My friend Beverly, who I met 47 years ago when we were both teachers of the deaf in Prince George, came for a few days, and she wanted to go to thrift every single day. I certainly wasn’t opposed to it, so we began with the Women’s Shelter and the Mission thrift stores and ended the day in Rutland at the Rutland Hospital Auxiliary.

The next day we visited Value Village which overwhelmed Bev with the volume of stuff. Luckily Dairy Queen is right next door, so we went over for medium-sized chocolate dipped cones to calm our nerves. You know how a glass of milk before bed is supposed to be soothing.

On Monday we went to the SHARE society store downtown and then rewarded ourselves with delicious crispy chicken burgers and fries at the Railway Station Pub. When I think of it, our time together was spent either eating or shopping. Both excellent pursuits.

It likely won’t surprise you to know that I didn’t leave a single store empty-handed, though Bev often did. It’s funny how that works.

Then Elsa wanted to go treasure hunting which we did yesterday, so we hit the Mennonite, iThrift (everything is $2), Gospel Mission and Salvation Army stores. Because it occurred so recently, I can actually recall a couple of items that I purchased. One was a Villeroy and Boch ceramic tile trivet for $3 but $25 on Etsy, and a hand-beaded evening clutch made in Hong Kong for $3, but $40 on Etsy. Not that I ever sell anything, but I could if I wasn’t so damned lazy.

This was something that I was so hopeful I would do this year, but it doesn’t appear to be happening yet. I want to sell my grandparents’ old typewriter, mom’s old Singer sewing machine and other items like that to collectors who may like them, because as Luke has already explained when I die, “All this mom, right into a dumpster.” So ya know, I gotta get at it.

Denis used to describe my thrift store shopping as “bringing home other people’s garbage.” How wrong can you be? You remember the old saying, “one man’s meat is another man’s poison.”  Those of us who shop at thrift are so very grateful to the hockey wives bored of their $500 bag after one season of use.

Fifty percent of my hens are still acting like a. holes. Three of them, Kate, Condoleezza and Rhonda, insist on sitting in the nest box all day long and have to be forcibly removed several times a day. I go into the coop at least three times a day, scolding the hens for wasting their days inside, pick them up and toss them through the opening into their pen.

They seem grateful to have the spell broken as they dust bathe, and peck around happily. However, a few hours later, bam! Right back into the coop and sitting on eggs from the other hens, the “good” chickens, that will never hatch. I do hope to God the whole brooding episode ends soon as they don’t lay while it’s going on so it’s quite the annoyance.

Being able to waste enormous amounts of time in a lazy stupor, I’ve set myself the goal of mid-September to have my memoir of the fruitcake biz completed and ready for Amazon. Trevor, who illustrated Okay I’ll Bite, has all the equipment I’ll need to make an audio version as well, so that’s what I plan to do. But as we all know, “everyone has a plan ‘til they get punched in the mouth.”