The Empress Goes South of the Border for Goodwill Treasures

When the Empress ventures out from her empire, she is like Hernán Cortés in her search for precious metals, but without all the massacres and pox-mongering. She doesn't need no stinkin badges, but she needs a different name and a Babelfish program to translate so she doesn't again ask in Spanish for perros del azúcar on her churro. Unfortunately, the Latin that she learned at the back of Miss Harding's class (a penalty box for chronic talkers) does not work in Latin America, so the Emperatriz del Ahorro uses hand motions and divining rods to suss out shiny silver jewelry. 

The Empress could earn her Thrift merit badge and save herself a great deal of money and travel time (airport waiting areas are their own special fluorescent hell) by shopping for beautiful silver jewelry at SF Goodwill, which currently features all of the items shown here, all from Taxco de Alarcón, which means "place of ballgame" (Wiki it!). So get your head in the ballgame and bid on some of these hand-crafted silver items all the way from Southeast Mexico -- they are not just muy' bonita, but each piece has its own epic backstory of how it Came to America, and to its Foster Home at SF Goodwill.

Link to all silver items in SF Goodwill ebay store 

 

http://stores.ebay.com/goodwillsanfrancisco

The Empress of Thrift Conducts a Valentine's Day Post-Mortem

If you have overdosed on endorphins, this blog is for you. This week's blog is the equivalent of washing down two Tylenol PMs with a double dose of Nyquil, and a Boone's Farm Apple Wine chaser. It is not for the faint of heart,or anyone collecting Plain White Tee cds in the remainders bin. After all the hearts and flowers of Valentine's Day, we need a shot of reality, and the Empress decided to dive into the brittle abyss of naysayers today. Why? Because she can. And will. And she was distressed by the SF Goodwill eBay site, which she studies like an Arachnologist with a tarantula pinned to the felt board ((look up spider expert in the urban dictionary for fun: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Spider%20Expert.)

If Rod Stewart was right about something other than predicting the rise of gelled hair, it was that Every Picture Tells a Story. On SF Goodwill eBay, it's a sad story with a Burt Bacharach hook: "What do you get when you fall in love?" Hopefully, a receipt, so you don't have to donate the heart totems someone gave you on Valentine's Day because  (1) You Felt they weren't "The One," (2) You Saw them on To Catch a Predator, (3) You Knew They Done You Wrong (see No. (1)), or (4) You Thought They'd Look More Like their Photo on Match.com.

All these items found their way from Valentine's Day to SF Goodwill, and are now for sale, because Love is Blind, but still likes sparkly things. http://myworld.ebay.com/goodwill_industries_of_san_francisco/

Breakfast at Tiffany's, Lunch at Goodwill, $$ left over for Valentine Dinner

 Valentine's Day is like a hologram. Some years you look at it and it's all shiny and littered with little Brach's Conversation Hearts and tiny paper cards in your milk carton Valentine box, and you rifle through them and YES, there is one from your third grade crush, Ricky Batesole, even if his mother signed it because everyone knows Ricky can't read or write yet, but he rules at Red Rover. Other years, you look at it and -- meh -- it's treacly and sticky and the cards are all sappy and $4.99, and you go into See's Candies for inspiration and buy candy, but then they give you one sample and it turns out to be... a Rum Nougat instead of a California Brittle, and you sit on the curb outside and eat it anyway and carry that fake rum flavour around all day.

 

It's a schizophrenic holiday, and Holly GoLightly

would have no part of it. She was too cool and thin to eat Rum Nougat or fawn over trinkets. She made "no-name slob" sound glamorous:

 

“Holly: I'll never let anyone put me in a cage!

Paul: I don't wanna put you in a cage, I wanna love you.
Holly: Same thing!
Paul: No it's not, Holly--
Holly: I'm not Holly! I'm not Lula Mae either. I don't know who I am. I'm like Cat here. We're a couple of no-name slobs. We belong to nobody, and nobody belongs to us. We don't even belong to each other.”

 

Who doesn't love Breakfast at Tiffany's (and I don't mean that cheap rip off of a song by Deep Blue Something or Other, and I remember we all Kinda Hated it). On Valentine's Day, the Empress wishes that Truman Capote were alive and spoke to her in his best high pitched Southern  voice, "Sugar, I only buy the finest thangs, and I will simply die if you don't let me take you to Goodwill for an iconic bracelet for your very ladylike wrist." Because San Francisco would welcome Truman with open arms and Mint Juleps, and SF Goodwill would have the perfect item for the Empress on V-Day, a Tiffany's bracelet at a Goodwill price:

Here's the link, just click and bid : SF Goodwill Tribute to Truman Capote http://cgi.ebay.com/Tiffany-Co-Engraved-Heart-Tag-Charm-Link-Bracelet-/230584162535?pt=Designer_Jewelry&hash=item35afe318e7

Go out and have a lovely Valentine's Day with your partner, your pal or your pet. And if you see Ricky Batesole, tell him I said "hey." 

P.S. On second thought rip Ricky's lungs out for me. I just remembered that he fed my pet hamster to his pet snake, and this is not acceptable even on Valentine's Day. If you are reading this, Ricky, you are a pig and we will get you when we have the show trials.

Goodwill presents Jewels Fit for a Queen (or Empress)

The Empress did not win the fabulous multi-jeweled necklace of fake Bedazzled® gewgaws shown in her last post. The Empress' subjects may do her bidding, but no one does her eBay bidding for her, and alas, she was distracted by more pressing state concerns such as (1) which Burt Bacharach song Jens Lekman would sing at a stranger's wedding, (2)  how to hide the evidence of her eating chunky peanut butter straight from the jar from the Duchess of Dolmas, and  (3) whether to dress as a 14 year old cowgirl or Black Swan for the Oscars. So the Empress lost the auction for the Mega-Bauble by 50 cents, or the equivalent of one Twix bar, legal tender in the Empire. Looking back, it is now evident that the stars were not aligned that day for a reason. There were more Empressy things to come at Goodwill. Just take a gander at these beauties, fit for coronations, galas, and workouts at the gym to get that peanut butter off the Empress' hips.

 The Empress' annual Birthday Month is on the horizon, when the Royal Court gathers to protest the unfairness of the Gregorian calendar's alteration of the Julian calendar, and resulting loss to the world of a whole day. The Empress says "a pox on this algorithm" and throws herself down on her ermine duvet cover in a hissy fit worthy only of pampered royalty. Check out the flawed math:

if year modulo 400 is 0
       then is_leap_yearelse if year modulo 100 is 0
       then not_leap_yearelse if year modulo 4 is 0
       then is_leap_yearelse
       not_leap_year

Wrrite your own protest on Wiki - Leapyear Cheats The Empress

If you want to make it up to the Empress, you can bid on these earrings -- real diamonds, gold and emeralds, at SF Goodwill link to auction of earrings rightfully belonging to the Empress.

Holy Bobbins and Broomsticks, these earrings go for only $2,999.00 -- or 5,598 Twix bars. Dogdangit -- The Empress will have to increase the rents on the serfs' demesnes.

The Empress Who Came in from the Cold

I wish I could say that this post is back by popular demand, but that would violate the cone of truthiness between the Empress and her two readers. The Empress has a hard time disguising herself since the rhinestone points of her tiara poke through the Trilby hat and her flowing robes drag on the floor under her trench coat. But due to her passion for Goodwill, and all things thrift, the Empress accepted her mission to be a mole embedded with the enemy -- the crack-like discount auction sites that have their own alarms to alert vulnerable shoppers when to start the on-line mob scene. Going on Gilt.com at 9:00 PST is like pummeling your way through T.J. Maxx when someone announces Fendi bags over the sound system, which is not protected speech under the First Amendment because it incites violence. The resulting PSTD has kept the Empress cowering in the corner of her closet trying to forget the bloodbath otherwise known as Christmas shopping.

  

What could lure her out of her hidey-hole? Only one thing could make her crawl out from the dust bunnies and old shoes, not to mention the ratty leg warmers left over from the Eighties, and the Aughts (yes, look it up)(how could this fashion mistake rear its ugly head twice in the Empress lifetime? Answer: the Empress has some miles on her). That one thing is Shiny Objects. Place one in the Empress' peripheral view, and ...wait, what was that, I can't focus now that this shiny thing with a million other shiny things appears before me.

Now I hear the Jersey Boys soundtrack, and Frankie Valli, or his imitator in that show, crooning "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You and here's the part that is Too Good to Be True -- this is on SF Goodwill's eBay site right at this minute. The Empress is even bidding on itrather than declaring eminent domain over it, as she could since all crown jewels inure to her as Head of State in the Empire of Fabulous Thrift Finds.

There are six hours left to bid. The Empress would provide a link, but then she'd have to empty the royal coffers to beat out all your bids to add this to the Royal collections. Okay, let's unleash the hounds... go to
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290519791725&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

The Empress of Thrift at the Movie Premier: The 500 Skirts of Summer

In the Summer, The Empress comes unstuck in time, and she regresses to the 9th grade, the year before her high school first allowed girls to wear PANTS. And this was not a private school with adorable uniforms, but a public high school whose principal made girls kneel to make sure that their skirts touched the floor. Yes, the Empress speaketh of olden times --  she might as well be explaining how to administer smelling salts and belladonna when your corset stops your blood flow during a quadrille.  (The Empress is so old that she has enlarged the font so that her two wizened cronies can read this blog if they so choose.) So the Empress never completely adapted to pants, and adheres more to the Betty Rubble and Betty Draper schools of fashion. So here are just some of the Empress' skirts for Summer from Goodwill and thrift stores:




Another reason to collect skirts: Science dictates skirts provide nature's best Summer cooling system.  The first law of thermodynamics, which mandates conservation of energy, and states in particular that the flow of heat is a form of transfer energy. For all you physics tyros, here is a simple explanation of this phenomenon: 

Here is a diagram of how this cooling system works:

And here is a visual of how this cooling system works:

Here is a visual of how this system does not work because skirts are not meant for actresses who steal literary names then parade around in their twee skirts and break Joseph Gordon-Levitt's heart in The 500 Days of Summer. Yes, I am talking about Zooey Deschanel, who is ultra-precious in her 100% cotton, and bears no resemblance to the real Zooey, who was an older brother who was a genius who at the age of twelve and had "a vocabulary on an exact par with Mary Baker Eddy's" and once said, "I'm so sick of pedants and conceited little tearer-downers I could scream." J.D. Salinger See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Baker_Eddy

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THIS is not the real Zooey. If you see her, please report her to the keepers of J.D. Salinger's flame immediately.

Arrested for Excessive Twee-ism

Stay cool this Summer with your A-line, balloon, cargo, circle, dirndl, flared, full, jean,mini, midi, maxi, pencil, pleated, poodle, prairie, , tube, tulip, and wraparound skirts. 

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The Empress Humbly Salutes the Goddess of Thrift, Mrs. Vera

      After the six month Goodwill Challenge was over, I succumbed to the sirens of retail for a few days, and have been doing penance by wearing a hair shirt (by Marc Jacobs, with great buttons of course) and meditating on my Sins in my little garden shed full of flea market finds valuable only to me. I even started refinishing thrift furniture for my Cloister of Retail Regret.
      What could inspire me to blog again after The Fall? (My apologies to Camus and my defense lawyer colleague, Jean-Baptiste Clamence.) It would have to be a subject that shines as a beacon of light for Thrift and Goodwill, a fashionista of the Five & Dime, a maven for the mundane, a Doyenne of the global junk drawer, a Harry Winston of Household Objects and an Artist of the First Order: Mrs. Vera.

Mrs. Vera, the original Conehead.

      Some of the Great Unwashed have accused me of being Mrs. Vera's Biggest Fan, as if that's a bad thing, like Kathy Bates in Misery (hey, she won an Oscar donchaknow). The truth is I am a huge fan. Because the fact is MRS. VERA RULES THE WORLD, the Verasphere that is. She is making art out of the world's cast-offs, creating beauty out of our flotsam and jetsam, and her creativity knows no bounds. The world she creates is beautiful -- a Woolworth's counter on acid, with a dash of wormwood and a side of Gaudi on steroids. No more talking! I'm out of words. Let me show you why Mrs. Vera deserves more attention, funding grants, museum exhibits and stalkers (nay, fans!):

Mrs. Vera was on Leave it to Beaver.  

     

   Mrs. Vera brightens any room.

                           

Mrs. Vera is a poser, not a poseur.   

                           

 Mrs. Vera is a travelling picnic basket of wonders.

Mrs. Vera's personal paparazzi, an artist in his own right, Mr. Stone. 

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Dot dot dash, so much panache!

Mrs. Vera dressed scores of people for the Pride Parade, a wonder of ingenuity.

And if that is not enough to make a fan out of you, check out Mrs. Vera and Mr. Stone's adorable Cindy Lou in her chapeau!

oxoxoxoxoxoxo

The Empress