flea market

Max and I took Michelle and her girls to the flea market, which, as my aunt Patti once said, "could be really great. Then again, it could be really horrible." (This is taken out of context, as she wasn't speaking about flea markets. But we have found in my family that it applies to a great many situations.)

You never know what you're going to see. Here is a selection of the good, the bad, and the ugly:

Michelle was searching for some botanical engravings. She found three that she really liked! Good.

Many of the vendors have a little lunch spread near their wares that they sample inbetween sales. Sometimes you see several men sitting together, enjoying a veritable al fresco feast. In this case, the woman had baguettes, cheese, spreads, pickles, and wine. Always wine. I especially loved seeing her dog, ever the hopeful onlooker. Good.

Seriously. Old dolls and clowns are so creepy! Ugly.

Really old books. Goooood.

A very large book with a pretty M monogram. In this case, the complete works of Molière. Good.

This vendor makes art pieces out of old typesetting pieces. He has the most varied collection of styles and sizes I have ever seen. We saw his stuff last time we were here and fell in love with it. Now I only love it more, as he has a whole new set of pieces that are black and red (most of them spelling out ART in red) -- they used to all be shades of brown. The bookends are new, and I'm officially pining after them. His smallest piece, about 6" square, is 70 euros, so I'm pretty much consigned to pining. Man, I love type. Goooood.

Yes, folks, you are seeing correctly. This is indeed a fork with a hoof handle. It gives me the shivers! Can you imagine carving with this at your next dinner party? Can you imagine washing it? Ewwwww. So very very bad. And ugly. And just plain wrong.

Oh, how I love the button man! He has a whole treasure trove waiting to be discovered. And he's extremely friendly to boot, and gives you a deal. Michelle and I kept finding more and more things we wanted. It's probably for the best that he was packing up his wares (but not before we bought a few). Good.

You might recall that my niece Kristen loves all things miniature. She loves to make them, she loves to collect them. She found the tiniest die in the world. She wanted to buy just the tiniest one -- it would be a perfect souvenir for her. But the man wouldn't sell it. Apparently, somewhere, back wherever he stores the rest of his junk, he has a tiny bottle that holds 3 tiny dice, and he didn't want to split up the set. He told us to come back next weekend. I told him that his buyer would be back in the States by then. He gave me his card and told me that if I called him, he would look for the bottle. If I came back, he would sell it to me. If after all that, he couldn't find the bottle, then he would sell me the die. Riiiight. This is so classic. And so bad. France!

My nieces pointed out this little den of horrors to me -- bad. So bad. And ugly.

This dog's owner saw me looking at him and asked if I wanted to take a photo. When I said yes, he told his dog to look for the picture and he did! Impressive and good.

Kristen ended up finding the tiniest spoons in the world (salt spoons) and loved them almost as much as the die. She bought two for her souvenirs and enjoyed them all the rest of the day. Good.

I bought some buttons (I can't resist), a little engraving of a girl, and some vintage velvet ribbon that was a real steal. I can't wait to find out what we will see next time...