiving correspondence on good stationery and whether it is good or bad that we no longer give out our addresses.

O My Readers, The Curmudgeon enjoys finding postcards from Dad describing his latest adventure, or clippings from Mom or birthday cards that are not from the Toyota dealership just as much as anyone. Otherwise she tends to open her mail while standing in the alley next to the recycling bin, because most of it's going to go in there anyway and why carry it upstairs if one does not have to?

On the other hand, The Curmudgeon once acquired a Pen Friend through a fan club for a particular author. Pen Friend turned out to be a bit obsessive - and either could not type or was profoundly dyslexic. The Curmudgeon, figuring he was some lonely kid who didn't get out of the basement much, tried to keep it cordial without being too encouraging.   Then the Curmudgeon returned from a vacation to find her voice-mail full because he'd dialed Directory Assistance, gotten her phone number and kept calling her house over and over again during her absence. Collect. TEN solid minutes of "This is ____________. Where are you? BEEP."  When the Curmudgeon tried calling the number to give Pen Friend a piece of her mind, she discovered it was for a halfway house for psychiatric patients which would not accept HER collect call or direct her to a staff member to notify them of the situation.  Pen Friend was sent one last letter. The Curmudgeon had Gruff Voiced Boyfriend record a new voicemail message. Pen Friend got the message.

Several years ago, The Curmudgeon decided to leap into a particular knowledge gap, wrote an article to help fill said gap and put it into a web page. The website has grown since then and attracts a respectable bit of traffic from visitors who are interested in the subjects contained therein. My legal name appears at the bottom of each article for copyright purposes, and I invite comments and questions in a number of the articles, because such input helps me determine whether improvements and additions should be made to the content. (I do not, however, list a physical location, unless a few passing references to SCA kingdom count, and those are fairly vague and general.)

98% of the time this is great. People e-mail me with questions or comments or simply to thank me for putting information out there that they found useful.  I do try to get back to people promptly with answers, or tell them truthfully when I don't know, or suggest other resources they might try. And who doesn't love a pat on the back? I DO appreciate all the thank yous and the photos of successful projects. I am reminded of an email I received from the evil and insidious sasha_khan, dubbing me his "internet hero of the week", prompting a reply along the lines of, "Gee, thanks. Who are you, again?" He reminded me that we had actually met once before. The rest is history. Or infamy. Or something. And is simply one more example of how one can make genuine friends with the help of the internet. 

It's that other 2% though. The ones who get an answer back and think, "Look, she's got an (unidentified name brand) email account just like I do - I bet I can instant message her." And do, and want to suck on my brain through the monitor twenty four seven because I'm Their New Bestest Friend Ever. Sure, it may be simply that they've got nothing better to do, but at best it's an imposition, at worst, it's stalking. Funny how I stay off of unidentified brand messaging service these days....

It's one of the reason I have different user names for different forums (forae?). It is possible to put two and two together and figure out that gurdymonkey  and othername and otherothername are all the same person, but it requires a little bit of effort. Considering the number of people I deal with who don't know how to use Google, that effort is not a bad thing.

And of course, there's the LJ friending thing. I got several comments today from someone I have not interacted with much and have not heard from in some time and all I could think was, "OK, which one are you again?" and had to pop over and check her profile for a swift memory jog to the head.

Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm old fashioned. It honestly does not occur to me to friend LJ users I don't "know" and I'm always surprised when someone I don't know decides to friend me. 

Not sure whether it's good or bad or just is. I just try to be reasonably "street smart" about things.

(Hm. What does Yahoo People Search say about me? I'm in there. Twice. Once with a home phone number and no address. Once with the same home phone number and the wrong address. Bet they have a dog at that house -  with great nasty teeth.)

Note to self, find those notecards from the Asian Art Museum.  Must send A Certain Friend who will appreciate it some real mail.